48. Lose some weight!!

WELL.

I am writing another blog entry! Perhaps not even a month after the last one! What is going on...
Currently I'm sitting at the kitchen table in Fal, waiting for batch 1 of 2 batches of scones to cook.
I was rubbing together the margerine and wholemeal flour whilst dancing about the kitchen to Blazin' Fiddles, Squidget & Rarr are back tomorrow, see! Err-lie in tharr morrrr-nin'.
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Bex's scones recipe(s) today:
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Ingredients:
250g wholemeal flour
2 eggs (or 1 egg, and 1 eggs worth stolen of Rarr's odd egg powder stuff, due to lack of eggs)
45g margerine
Fresh ground black pepper and salt (salt optional...)
1 medium sized carrot (gratered)
Thyme
Dijon mustard
Ground coriander
2 chillis (2-3cm long, red)
Chilli powder (I used hot)
Garlic
Cashew nuts
Balsamic vinegar
Milk (semi-skimmed for me)
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-Preheat oven 220degrees cel.
-Grease baking sheet (I'm using a rather dented tart tin).
-Measure out the flour and margerine, rub them together to form "breadcrumbs" (whilst jigging about the kitchen in your PJ's & BTCV hoody)
-Add ample black pepper & a little salt, split the mix into 2 bowls.
-To one of the bowls, add gratered carrot, a decent amount of thyme, a large dollop of Dijon mustard, and a teaspoon or so's worth of ground coriander. Mix all together (it'll be like lumpy crumbs).
-To the other bowl, add 2 cut up chillis INCLUDING THE SEEDS (mine were dried), some hot chilli powder, and 3 chunky chopped cloves of garlic, a handful of rough cut cashew nuts, and a shhloip (techinal term!) of balsamic vinegar.
-Add milk to one of the bowls, not too much - just enough to make the mixture into dough. This varies between people, I quite like my scones really rather squishy and so add more milk than most folks.
-Mush this all together, with minimal contact (shouldn't work scones too much) and roll into little balls (mine are roughly 4-5cm across) and put on the greased baking tray, but in the oven for 10-15 minutes until they feel more solid. Many recipes say "until golden brown" but the wholemeal flour does not allow for this, so I just hoped for the best and got them out after 15 (10 if your mix is drier, I'd say). The bottoms were darkened from the tray, so a good time to get them out.
-Repeat the adding milk bit for the 2nd bowl, give them the same treatment as the first batch.
-Eat fresh from the oven (but not so hot as to burn yourself) with slightly salted butter. Nom!
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Have just eaten one of the carroty ones, as one decided to break a bit when I was removing it from the baking tray. I give them a thumbs up (I'll let you know about the chilli ones when they're done... oh, yep, they're GOOD. Balsamic vinegar doesn't seem to have done anything bad to them (though it DID make the "raw" mix taste a little funny), infact it seems to give them a slight edge. But if you don't have balsamic, I'm pretty sure thats fine...
In future I'd prefer to add more cheese (I added maybe a large half handful of gratered stuff to each bowl, as thats all I had).

'Ere's a pictcharrr:

Yes, so... what else has happened since the 18th.

On the 19th we had a family meal at my house in Reigate - roast beef dinner with my mums PROPER trifle for pudding. Etc. So me, Elk, parents, granny, aunt & uncle, and Helen. Cousin Liz could not make it as she was still at work on her farm up in Lincolnshire (is that the place?) so that was sad :(

On the 20th I saw Imy and Racheyboi and Emilargh and her blokey; Imy & Racheyboi came to mine & we nattered, and then went off to the Blue Anchor (in the snow). Good couple (3) drinks, finally told them that I can DRIVE and am looking for a van, they were shocked enough I guess... Imy & I dragged each other home to mine on my old school wooden sledge. The snow was perfect for it.

On the 21st my family went to Tenerife. We expected the worst at Gatwick, but actually the plane was barely delayed! Dad got pulled aside as per usual. I still blame the beard.

We were in Tenerife for a week, it was lovely to have some sun and get my tan back again. I did a sketch of where I was every day (here's a couple, the rest can be found at my Flickr)

We went to Tenerife over x-mas 2 years ago, too. Then it almost felt like Christmas, but this year I feel like I have not had Christmas at all (except for when I sniffed the Christmas tree in the church at Zennor on New Years day...). A bit sad, really. I may not believe in God & all that, but I still like to have the special day.

My Christmas present:

(mum knitted them for me out of some funky wool! Niiiice!! I do love proper socks).

But yes, back from Tenerife on the 28th (early hours of the 29th, actually, after some horrible turbulence on the plane back which made me feel a bit like I was going to die... BUT I'M STILL ALIVE!!!).

