We got the Wii on Friday night. And then on Saturday we got another controller, and a charging station, and Winter Sports 2008. We played with it quite a lot, so on Sunday we went out and got another Nunchuck so we could do split screen slaloming.

My word, but perlmonger and I are crap at it! But we shall persevere. We did this all yesterday afternoon, and then went out to the pub quiz, which we didn't win. No change there.

My shoulders ached this morning, as did my legs a little bit. But still, we sallied forth to the North Somerset Show - walked there and back, a round trip of about 5 miles, and then 3 hours or so around the show. Quite enjoyable, but the weather was horridly humid. I bought a hemp hat for six quid, and perlmonger purchased another wooden spoon, for verily 10 cannot be enough for any household.

Cooking was non-existent, mostly - we've been eating out of the freezer to make some room. Sossidges Saturday, and a rather splendid upside down pear pudding, Sunday night was home made kofta meatballs, and chick peas with spinach, and tonight is chicken and chorizo with chickpeas, and couscous. Nice having home made convenience food :)

Hope you all had a good one.

We sallied forth this morning to do a bit of shoppering - something we don't necessarily enjoy, so we had several places to go. I wouldn't say the weather was actually nice when we left, but by the time we got to Whiteladies Road, it was pouring. And neither of us had a jacket, a hat, or an umbrella. Soggy.

We started at Kitchens, where we purchased

• a new cheese grater. The Microplane snapped its plastic handle in half last week, and we thus declined to spend £17.95 (if you please) on a replacement, and instead bought a stainless steel one for eight quid
• 3 huge and 3 medium glass storage jars - the mission to Tidy The House continues
• a 12 bottle wine rack. For shoes. Yes, really. Works really well, and we don't have much any spare floor space

From there we waded round the corner to Wild Oats, the health food place.

• two bottles of Teriyaki (two because they are tiny)
• some laundry balls - they'd better work, at 35 quid
• a sourdough loaf
• Ecover washing powder and dishwasher tabs
• no blackcurrant juice for perlmonger

In the greengrocer next door, I bought basil, mushrooms and carrots. I do very little greengrocery shopping these days, due to the Riverford box, but sometimes you gotta.

Then we hurtled over to Wai Yee Hong, the Chinese supermarket at Eastville, for

• noodles
• dried orange peel
• 3kgs of bicarbonate of soda (great for cleaning)
• oolong tea
• fresh ginger

Next up, the Better Food Company at St Werberghs.

• Ecover fabric conditioner
• posh organic kitchen soap stuff
• unpasteurised cheddar
• brie
• no blackcurrant juice for perlmonger
• maple syrup

We had lunch there too - very nice pasta bake with roast peppers.

Last call was to Asda, to pick up

• some more of the nice plastic storage boxes we bought last week - I WILL organise this house if it kisl me. Which it probably will.
• turkey mince for Iggy, as he loves it so
• some raw tiger prawns, to be stir fried tonight with the aforementioned basil
• a nice little ceramic oblong dish, which will replace the one accidentally left on the gas (made a nice BANG when it exploded)
• waffer thin meat for the cats' treats
• some cold meat for next week's lunches, as I can't be arsed to go down to Costco and buy a gammon, never mind cook it

We have to go out again in a bit to collect the wine from the offy, but that's it, now - I'm in for the rest of the weekend.

perlmonger says he may go out on his bike tomorrow to Gloucester Road in a last ditch attempt to find the blackcurrant juice he likes, but I fear he might be better off tilting at windmills ... and the forecast is very wet.

Friday night started with the always excellent Phil Beer and Miranda Sykes at the compact and bijou Nailsea Folk Club. A stonking set, enjoyable as always.

Saturday I nipped (or popped) up to the farm shop, and bought 1 orange, pork, dried apricots to make supper for self and frends. I wanted leg of pork, but they didn't have any; the butcher asked what I was going to do with it, and when I said "casserole" he produced masses of offcuts and charged me 6 quid. We got 9 generous servings out of it, so that was pretty good! I did pork with apricots and pears, followed by molten chocolate puddings. Spent the afternoon cooking that lot, plus a banana bread, as we had some bananas going over.

