It's Good To Warm My Bones Beside The Fire

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I don't have much to go on with, I'm only really posting because I know that Mum will have been checking this impatiently (she even has a nifty spring-loaded shortcut icon to this blog on her desktop) even though she knows exactly what I did this weekend because I flew home for a whistle-stop trip...*waves*


While at home I made the same cookies I am pathalogically incapable of going a week without:





Mum and Dad's new oven is big and shiny and I think this batch was my best yet. They certainly went quite fast. Considering the modest oven at our flat has two options: bake or grill, and probably has carcinogens from 1982 clinging greasily to its door, I haven't done too badly so far under my own steam.







I had a great weekend at home, even though I had an essay to get done (remember, they're more scared of you than you are of them), I still felt as though my batteries had been recharged. And I absolutely basked in the warmth of home, I'm not even talking in huggy figuratives here - it was a deliciously well-heated house. My flat usually errs on the side of chilly, but in comparison to where I've been it's particularly noticeable. Still, it'll make a good story for the next generations - "when I was young my breath would make condensation clouds in the kitchen in the middle of the day, and we had to punch each other mercilessly every morning just to get the circulation moving from the heart to the brain and back again, you don't know how lucky you are..." By the way, the first of those statements is true.



But yes; I had a seriously lovely time, it was fantastic to see lots of extended and immediate family again, so many people in such a short time and so much food, too. Mum bought Tim and I a kilo of pickled pork which I wrapped up in my clothes and took on the flight home; the airport security may have had a minor CSI moment as it went through the scanners. It also reminded me of this Garfield cartoon strip. It was a fine time to be near a television as New Zealand excelled itself at the Olympics, despite being hampered by lamentably awful commentary, I can only be thankful that no-one else in the world has our spokespeople as their first point of contact. Seeing the remarkable Valeri Villi completely eclipse the competition with ease and grace reminded me of when I had to do shotput (entirely under duress, you understand) at primary school, and with my carny hands I could barely grip the leaden thing. You're supposed to hold the ball behind your ear and then thrust it out through the air with a forward lunge...unfortunately lacking in a certain amount of upper body strength (I must have been about 9 years old at the time) I distinctly recall lunging forward and driving the ball solidly into the back of my own head. It didn't do much for my already withering contempt of athletics day.



All painful anecdotes aside, the New Zealand team has really done rather brilliantly - with the ones who didn't get medal placing still being ridiculously high up compared to 99% of the population. And of course we always get to smugly top the 'per capita' tables. Think about it - and I'm barely mathmatical - 6 medals (to date - we've just snagged another bronze!) spread over a scant 4 million people.


Keeping in with the recent theme of distracting you from my lacklustre photography with gratuitous cat photos...and because I do love them...I got quite snap-happy around Rupert and Roger during my time at home.






He's just over a year old. When I first met him in April last year, Roger was a tiny, mercurial (and disproportionately flatulent) sprite of a kitten, named after ex-Pink Floydian Roger Waters. Now he has matured into a broad, sleek, tiger cub who seemed to enjoy mugging for the camera. He also has the wide neck of a rugby prop which gives him a very comical, Easter Island Statue look when he sits upright.
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Rupert, on the other hand, we've had since about 1997. He's outlived a few other of our cats, and recently developed cancer of the shnozz, but seems to keep on existing placidly. You'd never have called Rupert a small feline, but I've never seen him this big...





Above: To wit: the size of a piano stool. Heh.
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Away from that chilling glimpse into my future (I am predestined to be one of those mad old biddies with many cats) I have managed to scrape my essay together on time and handed it in this afternoon. Tim is watching a Monterey Pop Festival DVD, (was there 'ere a man who so suited orange ruffly blouses as Jimi Hendrix?) and I'm about to head to bed because I have work tomorrow. Hopefully now that I have a bit of space between assignments I can be less hopelessly neglectful of this blog.
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Next time: well, sometime this week I want to try and make mascarpone and attempt a tiramisu; I have some Savoiardi biscuits that I bought on an excited whim ages ago and I've just realised that I need to do more and look at them dreamily...