On the 29th, Mr Dan O'Shea appeared in Reigate for the afternoon / evening / night etc. It was lovely to see him again, even though he's lobbed all his hair off. We went to the pub in the eve with Elk, and then I slightly drunkenly made some scones for...

The 30th! Up early and Racheyboi collects me in the GDB with Imy, and we drive off to Hastings! Swerve someones fallen off bumper in the middle of the motorway, and get to Nina for lunchtime.

Once in Hastings we set up a tasty feast - I brought along 2 sorts of scones (very similar to the ones shown up at the top), which we ate with Philli cheese and butter (not at the same time). Nina cooked some chicken goujons (haven't eaten them in YEARS) which I found out were yummmy with Philli, black pepper & salt on top. She also cooked some veggie onion bahjees so fussy likkle Imy could eat (heh heh). For pudding, I had made a Battenburg extravaganza (just a normal Battenburg cake, but the pink was CRAZY BRIGHT PINKY RED), and Racheyboii had made some super scrummy chocolate gingerbread (I now have the recipe). Chester the dog was a bit naughty and ate almost a whole later of the gingerbread behind our backs.

Racheyboii also made us some goodies - dark chocolate Bailey's truffles, honeycomb, and peanut butter fudge (my fave bit). OHHHH! Nina made us some necklaces with the letter of our name on it (B for meee).

We played Boggle (to Imy's dispair) and had some super good nattering, and in the eve we went to the pub for some grub.

All in all, it was such a fabulous day, I always love seeing "The Lad's". Shame I don't see them more often, but thats what I get for moving from Surrey to Cornwall, and probably staying here. Got back home to Reigate at about midnight, then had to pack all my stuff up for Falmouth again.

31st - off to Falmouth! After 6 miraculously speedy hours on trains, I got into Penzance when Lisa picked me up from the station. I then went a bit mad with happiness, and we went to Tescos where I accidently touched a dead fish. We bought in good stocks of smokey bacon, potato cakes, and ginger wine, then set off to Zenor (the scenic way). Once in Zennor we had some tasty food in the pub (Tinners) which was pricey so we had 1 two course meal between the 2 of us.

Starters was some sort of Cornish? fish (can't remember the name) with salad, good brown olives, those things which look a bit like peas but are REALLY SALTY, and fresh green pesto. Main course was a perfectly bloody in the middle, well done on the outside steak (best I've eaten in a VERY long time) with some horseradish mash, green beans, and a sort of stew with celery, carrot, and some more perfectly melt in the mouth bits of beef.

The party was good, though I felt very young and although I knew SOME people I felt I didn't know them well enough to talk to them properly, and then if I tried then I didn't know what to talk about, so I just sort of floated & vaguely danced. I think I'm getting worse with parties as I get older. Big groups of people, not for me. Eeeek. Also, I was tired from 6 hours train journey (and not enough sleep the night before) so when Lisa & I finally crawled into her bed in her van at 4am, I slept SO WELL. Comfy AS. Of course we had a past midnight snack of fried bacon & potato cakes, with some other people in the back of the van too...

In the morning we had more potato cakes & bacon (& orange juice with juicy bits. Almost the perfect breakfast!) and went for a walk with Lisa, some other chap who plays in a band called "PondLife" (Ska/folk, they played at the party), Dave Hart, Dave Wisdom, Jennie, Jo and her girlfriend (Irish, but name fails me. BUT THEY'RE SO LOVELY!). Being me, I didn't speak much on the walk (though did manage to do it in 2 long / floor length skirts!!) but instead watched the turquoise of the sea, the rusty orange and dusty purple of the heather and such on the cliffs, the yellow of the lichen, the grey of the sky... and I drooled in my head. Ohhh yes. HELLO CORNWALL. I have missed you. I just wanted to sit down and draw, but we were still walking. When I've got my van, I'll go back there and draw. We found a dead shrew.

Once back from the walk we thought we might go find some food in the pub, but it was too late! OH! NO! Thankfully, we were all van dwellers (ok, I was only in Lisa's van, but I WILL be one!) and so everyone took what food they could find out of their vans & gathered round Lisa's. We made a sort of gypsy camp, I made a vegetable & couscous mush with seeds & nuts & dried fruit in it, and Jo & girl made fried egg sandwiches with relish, Lisa plyed every tea drinker with tea, and Crazy Dave / Dave Hart supplied some funny Lidl biscuits. And we ate the leftovers of my Battenburg cake. Everything went down well.

After all that we said our goodbyes and went off to our respectivish places. Lisa & I took the scenic way to Falmouth, where we watched The Notebook (she'd never seen it before, but then she was surprised as I haven't seen Rattatoui or whatever it's called, despite loving food). I managed to create a noodles & leftover veg creation, which was actually RATHER yummy.

In the morning we yet again ate potato cakes & smokey bacon, and then she left.

