Merry Christmas!

It has been quite a long time since I have blogged. I haven't disappeared.

Everything is good.

Almost all my meals are still coming from Pemba Lama's wonderful book. My life has become so delicious; that man is my hero!

I have been fixing the previously-mentioned damage done by ex-crab, and now every bit of my home that I can reach has been repaired and redecorated.

I am still walking. By the time I get home tonight I will have walked 2,066 miles this year.

That's me done. I'm off on my holidays.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

This book changed my life!

Well, if not quite my whole life, it has certainly changed my mealtimes.

A couple of weeks ago I was sitting at work, idly wondering what I would like for my tea. I had a hankering for a Nepalese curry. Without the means to suddenly book a holiday in Nepal (which would be excessive anyway) or even to book a table in a restaurant I googled to see if I could find any good recipes.

And I found this!

Through the joys of internet shopping, it arrived in the post the next day. I read and salivated and looked in the fridge to see what I had the makings of.

Spicy grilled sea bass and potato & cauliflower curry, as it turned out.

So I followed the recipes and ground and blended and mixed and cooked and served, and then I sat down and tasted.

BLOODY HELL, IT WAS GOOD!!

I was so astounded I could've wept - but I was far too busy eating. It tasted of sunshine and joy and very high places and it was the most delicious meal I have ever cooked.

I was so excited I couldn't wait to tea time the next day so I could some other new things. The next night I cooked three dishes from the book - again all extraordinary.

And so it goes on. Never in my kitchen have so many pots been used so many times in the production of a meal. Never have I had so much fun cooking. There is nothing in this book I don't want to eat, or don't think I am able to cook.

Now, here's the thing. When you look at "recipes for one" they almost invariably suggest that a single person wants to throw together something quick and easy for their tea.

I say bollocks to that. I want to eat food that's been prepared with care and passion. And here's why:

As previously mentioned on this blog, I used to have a husband.

For sixteen years he sat there every night with face like a slapped arse, waiting to be presented with food like he had a god-given right to receive food on a daily basis - without so much as ever making me a piece of toast.

Now he is gone and I am living alone - in a little happy paradise that I made myself.

Everything is good! yum yum yum

Every single one of us...

is fucking proud of you, fucking proud of you, fucking proud of you. Fucking proud of you!

This is one of the many love songs we sing at FC.
Tomorrow is the last league game of the season (sob, it goes so fast!) and no doubt we will be singing with great gusto.

It has been an astounding season, and we still have a sniff of Winning the League!

How amazing would that be!!

Our last road trip of the season takes us to Barwell tomorrow. I don't know much about Barwell, except that it is Leicestershire. I am not entirely sure that I've even been to Leicestershire before, but I know it's somewhere in the South.

Another thing I know about Barwell (which I have just learned by reading that font of all knowledge, The Internet) is that on Christmas Eve, 1965, the village was showered with fragments from a turkey-sized meteor. The Internet does actually describe it as 'turkey-sized' - but I suspect that's just a bit of Christmas winsomry.


Turkey from Wikipedia.

So anyway. Maybe we win the league tomorrow, maybe we don't. It's still win-win - we'll be in the play-offs and that means another game to watch. Maybe two!

Not only has it been a cracking season for the team, it has been a cracking season for the club. We are building our Own Ground!

For nine years we have all been raising money and now we have saved up enough money to make this!



Oh, this makes me so happy I could cry. I am so fucking proud of all of us!

If you happen to passing by my blog and you've read this far, got some spare cash and a kind heart, we are now raising money to kit out our kitchen. Click the link to donate.

Sadly I am somewhat short of funds these days, due to the scuzzy habits of my husband, as mentioned previously. I will be paying off his debts until the day I retire. Here's an email he sent me earlier in the week:

If you have no objections I will at some stage initiate the process with a view to legally ending the marriage based on 2 years separation in January 2016.

Pompous twat, dubious grammar. I am well-rid!

Enough of that, time to go back to dreaming my FC Dreams...

Top of the League!

Last night FC won 5 - 2 away at Witton Albion.

This has put us Top of the League!


(Table from Yura's excellent website.)

Admittedly, we may only be top for twenty-four hours; Chorley play tonight and could overtake us. But I've always been a big fan of seizing the moment and celebrating whatever I can whenever I can.

Last night was a cracker! Not only did we see some smashing goals, I learned from a mutual friend that Mr Crab's new girlfriend is a Cockney with 8 (that's EIGHT!) children, various fathers.

Bloody Hell!

How confusing for my poor husband. So with her eight, and his own two sons (abandoned by him when they were toddlers) and his ex-wife's two daughters who learned to call him Daddy before he abandoned them too, that's, ummm, let's see ... Oh I've run out of fingers to count them all on!
A lot of children.

I wonder if she's making him watch Eastenders. He always used to hate that programme.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

A Fairytale for Valentine's Day

I know I am posting this a day early for Valentine's Day, but tomorrow I won't be here. I will be doing something else entirely.

Here is the tale of how this came to be...

Two months ago it was our fourteenth wedding anniversary.

We did not celebrate it, because three weeks earlier Mr Crab had met a random woman on the streets of Norwich and decided his life would be better with her than with me. And so the pair of them ran away to be together in Ipswich.

(That's two Witches in this story already - I told you it was a fairytale!)

This came as a huge shock to me. Normally he had been no bother at all; he just sat there like a lump most of the time.

A lump with secrets...

Before Mr Crab ran away he put £23,625.00 of personal debt on to our mortgage. This also had been a shock at the time - I have no idea how he racked up such a sum. I certainly never saw any benefit from all this cash.

Before he left he also filled our house up with garbage:



Impressive, isn't it?

Here it is again, a couple of weeks later and light is starting to appear at the end of the tunnel (literally):



Anyway, time has moved on, the house is now mine and the room is clear! Moving this amount of garbage wasn't easy, though. Look at the state of my hands:

Admittedly that is only one hand - I had to hold the camera with the other one. It is just as bad.

Like all good fairy stories, this one has a Happy Ending!

Tomorrow I am having a day off work. A local charity shop is collecting the few bits of furniture which can be considered serviceable, and a Man with a Van will take the rest of the garbage to the tip.

I am already living happily in the future.

Happy Valentine's Day to all you young lovers everywhere!

Happy New Year!

Picture from here.

A lot of bad things have happened since my Happy Christmas post. Mostly they are in the past now, and I am starting the new year today, right now!

Happy New Year!