Weekend in Amsterdam

Oh. My. God!

Amazing holiday!

We had such a fantastic time in Amsterdam and I can’t believe we’re now both back at work and it’s over.

Last Thursday I headed over to Jeff’s house after work, we cooked, he packed and we went to bed relatively early (after filling up all the bird feeders of course – the birds would get hungry if we left them for a few days!) We set the alarm for 06:15, but I was awake before then, as was Jeff. We set off, drove to Heathrow and parked in the Long stay car park – If you haven’t tried driving to Heathrow and using their car parks I would certainly recommend it. Whilst there is a mini bus journey of 3-4 minutes to reach the terminal, the mini buses were really frequent and we were standing at the mini bus stop for about 30 seconds before one trundled up and picked us up!

The flight was only 45 minutes and we got a taxi to the Hotel. The hotel was brilliant. We stayed at the ‘Convent Hotel, Amsterdam’ which I had found on Expedia and checked it out on Trip Advisor. At the time, it was ranked 20th out of over 300 and I’m pleased to report it certainly didn’t disappoint us. The room was immaculate, really clean and the bed was exceptionally comfy. It was also in a wonderful location so we could walk to Ann Frank’s house within 10 minutes, the red light district within 15 minutes and a pancake house within 10 seconds!

We arrived at our hotel just after midday and true to our ‘usual’ holidays were out the door, investigating instantly. ‘Let’s go to the Heineken experience’, I suggested to Jeff and with that, we walked out the door, turned left and off we went to sample Amsterdam’s most famous beer. On our way to the brewery we found the most amazing ‘arcade museum’ if you’ve played any console in the past 30 years you’d be pretty amazed at how many feeling can be invoked by playing some of the console games you played as a child. I used to have a Nintendo, whilst Jeff was apparently a whizz at the SNES. We wandered round and played on various consoles for a good 45 minutes and it was brilliant fun – I even beat Jeff at Super Mario cart :-) I don’t think he was overly happy with that... Hehehehe.

We continued to walk down to the Heineken brewery and were able to bypass the queues as I had bought our tickets online. The tour was pretty cool and I certainly learnt a lot about beer, even though I don’t drink it myself. You learnt the history about the beer, how the beer is bottled, what goes into the beer and you got a funky wristband with two tokens which you could exchange for.... Heineken! You even got to 'be the beer' and were shook around, had water sprayed on you and were 'bottled', which was quite amusing.

After the tour we decided to go and get something to eat and on our way to the brewery had found a pancake house about 2 minutes away. We popped in there and had our first Amsterdam pancake – For Jeff, he had a savoury one with cheese, bacon etc, whereas I kept with tradition and had one smothered with chocolate. One of the odd things about Amsterdam, as well as a lot of other European countries is – where on earth is the fresh milk when you get tea? I am a bit of a tea fiend and I found that I had to ask for fresh milk, else I got random condensed stuff. Still – it certainly didn’t ruin our holiday and when in Rome....

After the pancakes we decided we’d do a canal boat trip as there was a canal boat stand opposite the Heineken brewery. We bought our tickets and popped into a small pub for 45 minutes to wait for the canal boat trip to start – it was about 1 degree outside so there was no way we were going to wait outside and freeze! The canal boat trip was lovely, however both Jeff and I were incredibly tired as we had got up very early that day – also, there were 2 very annoying children in front of us who wouldn’t 1) shut up and 2) stop fidgeting around – unfortunately the boat was a glass boat with no open windows so there was sadly no opportunity to throw them overboard. As we were listening to the tour, it got dark which made Amsterdam look even more beautiful, but also made Jeff even more tired so he kept falling asleep! I think we were both glad to finish the tour and walk back to our hotel for a break.

That night (Friday) we decided we wouldn’t eat far from our hotel so went to an ‘all you can eat’ Japanese restaurant which was brilliant! You had 5 ‘rounds’ and could order 5 dishes per person, per round – so between Jeff and myself we could order 10 plates each round. We ordered loads of really odd things like ‘Octopus balls’, ‘Squid balls’ and marinated lamb chops – all of which was utterly divine. We were so stuffed when we came out and were very glad our hotel was only a couple of minutes walk away. The first night I slept pretty well which was surprising as one of the things that I was really nervous about was sleeping in the same bed as Jeff as throughout our relationship before – he snored really badly. Thankfully the £50 of snoring stuff he had purchased just before the trip seemed to do the trick and we both managed to get some sleep – it also helped that the bed was really, really comfy.

