Skip to main content

Monthly Munch: June

We started the month feeling like a hotel (my parents, some university friends and Graham's family all visiting within ten days!) and ended the month staying in a hotel (our Newcastle trip).  In between we enjoyed the long days and sunshine with bike rides, barbeques, and Graham's new inflatable canoe.

Out for a walk with Graham's family
Toby



- has definitely entered the "Why?" stage.  I thought we'd skipped it, but sadly not.

- can do a scarily good snort (à la Peppa Pig) which entertains Theo no end.

- managed to sweet-talk his way behind the wheels of a Bentley Turbo R and a Massey Ferguson tractor at some recent events.




- announced that when he's five, he wants to drive a Subaru.

Quotes:

"I want to build with the avocado." (Meccano)

To one of the girls next door: "I'm three and you're four."
She: "I'm not four, I'm six."
Toby: "Six?? That's really old!"
Clearly he has a way with the ladies.


Theo

Blowing raspberries is one of his new tricks

- has definitely entered the "things in mouth" stage.

- giggles at Toby's antics, and when you tickle his cheeks.

- regularly sleeps through the night now, and gives you a big smile when you go in in the morning.  Such a sweet baby!

Do I look like a teacup?

Heeeellllppp!!!  I'm sinking!

Thankful for:

- strawberries from my very own plants

That's the canoe, having a trial inflation on the lawn
= several opportunities to do some cake decorating.  No paid gigs yet, but I feel like I'm not entirely forgetting all I once knew.

Recipe of the Month: Fish baked with fennel, red onion and orange


This is adapted from a recipe in the May edition of the Waitrose magazine.  I'm not sure what I think of fennel - raw, it has quite a strong aniseed flavour, but once cooked, it doesn't taste of anything much.  I liked the orange, though.  We ate this with a simple salad and some toast.

1 fennel bulb, finely sliced
1 large red onion, finely sliced
200g potatoes, finely sliced
1 orange, finely sliced (discard the ends)
2 white fish fillets, fresh or frozen
2 tbsp olive oil
dill or thyme

Preheat oven to 200°C.  Place fennel, onion, potatoes and orange in a baking tray.  Squeeze over any juice from the ends of the orange, and toss with 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil.   Roast for 10-15 minutes depending on whether your fish is fresh or frozen.

Give the veg a stir and add the fish (the original recipe used fresh cod; I used frozen pollock).  Drizzle with the remaining  1/2 tbsp olive oil, and season with the dill or thyme and salt and pepper.  Roast for 10-15 minutes longer.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Three Mile an Hour God: Spiritual Formation Book 10

"The affirmed life must not become either a lazy life or a happy-ever-after, easy life. The affirmed life is not a life of the power of positive thinking. To be affirmed by God means to live with danger and promise."   Kosuke Koyama's book Three Mile an Hour God was written out of the experience of the Second World War and its aftermath in Japan. As Koyama says in his preface, it is "a collection of biblical reflections by one who is seeking the source of healing from the wounds... inflicted by the destructive power of idolatry." The title speaks of a God who moves at walking pace - three miles an hour - and even, in Jesus, comes to a "full stop" - nailed to a cross. If we try to move faster than the love of God, says Koyama, we fall into idolatry. What is the book about? Three Mile an Hour God has 45 chapters, each a separate short reflection headed by a Bible verse. Some deal specifically with Japan, considering her role in WWII, the damage inflicte

National Forest Way: Ellistown, Bagworth, Nailstone

You may well say, "Where?" I'd never heard of any of these three villages before I planned to walk through them. Back in the 1970s, it would have been possible to travel between them underground. All three had collieries producing exceptional amounts of coal (Bagworth set a Guinness World Record). Nailstone and Bagworth collieries were connected in 1967, and Ellistown was merged with the other two in 1971. All the mines are long closed now. The railway lines have been taken up, the winding wheels turned into civic sculptures, and the pit sites transformed into country parks. It was a beautiful sunny day, but we'd had a lot of rain recently. Within five minutes of leaving Ellistown, I was glad I'd worn my wellies.   The way took me alongside a quarry site and then into a collection of woods: Common Hill Wood, Workmans Wood, Battram Wood. The colours of the trees in the November sunshine were beautiful. The path was a muddy mess. At Battram village I crossed a newly

National Forest Way: Normanton le Heath to Ellistown

This 9-mile walk took me through the Queen Elizabeth Jubilee Woods and Sence Valley Forest Park, and into the heavily-quarried countryside south of Coalville (no prizes for guessing what was mined there!) I originally planned to walk from Normanton le Heath to Donington le Heath, which had a pleasing symmetry. But I decided to go a bit further, to the hamlet of Ellistown.   It was a cold morning. I'd been in shorts the previous weekend, but today there was a frost. I added a flask of coffee, a scarf and gloves to my kit, and set off. For a small village, Normanton le Heath has a surprisingly wide road. I parked there rather than using the car park for the Jubilee Woods. That meant I was at my starting point straight away. I followed a road past some rather nice houses, crossed a field, and entered the Queen Elizabeth Jubilee Woods. The NFW leaflet told me that I was on the route of the Via Devana, a Roman road from Colchester to Chester. There isn't much left of it. a mosaic,