WTTW: Birthday brisket
A weekly hello and welcome to the week :)
Hello! Happy Monday!
I’m back from an impromptu hiatus which was brought about by me being poorly, mostly centred around celebrating my birthday - it is traditionally a month-long affair which features little to no work or responsibilities, FYI - and is coming to a close in a cloud of tissues (yep, she’s ill again). I’ve had the nicest, most revitalising break though! We’ve done a bit more decorating (emphasis on bit, emphasis on unfinished, however paint brushes were dirtied!), ticked a few more local pubs and eateries off our list, explored new Wiltshire walks via Alex’s midlife crisis car and thrown a garden party for the aforementioned 34th. Temps weren’t exactly high for the celebrations but the sun had his hat on pretty much all day after WEEKS of rain, and pulled pork and brisket buns, macaroni cheese, spuds, coleslaw, ice cream and cake flowed alongside the fizz. There’s still clearing up to do and bunches of flowers hastily dunked in pint glasses to decant and display, and isn’t that just lovely? Obviously, I don’t relish the idea of scrubbing BBQ sauce off door handles, but there’s an extended joy in the remnants of an occasion thoroughly enjoyed, the evidence of your favourite people having been in your space. It’s all the sweeter because I’d been planning to have a party where my family and friends could meet and mingle as far back as my 30th, which was usurped by lockdown, and when my dad got sick soon after, one of my saddest thoughts was that we’d never get to do that. Of course, I had little control over a global pandemic, but I do think that’s a little lesson in doing the things you want to do, not shying away from being noisy about milestones (or no milestone/reason to gather at all!), slurping the joy out of every event and being with your loved ones as much as you possibly can because you don’t know what will happen. I’m very lucky that the stars aligned and my dad’s still here to share special moments with (and not just because he made the best chocolate and strawberry ice cream for the masses).
Stuff has been happening in the greenhouse and in the back beds, veg-wise, which I’ll fully update you on in April’s garden round-up (March’s is here), and I’ve been adding to my thoughts about leaving London for the countryside with a full year’s worth of actually living here under our belts (the six-month update is here if you’d like to catch up). I feel like the enforced outdoor time as we catered for too many people to be inside at the weekend has officially broken the seal on al fresco living and dining (and perhaps resulted in this cold I now have, whoopsie), and I can’t wait to spend the impending season on the sun lounger Alex gifted me, Kindle in hand, pizza oven smoking in the background, post a session pottering about in the soil. Heaven!
Right, I’m off to walk my furry bestie ahead of the Great Clean while I listen to Taylor’s latest offering - not a bad start to the week, eh? Enjoy yours!
A fun, easy, nostalgic guide to making gummy bears!
A reminder that sunny weekends are around the corner and soon it will be too late to bag the best garden furniture in time to wake up one random bright morning and say ‘TODAY, I’m going to lounge about on the lawn all day’ or ‘TONIGHT, shall we have a bbq?’. Get organised now, be smug soon
I like this idea that we can (have to?) decide to love our lives. Be the main character, romanticise the mundane!
This is the mac and cheese recipe we used at the weekend and literally every guest has asked for the recipe (I rate it because you don’t have to make a roux, it’s basically cream, yolks and cheese all melted together). Side note: I use the word ‘we’ loosely, my really great pal and renowned Carb Queen put her small child in a high chair, rolled up her sleeves and made several trays of the stuff while simultaneously ruining her nails doing a whole lot of washing up while I flapped about achieving not much at all…
Imagine having this to look back on! A family took a photo of themselves every year for 30 years and it is the cutest thing watching them all grow and age and change
