Seen alive! the half cat!

Well whilst I was busy typing up a mustard blog, guess who I saw on the stairs??

I wont keep you in suspense.. it was the half cat, Lilly with eyes the size of DINNER PLATES!!

She is getting braver.. and Im proud to present the first ever photo we have taken of her. I know its not very good, but this is the closest we can get at present :-)



Shes really very pretty, quite a bit smaller than Billy. I look forward to having a photo of both in 2008!

Oh by the way.. Happy New Year!!!

Mustard!

In response to Jaks question in comments about mustard.. I will say a bit on the subject here :-)

According to Wikki, Mustard was invented by the Romans (what have the Romans ever done for us??)

French mustard tends to be a greeny grey colour, quite often with the grains of the mustard seed in it, but English mustard is bright yellow, and a much stronger, sharper taste - its also smooth, and commonly served with roast beef or steak.

When Im cooking, I like to add a bit of this, and a bit of that, building up a nice rounded flavour, so when I make a nut roast, or a cheese sauce, I almost always throw in a bit of wholegrain French type mustard, and a bit of yellow mustard in a powder form.

Oh.. American mustard sauce is, from what Ive had a much much milder form of English Mustard that dosnt blow your brains out ;-)

I very rarely use a recipie, unless Im making bread. I use a recipie when Im making something new, but then once Ive made it once I play about with it and do things differently to make it better.

Hmmm not sure what to make for tomorrows tea.. will have to think about it!

I might persuade D to make goats cheese and red onion tarte since we have the ingredients.. all I have to do is make the pastry! YUM!

Jak.. I hope this answers your question!

Family Saturday

We had a really good time on Saturday, all elements of the family got on, and some lovely pressies were given and received!

I took loads of clockwork toys along for my older brothers kids - particularly two racing snails which went down very well :-) Older brother & wife gave us a funny cat calender and some eco washing up liquid (strange present, you might think, but we needed some!) They also gave Douglas a book about food from the wild, which hes very keen on.

Younger brother and wife gave us two cards which said they had given money to Oxfam to buy some health care and some mosqito nets, which was great - also two nice little prints of pictures Sis in law had painted/lino cut herself. We will have to put them and our other piccys up some time!

I made a nut roast for the veggies - here is a rough idea of how I made it.

Chopped mixed nuts ( half a pound I think)
Breadcrumbs (from about 5 dried slices of a small white loaf)
Eggs (3 large ones)
Tin of tomatoes (chopped, no skins)
Teaspoon of English mustard powder
Teaspoon of veggie Bouillion powder
Several teaspoons of onion chutney (this was knocking round the cupboard, and does not taste very nice on bread, so I decided to use some of it up!)

Mix the whole lot together - but leave the tin of tomatoes till last, because you need to make sure the consistency is not sloppy, just wet enough to plop off your spoon!

Put into a lined dish or bread tin, and put in a medium oven. It will take about 30-45 mins to cook - very nice served with a cheese sauce! (we had rice, broccoli and various nice cabbage salads as well)

Yum Yum YUM!!

Meanwhile, I have not been feeling well - I have a cough that has taken my voice away, and Ive got toothache. Douglas has the same cough but thank goodness not the toothache. Will sort out dentist soon :-(

Saturdays plans

a) go to sleep now as its past 1am..

b) later go see big brother, his 2 kids and wife.. little brother 3 kids and wife.. and 2 parents.. now if I can add up that makes 4+5+2+2 = 13 of us!!! wow I wonder if Cousin Michael will be there too?

c) take nut loaf as big brother, kids and wife are veggie like me.

d) take camera

e) take blood pressure pill for mum ;-)

f) worship our one whole cat before and after visit :-) even if he does kill wine glasses! the half cat, Lilly is not yet in stroke mode.. give her another few weeks and you might get a photo :-)

Note to self and husband

When you get two cats in your house, delicate wine glasses are NOT a good thing to leave out on your sideboard, however remote the chance of either cat (Anna stares hard at Billy) having a mad 5 mins, jumping up and taking two down with a swish of his black furry tail.

Guess what happened early this morning? ….. We live and learn..

2 days off now back at work...

25th

We had a very quiet non celebratory Xmas day - Douglas wasnt feeling too well, so that made the day a little quieter than it might have been.

Our Solstice gifts are enjoying their new home - Lilly is getting braver, and although she still looks at us through "dinnerplate" eyes and scrams if we get too close, we can certainly see improvements.

Billy has discovered the joys of the cat "fishing rod" and has been going crazy when we dangle it near him :-)

My parents came round in the afternoon for a cuppa and a chat, we watched TV then the day was done!

26th

Today we decided to go to the out of town shopping emporium near Sheffield, called Meadowhell (oops sorry Meadowhall) to get some clothes for Douglas, and a small heater for our attic bedroom, which gets very very cold. I wanted some leggings that went down to my ankles, to keep me warm on my way to work.

Within about 15 mins, Douglas had been into 2 menswear shops, and had purchased four shirts and two jumpers, and spent about £45.00, £10 of which was a gift voucher he got from his work place as a Christmas gift!

I got my leggings.. I got a discount off them, because when I tried them on, the fluff from the carpet in the trying on room got all over the legs, and they were the only pair they had. The fluff is very easy to remove, but I didnt object to the discount!

We got our heater, got some dvds for birthday presents (loads of family have birthdays in Jan) and we got a book each from Waterstones, our favourite bookshop.

We were exhausted after all this shopping, and the centre was getting very busy. We had arranged with my mum to go see St Trinians, so we met up at the Cinema and enjoyed the film very much!

Gave mum a lift home, watched Ballet Shoes on TV and went to bed, after making Billy rush and leap for the fluffy thing on the end of the cat fishing rod :-)

The Tail of one and a quarter cats

We are proud to announce that we have seen Lilly! Yes! we did get two cats, not one and a quarter ;-)

Douglas has seen her once or twice just before hes gone to bed, and yesterday I was in the kitchen and I saw both moggies :-)

Lilly poked her head out, so I took the cat food, put it in the middle of the lounge and went back to the kitchen. She was brave enough to come out and eat! I stayed in the kitchen, but moved around a bit, and although she looked pretty nervous, she kept eating!

She like her companion, is black and white, but she has a white patch on her face, and has more black on the rest of her body. Photo will have to wait a little longer!

Billy, meanwhile is becoming very friendly, and has been having fun chasing a wild and deadly animal (his tail!)