Lockdown Sunday

Thank you to everyone who has asked about Charlie.  He is recovering at home having had a 5-6cm blade of grass removed from somewhere between his nose and his throat.  This could have proved fatal had the vet not been able to see the grass and remove it.  In the process we discovered that Charlie has a heart murmur and she did point out that he is very overweight but we know that!!

This is January and a beautiful sunny afternoon when most of our friends and family in the UK are shivering in sub-zero temperatures and smothered in a chilly blanket of snow.  Don't get me wrong it is cold here at night - as I said yesterday I had to scrape a layer of ice off the windscreen but that was the price to pay for having had a day of glorious sunshine and clear cloudless skies at night.

This beautiful weather is due to last a couple of days longer and we have certainly noticed a difference this winter that not having it wet and windy has made it much more pleasant - we have not had to light the woodburner every night but sometimes it is just much more cosy to do so.  We will know for certain tomorrow as we have to ring in our electricity meter readings and normally we use up our surplus electricity during the December/January billing period and when we realised that the readings were due we also realised that when we put the bookcase back after putting the insulation behind the paneling in the lounge we must have disturbed the boxes which capture the output from the PV panels as there was a big unhappy face on one side meaning it couldn't see the panels and a big fat cross on the other meaning it couldn't speak to the router so that seemed to indicate that there was no power to the box in between which could be easily rectified but meant taking everything off the shelves.

It was obviously technology day today - I have had an issue with my laptop which started out as being merely irritating but as time went on was turning into something seemingly terminal - every time I used the mousepad or moved the cursor the screen would flicker and then go black and then well nothing.  It was making writing the blog difficult to say the least and would render finishing this week's lockdown challenge nigh on impossible.  So I googled the issue and found lots of people with similar issues and lots of different resolutions but eventually I found a teeny-tiny little article about bios issues and shaking screens which seemed feasible but when you upgrade the bios you need to make sure you are updating the existing version with the correct version for your machine.  At this point you get given a massive warning that if you get this wrong it is Goodnight Vienna and a squeaky bum moment when you press the button, cross your fingers and hope.  Well because you are reading this now you should gather that it was a success.  I had the correct bios update and it fixed the problem.  That was a result and probably saved a few euros.

Today we were trying something for lunch today - we had bought a piece of silverside and were going to pot roast it in the slow cooker - this is not my photograph - this is what I was aiming for.

So there was conflicting advice on the tinty-web - some recipes said cook for a very short period of time and others said low and slow so I opted for the low and slow because I know that this cut of meat can sometimes be a bit on the stringy side.

With our meat we were having roast vegetables (again) - we love our roast vegetables and it makes my life so much easier just having one big old tray of veggies which all go in and cook at the same time.  Today though we were trying the local root vegetable Kolokasi (or Taro) as I couldn't get any parsnip.  To be fair Kolokasi has a fairly indistinct flavour maybe slightly nutty but roasted up all right with the butternut squash, sweet potato, onions and potatoes. To add a bit of colour we had some garden peas - not roasted!

It has been glorious in the conservatory in the afternoons - the temperature has been around 25 degrees so really comfortable and the best place to sit and relax, read or watch the television although the sun seemed to be causing John an issue as he tried to watch the second cricket test between England and Sri Lanka.  The cricket and the bowls that were televised today were both exciting and in the lovely warmth a gin and tonic was the order of the day.

We bought two new large insulated glasses when we last went for petrol - I am hoping they haven't sold out as we would like a couple more because these are brilliant - the rims are not too thick when drinking out of them and the bases strong, square and sturdy so I am unlikely to knock it over which is my normal party trick plus the ice doesn't melt so quickly which is a bonus.  

With the veggies roasting and the beef in the slow cooker making its own gravy it was a really stress free Sunday lunch for me we just had to wait a bit later than we would normally eat in order that the joint was cooked for the requisite amount of time (5 hours!!).

So this was our Sunday lunch - pot roast silverside of beef in a red wine gravy with braised onions and carrots (taken out of the cooking juices and finished off in the oven), roasted veggies as above and Yorkshire Puddings.

The meat was super moist and tender and still pink inside but we both felt it lacked some flavour even though it had been sitting in the fridge since Monday as I hoped that by not cooking it as soon as we bought it, it might develop more taste.  Still we both polished off our meals so it couldn't be too bad and we had enough left over that John decided he would cook tomorrow and do a spicy stir fry because that will give the meat some punch.

We finished off a nice day by watching the two remaining episodes of the very bonkers The Third Day which left us with more questions than answers!  Both John and I looked at one another as the credits rolled and said "Is that it?"  well it was and apparently it was all about how people deal with grief - who knew???  Anyway Jude Law did a passable impression of Heath Ledger in The Joker by the end of it all.