All the way from New Zealand!

One of my college roomies lives in New Zealand (the other two from our senior-year Mod Quad live in Connecticut and Alaska). I last saw NZ roomie when we were both in New York, back in 2009.

She was in England for a wedding (her boyfriend was the best man), and came and visited us in Suffolk for two days. WOOT!

I took a day and a half off from work - I picked her up at the Bury station, we St Edmunds-ed ourselves, then we went to Ickworth and romped through the gardens and parkland, and then came home and made veggie shepherd's pie. Yum!

The following day, which was the first properly cold and autumnal day we've had, we adventured coast-ward.

We visited Framlingham castle (as windy as I've ever been there - it was tempting to cling to the railings!), and then revived ourselves with tea in Framlingham. A cream tea, even. See? It was excellent.

We then went to the seaside, Mr. Todd, down by the sea! Liz may or may not have serenaded the seagulls and me with this.



We took lots of pictures, including this one, of four seagulls pointing into the wind:

And this rock, which I liked. These were all taken with my new S95, by the way. Look at that blurry background!

And then we met John in Ipswich and went out for a curry at Indian Palace in Ipswich, after a recommendation from our veg box guy. Excellent.

Too bad she lives so far away - we had a blast!

Leftovers

We spent most of the weekend with John's best friend I. and his wife, C.  They came over for dinner on Saturday night, and after catching up on the tennis (yay Wimbledon) we walked into town. After much debate, we went to Radhuni rather than the Italian place, since John & I both think that the Italian needs a few more weeks to work the kinks out.

We had a fab dinner, but there was quite a bit left over. To John's horror, I asked if they could box up the leftovers (they do takeout). They came out with a HUGE bag - it was the end of the evening and they said that they'd put in a few 'extras' for me. I'll say. Our original leftovers came to 2 small tubs, and there was extra saag with potatoes, chickpea curry, and veggies. Oh, and more rice. I had curry for lunch on Sunday and dinner on Monday, and probably would have had dinner on Tuesday but John pronounced the leftovers 'too old' and I threw them out. Granted, there wasn't much left by then, but still.

John's parents are SO paranoid about leftovers - and leftover rice is apparently something that guarantees an immediate and painful death. My family, on the other hand, will order Chinese takeout on a random Tuesday and then continue noshing on the leftovers (including the rice) until at least Friday. Maybe we all have v. strong immune systems. Or have been really lucky. Does anyone else share my inlaws' leftover paranoia? I just hate throwing away food (and love leftover curry!)

Oh, and I almost forgot - we'd asked the guys at Radhuni to call us a taxi to go home. It was about 11 and we didn't feel like schlepping up the hill. The head waiter came over to our table after about five minutes and said that the taxi company had said they would be an hour. An HOUR...in bloody Stowmarket!  Where did all the people come from? Anyway, we said that wasn't a problem - we'd just walk down to the station and pick one up from there, or failing that, suck it up and walk home. He said, "No, no, I have a car - I'll drive you!"  We protested but he insisted. And, hey, who are we to turn down a lift? Teehee. He got a nice tip, anyway.

As part of our I. and C. extravaganza weekend, we went over to their house to watch the Euro Cup final and have a Spanish-themed supper. V. tasty with some awesome sangria. They have a ping-pong table in their back yard, and I lost 6 games to C, a further 3 to I. and then one to John. It was the final one that I was most surprised about - I didn't even know he could play ping-pong and he's always telling me how bad his hand-eye coordination is. My grandma used to have a table in her basement and my brother and I would play for hours at a time, although I haven't spent much time playing outside. I blame my losses on the wind, the sun, and the fact that I think their table is about 6 inches too narrow. All my shots kept going off the back end of the table. Bah.

Since I obviously suck at ping-pong, it's good that I learned two new things at bells this week. We rang at Great Finborough again, and I raised the front 3 bells, then rang the treble through a touch of Plain Bob Doubles (first new thing) and then 'blew behind' (rang the tenor) for Plain Hunt on 5 (second new thing). I hadn't rung the tenor before - it's always the biggest bell and I hadn't thought I was ready for it. Well, apparently I am.

All done

Well, I've finished the book. Last night at about 9:30, as a matter of fact. I've been trying to ponder what to post here and I'm going to avoid spoilers for a bit.

Apparently I was not the only person annoyed by the HP review in the New York times - they got thousands of letters from angry people. I still think while what they did was technically legal, it was morally wrong. One of the commenters suggested submitting it to Randy Cohen (The Ethicist from the Sunday Times Magazine) - I think it's a great idea.