So – Saturday morning. I had booked Ann Frank’s house tickets online so we had to be there at 10:45 in the morning. We were out of the hotel by 09:00 and headed out to find some breakfast. We found Ann Frank’s house and right next door was a pleasant looking cafe so we headed in there for some munchies. We ordered some pastrami with cheese and gherkins on bread – not my favourite Dutch breakfast but at least I tried it! Jeff had the same, just without the cheese and he decided to try the Dutch hot chocolate ‘Chocomel’ which was quite nice, but personally I don’t think I topped the Italian hot chocolate I tried in Rome last year.

Ann Frank’s house was very moving – I had been there before when I was last in Amsterdam but as Jeff hadn’t ever been to Holland before, I thought it was a good idea to make sure he had done the ‘Top Ten’ bits and I think he enjoyed it too. I was again, glad I had booked the tickets online as the queue was pretty massive! After Ann Frank’s house we wandered down the canal and decided to go to the Rijksmuseum which if I’m honest, I was a bit disappointed about. They’re currently doing renovations, so a lot of the museum is closed and we managed to go round the entire Philips wing in about 30 minutes! For 12.50 Euro’s each, I just thought that was a bit of a rip off and whilst the paintings and exhibits on display were very interesting, it was just a shame there wasn’t more there – Still, at least we did what we could.
After that it was lunch time... However, rather than eating, I was obsessed with trying to find the Dutch ‘Cat Boat’ (Poezenboot) which is where all the stray cats stay in Amsterdam. It was only open between 1pm and 3pm and I was desperate to find it as I am rather keen on the 4 legged creatures :-) (http://www.poezenboot.nl/?taal=uk) After a few wrong directions, we finally managed to find it – we were rather knackered, having walked for over 90 minutes trying to work out where it was, however I thought it was worth it. We managed to get there whilst it was open and stroke the stray cats inside – obviously I stole all of Jeff’s change, combined it with whatever I had in my purse and left it as a donation – if I could have taken the cats home with me, I would have done! What a wonderful thing to have seen – all the stray cats being well cared for and hopefully finding new homes.

Once I had seen enough cats, both Jeff and I agreed it was time for food, however we just couldn’t find anywhere nice to eat and the places we did look at, looked very full. Both of us were very knackered and Jeff seemed to get a bit snappy, which meant I went rather quiet and subdued – after just not finding anywhere nice we headed back to the hotel and just chilled for a little while before heading out again and grabbing a pancake from the cafe right next to our hotel. Thankfully this time around Jeff and I seem to be better at communicating with each other and sorted out the ‘issue’ – he apologised for being a bit snappy and explained why and I made sure I didn’t harp on about anything and stopped being quiet – I’m not counting this as our first ‘argument’ as both of us listened to the other person and it seemed to blow over pretty quickly – which is VERY different to how we used to discuss things.

The pancakes were brilliant and after a rest in the hotel I took Jeff to the red light district. Jeff was very ‘gentlemanly’ about the entire experience and not once did he say anything rude or derogatory about the prostitutes. Nor did he comment on how they looked, which I appreciated as I’m not the most ‘secure’ person about my looks and being with someone who kept saying ‘Corr, she’s a bit of alright’ or ‘Wow, she’s stunning!’ would probably not have been a pleasant experience for me. We wandered around for a bit longer and Jeff bought me a waffle from a kebab shop – was this a ‘normal’ waffle? Hell no! It was the best waffle I had ever tasted and after this weekend I have to say that the Dutch seem to have got the whole pancake / waffle thing down rather well.

Unfortunately Saturday night did not bring very good sleep as Jeff’s snoring kicked back in – this left me rather knackered on Sunday morning! We checked out by 10:00 and went to the Sex museum which only cost 4 Euros and was good for a laugh. We did try and find some more pancakes but actually opted for a lovely cafe in Dam square and ordered a ‘full English’ which I don’t usually like doing as prefer to actually try some of the local cuisine, rather than the stuff you can get at home – that being said, the breakfast was lovely and when we had some food inside us, we went to the floating flower markets. We actually bought some tulip bulbs – some black and blue ones and some red and yellow ones – we’re planning on planting these in tubs, in Jeff’s garden in a few weeks time so watch this space! We also bought some sweet pea seeds as I thought they would be nice to grow and they smell gorgeous.

