Bargain - Christmas with Gordon

Christmas with Gordon - RRP - £15, the price at Tesco Canary Wharf (where normally the mark-up is about 20%) this morning?

Three Quid...! Ka-ching! ;)

Titanium Spork!

Thank you Flyingpops (albeit slightly belatedly)! After moaning (probably a little too much) in the evenings, as a lovely surprise - I'm now saved from having to struggle eating my chicken lunches with the tiny children's sized, wobbly plastic Tesco sporks (which they have often run out of - but only because people like me grab a handful when they *are* available, I would imagine)...

Now I have a beautiful, super light and super strong stainless titanium camping spork, complete with full spoon and spork sporting a neat bevelled cutting blade on the other end! Woot... ;)

Rather telling...

...look what I got when I bought my tea and milk this morning at Tesco Canary Wharf...guess that confirms I'm using the right clubcard then...! ;)

Tesco Self Service Tills

Okay, I'm on a roll now, second post about Tesco (hrm) in a row...but goodness me, aren't those self service tills at Tesco a boon - not only do they decimate what would otherwise be impossible queues at lunchtime (Canary Wharf branch gets rather busy), but also, you can walk up with an absolute armful of copper coloured shrapnel (the sort of thing you wouldn't dare present to an actual shop assistant unless you fancied the most withering of glances and resentful service) and rescue your wallet from danger of seam bursting overload completely shame-free...! ;)

Parent and Child Parking

One of the very pleasant aspects of parenthood is the "Parent and Child" space, not only are the slots about twice the normal size (to facilitate both parking of "family size" brick-like vehicle and careful transfer of infant to pram) but they are also (typically) right next to the supermarket entrance...in the case of Tesco at Hookwood (our local), they are actually even nearer the entrance than the disabled bays (which, thinking about it, actually seems a little bit wrong)...Only two things ruin it - twats like this - and principally because of the proximity of this particular store to Gatwick airport (literally a stone's throw) a large number of both disabled bays and parent and child spots always seem to end up being eaten up by catatonic taxi drivers - although why they don't just park in a normal spot is beyond me...

Honestly, I really don't know how people have the nerve, it simply wouldn't occur to me to take up a space reserved for a struggling Mum or Dad if I didn't have a child in the car, but obviously some people are just ***** (you are free to choose your own expletive)...

I think Tesco should police it, slap fines or clamps on offenders, or have an attendant (like they do at Waitrose in Dorking)...

Weekend update

Well, you couldn't exactly call the weekend just gone *relaxing*, but it was filled with fun, starting with getting up really early on Saturday to look after a little boy who wouldn't stop throwing up - five times in the space of an hour - four times into Flyingpops hair and once all down my front, but luckily I hadn't bothered to get dressed by that stage...we started the day proper with a trip to my folks (who had helped baby-sit on Friday night while Flyingpops was at a "book party" at her sisters house) for a hair cut and then a super-off-road dog walking session through some hugely overgrown paths out the back of Oxted (which the Bugaboo coped with incredibly well), then a quick stroll down the hill for an hour in the swimming pool, this time I went on the 70m water slide *and* had my first ever Sauna - incredibly, the temperature inside was roughly the same that I use to cook my roast chicken on a Sunday (I know because they have a thermostat on the wall), and there are scary signs warning you to remove all jewellery as the metal can get incredibly hot if you stay in too long...but you do actually get used to the heat extremely quickly and it does sort of become rather therapeutic, I swapped myself between there and the steam room (which feels like it's cleaning out your lungs, and probably is) and then (when you absolutely can't take it any more) you dive into the pool (which is 30 degrees, but feels like minus 50)! Thomas enjoyed being in his little inflatable again, especially when the wave machine kicked in (we missed that last week because we were only in the water for about 20 minutes... ;)

Anyway, later on in the day we went out for a lovely meal at the Box Hill Smith and Western, I couldn't make up my mind so I had the combo (where you get steak and chicken and ribs - just to make sure I didn't feel left out if anything tempting looking left the kitchen that I hadn't ordered), then we headed over to Box Hill village hall for Charlie's birthday party (which tried *very* hard to wake Thomas up with extremely loud music, but failed)...

