Apples

Now, your're probably wondering why anyone would actually blog about their baking experiences. However, I feel that it is most definitely blog-worthy. You see, I have always been known for not being able to cook or bake, or do anything at all in the kitchen. There was the time when I thought it would be nice to have a melted mars bar over the top of ice cream. So, to melt it I thought I'd put it in the microwave. I can't remember what exactly happened, but I do remember us having to get rid of the bowl I tried to melt the mars bar in as we couldn't even chip it off the bowl and the house smelt of burnt mars bars for a good few days. Then there was the time when I set off all of the fire alarms in school during a home economics class when I was heating oil in the pan. Good times. Not to mention the fact that EVERY SINGLE SPEECH at our wedding mentioned my inability to cook. I would like to say that in the two years of being married, my cooking abilities have improved. What can I say, I make a mean pasta bake.

We have a rather large apple tree in our back garden with more apples than we know what to do with. So when my lovely husband suggested that we should make a crumble, I thought he was joking, given my culinary abilities. It turns out he wasn't. We bought all of the ingredients and set about making our crumble.

Check me out, documenting every stage, even Seth picking the apples from our tree!

Can you spot the laptop on top of the hob in the picture below? We found the recipe for the crumble on the internet but we can't quite locate our printer at the moment to print it out. Yes, we moved in over a month ago. Don't judge. Notice how innovative we are - when there's no sieve to use, use a colander! (We should probably think about getting a sieve at some point, I'm sure!)


We thought it all seemed to be going pretty well until we realised that the actual crumble part of the crumble didn't look right, so we checked back over the recipe only to see that we had forgotten the brown sugar. Fail! We laughed so much when we realised what had happened but luckily we realised in enough time to fix our mistake. I'm not sure if it looked how it was meant to though. If it was meant to look like it had quorn mince on the top then that's fine. I love this picture of Seth, he's not quite convinced that it looked right. The second picture isn't exactly proof that it turned out okay, as we covered it in ice cream. However, I'm pleased to inform the critics that it was really tasty, much to our surprise.

This is definitely progress for us!

That time when I locked myself out........

So, my Monday night was fun. Well, the whole weekend was a fun one actually, and pretty busy. I shall start at the beginning!

On Friday night when I got home from work, I decided to go for a run, as I haven't been in about 5 weeks now! I must say, I was pretty proud of my 5 mile effort. As we've just moved, I needed to figure out a new running route. The route was pretty nice, I ran past a lot of lovely houses. The downside was that half of the run was downhill. You're probably thinking that that was a good thing and it was, but of course, that meant that I had to run uphill when I was at my most tired. Still, I managed it and I didn't die in the process. Three cheers for me!

Our weekend was filled with meeting up with friends, going to the cinema and driving all over London to help someone move house. The helping someone move was a spur of the moment thing. Seth heard that someone needed help and as always, was quick to volunteer. He's always been really good at that, whereas me, really not so good! I'll learn from him one day! I was Seth's driver while he navigated and he did very well, we didn't get lost once! I liked being busy this weekend but I was also shattered! I'm still getting used to the new routine of getting up so early for workand then getting th train to work, etc. So when it came to getting up at 6am to go to work on Monday, I was less than keen! I had quite a lot of things to do at work and it was difficult to concentrate. I was pretty tired by the time 5pm rolled around! I got the train home and I was really looking forward to getting in and pretty much doing nothing but vegging.  Much to my pleasure, there were no delays on the trains and I got home at 5.50pm, chatting away to my sister, Laura on the walk home from the station. I walked up the steps to our house, still chatting away as I pulled the keys out of my bag. I looked at them for a couple of second, realising that something wasn't quite right but in my tired state, not quite being able to figure out what was wrong. Then it dawned on me. No house key. I couldn't quite figure out what had happened until I remembered my run on Friday night. I never take my full bunch of keys with me because that;s just annoying to run with, so I always just take my house key. When I got in on Friday night, Seth had already made dinner (such a lovely husband!), so I forgot all about putting the key back on the keyring along with the other keys and we had dinner.

I got off the phone to Laura so I could text Seth, finding out if he was on his way home and praying that he was. I got the response, "I'm still in the office so you may want to eat without me. I'm very busy and want to get a bit more done before I go home. I love you". Of all the days! Nightmare! I texted him back, telling him of my dilemma, but got no reply. So I went to sit in the car and phoned Laura again. We chatted for about an hour and 15 minutes, which was lovely and it passed a nice amount of time too. Bonus! When I got off the phone to Laura, I saw that I had a message from Seth saying that he would be home in a minute and suggested that we just have fish and chips for dinner as then neither of us would have to cook.Not the healthiest of options, but I really didn't care at that point. I was so glad to see Seth when he got back! He gave me a big hug and we went merrily on our way to the fish and chip shop then came home, where my key was waiting for me on the side in the kitchen.