Our last lunch in Amsterdam and we decided on the most famous pancake place – ‘The pancake bakery’ which is close to Ann Frank’s house and has over 100 pancakes on the menu. It was really busy and in order to get a table we had to agree to share it with another couple which was fine with us. Jeff went for a ‘Brazilian’ (oo-er missus!) which had pecans and amaretto in it, whereas I decided to make my own with ice cream, chocolate sauce and amaretto – it was absolutely gorgeous, however I couldn’t finish it, nor could Jeff! We left feeling totally stuffed 

We headed back to the hotel, got our suitcases and got on a train to the airport. Our flight was ever so slightly delayed and the queue at passport control in England was utterly horrendous! I think we were standing in a line for nearly an hour which seemed really stupid – God knows why Boarder Control can’t sort it out! Ahh well... I think both of us were too tired to be annoyed.

We got back home at 19:00 which wasn’t too bad at all – I immediately filled up the bird feeders which were totally empty (not surprising) and Jeff sorted out things for work and dealt with ‘house things’ before I cooked, we watched some TV and went to bed by 22:30. Jeff had to be up by 05:30 so he left me in bed and said goodbye whilst looking very gorgeous as he has a job interview today.

It was an absolutely wonderful, wonderful holiday and I can’t wait until our next one which is in April – We’re going to Northumberland for a few days to take photographs of Puffins, visit castles and generally enjoy spending time together.

-Molly

Amsterdam - 3 days and counting

I can't believe we're nearly off to Amsterdam!

Jeff and I used to travel a lot when we were first together - sometimes abroad and a lot of short UK breaks and it was always good fun. When we first got back in contact (22nd November 2010) I suggested I book a weekend for us, sort everything out and it would be a total surprise. Jeff agreed and transferred  some cash to me (quite nice that he had that level of trust in me and didn't think I was going to spend it all on chocolate and never speak to him again!) and I booked our holiday.

I kept trying to put him off the scent and I think he thought we were going 'Up North' in the UK. Whilst I am awful at keeping secrets I did manage to keep it - well, that's until I texted my Uncle and Aunt, telling them I couldn't visit them as I was off to Amsterdam and then stupidly showed Jeff their reply - he could still read the bit about Amsterdam - Stupid, stupid me. Still - I think he was quite excited. He's never been to the Netherlands so it's completely new for him. I've been once - a couple of years ago for a weekend with a friend and whilst I had a lovely time, my friend got quite stroppy for some of it, so it wasn't the best holiday I have ever had.

The last time I saw Jeff was on Sunday for a few hours before he had to go to work. I caught him in his kitchen, chocolate coating random fruit as it happens! The chocolate covered apricots turned out so well, Jeff decided to try other things such as raisins and cranberries. Whilst I want to go as long as possible without arguing with him, there was a bit of an undercurrent when he refused to let me run off with the bowl of melty chocolate! (I know it was because Jeff is trying not to sabotage the healthy eating regime... but even so - melted chocolate, how can anyone resist?). We had a lovely few hours and in that time managed to fill up Jeff's bird feeders again (Oh my God, the amount of birds he currently has in the garden is brilliant! They're very greedy though...) We also had a chat about what to do in Amsterdam.

Well, we've booked the car parking in the airport and I've booked tickets to Ann Frank's house and the 'Heineken Experience'(I can't stand the stuff, but apparently the tour and the museum are quite interesting) and printed out all the information on our flights and hotels... I'm staying round at Jeff's house on Thursday night and then Friday morning we fly out to Amsterdam! It's only for a couple of nights, but it should be absolutely brilliant as we've not been away for so long together and the last time we did go away - whilst it was good, our relationship wasn't in a great place due to all the issues I've mentioned in previous blogs. So, second time lucky hopefully :-)

- Molly

Never a dull Wednesday night

What do couples do in the evenings?

Jeff and I had an ‘interesting’ night last night – It certainly wasn’t boring, that’s for sure!

I popped over after work and pretty much straight away we decided to make a Shepherd’s pie so that Jeff had something to eat in the next few days (Oh, he can cook himself and he cooks really well... but I enjoy cooking and we seem to work well in the kitchen together – I don’t want to kill him :-) ) After the Shepherd’s pie we cracked straight on with our dinner – what were we having? Scallops! I think I had had scallops once before and couldn’t remember much about them as it was a long time ago. Jeff had mentioned a week or so ago that he had seen them on special offer in a supermarket (they’re quite expensive!) so we decided to find a recipe online and see what we could do.

