Challenge 44 - MAKE FRESH PASTA

I am not a natural cook, nor an enthusiastic one - I leave that to the more able and willing in the vicinity, ie Iain.  But I have secretly harboured a long-held desire to make fresh pasta - the pasta maker which has been sitting in my cupboard unopened and unloved for 15 years is testament to that fact - so this is the year to satisfy all desires.

Time to get the pasta maker out of the cupboard, blow off the cobwebs, and get down from the shelf the packet of 00 flour which has been sitting there every bit as long as the machine itself - 15 year old flour - is that a record?

So allowing myself one and a half hours, I closed the kitchen door on the world, put on some soothing music and set to.  I measured, mixed, kneaded, sweated, cursed, made a mess, chilled, blended, stirred, rolled, stuffed, cut, admired, cooked......

....and ended up with a perfectly acceptable plate of crab-stuffed ravioli.  How chuffed was I?  The family even ate it, without the usual "why didn't you let Dad cook it?" or "Why didn't we get a take-away?".



Just for the record it was 8.00pm at night - 3 hours after I started the culinary masterpiece - but the best things are worth waiting for.






Feeling like Delia and Gordon's love-child right now.  What next?  Souffle?

Challenge 43 - GET A TATTOO!

A classic, in terms of challenges, - but quite a big one for someone of my years and delicate pain threshold.  I had my lovely friend, Monica, there to hold my hand, though I suspect she was more nervous than I was.  My preparations were as follows:

- planning the tattoo - quite easy as I was going for the 'plastic paddy' look
- planning where it would be - quite easy as I wasn't prepared to reveal any part of my body that had not been on public display for the last 5 years, and also quite easy as I didn't want it on show at family weddings, christenings or funerals.
- listening to every other tattoo-ee about how painful it was going to be (rather like childbirth)
- 2 paracetamol
- 2 ibuprofen
- 2 large swigs of brandy (courtesy of Monica - she knows me well!)

The experience of being tattoo-ed was painful - sharp and stingy as you would expect - but strangely enjoyable, thanks to the support and Australian wit of my companion, to the large intake of brandy, and also to the skill and all-round loveliness of my tattoo artist, Becky.  She made me feel as if she tattoos eccentric geriatrics every day of the week, and made me feel comfortable and at home in a very alien environment.  I got a slight adrenalin rush from the experience and felt wonderfully rebellious and somewhat young.  Just for the record, she also said I had wonderful skin for tattooing, and that I was exceedingly brave.  I agree!



 I love my tattoo - it is now part of me - and a permanent reminder of my year of fun, adventure and madness.  When I am old and do-lally, and receiving a bed bath in some nursing home, I shall glance down at my tootsies and be reminded of a life lived well and enjoyed to the full - and a little smile shall cross my toothless gums! Job done!

Challenge 41 - HOLD A SPIDER

I am an arachnophobe - I was born that way - I can't help it - it's in the genes.

Spiders are sly, aggressive, enormous, fast, manipulative, hairy, tickly, predatory, and so very very ugly.  What not to be scared of.  Also, according to my niece, and I have to agree, they steal your soul and sell it to Satan.  Following my recent encounter (from which the spider emerged victorious I fear), my soul is well and truly packaged up and sitting on the shelf of the devil's workshop, waiting to be used for nefarious ends.


I had hoped that this challenge would mark the end of 50 years of spider phobia and evasion, but alas not.  I chose a small-ish beast to start with, with the aim of working my way up to something you could see without magnification.  But I spent so long (about 25 mins) screaming and dancing and hyperventilating, that my little spider in the interim grew into a tarantula sized black widow with a bone to pick and a chip on its shoulder.  My name was on both the bone and the chip.

After several aborted attempts, the spider was eventually tipped onto my outstretched hand, and lasted long enough on my skin for me to feel its tickle and its vengeance.  After 2 or 3 goes, I quit for animal welfare reasons and because I was having a heart attack.

Please feel free to watch the video HERE - I would recommend a magnifying glass and a slow motion camera to fully appreciate the horror of the event.  Just for the record, I have sacked the camera-man.

Spiders and I are still not friends.  Perhaps if they give me my soul back, I might reconsider!

Challenge 42 - VOW OF SILENCE FOR 24 HRS (FAILED!)

6.30 am and I am already struggling - and noone else is up.  Didn't realise that I talked so much to inanimate objects.  Perhaps choosing the day with the extra hour in it was an error of judgement.

8.30 am Family not supportive and are taking advantage of my vow of silence to be extra naughty!  Didn't realise that I spend so much time re-educating my family in what is right and what is wrong.  No - not nagging - that is what horrible mums do!

11.00 am Home alone.  Cats are wondering why I'm not conversing with them.  Didn't realise how interesting cat conversation actually is - I miss it hugely.

1.00 pm Decked myself out in signs and note-paper, ready for return of family

3.00 pm Decided to drink some cider - to ease the pain of silence.  Might jeopardise the challenge.

4.30 pm Challenge was well and truly jeopardised.  Walked into living room and said 'Computer's free, Pidge'.  Tried to bribe him, but he was having none of it.