Moral of the story: well, there are a few. A. take all of the keys with me when I go for a run. B. If I just take the house key with me, make sure I put it back on the keyring STRAIGHT AWAY when I get back from the run.C. Don't run.

I know which option I'm most in favour of!

My work

Since moving to London, this is the place that I now call my work. This is even my building where I'm based on campus (I'd even point out my office window but it's on the other side of the building). Not too shabby, hey?! Since I only started about 3 weeks ago now, I've not seen it with the autumn leaves on it yet but I thought it looked pretty cool so here it is, in all its glory!

Last Friday, was the graduation ceremonies for the history department, which I was able to attend. Getting into the building was a little harder than usual as there were security guards everywhere, this being the reason: 

There's my claim to fame, right there! (By the way, I didn't take that photo, just in case there was any doubt). I got to see Princess Beatrice graduate! I would love to tell you that I was hardcore and went to the whole graduation ceremony but that would be lying. To be quite honest, I find graduation ceremonies pretty boring! But when I heard people begin their rounds of applause from my office, I knew that they must have started to announce the graduands, so that's when I decided to go in. I was up on the balcony scanning the rows of students, trying to find Princess Beatrice when I saw her. It's funny because when you see her in that kind of setting, you don't think of her as a Princess, or of her wearing that reindeer hat that she wore to William and Kate's wedding, she just looked like any other student. It was pretty cool seeing her walking across the stage as they announced "Princess Beatrice of York". She's had so much criticism from the press over the last few years because of her weight, etc. but I thought she looked beautiful, and it was great to see her graduating from the department where I am now working.

Just another day in the office :).

When the Carruthers came to play

It was Sam and Caitlin's Birthdays in August, and for Sam's Birthday treat, he chose to spend the day with Seth and I. We were so excited to see the family as it was the first time that we would be seeing them since moving down South. Of course, it goes without saying that we were really pleased to get to spend the day with Sam on his Birthday.We spent most of the day in Danson Park. I've not been there for around 22 years (showing my age there!) and it has changed a lot, the park there is amazing, and a lot better than I remember it!

Sam and Cait were playing in the park with Lin, Steve, Rachel and Jess when we arrived. Seth and I had parked in a completely different place to them and had no idea where to find them. The park is HUGE! So, thanks to the use of mobile phones and Lins and Rach coming to search for us, we finally found our way to the actual park, as in the children's play area.

After we'd all played there for a while, we went to eat, close to the lake. Lins had prepared a massive picnic (I ate more than a few of the biscuits, I'm such a piggy!). Cait was so happy to get to play with Seth. She adores him and always has done. As we were eating, it got a bit cold so Seth lent his hoodie to Sam, who models it incredibly well, in my opinion!

After the picnic, we all went to the waterpark, where Sam and Cait played in the fountains. They had so much fun and got absolutely soaked!
Cait was having fun drinking from the fountains as the water shot up, crazy girl! On more than one attempt, Seth tried to get me wet, but I wasn't having any of it. However, he did succeed with Steve, with Rach and Jess's help!

After playing in the fountains and getting dried off, we went back to playing in the park some more. I love these photos of Rach and Jess on the sheep, and of the boys.
I just thought that the picture below of Jess and Seth was lovely. He fits so well into our family, it's just as well I married him! While I was pushing Cait on the swings, she was chatting away to me. She commented that we're both the youngest in our families. When I told her she was right, she said that I'm a grown up though because I'm married. She then asked innocently, "So, when are you going to have children? You need to have them soon because I want to play with them. I think you should have them on your Birthday!" So, October then. Thanks for that, Cait!

I'm so glad that they came down to play with us. It might be a bit of bias on my part, but I do think that I have the best family.

Here it is....

I love looking at blogs. Not to sound too much like a stalker, but I love finding out what’s going on in my friends’ lives and seeing what they’ve been up to. I’ve kind of been toying with the idea of starting one for a while, so here I am, doing just that! To spare you from our life history, I'll get you up to speed briefly!  So, to get you up to speed, this is us!

We got married on 11th July 2009:

 

went on our honeymoon to Malta:

 

 

 and I moved to Lancaster, where Seth was doing his maths and statistics degree at Lancaster University. Then Seth graduated:

 And we moved down South to start our jobs in London, where Seth is a trainee actuary and I am a University undergraduate coordinator here. 

Welcome to our blog!