Things got off to an interesting start when Jeff opened the bag of the 12 scallops and it was kinda stinky :-S Apparently you needed to wash them, so after getting over the weird texture, I washed all of them and popped them on a chopping board. We were cooking them with chorizo, shallots, sherry vinegar and grilled bacon.

What did they taste like? Hm... well, they tasted OK I guess, but I don’t think either of us were that fussed – I certainly wasn’t fussed a few hours later when I had to reacquaint myself with the toilet in a very intimate fashion. Scallops might be expensive and thus ‘posh’ in some worlds, but give me a nice Sea Bass or piece of cod any day over the weird, meaty little white things.  I think we did a good job making the plate look pretty but nope, I don’t think that’s a recipe we shall try again.

We then went to the supermarket to get some bits and bobs and then went for a drink – It was interesting what topic of conversation came up – Marriage, weddings etc. When we were first together, I think our relationship had become quite stale and I for one couldn’t really see a future with Jeff – perhaps due to my awful job, perhaps just because I was younger and not really thinking about such things or perhaps due to laziness and not wanting things to change. Either way, we now seem to be on the same page in terms of the future – Hell, we’re certainly not planning on getting hitched or popping sprogs out any time soon (Jeff couldn’t pop sprogs out at any time of course, due to the fact he’s a bloke) but it’s a nice feeling to know that the person you are seeing could be the one you spend the rest of your life with AND the fact that they want the same things as you.

We then headed back home and watched some more trashy TV. Last night I had recorded ‘Fat families’ on Jeff’s sky plus box so we watched that as well as some ‘Come dine with me’. Whilst Jeff doesn’t really watch much TV, he seemed to shout at it more than me, so all his protestations of not enjoying watching such crap on Sky doesn’t hold much water, really :-)

We’re next seeing each other on Sunday, so not too far away. It’s my birthday tomorrow so I’m looking forward to being totally spoilt by my friends and family and then seeing Jeff on Sunday – I think, considering less than 2 months ago I never thought I’d see Jeff again, I’ve already got quite a nice present – a possible future with him in it.

- Molly

Sunday blues

Sunday nights are certainly not my favourite time of the week. You've got that horrible 'back to work dread' and you know that in a few hours you've more than likely got 5 days of work before any more time off.

Jeff and I had a brilliant Saturday night and Sunday morning. As I mentioned in my last post, I popped over to Jeff's house before he got back from his shift, let myself in his house and started cooking. What he didn't know, was that not only was I going to cook him a low GI shepherd's pie and stuffed baked apples, but I had decided I was going to cook a massive saucepan full of meat paella so he had something to take to work for the next few days - I thought it was a nice way of saying 'Thank you' for the effort he went to with the chocolate covered apricots.

I arrived at his house 2 hours before he was due home. Plenty of time, no? God no! I was trying to do all 3 dishes at once and managed to burn myself on his grill whilst grilling sausages. His fire alarm kept going off in the hall, so I had to keep the kitchen door shut, which was OK on one hand, but on the other, it didn't half make the kitchen hot! So I was there, cooking, sweat literally running down my back, trying to make sure everything was sorted for 20:00 when Jeff was due back. I finished the paella first and popped it into 4 tubs so Jeff could literally take it to work with him, it takes a little while to make and was originally a vegetarian recipe in one of my BBC Good Food recipe books - However I added bacon, sausages and chorizo. It uses smoked paprika which is gorgeous and a very large pinch of saffron which really does give it a nice flavour.

Next! Right... once the paella was sorted, I finished off the Shepherds pie – As I’m following a low GI diet I made the mashed potato from a mixture of ‘normal’ potato and sweet potato – it looked fine and was still easy to spread. I stuck it in the oven and ran upstairs to have a very quick shower, after all, what woman wants the man she loves to see her hot and sweaty? (Ok, bad choice of words, but you know what I mean!).

Once I had made myself slightly more presentable, I started on the stuffed baked apples – I had never done this recipe before, so followed what the recipe said more than usual. Breadcrumbs, orange zest, cinnamon, raisins, brown sugar and a little butter. I mixed it around, stuck it all in a cored Bramley apple and then stuck some water and the juice of the orange in the bottom….

Jeff came home at the time he said and dinner was pretty much ready! I was rather chuffed he seemed to really like the Shepherds pie and the baked apple was pretty successful as well, even though it nearly exploded in the skin. We had bought some low fat ice-cream on Friday night so had a scoop of that – I’m not sure what the difference is, as it tasted like ‘normal’ ice-cream to us!