Sunday morning Thomas decided we weren't having a lay-in, so we headed over to Tesco a bit early, discovering happily that they start serving breakfast long before the main store opens (so we totally skipped the normally enormous queue for the cooked breakfast - hehe)...anyway, we got half way round the store picking up our food for the week and then Thomas decided he didn't want to be shopping either, so we cut the visit short and ordered the rest on the Internet, I cooked us up an early roast (lamb) which we ate as we watched the F1 - Well done Jenson! - and then after X-Factor, it was baths and bed...and now I need another weekend (a quiet one this time), and so does Flyingpops (as I think she's coming down with a bug), but we won't get that for another working week...although at least Flyingpops can have a bit of a duvet day - don't think that would go down too well in the office... ;)

Eventful Weekend...

Crikey, where do I start...

One of the things you notice straight away when you leave the house with a tiny (although rapidly expanding) baby in tow is the number of people who sidle up to you (smiling) and ask the usual questions (name, age/sex(usually assuming the wrong one)/location birth weight), make some cooing noises, assume a wistful look and then walk off in a manner that suggests they are now surrounded by an invisible blanket...

On Saturday, when we took Thomas to Oxted leisure pool, we experienced a slightly different phenomenon...after all getting changed into our costumes (Thomas in his little waterproof swimming nappy with a picture of Disney's "Nemo" on the front) in one of the spacious unisex family changing rooms (with nappy facilities), blowing up his little yellow floating chair and parading down towards the water...I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that every single eye in the place was on us as we waded into the warm water, the unspoken group assumption being that as soon as baby met pool there would be a colossal screaming down of the place and we would (red-faced) turn tails, get dry and go home again...in actuality he *loved* it (although we did sort of suspect he'd be okay, as he happily hops in the bath every night with one or other of us - the purpose built baby bath only ever saw water the once)...all in all I suppose we spent about 25 minutes splashing around, Flyingpops even managed to do a couple of lengths in the sensible bit of the pool, while Thomas and I played in the wave area, and he only nearly drowned got ducked the one time, ironically when we were in the shallow end (and he didn't even get upset about that, just blinked his eyes a couple of times and got on with sucking the water off his fingers and staring around at the spectacle)...

Saturday lunchtime we spent at my folks, eating home-made soup and garlic bread, meeting potential new pet, Greek rescue dog "Bobby" (who is so laid back as to be almost horizontal)...then in the evening we went to Vodqueen and Uncle Scammell's house for a last-minute family party (which Thomas managed to pretty much sleep right through)...

Sunday morning we nipped over to Tesco to do the week's shop, Thomas got cooed over at the checkout by a sweet elderly couple, we pack up the car, just pull up at the Hookwood roundabout waiting for a gap in the traffic, Flyingpops commenting on the debris left by an earlier accident and how dangerous it is (despite the new traffic lights) and, as if calling down an accident upon us - **BANG** - Poppy the Beetle is shunted forwards - someone has crashed into the back of us!

I fly out of the passenger seat and wave both Flyingpops and the Fiat that has collided with us to the side of the road, peer through the back windscreen to make sure Thomas is okay (in typical Thomas fashion, he is still fast asleep - completely oblivious) and when the driver of the car behind clambers out (rather red faced) it's only the husband of the elderly couple from the supermarket...the wife is rooted to the passenger seat looking absolutely mortified, covering half her face with her hands...

Anyway, despite the initial shock and violence of the noise of the collision, there isn't actually much damage to see, the boot still opens, the bit of glass that fell out of the light from the number plate slots neatly back into place...leaving just two small scratches on the bumper, but we swap insurance details anyway and go our separate ways (amid many apologies and blushes)...

