Summer walk

The agony and the ecstacy!

Dear Sheddists,

tonight I type a little more gingerly than usual as you may have guessed from the photo opposite.

You see, hitting the letter 'r' on my QWERTY keyboard now requires a deal of ingenuity and the application of a complicated opposing thumb movement worthy of a professional card-sharp in order to render the smallest of digital imprints on this screen!

It happened on Thursday afternoon - a little light pruning with some garden secateurs that went sadly wrong removing the tip from my left index finger.  After two visits to hospital A&E the flow of blood was at last staunched, leaving me nursing an albino, plaster-bound finger-puppet, a pile of crimson-stained bandages and an arm in a sling.  Subsequent attempts to determine the likely prognosis for healing have been aborted.  Two and a half videos on YouTube entitled 'Severed Fingertip' were quite sufficient, thank you.

But now to happier stuff.  Our first trip to Villa Park saw a comprehensive 3-0 victory over Rotherham, bringing to an end a record-breaking fifteen losses on the spin.  One-handed clapping proved a challenge, as did my usual match photography. Several shots featuring the ghostly trace of a large white finger-puppet have since been deleted.

Onwards and upwards, as they say, albeit somewhat more gingerly than before!

Yours as ever,

electrofried(mr)

Celebrating with a very special family

Wedding anniversary celebrations

Dear Sheddists,

this year my dear wife and I celebrated our 37th wedding anniversary at our very favourite restaurant, 'Benedicts' in Norwich.

Sweet memories

 Regular readers will be aware it's our custom to eat fish and chips on our anniversary in memory of our very first meal together on our own as a young married couple.  It was all we could afford, but no less special for all that.

This year we had to stretch the definition of 'fish and chips' a little, but it was well worth it!  The fish took the form of brown shrimps, fresh from King's Lynn and the chips were four delicious home-cooked potato crisps nestled gently between the scales of a pine-cone.

The tasting menu

We chose the tasting menu, six courses of sheer bliss, accompanied by some equally delicious hors d'ouevres.  Every course was an epicurean delight, but the star of the show for us was the starter - Thornton Hall heritage tomatoes, summer peaches and coriander. It was absolutely sublime, balancing different flavours, textures and temperatures to create a taste-bud sensation.

Those special little touches

It's not just the food that was special.  Three delightful little extra touches made our celebration meal so memorable.

First was the piece of theatre that introduced the opening dessert, two splendid ice-lollies made from Norfolk strawberries. The waitress carried a mini-freezer to our table and opened the top to the sound of ice-cream chimes within.  Sheer magic!

The second was the chocolate-decorated plate bearing our final course - a deliciously light passion-fuit mousse.  You can see it in one of the photos below.

The final delightful touch at the very end of the meal was the small tube of love-hearts secreted with the metal acorn containing the bill.  What a fitting reminder, not just of yet another fantastic meal at 'Benedicts' but also thirty seven years of an absolutely wonderful marriage to the love of my life.

Thank you, Richard, Katya and team for making our meal so very special!

 

To be a child