It was a lovely night and we sat on the sofa, cuddled and watched some more weird documentaries that I had recorded on Jeff’s Sky plus a few days ago. Nice food plus great company meant the time went way too quickly.

This morning Jeff didn’t have to get up really early to go to work as he managed to get today off – We had a lazy morning in bed, made some breakfast and I filled up his bird feeders in the garden as all the greedy blue tits had managed to eat all the seed – he only filled it up a couple of days ago, if that! After that, we went for a small jaunt to a recycling bank so Jeff could get rid of all his Christmas bottles that had been accumulating in his kitchen and then sat on the sofa, drinking tea and watching the birds eat the newly placed seed on Jeff’s bird feeder.

One thing that did put an ever-so-slight ‘downer’ on the weekend was a video I watched of Jeff’s holiday last year that was made by a friend. He was with his ex at the time and I had tried very hard not to find out what she looked like – it’s never nice to compare yourself and as I’m not overly keen on my looks (whether that’s right or wrong, I don’t know) I thought I could do without seeing the woman he was dating after splitting up with me. Jeff said he had looked through the video and she didn’t feature but unfortunately he had missed one scene with her in it – Hmm, cue rather big stomach ache and sick feeling! I suppose it just made the whole thing more ‘real’, I mean – If I don’t know what she looks like, what her surname is etc, I can’t search for her on Facebook, see what she’s like etc – It wasn’t nice seeing her and whilst Jeff would probably never admit it in a million years, she certainly didn’t look like the ‘ugly’ person he made her out to be!

We had a chat about it and Jeff was very understanding, especially considering he had nothing to justify and nothing to apologise for – just me being worried for nothing, apparently. I know things like that are going to upset me, however I’m hoping it doesn’t happen again – at least for a while.

Sadly I had a personal training session this afternoon, so I had to head off at lunch time, however I think we’re both really looking forward to seeing each other on Wednesday already and on the 27^th of January we fly out to Amsterdam – our first ‘proper’ holiday since we got back in contact, Hurrah!

- Molly

Friday night and everything's alright

You know sometimes, when you step out the door and it seems like the entire universe is against you? You find you've got a flat tyre, you are stuck in a massive traffic jam, you realise you've forgotten your wallet etc? It's as if you were never meant to go out your front door in the first place!

I am pretty sure other people feel like that every so often - I know I do, so it was a very nice change when last night, everything went right!

Jeff and I decided to go to a fish restaurant in Winchester so as he wasn't working, he picked me up after work and we headed to a Supermarket to buy food for the weekend (not exactly exciting, but necessary) We managed to nip round the isles in record time and didn't forget anything (not bad, considering we never wrote a list and had to remember everything).

The drive down to Winchester wasn't too bad considering it was it a Friday night - it was slightly weird as I hadn't actually been to Winchester since Jeff and I split up in October 2009 and we hadn't driven down there for a good, what? 6-10 months before that. We found a car park and drove in there at 18:02 - why is the time important? As after 18:00 you get free parking, hurrah! 

As the first available table was 20:15 we went for a wander and went to see Winchester Cathedral which looks beautiful in the night time. Nearby, there's this very odd column, with loads of lights - it has mobile numbers on the base and if you text one of the numbers, the column changes colour and you receive a text back! It's most odd, but it does work as Jeff managed to text it and all the lights turned to purple!

We went to a bar, had a nice drink and a chat - it's odd to think we've been back in contact less than 2 months as things do feel very 'comfortable'. That being said, I still keep talking about us splitting up - whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, I don't know, but I suppose when you split with someone there are sometimes a lot of unanswered questions and the only way you find things out, is to ask. That being said, I also think it's important not to dwell on the past and hopefully the reasons we broke up in the first place are no longer valid, so the chances of it happening again are much less.

We decided to take a chance and wander to the restaurant early, only to find out that they could accommodate us - Result! Our waiter was really attentive and the food was fabulous. We even managed to both eat healthily and really enjoyed the evening - so good driving, good parking, good meal, good service and definitely good company - it was a GREAT night out.

Tonight we're spending the night together and I can't wait. Jeff is currently still at work, so I'll be driving down to his house, letting myself in and cooking for us. Don't get me wrong, I'm most certainly NOT a 1950's type of housewife who prepares the dinner before her husband gets back from work, however I do love cooking and as it's the weekend and Jeff's on shift, surely it's a nice thing to do as it means he can relax and we can spend more time together, rather than spending time cooking when he gets back? Plus…who do you think will be doing the washing up? :-)

7 weeks 'together' (although we're not calling each other boyfriend / girlfriend yet... don't want to jinx anything!) and things are going exceptionally swimmingly.