After dumping the shopping at home (and giving Flyingpops a cuddle) we head to Reigate and take a lovely fresh constitutional around autumnal-themed Priory park, stopping to score some sweet chestnuts to roast later on in the oven and I tell Flyingpops the names we used to call all the different hills (Bluebell, Break-neck etc.) to comments like "You took a sledge down that??", showed her the storm drains we used to play in (to looks of absolute horror) when we were kids and then we stopped for a drink and a shared four cheese pizza in the little cafe (which was a very messy, but satisfying affair)...

Sunday afternoon Thomas would not settle down, so in between putting things into roast or steam Flyingpops and I both spend time walking around jiggling him until he stopped whimpering, then put him down for 2 minutes, then picking him back up when the complaining resumed...but we could hardly moan ourselves as we'd had such an easy ride for all the rest of the weekend...

Surrey in the snow

Colin has a re-test (fingers crossed)!

Okay, so back to Capel on Saturday, a fairly early start, to go and collect Colin from the RANS household (with everything now working - Eternal *THANKS* to Uncle Al!!) and run him down to have his last little bit of work done (engine tuning to help him stop polluting the environment, which took Keith (the chap on the right in the picture above) about 90 seconds to do (amazing!), we had a 30 second panic when one of the indicators didn't appear to be working (but then it sprang into life, dunno what that was all about, but we really didn't need anything else to suddenly go wrong!) and then it was straight into the MOT re-test (which they said shouldn't take long as they only check the things it failed on last time) -

- so he was hoisted up in the air (after the mechanic performed a passable impression of a monster truck by being a little heavy footed) -

- and rolled on the rolling road -

- and we were then left in limbo, staring at what certainly looked like a green certificate being printed out and deposited into the office, before we were finally given the good news! Passed with flying colours, phew!!


As a reward for being so good, Colin was taken for a quick make-over courtesy of the Soviet car-wash gang in Hookwood Tesco car park, which caused some paint to flake off on the front bumper (doh!) so during the shopping I picked up some white "straight to rust" weatherseal metal paint, and a small brush...so another "bargain makeover" coming soon, no doubt...just need a wire brush... ;)

Tesco Bargain Canvas Photo Printing

Well, what can I say but "Wow", £20 (they emailed us a deal, it's normally £27) for a 30cm by 40cm canvas print (they call it "Medium"), and the quality of that printing is absolutely amazing, none of the detail has been lost...the colours are just as they were in the original...and it only took about 5 working days from ordering (on their website) to delivery!

What an absolute bargain, and it looks fantastic on the living room wall...first shot of mine I have ever felt compelled to do this with, and I'm just thrilled with the result...

Thank you Mr Tesco... ;)

Original shot for comparison -

Tesco Water Garden - Year 2

Well, we obviously had a mild enough winter for the water garden to survive, I didn't really do anything else other than occasionally top it up, and it's all sprung back to life (in fact, it actually looks like we have a lot more sprouting up), more pics when we get some blooms... ;)

World Cup Replay - 2007

Driving to Tesco yesterday morning (slow cooking myself in the sizzling summer-boost afforded by black-car ownership) I passed lots of car fulls of people, pit-stopping for fuel/leg stretching/cold drinks at the large petrol station on the roundabout in Horley...the vast majority were obviously on their way to the beach at Brighton and had also fairly obviously mostly done the same as I had - i.e. spotted that the weather was going to be as good as Saturday and pulled all the jumpers and long trousers etc. out of their cupboards/drawers in an attempt to find *something* (towards the bottom) to wear that suited the conditions outside - the result (amusingly), in my neck of the woods anyway, was a total flashback to World Cup fever (it of last summer), those garments being the most recently worn "heatwave" clothes in most peoples wardrobes - almost everyone I passed was wearing either an "England" t-shirt (in one form or other) or St George's cross shorts...time to go shopping for some new clothes perhaps...

