Mar 2011 b

It's all just Cooking and Art!

Sat 19 Mar 2011
Last night Dan and Elizabeth stayed over, Steve cooked a lovely dinner, and this morning all three left to head up to the Re-enactor's Market in Coventry. They bumped into many other SCAdians and Steve collected his Xmas present - the craticula - an ancient Roman Pompeii style "oven" more like a fancy BBQ. He's so pleased and itching to start using it! In the afternoon they headed over to a Roman event and got stuck into some SCA armoured combat.

Jen however stays home with plans to work on painting the scroll. The weather is so perfect - lovely warm sunshine and blue skies, instead Jen takes advantage of this and sets up the house for nice photos, in the hope of short-term renting the house over the upcoming Easter and Royal Wedding week.

A glorious Spring afternoon with the Daff's out in bloom

Sun 20 Mar 2011
Procrastination! Instead of working on the scroll (again) Jen and Steve spent the early afternoon and evening watching all 4 Terminator movies back to back. The 2nd one's definitely the best.

Tue 22 Mar 2011
Steve whips up a healthy dinner of sausage, nuts and cored apple (and salad)  :-P

Wed 23 Mar 2011
It reached 18 degrees today, here in (unusually) sunny London. Skirts and ankles were out on display in an unabashed wake for the UK's winter drab!

Sat 26 Mar 2011
This morning Steve picks up Kiriel from the local City Airport. She's staying for the weekend, to help us all see Terry off, as he relocates back home to NZ, having lived in London for more than 10 years. Jen continues painting. In the evening we downed some tasty pub grub and pints. It was odd to see the protesting and shenanigans on the telly, which was happening only a few streets away from us.

Sun 27 Mar 2011
This morning we filled in the UK Census. Notable, since it's something which only happens every ten years. Jen gets more painting done, and here's the progress:

Steve finally gets to play with his new toy, the craticula. Together he and Kiriel cooked up a super delicious 'Tuna Sauce' from Apicius, ancient Roman cookbook... with the tuna grilled over coals. They also grilled haddock or sole, but the sauce went so much better with the stronger tasting Tuna. Very very yummy, double thumbs UP!

Wed 30 Mar 2011
Jen got more painting done...

Thu 31 Mar 2011
Jen has the day off work tomorrow, so gets stuck into painting the scroll in earnest!!!

Fri 01 Apr 2011
Some more scroll progress shots...

Sat 02 Apr 2011
Today we had Deb and Clancy come over and stay overnight. Elffin also hung about and Steve helped him work on armour repairs and upgrades. Jen was left to be anti-social and keep on painting.

Once again Steve fired up the craticula and got cooking. This time it was dinner round 1 and 2. Round 1 was soft succulent lamb in a roman sauce. Round two was chicken which was a little dry, but again the sauce was great. Well its always better to overcook chook than undercook.

Steve has begun a cooking blog! 
Here it is: http://alaricofbangor.weebly.com

Sun 03 Apr 2011
The scroll is FINISHED! Jen has her life back. Hopefully the recipient will love it. Many thanks to Nesta who has graciously agreed to courier it over to Australia at Easter time, to its new owner.

Click on photos for enlargement...