- Molly

Cooking marathon!

Hurrah! Half way through the working week already.

I don't know if it's just me, but when I'm at work or doing something I'm not overly keen on doing, time always seems to go more slowly. However when I'm doing 'fun stuff', time always seems to go much more quickly. I guess there really is something in the old 'Time flies when you're having fun'!

After work yesterday I popped over to see Jeff for a few hours. I was a bit knackered as my day at work had been quite long and stressful. As soon as I knocked on the door and walked into his house he let me know that he had been busy - making chocolate covered apricots! (A bit of background here - Whilst I am on a healthy eating plan, I am staying off all chocolate. However, I seem to be addicted to the dark chocolate covered apricots I have been sent in my 'Graze box' (www.Graze.com - an amazing thing I discovered last year which helped me stop snacking on crisps and lardy things). I mentioned to Jeff that I rather liked them but wasn't able to find them to buy, anywhere and was rather chuffed to think that he had made me some :-) and yes, they did taste really, really nice. I'm not overly great at not eating chocolate covered things if they are in my vicinity, so Jeff gave me about 10 in a bag and has kept the rest in his fridge - Good plan! If I don't have them, I can't eat all of them at once :-)

We had a nice chat and Jeff mentioned that he didn't really have anything in the fridge to eat for the next few days and as he's off shift until Saturday, healthy eating might be slightly hard. I suggested we do a quick dash to the supermarket and whip up a few things he could keep in his fridge and eat 'on the road', whilst he's seeing friends, family and generally not at home.

We managed to leave the house at 19:10 and were back, with food at 20:20, which is impressive considering the Supermarket is about 20 minutes drive away! We started dinner as we were both starving but also cooked a massive amount of bolognaise sauce AND some lamb flatbread (http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/5989/fragrant-lamb-flatbreads) one of the best recipes I have ever tried from the BBC Good Food website!

For our dinner we had 'Satay pork' which wasn't too bad, however I don't think I put enough chilli sauce into the peanut butter, so it wasn't as runny as I would have liked - as you can see by the photo, it had a kind of 'crust' on it. Nevertheless, it was certainly tasty and the pork chops Jeff had bought from the Farm shop earlier that day were bloody gorgeous. After dinner we even had time to watch some of the weird documentaries we had recorded last week on Jeff's Sky plus box - 'Sex Change' was particularly interesting :-)

I headed back slightly earlier than I said I would as I was absolutely knackered and had no desire to fall asleep at the wheel. As crap as it was having to leave Jeff after a few hours, it wasn't that bad, as we will be seeing each other on Friday night for a lovely meal out and to celebrate the end of my working week!

- Molly

Meatloaves and more bird seed in 4 hours

One of the annoying things about shift work is - that the days and nights can 'shift', therefore one week you're working nights at the weekend and a few weeks later you're working Monday to Thursday during the day time and actually have time off at the weekend! Sadly Jeff's working nights this week, therefore it's not really been possible to see him much - However, unlike the last time when we were a couple and he made ALL the effort to drive to where I was working (about 170 miles away from his house!) I am absolutely committed to making sure effort comes from both sides.

So, I popped down to Jeff's house at 2pm and let myself in (he gave me keys - I didn't need to break in!) and woke him up. We then had a brief chat and he got up and showered etc whilst I busied myself in the kitchen, making myself lunch and him - breakfast. I tried a new recipe today, spicy mini meatloaves - they actually turned out rather well, especially considering I mis-read the recipe and added the chilli sauce to the mixture, instead of drizzling it over the top, before putting it into the oven for 25 minutes. In order to continue our healthy eating regime I popped them on a bed of salad and didn't make them any bigger than they should have been. Success! They tasted really, really nice and Jeff had one left over to take to work tonight :-)

We had a lovely lunch - when I looked outside at Jeff's birdfeeder I couldn't believe how much seed the birds had eaten - He told me he only filled all the feeders up a few days ago. I popped out to the garage to make sure the birds didn't go hungry and then announced to Jeff we were now out of seed so suggested a quick trip to the garden centre to get some more. One of the programs I rather like on TV is 'Spring/Autumnwatch' on the BBC and I always recall one of the presenters (Can't remember which one) saying that if the birds get used to you feeding them, then you really shouldn't stop.