Anyway, when I got to the supermarket (arrived at 1015hrs feeling very pleased with myself for getting up so early to miss the crowds) I was most put out to find that the car park was absolutely packed! The majority of people inside (mostly called "Beckham" judging by their stitched name tags) were forming an impatient, tutting throng around the freezer section after realising (as I did shortly thereafter) that the entire BBQ area in the fresh meat row was empty (looks like there will be some explaining to do by whoever is responsible for the stock ordering) meaning each time a woolly-gloved shelf stacker appeared carrying a cardboard box to fill up the "£2-a-bag" frozen ribs/chicken wings/salmon skewers, a mini-football fan food riot ensued...when I actually managed to snatch a bag of Moroccan Lamb it wasn't exactly what I would refer to as frozen (more sort of slushy) but there wasn't a lot of choice...not that it mattered anyway, when I went to look there were zero bags of anything capable of making fire that didn't contain any propellant (don't want to eat petrol-marinated Moroccan Lamb particularly), either at Tesco, or the two other petrol stations I stopped at on the way home, so last night ended up being roast lamb, but that's probably it for roasts (if the weather keeps on like this), time to switch to Mediterranean food in keeping with the conditions...

Traditional Swiss Cheese Fondue Recipe

(Scroll down if you are here for the recipe alone ;)

So, perhaps foolishly, we went to finish off the last few bits of Christmas food/drink shopping (£183!!!!!!!), okay, mostly drink, and lots of cheese...got a big bacon joint to cook up too...conditions in Tesco can only be described as "absolute bedlam", a totally chaotic nightmare, I estimate one aisle in three had at least one abandoned trolley clogging it up, tempers were fraying...amazingly though, the shelves were stocked almost as normal, the only thing we couldn't get from our list was a bottle of Malibu (I'll live)...

Went from there into Redhill (still loaded down with the shopping), spotted this (which I hope isn't a portent for tomorrow) in the market-

- then home to cook dinner, decided to have my annual naughty Christmas Swiss Cheese Fondue (all to myself as Flyingpops doesn't like it...what a terrible shame... ;)

Anyway, if you want to enjoy this awesome and very naughty treat (I *do* only have it once a year) you will need the following -

• A clove of garlic (chopped in half down the middle)
• Half a pint from a nice bottle of white wine (fruity Hardy's Chardonnay works a treat)
• A teaspoon of the juice of a lemon
• A tablespoon of Kirsh (Willisauer is ideal, but any clear cherry liqueur will do)
• A teaspoon of cornflour
• 110g/4oz emmental cheese grated (per person)
  
• 110g/4oz gruyère cheese grated (per person)
  
• Half a French stick (per person)

Procedure -

1. Get a non-stick saucepan (or if you have a cast iron fondue bowl, put that on the hob) and rub the garlic half all over the inside, push hard, get plenty of flavour all over the cooking surface
2. Put the cornflour into a glass and pour in the Kirsh, mix well, if it doesn't look like you will be able to easily pour it out then add a splash of tap water, mix again and stand next to the hob
   
3. Pour the half a pint of wine into the saucepan and add the lemon juice then bring quickly to the boil
4. Turn down the heat (a little) and *slowly* add the cheese, stirring *constantly* with a wooden spoon, waiting until each batch is melted before adding more
5. Pour in the Kirsh mixture and stir well (this is when it all comes together!)
6. Pour the whole lot into your Fondue bowl, light it up and sit (on the floor) dipping tiny cubes of French stick into the glorious sweet sticky yum sauce, curling up the trails of cheese so as not to make too much of a mess before popping into your mouth, washing it down with much, much more of the wonderful wine...
7. Fall asleep in front of a Christmas film

Gatwick Tesco - Renovation complete

Looks like the renovation is complete (the two girls cheekily put on "model" style poses when they thought I wasn't looking...didn't catch it though as the flash was charging...bah ;)

Anyway, those are the new travelators to the much expanded second floor, does mean the trolleys now don't have foot breaks for the slopey car-park though, because they have new travelator friendly wheels...

