Family Affairs and other matters

MIELE STEAM OVEN MEAL

Thank you to the team at Miele who put on a splendid evening on Friday night – a group of bloggers got invited to watch a demonstration of how to make quick, nutritious food in a steam oven. I am a big fan of Miele anyway – got their washing machine and vacuum cleaner so thought it might be interesting to go and see their showroom. Celebrity chef Silvan Franco (who has been on Saturday Kitchen and is lovely) showed us four very easy family recipes – all delicious and my sort of cooking – chuck it all in together and leave it to cook – especially the butternut squash risotto. It literally took 10 minutes to cook with no stirring or anything:-

Now I’m going to have borrow one of their steam ovens to trial to see if I can make it work as effectively as she did:-

Not entirely sure what she was demonstrating in this shot:-

Here were some of the other bloggers:-

SCHOOL REUNION

Why do we put ourselves through them I wonder? I have the worst hangover in history today and I’m sure it was in an effort to compensate for the very bright vacuous room with swirly carpet and really bad food coupled with not a very full sea of people I barely spoke to at school. [...]

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POSTING A CONKER TO THE QUEEN ET ALL

I am having one of those Saturdays that involve far too many children doing far too much sport and consequently I need to be able to divide myself into at least three pieces. Nothing is very satisfactory. My youngest child had to be at football practice this morning, my oldest had to get to school for a rugby match. I really wanted to go and watch him because it’s his first game back after his shoulder operation and both he and I are suitably nervous about it. BUT. The game is near Oxford. It would have taken me an hour and a half to drive there with two other children who were beside themselves with fury about having to go. I phoned my X husband and asked if he could go, but he can’t.

Something had to give. So I’ve sent big grown up son off with a thumbs up and a “you’ll be fine” sort of attitude and I’m just praying that he’s going to be OK. He’s not happy at all now – not because he gives a shit whether I watch him or not but because he wanted a lift home….

Anyway, youngest son and I have now had a lovely peaceful lunch and he told me that he and the friend who came to play yesterday posted a conker to the Queen which I thought was quite sweet. Do you think he’ll get an acknowledgment?

The next discussion we had went like this:-

“Mum, I’m going to talk to you about something and you are not allowed to interrupt. OK?”

“You know you said I couldn’t have anymore fish in my room since they all died? Well I think you should let me because I’m more mature now and I promise I will look after them myself and I want to buy them with my own money and you remember the sucker fish that my sister bought me? Well that was my favourite fish in the world and I loved it and then do you remember I won those two evil fish at the fun fair and they ate him alive? I had to watch him disappearing before my eyes…..well I think you should let me have some more now because I haven’t actually got over the trauma”.

He is now in heaven upstairs now, waiting for chemicals to do what they do. We’ve just been to the pet shop. How could I resist that argument? More boggle eyed fish to do nothing but smell. Still, he loves them and that’s all that matters.

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SHOULD I RESPOND?

I have just had the most lovely evening – meeting new people and eating so much I feel sick and now it’s all been marginally tainted by the fact that I have just received my third text ever from Builder Bloke’s ex wife/my ex husband’s second wife/my children’s step mother. She has forwarded me a [...]

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HOMEWORK ET AL

My important meeting at a well known modelling agency went extremely well. It really didn’t matter what I was wearing – everybody there was incredibly casual and lovely – the models strolling around were about 100 years younger than me and looked like they were from another planet – so no need to worry about [...]

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WHAT TO WEAR??

I’ve got a meeting with a top modelling agency tomorrow to discuss the exercise programme that I teach and how it will help with overall balance and posture for their models and it’s all very exciting and interesting and all I am currently worrying about is WTF AM I GOING TO WEAR?? They will all [...]

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THE YEAR OF THE DRAGON AND DIVORCE

Were you born in the Year of the Dragon like me? 1916, 1928, 1940, 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988 & 2000?

To be more precise:-
03/02/1916 – 22/01/1917
23/01/1928 – 09/02/1929
08/02/1940 – 26/01/1941
27/01/1952 – 13/02/1953
13/02/1964 – 01/02/1965
31/01/1976 – 17/02/1977
17/02/1988 – 05/02/1989
2000

Having spent much of my life living in Hong Kong I have always had a fascination for all things Asian. Particularly chinese medicine and astrology.

I have been reading a book on chinese astrology recently and it’s fascinating. Talking about each of the different animal traits and how they all work together. If only I had read it at the beginning of my trauma, perhaps things would have been clearer – when my husband had his affair I really really struggled to come to terms with what he’d done. I couldn’t understand why he had devastated our lives and destroyed our family. I spent YEARS in the end searching for answers – in fact I’m still trying to find the answers – they are still changing and I am still trying to comprehend.

But this book states things very clearly. Gives me an overview that is scarily close to the truth. However, I’m not sure that I believe it can be true….can it really be possible that those of us born under the sign of a Dragon are more prone to divorce than other signs?

In the section on Dragon love life it says that “Dragons often behave as though they had “I am absolutely irresistible” sung to them in the cradle” (how funny is that?) and goes over some traits which seem all too familiar, but it is when it comes to family life that things get more interesting:-

“It is not surprising that Dragons are not family-minded or home-loving. A female Dragon will never accept being relegated to a domestic role. If Dragons marry early, which is often the case, it is simply to prove their independence and autonomy to their parents. They often divorce and remarry; generally, their second marriage is more successful than their first”.

So now I need to do a survey on Dragons and Divorce. Both my father and my son are Dragons too and they’re not divorced…..

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