Jeff put me on his insurance a few days ago (which thankfully didn't cost very much) so I decided to bite the bullet and drive his car to the garden centre. As I'm writing this I think it's a fair assumption that we are still alive and no, I didn't crash! In FACT, it was much easier to drive than his previous car - a Passat. I've got a rather nippy Vauxhall and thankfully the bite points on both cars seem to be about the same. Obviously I had to adjust the car seat (I don't know if it's a man thing or just a 'Jeff' thing, but he has the seat so far back, he's almost horizontal!) and bring myself closer to the pedals as he's taller than me, but apart from that, it was great.

We decided we may as well buy in bulk - especially when the bird seed was 'Buy one, get one free'. However, as you only got offered this deal if you registered as a member of the garden centre, Jeff got a card and was asked to complete his details ASAP (I couldn't resist a 'middle aged' joke there... Member of a garden centre at our tender age? ;-)) However, we got 2 x 15Kg bags of bird seed for £16.99, so result!

We drove back home and then spent the next couple of hours chatting, hugging and well, no one needs to know all the details! Needless to say it was a very enjoyable 4 hours - sadly it wasn't longer but Jeff needed to go to work. We drove to his work in convoy as I live very close to where he works and then we went our separate ways. Currently Jeff is at work and I am at home, watching the appalling film that is 'Charlie's Angels' and wishing all of them would die.

Next week should be good as we're hopefully seeing each other quite a lot - I'm not sure we can have more fun than cooking and buying masses amount of seed for our feathered friends, but I'm sure we can try....

-Molly

National Trust challenge

When I was a student and able to skive off every so often, Jeff and I used to take advantage of mid-week skives and visit a number of National Trust and English Heritage properties. We both loved learning about History and liked getting out in the fresh air so it combined both!

Sadly I started working about a few years ago and as a Consultant, was sent all over the UK and lived away from home - this sadly meant that we only had weekends to visit stately homes and impressive monuments and towards the end of our relationship, other things seemed to become more important so the day trips sadly tailed off.

The list of places we went to was huge and to be honest, I doubt either of us could remember how many we went to and what they were called. A number do stand out - including Traquair House in Scotland (we were lucky enough to stay there) and Fountains Abbey, which is in Yorkshire and an exceptionally impressive ruined abbey which I fell in love with when I saw it.

We also went to Warkworth Castle in Northumberland which apparently was once home to 'Harry Hotspur', hero of many Border ballads and the bane of Scots raiders. All the photographs you see on all the blogs are mine BTW, I fancy myself as a bit of an amateur photographer and thankfully Jeff fancies himself as a very laid back kind of bloke so is more than happy to let me snap away as much as I want - Another thing I never appreciated when we were together the first time. Some people get quite impatient when you're stood there for a few minutes adjusting various controls, changing lenses etc. When in Northumberland we also visited Alnwick and Bamburgh - both of which are stunning and far more impressive than a lot in the South of England. Apparently there are over 70 castles in Northumberland - even we didn't manage to do all of them (well, not yet, anyway!).

The last place Jeff and I went to was in June 2009 (4 months before we split up) and was Scotney Castle which isn't a castle, but in fact 2 beautiful houses which were built in 1837.

As a 'new us' I suggested to Jeff we do them all over again and he doesn't think it's such a bad idea :-) So, this begins the 'National Trust Challenge' which entails us going to as many National Trust places in 2011 as possible - that, combined with our holidays and random jaunts (e.g. the National Cheese awards) should prove very interesting!

- Molly

Cooking and cruising

Sadly I am now back at work for the year and Jeff is off until tomorrow. One of the good things about working where I do, is that it's only about 3 miles from where Jeff lives, which means that unlike before (when I was working 200 or so miles away from where Jeff lived) it's MUCH easier to see each other in the evenings and this was demonstrated last night when I popped round to Jeff's house after work and we not only created another culinary delight, but also went 'cruising' in Jeff's car, where he lives to see what interesting things were around at night time.

What did we cook? Well, as I have said before, both Jeff and I are on a healthy eating kick. Therefore, it was something low fat from one of my celebrity recipe books - 'Harrisa lamb with rocket in pita bread'. Jeff kindly bought all the ingredients yesterday so when I popped round we had everything we needed to cook with. We marinated the lamb in lemon juice, fresh chopped mint, harrisa paste and sea salt and then fried it with a very little olive oil and hey presto! Jeff seemed to really like it and I thought it was as good as ever.

