Photo Essay: Autumn Garden Toys

I got hold of a new camera and went off taking some photographs with it in the garden. What else to pick but the garden gnomes, etc. :)

he looks like he has gone to the corner to take a pee…

Very impressed with the camera. Very nice :)

Here's the full slideshow.

Jamies: A review

We had some office guests over from all over the world, so decided to take them to have a bite to eat at the nearest restaurant to the office. Here’s my review on UrbanSpoon:

"Avoid. Wine good, ambience good. Starter was good, interesting way to serve it, on a plank resting on two cans. A tad pretentious. But the main meal was eminently forgetable. Ordered a 10 ounce rib eye. Asked for medium rare and got medium-well done. Asked ...for chips and beans to go with it and both were horrible. Well, ok not horrible but at 2.50 I expect a decent amount of chips and beans. That's like a bloody kids meal. And the dessert was not good, tiramasu was too clayey and heavy, the chocolate cake was stogy. But do go there and check out the flush in the men's room. It's a veritable antique made by the firm called as T Crapper. Yes, that's where the word crapper came from. And on the way, look at the miserable Lugubrious looking pig roasting on the spit. Overpriced, pretentious restaurant with average food."

 

there’s the steak

 

and here’s the whole roasting pig

Crapper's Valveless Waste Preventer

And the crapper :) Here’s the original:

Sights in Vale Farm

My lovely little princess had her birthday at Vale Farm and took some interesting snaps while I was parking the car. Rather amusing and interesting.

First was the arrows. I liked the juxtaposition. The idea that you would have traffic safety centre at the East Lane Theatre. Obviously your best chance of being fine at traffic accidents is to be theatrical :), heh. And that too authorised vehicles only. If you want to learn about traffic safety, you cannot drive there, lol, only walk. See the walking sign on the traffic safety centre board.

 

Some of the big slides from the fantasy island giant jungle gym are kept outside.

Dead slow? any slower and I will be buried all right.

My first shot at Huevos Ranchero

You know I bought few books yesterday and decided to inaugurate the first one today. Its a book about simple recipes.

Its the big red book in the middle.

Anyway, this is what my eldest cost centre decided for breakfast and little princess said that she will manage the process and tell me what to do. As usual.

So anyway, this is what we were cooking. Huevos Rancheros. I didn't have half of the things. I didn't have good tomatoes. Didn't have feta cheese, no beans, no tortillas, no pepper, no red chillies, no proper garlic cloves but what the hell. So we went forward and cooked it. Please bear in mind that the above is still cooking, its not fully cooked yet.

And this is what it turned out to be. Marvel of marvels, my eldest actually asked for another helping. Piled on some Tabasco and we were off with some bread. It was good. But I think i have to cook it a bit more, the eggs remained a bit runny. And the 3 fusspots at home dont like runny eggs.

Next time!…..

And now I have to think about dinner, eldest cost centre wants to have a rack of lamb.

The Rack of Lamb

I think this turned out to be nice :)

That’s an aged Welsh rack of lamb, with thyme, parsley, Dijon mustard and some other secret herbs with a bit of salt and pepper.

Perfectly cooked inside and out, medium rare :) As Diya says, Baba’s restaurant is open for business. Bon Appétit. The kids helped out totally.

Photo Essay: Diya’s Birthday Celebrations

It was Diya’s 6th birthday on 1st of November. As usual, it turned into a week long celebration. We had a cake cutting ceremony first at home.

That’s a cool cake, eh? nice one. very Halloweeny :)

See the two witches having fun with the birthday cake.

Baba and lil princess sitting down on the most important task of dealing with the presents

we have a great little 3D view thingamabob

and we have a cute little house with Sylvanian Families, some penguins and stuff.

Ready for the next party at Fantasy Island. This is my first narrow jeans. I look very swish and put together :)

Waiting for the guests to arrive. See my table all nicely marked out

Here’s the first view of the fantasy island jungle gym

And the party place 

This is where the parents hang out

And this is the kids section

Mum is trying to show something about a new spiffing ring that she has with emeralds and sapphires and stuff.

the guests start arriving with the yummy mummies :), and the presents

I am off playing now

sometimes climbing up and down

usually running around like a demented beetle

or jumping up and down like an excited sugar overdosed grasshopper

This is my friend Suhani

There is a whacking big slide, almost 30 feet high. And I was brave enough to go down it. But I didn't hold my hands to my shoulders and then I lost control and banged my feet on the slide and then I cried and then Baba held me and cuddled me and then I sniffed a bit more and then Baba took me around and kissed the feet better and then I felt a bit better but not that good so I sniffed and cried a bit more and then my friend called me and then I forgot that i had got hurt and then l went playing

I am a princess.  

here’s the cake. See the 2 ballet shoes? This is what Baba and Mamma got me to celebrate the fact that I passed my National Ballet Exam

my feet were still hurting and I snivelled and sniffed a bit. Then Baba gave me some cuddles and against kissed my feet and then I was a brave girl and wiped my tears and then started to have fun.

here’s the birthday candle lighting

and a very sorry looking piñata

one of my friends had a little 3 week old brother. Baba went all broody looking at the baby while Mamma totally ignored broody Baba.

they were feeding us with some industrial quality liquid purporting to be blackcurrant and orange juice.

Dada was totally bored out his mind, he went and had a burger.

We are all queuing up to hit the piñata.

this girl was describing what to do with the stick.

it broke at the top, silly thing. Anyway, I broke it open and then took out all the toys and then everybody had 2-3 toys and there was a big scramble and we all had loads of toys and then we shared them around.  



We all queued up to take the party bags and cake slices. It was a huge amount of fun. The full slide show is here.