We went out for a curry with Ian & Caroline on Friday night in Ipswich - we'd reserved our books so we figured that it wouldn't be too bad of a line at Waterstones. Er, yeah, we were wrong. Not only was there a HUGE line of people, going all the way down a v. long block and around several corners, we were only about 150 metres away from the store and we were in line for almost 2 hours after midnight. They only had 3 registers open and it was taking forever. And it was FREEZING cold - I had to put my fleece on over my HP shirt. We were, however, waiting next to a v. nice college student who kept us entertained.

Here they are:


And here's the line:


And here we are WITH OUR BOOKS!


We staggered back to the house, where I read the first chapter and tumbled in to bed. I woke up at 6:30 with the sun streaming in to our room, and started from the beginning again. We left at 9, had the best Little Chef breakfast I've ever had, and then came home, showered, and settled in. John was upstairs on the bed, and I was downstairs on the couch. I had two small interruptions to hang washing on the line, and was about 3/4 of the way through when we left for a bbq at my friend's house.

She's American, married to an Air Force navigator, and we were the only civilians at the party. It was fun, though. We had Bratwurst (she's from Minnesota) and lots of American food from the base. John thought it was all very strange.

We got home about 8, and I read straight through until 9:30. John read until about midnight, and then woke up at 7 this morning to finish.

I thought it was EXTREMELY good, and while I'm definitely feeling HP withdrawal, it's much more of a peaceful feeling than with any of the previous books.

Curry on a Monday?

As planned, I made this recipe. It was a HUGE hit - both John and I really loved it. It was super easy and I'll definitely be making it again soon.

From BBC Good Food: Prawn Curry In A Hurry

* 2 tbsp curry paste (they recommend Patak's Original Balti curry paste)
* 1 onion, finely sliced
* 200g large raw or cooked prawns, defrosted if frozen
* 400g can chopped tomatoes with garlic (I sauteed the garlic with the onions and just used regular tomatoes)
* large bunch coriander, leaves and stalks chopped

Serves 2
Prep 5 mins
Ready in 15 minutes

Drizzle some oil from the curry paste jar into a wok or large frying pan, gently heat, then add the onion. Sizzle over a low heat for 4 mins until the onion softens, then stir in the paste and cook for a few mins longer. Stir in the prawns and tomatoes, then bring to a simmer. If using raw prawns, simmer until they have changed colour and are cooked through. Season, if you like, then add the coriander just before serving with boiled rice and naan bread.

It was spicy and really tasty. And the rice was done before the dinner was - it was a fast one.

I also finished reading The Friday Night Knitting Club - it was a fun New York chick-lit book that was deeper than I was expecting it to be. Not Shakespeare, but enjoyable. I can't remember whose blog I saw it on, but thanks! Now the big internal struggle is about whether or not I have time to (start and) finish HP6 before Friday night...

The Constant Curryhouse

John and I both had completely crappy days at work yesterday, for totally different reasons. As much as I'd love to go in to great and gory detail, I don't want to get fired (or get anyone else fired, for that matter...)

In any case, we both just needed to wind down and enjoy the first evening in what seems like months when neither of us HAD to do something either that night or the following morning.

We also didn't particularly feel like cooking, so we walked over to Radhuni, our favourite Indian restaurant. We got there at about 6:30 and it was hoppin'! We're really glad they're busy, since we used to go there on a Friday evening and be the only people in the restaurant for 2 hours. We said hi to all the usual guys and ordered our normal 'variations on a theme' dinner. We're somewhat adventurous in our ordering but we also don't eat out as much as we used to, since we're saving money for carpets and furniture and other such luxuries. Anyway, the food was absolutely amazing and the service was really good. John loves Tarka Dal, which is kind of a lentil & garlic stew thing, and every time we have it at Radhuni, it's slightly different. This time, it was really garlicky and just smoky enough. YUM. The food there has always been really good, but if it continues like this we're going to have to move in.

We stopped at Blockbuster on the way home and rented 3 movies (one Kate movie, one John movie and one compromise. We watched The Constant Gardener (the compromise) when we got home - it was completely gripping and really well-filmed. It's was really draining, though, so we both conked out right after it finished. If you haven't seen it, definitely check it out.

John has nipped in to the office to run some random updates, so I'm curled up on the couch, trying to decide between watching the Kate movie (The Prince and Me - I LOVE Julia Stiles) and do some knitting or make a cup of tea and read some more of the latest Isabel Dalhousie saga that I just picked up from the library. Decisions, decisions.