Last catch-up

This week (starting 17^th September has been tough. It’s been my first week back at work since the middle of June (for any new readers, I had surgery on my spine to decompress the sciatic nerve at L5 after 2 years of pain. Seems to have worked).

To add to this, I’ve changed roles and am now the Director of one of our undergraduate programmes. This means a huge workload since the Freshers (new, first-year students) started this week. None of this would have been possible without the hard work of my colleague & friend Chris. Thank you!

But, it has been a hard week. Quite a lot of issues had been left because ‘Bob’ll sort that out when he’s back’ – it’s also complicated because the nature of my recovery is such that I can’t carry much (a couple of Kg maybe) and I can’t always walk far. Some of my colleagues understand this; some don’t. I also had a few thousand emails to catch up (actually, I just deleted everything from more than 3 weeks before my return).

Anyway, to finish the catch-up for the blog:

The weather here hasn’t been bad this week (though 13C is a bit of a shock after 32C!) and, until today, it’s been quite dry. Today, it’s gone colder and there’s a band of rain sweeping south. The forecast for tomorrow is sunny, but cold.

Here’s what we ate this week:

SATURDAY

Lamb biriyani

Badshai chicken (tandoori chicken, minced lamb, egg)

Naan

(all from the local Indian takeaway)

SUNDAY

Paella (seafood, chorizo, chicken).

MONDAY

Kedgeree (Ali cooked)

TUESDAY

Roast lamb, roast potatoes, broccoli, Gravy (Ali cooked)

(There’s a min story about the shoulder of lamb. When we went food shopping to the supermarket on Saturday, we were chatting to the butcher, as we often have in the past, and he offered us a shoulder of lamb at a very low price. We were delighted. Shows that good things happen when you’re nice to people.)

WEDNESDAY

Out to Bohemia:

Goat cheese and hummus parcels (Ali)

Sautéed chicken livers in a sherry sauce

Slow cooked shoulder of pork, sautéed sweet potatoes, rum & orange sauce (Ali)

Lamb chump, garlic mash, thyme jus

Suet spotted dick & custard (Ali)

THURSDAY

Sausage sludge (I’ve written about this before: better tasting than it sounds!).