After dinner, I suggested we go for a bit of a drive and see what interesting things we could find. So off we went! Sadly the weather wasn't overly great so taking photographs was limited, however we did find a lovely church - 'St Michaels' and Jeff showed me where he used to live (He's been in the area for a long time!). It was weird driving to some of the places we went to, as we hadn't been to them for about 2-3 years (e.g. before we broke up) but I guess you have to put old memories out of your mind at some point, especially if they're ones that don't make you happy.

We got back to his house and watched complete trash on TV for a couple of hours before heading to bed, it was really nice just cuddling on the sofa watching mind numbingly awful 'freak show' documentaries (You know the type where the channel has tried to portray odd / weird people in a concerned way, but really all they want people to do is say 'Oh my God! Look at them!?) Whilst Jeff doesn't usually watch that kind of thing, by the end of it, he was also shouting at the TV in frustration, so I consider that a good thing :-)

As he's back to work tomorrow, we won't be seeing each other for a few days, but we've already decided on 'cool' stuff to do when we do next meet so we're both counting down the hours until we see each other again!

-Molly

Squid and birdseed

So, after spending Christmas and New Year apart, we finally met again - the 2nd of January, after Jeff drove back from his parents. I drove down to his house to see him and all we did was practically cuddle for ages! We then went to the pub, had a chat about what we had been up to in our time apart and both pushed the boat out and had a mineral water (both of us are trying to lose weight and be more healthy).

Today we have been doing random things in a random way with an extra helping of randomness! As it's a bank holiday, a lot of things aren't open and sadly most National Trust and English Heritage sites are now closed until March, when it gets a bit warmer. Therefore we decided to go to the New Forest on a bit of a jaunt and see what we could find. We got up and went shopping - not overly exciting, however Jeff had been given some massive 'killer' squid as a Christmas present from his sister and he had decided to cook one with me - therefore we needed to get the ingredients necessary to marinade it, and have it with some roasted vegetables.

After the boring shop (we spent FAR more money than we intended to!) we had a spot of lunch and headed off to a nearby garden centre. Jeff has a really funky bird feeding 'pole' in his garden and sadly all the bird feeders were empty - we took the opportunity to buy loads more seed and fill them all up.

We popped the stuff in the back of the car and headed straight down to the New Forest - 'Lyndhurst', which we had been to before - before we had broken up. It was quite nice to revisit the place, even though it was far, far colder this time around! On the way down, we saw a sign for the 'Rufus Stone'. Neither of us knew what it was, so we kept it in mind and I Googled it on my phone - apparently it's supposedly the spot where King 'Rufus' William II was shot with an arrow in 1100AD. Hurrah! We both learnt some history today!

We went for a small drive and saw a lot of the wild ponies that were quite happily eating grass at the side of the road. We then parked in Lyndhurst and went for a quick wander. Sadly neither of us sampled the local hot chocolates as we're trying to be 'healthy'... but I managed to buy a few gifts for a friends birthday which is happening soon. After a wander, we got back in the car and tried to fid the Rufus Stone - before we did, however, we found a pub with THE coolest name, ever! 'The Happy Cheese'!!!! What a brilliant name for a pub. I think if either of us were millionaires, we would probably have bought the pub there and then :-)

After the happy finding of a pub with probably the coolest name in England, we managed to find the Rufus stone with the help of Jeff's Sat-Nav. It was nice to see, but I'm afraid it doesn't rank in the top ten of 'really interesting monuments' that we've seen in our time together. Still, at least now we know what it is, where it is and what it looks like, plus it gave us some more exercise.

Then - Back home! Jeff drove us back to his house and we prepared the squid. When I say 'We' prepared the squid - Jeff actually gutted, chopped and sliced the squid, I prepared the marinade. We then popped the squid rings in the marinade (cumin, lemon zest, coriander, olive oil and sea salt) for 2 hours and went to watch the rest of the film we didn't finish watching the night before ('Inception' - I wasn't overly fussed with it, to be honest) After an hour or so, we roasted the vegetables and then baked the squid and drizzled some honey on the vegetables - It was really nice!

Once again Jeff and I had managed to make a rather nice meal and that's another thing we always enjoyed doing together - cooking.

Sadly, I'm not writing this blog back at my house as I start work again tomorrow so am not seeing Jeff for a few days. This sucks majorly as currently, we're obviously going though the 'honeymoon period' and are doing such cool things again, it's great. Now I know (and I think Jeff knows) not to take each other for granted, I am hoping that we continue to do random and enjoyable things together for a very long time to come!

-Molly