Love those cupcakes

Orange Friday

In the spirit of making use of what we already have/waste not, want not/living within the budget, I needed to find a way of using up a bag of past-their-best carrots which were lurking at the back of the veg drawer in the fridge.  As luck would have it, I found this recipe for a carrot soup from The English Kitchen, a blog I visit regularly to ogle the wonderful pictures of food (and, of course, to pinch some of the thoughtfully provided recipes).  So, as I was working from home, I made it for lunch today and have to say it's one of the nicest soups I've ever tasted.  I had all of the ingredients bar the basil so used some rosemary from the garden and then chucked on some chopped parsley at the end. 

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It was so easy to make and even if you don't particularly like carrots, give it a try because it really doesn't taste, well, carroty. 

And that's how my Friday was deliciously orange.

Happiness is......

........ a cat, a rug and

the end of a cucumber.

Ah, heaven. 

Funny thing is, this wasn't even our cucumber.  Oh no, this was a prize brought in from The Great Outdoors.

Cats.  You gotta love 'em.

A long and eventful day

  

• Get up before the 5 a.m. alarm to ensure no chance of sleeping through it

• Open the bedroom curtains and note the lousy weather - it's raining heavily

• Spend far too long searching for an umbrella 

• Consequently there's no time to have a cup of something hot before leaving the house

• Realise during the drive to the railway station that my mobile phone is still at home, plugged into the charger

• 2 minutes later it dawns that this means I can't leave the car in the usual car park as payment has to be made by phone text

• From under the umbrella, make several attempts to pay at the station's alternative car park's ticket machine with a £10 note and eventually read "Coins and credit cards only"
  

• Go back to the car to find there aren't enough coins in my purse and return to the machine with a credit card but somehow only manage to pay for 1 hour's car parking

• Try alternative machine and same thing happens.  Now have 2 rather wet tickets giving me an unusable total of 2 hours' parking

• Hear ominous "ping" after which the umbrella collapses on my head

• Eventually fathom the instructions in the relentless pouring rain and breathe an umbrella-less sigh of relief when the machine issues a parking ticket for 24 hours

• No time to buy coffee on the platform as my train pulls into the station

• Once on the train, hang my rain soaked linen jacket on the thoughtfully provided hook and cross fingers it will miraculously dry in the far too cold, air conditioned carriage

• Hope that the damp linen shirt I'm wearing doesn't crease too much

• Try to re-style previously straightened but now very wet hair with fingers as the hair brush is inexplicably missing from my bag

• An hour into the journey am relieved to see a refreshment cart being pushed into the carriage

• Get out purse in readiness to pay for restorative coffee and KitKat

• Observe the somewhat unsteady person pushing the refreshment cart spill entire contents of large cup of coffee over 2 business suited passengers 

• Decide it's probably best to put purse back in bag

• Arrive at destination and dash to check out appearance in station loo mirrors

• Reel in horror at reflected image

• Apply heavy eye liner and lipstick in hope that delegates' attention will be diverted by non too expertly applied maquillage

• Arrive at event venue to find hot water flasks for tea and coffee are empty

• Deliver presentation with apologies for wild hair and assurances that, despite looking otherwise, the clothes I'm wearing really haven't been slept in

• Lots of discussion after the presentation means a dash to the station to catch another train to meet up with the Gorgeous Girlie

• En route manage to grab the smallest/cheapest looking umbrella from display in Boots

• Reluctantly hand over 13 quid to a very smiley cashier and tell her no, I don't have my Boots Advantage card with me

• GG is waiting in her car outside the station we've arranged to meet at and the tears flow as we remember my dad who died a year ago today

• 3 p.m. and I get the first drink and food of the day courtesy of GG and her kitchen

• Attempt to re-straighten my hair with GG's GHDs

• Re-iron my, by now, rag of a shirt

• Heavy traffic on the way to the station 4 hours later means there's no time to buy a drink for the journey home.  The train's refreshment trolley it will have to be, whoever's pushing it.  (I will have that KitKat)

• Arrive at the platform with minutes to spare to find  "an incident " in progress and the train I need to get on taken over by police

• Eventually a replacement turns up and at last we're moving and heading north

• Announcement on the train that sorry, there will be no refreshments available for the entire journey.  Didn't fancy a KitKat anyway

• Half an hour from my destination there's another announcement that, due to severe flooding, the train has been forced to reduce its speed to 5 mph

• More than 18 hours after getting up this morning I arrive home

• And once inside I can't help smiling as I unpack the pre-budget treat of an Osprey handbag I somehow managed to buy on this eventful day

Flying visit

Although I'm back from Spain, this is only a flying visit as I have a couple of work trips to York and Manchester.  Just enough time to empty the large holiday suitcase and pack the small weekend one!  I thoroughly enjoyed the break and did nothing more energetic than lounging, reading (more about what was read coming soon), eating and quaffing some very nice wine.  (The Husband is still in Spain doing some necessary house painting as he gets used to his new status). 

Whilst I was getting ready to go on holiday I found a (forgotten) Christmas present lurking in a drawer - a voucher for a day spa.  So I've a range of pampering treatments to look forward to one day next week, including a "Detoxifying Coffee & Spice Body Glow Scrub".  Wow.

Intermission

I'm taking a short blogging break as we're off to spend some time at our house in Spain.

I'll leave you with this photograph of the Philadelphus blooming in our garden.  I'm amazed it's survived the years of neglect when our energies were focused elsewhere.  It's growing alongside a honeysuckle and the combined scent hits me every time I brush past.  Glorious.

 

Adios.