Archive for February, 2005

I’ve been experimenting with some home cooking recently because I do enjoy it when I can be bothered and also I’m moving out in a few months so I though I better brush up on my culinary skills. I’m 26 and still live with my parents and my mum still cooks all my food so it’s about time I stopped being so lazy!

Today I made naan bread. I’m trying to cut down on yeast because I think it makes me farty (it ferments in the gut apparently) but I do love bread so much. They turned out to be very simple to make so I thought I’d share the recipe:

Naan Bread Recipe
9 oz white self-raising flour
2 tablespoons live yogurt
4 fl oz warm water
teaspoon of salt

Add the yogurt and salt to the flour (hopefully in a bowl if you’ve any sense) and mix in the water bit by bit until you get a sticky dough. Knead a little bit but not a lot. Leave in a warm place with a wet tea towel over the bowl for an hour. Roll out egg sized blobs with a rolling pin. Heat up grill and grill pan (under the grill!) Place a rolled out naan under the grill and cook it on each side. It will go speckly and puff up but rather quickly so do watch them.

I scoffed mine with cheese and tomato in the middle like a pitta bread. I realise that traditionally they are eaten with a curry but I hate curry!

My grandad has been in hospital for the past few days. He needed to be admitted because he hadn’t eaten in five days and we were getting very worried. He couldn’t keep any food down so just gave up eating altogether which made him weak and depressed. He’d also been coughing up what he thought was bile.

He’s been on a drip which gave him vital fluids and perked him up and yesterday had a endoscopy (visual examination of the interior of a hollow body organ by use of an endoscope) to see what’s been going on for far too long. The doctors think he has a duodenal ulcer (erosions in the lining of the first part of the small intestines) although we have to wait for the biopsy results for confirmation. It’s such a relief that he’s looking a bit better already just with some sustenance and care.

I was walking past the patient’s dayroom and an old man with no pants on was playing (not with himself) with cubes or maybe it was lego in a box. I walk past again and he has trousers on and then when I walk back later he has managed to undo the crotch area of his trousers. Being on an old persons’ ward makes you realise just what nurses must put up with all the time.

Whilst flat hunting in Manchester we got a little lost and ended up in a chavvy estate. Bounding towards us was a sight, the likes of which I have never seen. A heavily lactating ugly little terrier dragging its milky duds along the road. Why it was let out or where its puppies were no one knows, but it was immediately christened Mamdog! Thankfully we were in the car and weren’t in the firing line of its excess milk.

Artist’s Impression

Chand I travelled back to Manchester today but this time to go flat hunting. C has got a job there and I plan to move in with him in a few weeks time. It was quite stressful going flat hunting as we had to view each flat in about 5 minutes and then rush to the next viewing while trying to navigate unfamiliar streets. We actually ended up at the wrong flat and completely missed an appointment because we got in such a pickle!

We fell in love with one of the flats immediately. It has good size rooms (well for our pitiful wages) and enough space to get two networked computers going (hopefully). It’s up two flights of stairs which will keep us fit, especially lugging all the shopping up. The flat has a bath so I shall be able to luxuriate in the manner to which I am accustomed. The only downside is that there is no washing machine or the room for one and we can’t for the life of us find a tabletop version.

C is moving in on the 1st of March and I shall be following in a couple of months time, when C is settled in and I have a job sorted out. We are both very excited about the prospect of our first home together!

We saw these rather tacky flowerpot men in “Au Natural” whilst shopping in Leeds, I bet chavs love them!

On Sunday we went to Manchester’s Chinatown where the Chinese New Year was being celebrated. It is now the Year of the Rooster. There was a parade with cute little Chinese girls dancing and a big dragon undulating down the street, held aloft by suspiciously Caucasian looking men. There were smaller dragons that entered each restaurant and shop and very loud firecrackers were let off, presumably to scare away evil spirits. There were some yummy look food stalls selling noodles and spring rolls. I love looking around the supermarkets where you can buy cheap woks and all the food has funny labels (esepcially when its called dong or wang). There was even a large Buddha statue and free incense was handed out as an offering.

This is a sign found in the Hydro Hotel
A little racist no?

C and I traveled down to Eastbourne on Saturday to attend the wedding of Simon and Kerry. C met and shared a house with Simon while they were both at university. The wedding took place in the Hydro Hotel which was a rather old and grand hotel which looked straight out of a Miss Marple book. In fact there were many old dears taking tea in the lounge. The wedding was lovely and the bride looked beautiful and I had a little cry being the old softy I am. We had a sit down meal (wedding breakfast as it is strangely known as) which consisted of stilton and watercress soup, vegetable schnitzel (for the vegetarians and some meaty treat for the meat eaters) followed by a most delicious apple strudal and cream. I was absolutely stuffed with tasty food (my diet went out the window)! In the evening there was a DJ and buffet.

The next day we took a stroll along Eastbourne’s sea front. We scanned the beach for interesting shells but instead found these false teeth! Eastbourne is definately full of old people.

My flickr photostream

Flickr is a revolution in photo storage, sharing and organization, making photo management an easy, natural and collaborative process. Get comments, notes, and tags on your photos, post to any blog, share and chat live and more!

also check out the flickr blog