Nice evening with Pat'n'Dave WANOLJ.

Sunday I steamcleaned the bathroom and most of the tiles, especially the grouting. Then I put a market stall's worth of veg through the food processor for later cooking, and constructed an excellent fry up of chipolatas, black pudding, field mushrooms, fried potato, bacon from a friend in Moray, fried egg and baked beans. Then we watched the first 4 episode of West Wing, while consuming tea and banana cake, and groaning due to overindulgence. After that, we turned some of the veg, together with 4lbs of Dexter mince, into bolognese sauce. The plan to make soup from the rest, and some duck stock from last weekend, had to wait, as the soup pan had been pressed into service for the bol.

Supper consisted of crispbread with Port Salut, and another chocolate pudding (there was some left over, you see, and it would have been criminal to waste it), and another 2 episodes of WW. Which is just as good as I remember it.

Nice weekend, feel better now.

I continued the cleaning jag. Cleared out the shelves in the kitchen - the ones that are in the corner beside the fridge, and behind the bin, so hardly get looked at. Emptied out many many bottles of beer that was *years* past its sell by date.

Removed guff from kitchen floor, set Roomba going, took empty beer bottles and other assorted junk to the tip. Came back via Bedminster, called into opticians to get new glasses adjusted. How come they're always fine when you leave the optician, then immediately become too loose?

Popped into Asda and bought assorted plastic boxes, things for the organising of. And turkey mince for Iggy - he is very fond of it, and so must have it. Tried their self-scanning checkout. Gave up in despair as it is so slow.

Came home, sorted herbs and spices into small baskets, and spare herbs and spices into large baskets. Washed kitchen floor. Cooked small (by our standards) fry up - bacon, black pudding, mushrooms, beans, fried egg, accompanied by toasted soda farls.

Slobbed for the rest of the afternoon - some crap television, then a long soak in the bath. Then off to the Legion for the monthly pub quiz. No, we didn't win.

We nipped (or popped) down to Costco to get some butter (their Beurre d'Isigny is very nice) and some kabanos, which perlmonger is very fond of for his luncheon.

Somehow, we emerged with a bill for £337 so, as you might surmise, there was a bit more in the trolley than we intended. So, in no particular order ...

• a Roomba. We've been after one of these for a while, and they've finally come back onto Costco's shelves. Shame perlmonger vacuumed the whole house yesterday, but with six cats I'm sure it'll get a full workout soon,


• A copy of John Simpson's latest book - I really enjoy his stuff


• an electric Shiatzu neck massager. No, it's not for electric necks, no it's nothing at all to do with a small dog. But it is wonderful, and I suffer from am achey neck,
• a pretty hanging basket for beside the front door - primroses and evergreen leaves


• two pairs of trousers for perlmonger


• 24 cans of Whiskas, some smoked Austrian cheese, a huge lump of gammon to make Nigella's poor white trash ham for Harry's party next weekend, some belly pork, some seeds (for eating, not growing), a jar of marmalade, and lord knows what else

We're not fit to be let out really ...

perlmonger and I went to Swansea today, to pick up these speaker stands from eBay. We were not pleased, when we returned from a 160 mile round trip, to find that the carpet spikes, which should be supplied with the stands, are missing. No doubt there will be protracted wrangling with the vendor, and we'll end up without the damn things, and the stands are unusable without.

Still while we were in Welsh Wales, we picked up kalunina's cashmas gift, with which we are well pleased. And we did something we very rarely do - we had a Burger King. I feel ashamed really, but I'd only had a bowl of porridge all day, and it was cold, and there it was. We had a Three Pepper thing, which actually wasn't too bad. And we drove home across the Brecons in the winter sun, and to a spectacular sunset across the Severn Bridge, which was also nice.