Since then, I have been marauding around my house trying to warm it up, and finishing Silje's x-mas prezzie:

I'm yet to make anyone elses... (it is not meant to look like it says "SO". I'm sure it won't when she's making them. I hope they aren't too big... I may have accidently sized them round MY hands... which are huge).

But yes, that is all for now!

I shall now do SOMETHING for the rest of the evening, and tomorrow morning (early!) Silje and Vera are BACK!!!! ^^

Exciting.

I shall leave you with this discussion I had with a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses earlier... if you know me on Facebook then you may have already read it.

Two Jehovah's Witnesses (both female) just knocked on the door. After asking if they had knocked loud enough (they read the note to the postman) they tried to get me to believe in God, and gave me bits of paper to read.

Them: "Do you believe in God?"

Me: "No. I never have, haven't been brought up to do so."

Them: "Oh, thats interesting... it is happeneing to more and more people. Why do you choose not to?"

Me: "I have no proof that such a thing exists, and that this way if anything goes wrong in my life then I can only really blame myself. So many people put so much blame on 'God' - their baby was born with 3 legs, war, too much rain, not enough rain, their cake got burnt... they just feel the need to blame things on someone else, it's never their own fault".

Them: "Ahh... yes... I guess you are correct... but what about the Bible? That is true, surely?"

Me: "No. Well, yes in part. Yes there may have been people with the same names and statuses as it says in the bible, but we should take it with a pinch of salt. The Bible is just a rather extensive Folk tale."

Them: "So none of it is true? What about all the old finds? And what about Jesus being hung on the cross, all of that?"

Me: "As I said - pinch of salt. Old finds, archaelogical digs - archeologists seem to be split into two groups. Those who dig with Bible in one hand and shovel in the other, digging from what it says in the Bible 'Oh look! We've found this! This MUST be what it says in the Bible!' and then there are the other side, who dig, and then maybe find something which could quite possibly be related to a happening in the Bible... but then again, it could just be another old building. Many places which have been found and are supposedly to do with the Bible are later found to have been built AFTER the Bible says they were meant to exist. This is not to say that the Bible is always wrong, it gives some good lessons, and is a very good chunky historical source... but we should by no means believe every single word in it. I mean... turning water into wine? The feeding of the thousands?"

Them: "But those were miracles! Miracles happen every day! How was the earth made? Who made it?"

Me: "There was a reaction between some particles / atoms / chemicals and there was a huge bang. Yes ok, it's still a bit of a mystery, but theres MANY mysteries in life still!"

Them: "What about babies? They're miracles"

Me: "Babies are not miracles. They are a bundle of cells, made from two people having sex. A reaction."

Them: "But lots of different TYPES of cells... it's a miracle how we can see, smell, taste..."

Me: "Babies are as much of a miracle as a cucumber going mouldy in the fridge. There, another reaction between things... bacteria. Mould. If babies are a miracle, then spaghetti bolognaise is a miracle."

Them: "You are very interesting... whats your name? Rex?" (they read the BTCV sticker on my hoody)

Me: "Bex."

Them: "Short for Bethany or something?"

Me: "No, Rebecca. Which in Hebrew means 'Knotted cord'. There was someone in the Bible called Rebecca (Rebekah)".

Them: "Oh is it really? Thats interesting... so are you at university down here?"

Me: "Yep. Third year of illustration."

Them: "Ahhh so you like art..."

From there onwards (didn't go on for much longer) we spoke about art, being from Surrey, and they tried to persuade me that the beauty of nature was in art. I did not disagree with that, I said that yes - many things in modern day are inspired by nature, even cars! The rather epic creation (yet to be finished) of Gaudi's is almost entirely inspired by nature! Yes ok, it's a religious building... but that does NOT mean it is God's work. So yes... they have left me with a pamphlet to read called "Was Life Created?". I'm wondering whether to read it, or leave it with the other Jehovah's Witness piece "What does God thing of Alcohol" (he doesn't want to think about it right now, after all that tequila last night). I might read it, as they said they'd like to swing past again and talk to me again. I need my ammunition.For anyone who may be offended by any of this, me deciding to TOTALLY not believe in God is my choice... believe in what you will.Ohhh those poor Jehovah's.Thank you, National Geographic, for helping me gather information for two of the subjects in this discussion... you were a good read on the plane to Tenerife (where the volcanic erruption 225 years ago did not happen as an act of God, it was simply the earths crust having a funny five minutes, and deciding to go bang and spew lovely lucious looking lava all over).

OVER AND OUT.

P.S. If you have access to BBC iPlayer, then watch this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00wylpf/Toast/
It is a film called Toast, taken from the book Toast. I read the book years ago, and although they'd missed loads out in the film, it's still good.

P.P.S. I should not be trusted with a lino cutter.