Booked it, packed it...

 ... not finishing that sentence, because I am a lady, and I do not use profanity.

Yeah, yeah, I know. So, for the first time since... *casts memory back a loooooong way* October 2019, Mr G and I will be sleeping in a bed other than our own. I have booked the most darling place in the Peak District for two nights, for our 20th Wedding Anniversary and the following night, we will come home on the 4th and then on the 5th, he will turn 60! The reviews on the hotel are all top notch and the food looks out of this world. It's only a few miles from Bakewell too, and Mr G is a bugger for a Bakewell Tart, so it looks like he can sample the real thing. He's currently dozing on the sofa after an early shift, but tonight we will both hit Google and have a look at things to do in the local area. I won't go anywhere without an itinerary, especially when time away together is little and rare, and that was before we threw an actual friggin' plague in the mix!

The break will probably contain a fair bit of a) walking/hiking, b) eating and c) drinking alcohol (me). 

I've been working my way through my new Slimming Eats cookbook (and the website) this week. The Sweet and Sticky Chicken was really good, definitely one to make again - but I have a whole list of others I want to try first. We have a bit of a tendency to overkill a dish when we really like it (see Cock and Bull). The Coconut Chicken and Red Pepper Curry boasted clean plates all round. We had the Creamy Cajun Chicken, which Facebook is raving about - however I used creme fraiche as opposed to cream cheese and omitted the parmesan because, ugh.  Absolutely delicious. The Million Dollar Spaghetti, I can neither rave about nor slag off for the simple reason that I altered the recipe. It was meant to be a mixture of cream cheese and cottage cheese which the mere thought of made me want to blow chunks. So I used the leftover creme fraiche. The result was a heck of a faffy pasta bake. Nice, a little bland but ultimately nowhere near as nice as the one I usually make. Just that neither of us could even entertain the thought of those two cheeses in the dish. The Hash Brown Breakfast Roll was one PITA to make - mainly due to the amount of time it took to cook, but worth every single second. Next time I will make about seventeen of them, because one didn't go very far between us all, and we couldn't decide on the fillings. I settled on just bacon and cheese because - I didn't fancy the idea of egg with cheese, Mr G and I fancied mushrooms in it, the boy doesn't like mushrooms. So we compromised on bacon and mozzarella, the boy had scrambled egg on the side, and we had mushrooms. 

The joint biggest hit was the Sausage and Egg Breakfast muffins. I made ten, two disappeared when the guinea pigs got wind of them, I inhaled one whilst waiting for Mr G to come home from work and have tea, and he had one after his tea. He took two in to work with him for him and his supervisor to have as a snack last night, and thumbs up all round. 

Knocked spots off any store bought hash brown I've ever had, and surprisingly simple. I might use the mixture to make some up for the freezer. 

We have been binge watching Schitts Creek on Netflix, five days in we are halfway through the fourth season. Mr G has two days off work now, so we can pull a couple of late ones and try and finish it. So funny, I'm not a huge television lover, but we've found some cracking programmes lately. I also love it when you happen across a series that has a start, middle and end and it's all there waiting for you. No risk of being cancelled.

The weirdest thing happened this morning, also one of the sweetest things I've ever seen. We have blue tits nesting in our garden, they have done in different spots in the garden, in different bird boxes for the last nine or ten years that we know of. Mr G put up a new bird box, quite close to the house, more as a decoration, but no, the blue tit couple seem to have taken to it, and they're in and out of it. 

I had an awful night's sleep last night, two hours max, and then up with Mr G at 5.15 am. I made sure the boys were up for school, and they knew to lock up when they went, and I dozed off around 8 am in my cuddle seat. I woke up to the sound of tapping on the living room window. Eventually I bothered my arse to open my eyes and saw a blue tit stood on the window sill, rapping on the window with its beak. It appeared to make eye contact, seen that I had woke up, and then flew off.  Really lifted my spirits :-) I'm not an animal lover, but I do love birds. 

So, finally, something to look forward to after a shit couple of years, some time away with the love of my life, in a completely new neck of the woods for both of us to explore. He definitely deserves it, he's kept me sane for the last two years, he's kept me laughing, gone out to work in a customer facing job - at times when there was absolutely no need for it. Be nice to spoil him for a change, and celebrate the twenty years of his sixty that I have had the pleasure of being his wife.