CHALLENGE FAILED - WILL REVISIT AND TRY AGAIN.

Challenge 40 - TEA AT THE RITZ

 
Think fine bone china; solid silver cutlery; linen napkins; lace doilies; tea strainers; waiters dressed up as penguins; elegant attire (including 2 slightly embarrassed ladies in full length evening wear); Ritz royal loose leaf tea; lots of little pinkies sticking out at right angles; the tinkle of ivories; smoked salmon sandwiches; warm scones with clotted cream and jam; melt-in-the-mouth macaroons; crumbly meringues; lemon posset (which I thought was another word for baby sick, but never mind); gold, glass, glitz and glamour; impeccable manners; the whiff of over-indulgence; a sprinkling of English pomposity; a side order of nostalgia for times gone by; and of course a generous dollop of yumminess......

...and you have Tea at the Ritz.  And as much of it as you can consume without feeling sick or embarrassed - which, in our case, was quite a lot.  My lovely friend, Sally, and I rose to the challenge and to the occasion splendidly, convincing ourselves that after many years of searching we had in fact found our natural habitat.  Feed us regularly with delicious canopes and pastries, water us with champagne and surround us with luxury, and we will thrive and blossom!!!  (Iain and John, take note!)

Thankfully, our self-delusion evaporated just in time to prevent us from buying a little Dachshund puppy from Harrods at £1900!!!!  Back down to earth ladies!

Challenge 39 - SCATTER MUM AND DAD'S ASHES

An odd challenge - I accept.  But it certainly qualifies for my list on the following grounds:

- I certainly haven't done it before,
- it brought a smile to a lot of faces,
- it allowed Mum and Dad and the rest of my crazy family to be part of my year-long adventure - the journey would have felt incomplete without them.



Two years ago, my wonderful life-embracing family was left reeling by the deaths of my lovely mum, my dear brother John, and my beautiful nephew John, all within 3 weeks.  I am so very proud of how they have all dealt with the pain and sadness with inner strength and without self pity, to walk the difficult path to the place where they can once again embrace life and smell the roses.  Sadly Dad, challenged further by old age and infirmity, could not regain the huge zest for life he once had, and he died a year later.


The emotional exhaustion we all felt at the time prevented us from truly celebrating the long lives of our parents in the way we, and they, would have wanted, ie with a glass in our hands and a smile on our faces.  True to their wishes, their ashes were scattered together between 3 oak trees on a little island in the middle of my brother's lake.  The sun shone, the champagne flowed and laughter replaced the tears of the last 2 years.  After nightfall, fireworks lit up the sky and paper boats containing candles, messages and a little of their ashes sailed across the lake.

Mum and Dad, and the love they shared for over 65 years, lives on in all of us.  What a legacy!

Challenge 38 - TO PARIS FOR LUNCH AND BACK (OVERLAND) IN A DAY

04.50  Alarm goes off.  Paris vs bed?
06.45  Fall asleep on train. Mouth gaping, emitting drool.
07.47  Waterloo, couldn't escape if I wanted to.
08.15  Waiting for Helen at St Pancras, initiating conversations with strangers so that I can tell them I'm going to Paris for lunch!  Helen arrives and stops this childish practice.
08.55  Board a slightly grubby Eurostar.
09.45  Tunnel.  Time travel forward 1 hour.
12.15  Gare du Nord.  Bonjour Paris!
13.00  Arrive at Restaurant Dumonet, in St Germain, after white knuckle taxi ride.  Hungry.
13.15  Complimentary glass of white wine and cauliflower veloute amuse-bouche.  My bouche is amused.
13.30  Waiter takes order and laughs at our over-ambition.  Recommends we share a dessert - too scared to argue but question his judgement.
13.45  First course - stuffed morels, and endive and roquefort salad.  Enormous and enormously good.
14.15  Second course - confit de canard, and chateaubriand with bearnaise sauce.  Huge and hugely good.
15.00  Third course - hoping for a 'wafer-thin mint' but presented with an apple pie the size of a dinner plate.  The waiter was right (of course - he's French).  Despite feeling sick, scoff the lot.
16.00  Over coffee and chocolates, try to convince English bankers on next table to put our lunch on their expenses.  Think I've pulled - they leave us a heart shaped crouton.....and an unpaid bill!
16.30  Leave restaurant and our new chum Thierry, vowing never to eat again.
17.00  Attempt to walk off lunch via Seine, Notre Dame, L'Hotel de Ville and our Parisien highlight - a button shop.  Failed.
18.15  Taxi back to station.  Bus hits taxi.  Parisien road rage.  Horns tooting,  Swearing in French.
19.13  Back on Eurostar.
19.30  Passenger behind us takes out egg sandwich. Look for sick bag but have to make do with wafting perfume-soaked tissue.
20.40  Tunnel.  Time travel back 1 hour.
20.45  Arrive St Pancras.
21.35  Train to Brock
23.30  Home!

Challenge completed - feeling wonderfully decadent, gloriously self-indulgent and gastronomically satisfied. And a little sick.  Thank you Helen for suggesting it and sharing it!