Now, after a long week working, for Martin anyway, and a busy week pottering, for me, the best ever Saturday nights for us, have to be the cook a great meal and eat it in front of the TV, watching a good film, kind.
Coming a very close second are the kind when good friends come round for dinner. Martin and I spend lots of time during the day in the kitchen together, coming up with new and interesting food ideas to try out, followed by an evening of eating, drinking and chatting round our dining room table.
This Saturday night our good friends Jackie and Phil came to dinner. Whilst my partners have come and gone over the years, I've been Saturday night entertaining, and entertained by, Jackie and Phil for about 30 years - seriously, how did the years pass by that quickly?
Now it's looking like Martin is going to be a permanent fixture, so hopefully we will continue to meet up for the next 30 years, though, by then, our food may all need to be liquidised!!
So, I'd been to the hairdressers, needed to get the grey sorted, the house was tidy, the table was set, Katie Melua was playing in the background, the wine was in the fridge, the starter and main courses were all prepared, just waiting to go in the oven and the dessert was just waiting to be put together. We just needed our guests to arrive.
Our evening started off with the obligatory tour of the garden, a bit of bird watching, we have Blue Tits nesting in the garden, which I'll tell you more about in another post, and a 'Space Rail' demonstration.
There's a bit of a 'thing' in our house, and all our friends are aware of it, that, whilst Martin loves building models and gadgets, the finished articles don't really fit in with the style of our Victorian semi, which is quite cottagey. When he finally retires he will need to hire a van to bring all of his stuff, that has been banished, to work, back home, and goodness only knows what we will do with it.
So far, Martin's office is providing a temporary home to the majority of the houseplants from Martin's old house (I mean, Cheeseplants and Yuccas, a bit 70s for me!), a remote controlled helicopter, a selection of models made over the years from modelling kits and a home made internal combustion engine!! It's my own fault really, I keep buying him modelling kits!
The latest item destined for transit is a 'Space Rail' model, which is a track built to roll ball bearings round. Trust me, it looks better than it sounds. This was a very well thought out Christmas gift from my brother Dave and his girlfriend Alison, thanks so much guys!
Martin loved building it, though it was tricky, and research has already shown a massive selection of far more extensive and complex models that do actually look pretty cool.
Anyway, now that Phil and Jackie have been round and Martin got to show it off it can be despatched to work, which is becoming a bit like a Museum of Science and Technology.
Once all the obligatory activities were our of the way we sat down for our meal. We started off with a Butternut Squash and Red Onion Tarte Tatin, which I'd never made before, followed by a Seafood Lasagne, which is becoming a bit of a favourite. We finished off with a dessert of Rich Chocolate Mousse, with Raspberries and Buttery Biscuits, which was another first attempt.
As always, we had a lovely relaxed evening, good food, probably too much of it, plenty to drink, but hopefully not enough to write off Sunday morning and excellent conversation. We're already looking forward to the next leg.
That was Saturday, Sunday was all about test driving a Mazda CX5.
We have a repeat performance, of dinner that is, next weekend with mum and dad - might try a different dessert though.
Hope you all had a great weekend too.
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