Droushia/Drouseia Dits: Sunday - ribs and rivers...

With huge apologies to anyone of a nervous disposition for the photograph which is to follow but today all the boys in the household were having a lie-in on a Sunday morning catching up on some down-time before Mum came up on her regular visit for lunch.

Last night John's beloved Mighty Blades had a magnificent win against Aston Villa which he wasn't able to watch live although thanks to the Bobster he was kept well informed about their progress. Today he managed to catch the highlights good and early so he knew exactly how well they had done. After a shaky start to the season they are riding pretty high at the moment. Let's hope this lasts - it makes for a much happier Wiseman household on a Saturday. So thanks to their winning performance last night we had a nice happy atmosphere and a relaxed start to the morning.

It was another very hot day and so we chose to have our lunch on the decking outside the kitchen. It would appear that the big hawk moth caterpillar has moved on as the table was bereft of poo for once and it has almost completely stripped what remained of the fresh vine leaves - hopefully he has gone on to the next stage in his lifecycle. BHMC (big hawk moth caterpillar) has been replaced though by a golden coloured grasshopper which is a new one on us so don't know if anyone is able to identify him?

Today's lunch choice was made by John. He has noted that mum likes spare ribs so we had bought pork ribs and I was serving them with coleslaw and potato wedges. We hadn't liked the look of the ribs that were in the meat counter at Paps so the butcher had gone off and found some which seemed to have come from some sort of dinosaur as they certainly weren't like the ones served in restaurants which reassemble an anorexic meat xylophone - these were huge hunks if meat which I had absolutely no idea how to cook so I resorted to good old Google and chose a recipe where the ribs had to be marinated and cooked slowly for hours in the slow cooker before being finished off in the oven whilst being constantly "painted" with the sauces it caramelised the meat. On reflection these bad-boys were so big they could possibly have done with a little longer in the slow cooker to render down the fat but even so were delicious and only contained a few small honestly parted company with the meat so easily. We shall definitely be having these again and you can find the recipe on the food section of this blog. Anyway we had a nice day as Mum came for a swim first and then we ate - got hammered by John at cards and then we lounged around on the steamers before she went down to the cemetery to see Dad and to call in on Sheila and Klaus.

Mum got home safe and sound and we cleared up after lunch and chilled out for a while. The Pamments had spent the day mainly on the beach but we had arranged for them to come up for a poker evening with some drinks and nibbles which we did last time they were here.

Laura adopts the bullshit baffles brains approach to her game and confounds the boys (who fancy themselves as card sharps) with complete disregard to the accepted methods of play - safe to say she doesn't give a hoot and relishes in her ability to win so mum I am suggesting we hone our poker skills be a use we have to find a Sunday afternoon game that John doesn't always win and SOON!

John had fetched the P's up here so they were walking home and it was pretty late by the time they left - let's hope they didn't have a close encounter with the foal in the field as she/he can often scare the shit out of you if you don't realise she/he is about!