Yesterday, we blitzed the living room which was an absolute *tip*, and took a car load of stuff to the tip - all the boxes from the new equipment, which I didn't want to leave out for the recyclers, the plastic bottles, etc. Then over to Woolworths for a couple of bits, and a quick trip into Next, where perlmonger *bought some new trousers* - and a shirt! And I bought a nice green woolly sweater. Then off to our favourite local restaurant for .. well, not lunch really, but a 4 p.m. meal.

Should anyone care about the rest of the week... ( it's here )
So that's it, really - I'm going to give Cranford a go tonight, and see if it's as good as everyone says. Off to put my feet up!

We are off for seasonal drinkies with the Bristol noo meeja massif. We _were_ going to High Wycombe to see a (potential) client at the crack of 9 a.m. tomorrow, but he has postponed till Thursday, so there may be an extra bucket of Pinot Grigio this evening.

In other news, we watched the remake of Hairspray last night - gloriously feel good. See it.

Later all.

Was topped out by a Show of Hands gig last night. Regular readers will know that this is one of my absolute favourite bands, particularly live - we have seen them loads of times.

About 10 days ago, Steve Knightly, one of the Hands announced that his 6 year old son, Jack, had leukaemia. The first four dates of the tour were cancelled, then Phil and Miranda (the others) picked it up and did the show on their own. No problem with that - seen him and Miranda many times, and it's always an excellent evening.

As it happens, Jack is in Bristol Children's Hospital, so Steve actually did the gig last night (the only night of the tour he is performing) - and what an evening. Palpable emotion from audience and stage, and Steve's solo encore brought tears to many hoary old eyes. Including mine. ( Lyrics below cut )

Great night. If good will could make Jack better, then he will be better.

The rest of the weekend was fairly spodding, due to this horrible cold. We lazed in front of PotC 3 yesterday afternoon, pausing to eat pigeon pie with roast potatoes, sprouts (yes, I LIKE THEM, ok?) and red cabbage, then home made cheese scones.

Went down to Axbridge on Saturday to collect a tuner/amp very kindly offered by an acquaintance, which is now cabled up with some old Sony speakers from the garage. No word from the insurance company on television, amplifier and speakers, which probably bodes a bit.

That's it. I'm done.

Despite having far too much work to do, we looked out the window this morning, and said "fukkit", and took ourselves off to Slimbridge, as the Bewick swans are coming in.

We started in the café, with a slice each of a rather fine carrot cake, and a dish of tea, then ambled round in the autumn sunshine taking a lot of not all that good photos, but having a nice relaxing time nonetheless.

Home via the horror that is Makro, and we are now stocked up with 96 tines of catfud, which will probably last until Thursday, the rate they're scoffing.

I should really do some work now, but I think I'll just have the rest of the day off.


More photos here.

Yesterday morning, we went to the library to look at the "exhibition" of possible development of new housing round our village. It's a matter of "how", rather than "if", but there's going to be very little that Long Ashton can do in terms of influence, I fear. I took the opportunity to actually *join* the library - I've only lived in the village for 9 years, and I don't like to rush things. And then, of course, I borrowed some books, which was probably foolish given the size of my to-read heap.

After that, we trundled up to Telford, to collect half a cow from the inestimable Steve Rawlings. This is rather less meat than it sounds, as Dexters are small beasts anyway, and this was a small beast in Dexter terms too. On the way home, we stopped at a farm shop somewhere in Shropshire for some fruit and veg, and then at Ludlow Food Centre, which was very impressive, and not as expensive as it looked.

We bought a variety of sossidge (as we generally do when we spot new ones), a small shoulder of pork for perlmonger's birthday tea (a rather excellent looking pork goulash seen on The Boy Oliver's prog the other day), a red cabbage to accompany it, and an astonishingly looking elderflower and lime cheesecake, just because we could, really.

Today we have to do the "up to the elbows in gore" thing and get this cow bagged up for the freezer. We also have to deliver some Parish Plan questionnaires for data entry to two different households, go on the village walk this afternoon, and cook this goulash, which I have just discovered requires three hours in the oven after a load of prepping. And there's the red cabbage to do.

I'd better get on, I guess. Still, there is a bottle of Pelorus to look forward to after all our labours :)