Up to the Downfall

A cancellation meant that suddenly Saturday was free. John went out for a long ride on his road bike with his friend Mike and I suddenly thought: Why not walk up to Kinder Scout and have a look at the downfall (the waterfall from Kinder). The plan was not received well by William who rather would have liked staying in front of the TV, not at least since the weather looked gray, misty and drizzly. But half an hour later we were walking along Kinder reservoir and once we left the road I found it almost a struggle keeping up with him and Lily, they were like two mountain goats. Just as we reached the top the mist cleared and we got a beautiful view over the Peak District and the Cheshire plain. The downfall was in full flow and the wind picked up but by walking fast and jumping from rock to rock we stayed warm until just before the end. Just under 4 hours after setting off we walked in to the warm and welcoming Sportsman for a pint and a meal and were joined shortly afterwards by a tired John and Mike. Perfect Saturday, and hopefully it will be easier to persuade William to come walking next time!

Half-term cookery fun!

It is half term this week and William's friends are away skiing and the weather is rubbish! The TV and games console has been on way too much so today I thought we'd do something more creative: design a scary three course dinner for John this evening!

First course turned out to be "Volcanic eruption" using the duck eggs we were given to us by our neighbour topped with salmon caviar with the colour of lava.

The main course we decided to call "Caterpillar surprise" since it was pork fillet medallions and black pudding slices mixed up to look a bit like a caterpillar. These were resting on cauliflower puree to keep them still and served with pan fried leek and mushrooms and a cream and tarragon sauce. The photo was too repulsive to post on here but the flavour was very good!

The best to last and this was William's favorite dish: "Eyeballs in blood soup" which was ice cream balls in strawberry puree.

William produced a lovely looking 4 page menu while I did most of the cooking.  Although William did actually did some washing up!

 But fear not, it won't appear as B&B food anytime soon, unless specially requested by 11 year old boys...

Getting to grips with html!

Ah, time has finally come to get stuck into the computer side of things. A good website is everything these days as that is were you can not only provide all the information that will help people decide whether our cottage is for them but also help them contact us and not at least find us!

As with everything in this house we prefer to go back to basics rather than pre-fabricated so that is why I've decided to learn html. In a way it seems like just another language with its own vocabulary and grammar but the advantage is that by testing and loading up the webpage after each little change is like having a very patient native speaker interpreting your every word literally. After a few hours of mostly trial and error and occasionally going to on-line tutorials I've finally manage to re-design our website. New colour scheme, different pages and also with a calendar to show availability. 

When I get tired of the mouse I'll just hand it over to the cat.....