Here is a clearer view, down the main aisle...it used to be just big enough for the resturant...other additions are an "Ethnic" food aisle which is simply wonderful, I got lost there for about 20 minutes nosing through unfamiliar packaging and came away with some dried, unprocessesed tamarind (got to have a go!!) which cost 29p... ;) Now to dig out some old Douglas Chew recipies...oh and the beer and wine section is massively expanded, there is a whole aisle of speciality beers...thought I could work my way along the row over the weeks and share my thoughts...I picked one up, starting at the end of the row, so more on that later ;)

In other news, Flyingpops and I are going to a wedding reception in a castle tonight, so pics from that tomorrow probably (if I see anything cool) as we are staying in a nearby hotel overnight...

Tesco Value Hand Blender

So a few weeks back now we spotted what looked like an absolute bargain in the form of a Tesco (Value range) hand blender, being just shy of £5...We bought some fruit, Greek yoghurt, runny honey etc. got it home and started making "smoothies" for breakfast, which was fantastic (more on that later) but after less than a week we started to notice the unmistakable smell of melting electronincs coming from the engine section, so, like the Tesco value steamer, it went back and was replaced by a top of the range one (now it is clear that it will be used and not just gather dust in the cupboard), in this case a Braun Multiquick Advantage -

- which comes with a lot more toys, not least a mini blender (which I have already used to dice an onion (in about 4 seconds)) and is all dishwasher safe...most important though is the ease with which one can make a breakfast smoothie...

I've made up a few recipies already, notables include -

• Banana Desert Special which consists of 2 bananas, 2 tablespoons of greek yoghurt, a squeeze of runny honey, a tablespoon of crunchy peanut butter, a scoop of vanila ice cream and an ice cube...(it's quite sweet though, beware!)
• Flyingpops' Pomegreat Delight - 1 banana, a good slosh of Pomegranite juice, one third of a large mango (diced) 3 large strawberries and a handfull of grapes
• Fink's Kiwi-Peach Chiller (my current favorite, although I do wish it didn't look like something that came out of a poorly cat) - 3 ice cubes, 2 tablespoons of greek youghurt, a kiwi (the flesh of, scooped), 1 banana, a de-stoned peach (no need to remove the skin) and 3 strawberries...yum... ;)

I'll be honest though, pretty much anything you throw in there seems to work as long as you have the banana as a base...got some pears ripening at the moment, a passion fruit and my own strawberry plants are heavy with green fruit...so plenty more opportunity to experiment, if i find any more killer recipies I'll let you know... ;)

Tesco Water Garden update

Just watching the F1 qualifying, but thought I would post a couple of pics from the garden -

- the water garden is coming along nicely, those clay blobs do make the water murky though (i'll keep flooding it with rainwater, we'll get there), and the tiny basil seedlings are really thriving (so my experiment may be successful...) -

- (anyway, back to the racing now!)... ;)

Tesco Summer Watergarden

My not really eating chocolate (or any sweets particularly) makes easter a bit more of a challenge (gift-wise) for Flyingpops than it would have been otherwise, so when we spotted this in Tesco earlier on today she pounced on my interest and decided it would be perfect, unfortunately it does mean I now have to spend ten quid on an egg for her... ;)

Anyway, here's what you get in the box -

- essentially -
1 x waterlily nymphea
1 x arrowhead sagittaria japonica
1 x pontederia cordata
4 x bags of pond soil pellets
2 x bags of ornamental gravel
- you pop in the "soil pellets" then you decide on the arrangement -

- bury the bulbs securely (so they don't float around, I guess) "Firm planting is essential" (as it says in the procedure document) -

- fill slowly with rainwater (from my water barrel) -

- and then "place in a position with a sunny aspect" (next to the lavender should do the trick) -

Lets see what happens! :) Never had any water dwelling plants before (apart from the ones the goldfish chew up)... ;)