weekend 3-5 feb 07

[ramtops]

bit of a misnomer, really, because my weekend started on Friday night with the Constituency LibDem dinner (or even earlier with a long overdue haircut). I expect most people would expect such a dinner to be the epitome of boredom, but I enjoyed it; these things are much more fun now that I know most of the people involved. The food was ok, but not great - although most people seemed to think it was. What do they eat normally? Main course was a very indifferent duck dish, which just made us yearn for properly cooked duck.

Saturday saw me up and off to inspect our (as in the branch) newly acquired Risograph printer, which has been found a home in Nailsea. We couldn't have a play, as it has no paper drum (on order), but it's quite an impressive beast. I nearly didn't make it as the SatNav couldn't find the place, but fortunately I'd been wise enough to print a Google Map. Then off to Costco for some bits - they had ducks on special offer, so I bore one home in order to do Proper Duck for dinner.

I got no Private Eye this week - I'm horribly afraid that they've finally noticed that I was on a freebie sub - so I went on a hunt for one. Very few people carry it outside city centres; not at Nailsea Tesco petrol station or supermarket, nothing in our village, nothing in Shirehampton (where I stopped on the way back from Avonmouth). In the end I had to head toward Bristol, but I found one eventually.

then home for a bit of catching up on the computer, and the cooking of the aforementioned duck. It was anointed with honey and soy sauce, then roasted, and served with roast spuds, and cauliflower and brocolli cooked in vegetable bouillon.

Sunday was a bit hectic. Especially after some cat (my money is on Iggy) pissed on the TFT monitor in the server room. This initially took out the power to the whole house, and also temporarily buggered the KVM. And the UPS on the linux server seems to have a shagged battery, and the huge beast in the study clearly needs a new battery, and all that took a couple of hours to sort out.

then perlmonger cooked a nice fry up, then we went off on the monthly Village Walk. A lovely day for it, and we ambled round footpaths for a couple of hours. Home to wrestle with PagePlus DTP (not much fun in a Windows VM), and processed 74 photographs taken by P on Friday night - quick crop, tart with Photoshop, etc., then uploaded to somewhere that they could see them. Then we hurled beef in ale (from the freezer) with potatoes and cabbage down ourselves, and went up to the Legion for the monthly quiz, where we form a team called The Aliens with Pat and Dave (WANOLJ). We came 10th - not stellar, I grant you, but it's only our second outing, and we are just starting to get the measure of it. That's my excuse, anyway.

and now it's Monday, and the whole bloody thing starts again ...

Comments

[ang-grrr.livejournal.com]

I got no Private Eye this week - I'm horribly afraid that they've finally noticed that I was on a freebie sub - so I went on a hunt for one.

My Private Eye arrived three days late. I suspect that there has been a problem.

[ramtops.livejournal.com]

thanks - last time this happened, I took out a paid sub, then it started arriving again, so I don't want to repeat that!

[brisingamen.livejournal.com]

The food was ok, but not great - although most people seemed to think it was. What do they eat normally?

You probably don't want to know.

Good manners prevent me from saying much about a person who does a lot of catering for political functions in an area which may or may not look a little like the SE Region, but I find the food uniformly dreadful – yet, another person has extolled the virtues of said person's cuisine in a way that would make it sound cordon bleu. It's only when one remembers that the extoller lives on takeaways that one can understand the enthusiasm ... possibly. Multiply that ...

The reason I co-catered the President's Dinner last year was because of a special request not to have this person's cooking again. Our President's Dinner is now legendary in Kent, and we do get occasional requests to cater for other people, to which the response is absolutely not.

[shortybabes.livejournal.com]

I am really sick of 'weak chicken' which is often served at these things. Duck at least is slightly daring.

[brisingamen.livejournal.com]

The trouble with chicken (and duck, I think) is that neither really responds well to the kind of treatment they are likely to receive when catering at this level.

Our menu was homemade chicken liver pate to start (with a vegetarian pate also available), roast beef or roast lamb to follow (vegetarian pie) with vegetables, and an assortment of cold desserts, followed by cheese and biscuits. We roasted the meat off-site, timed to rest during the journey to the village hall, and shipped it all in swathed in foil, and did the vegetables and gravy on-site. It was hard work but definitely worth it for the end result, and the compliments.

[ramtops.livejournal.com]

I'm almost tempted to offer to cater it myself next year - but I know that way lies madness.