Return to normality and perhaps a weekly blog?

A week has now passsed since the Ashburton Cookery school waved goodbye to us and it has been a return to the normal daily routine for most - work for some, rest and leisure for others! 
I returned like a soldier coming back from the Russian front - seriously it wasn't that cold down there!  Lots of questions as to how I would be using my newly honed cullinary skills and lots of people inviting themselves to dinner.  Plenty of time to think about employment - I did see two jobs going at a restaurant in Cardiff as a Commis chef and a Trainee chef and for a fleeting moment I considered applying for the Trainee position - I think I need to practice first though, so I lay down and let the fleeting moment pass!

As to the practise - well there's been plenty of that.  Some attempts have been very successful and others not so quite successful.  We have had plenty of soups, plaice goujons with a home made mayonnaise, bread rolls, pasties and tonight the first three course dinner with some friends.  On the menu  - home made bread rolls of various shapes to go with the leek and potato soup.  This will be followed by oven roast chicken breast with a white wine and butter sauce served with Daupinoise potatoes, honey glazed carrots and green beans, follwed by orange posset - in deference to James!  The pan fried mackerel fillets that I attempted on Friday were too salty and my pasty pastry a little too thick - but we live and learn!

Friends have been very interested in what I've been doing and indeed I was fortunate enough on Wednesday to meet up with 4 of them in London to go and watch the Aresenal v Liverpool match.  We had arranged to meet in Einar's flat in Highgate and their idea was for me to cook them lunch!  Too much pressure to cook in a kitchen designed for one person so Richard, Peter, Einar Jane and myself decided to eat out.  After a few sips of wine and Aquavit lunch got delayed and eventually I managed to bolt down something that resembled a chicken burger in the Emirates stadium.  This was all after spending 10 minutes talking on the phone to the London ambulance service about the guy that had collapsed in front of us on the way into the ground and was beeing resusciated by two passers by!  I hope the result for the man was better than it was for Liverpool!  The theme of disaster seemed to follow me on Thursday.  Arriving at Paddington well in time to catch the 1245 to Swansea, I noticed on the information board that a lot of the arrivals had been delayed and a lot of the departures had been cancelled.  Thinking to myself that this was too much of a coincidence, I asked one of those very helpful British Rail staff what was happening.  Apparently someone had jumped in front of a train at Burnham (somewhere between Reading and Ealing Broadway) and so the Police had closed the line in and out of London!  I waited in the nearest bar watching the screen and trying to make my pint of shandy last for ever.  By this time I had also contracted the early symptoms of man flu and was not feeling at my perkiest best.  At last, the sign lit up the 1345 for Swansea was leaving from platform 9.  The ensuing scrum and fight that took place to get onto that train was like a scene from a disaster movie.  My old rugby instincts took over and suddenly I was wearing the white jersey of England with a number 10 on my back, facing the old enemy Wales at Twickenham, who we had beaten the week before! I jinked and weeved and side stepped my way  down the platform to get on the last carriage and found the only remaining seat.  With so many people on then train it meant that the aisles were full of people so once wedged into the seat you didn't have the luxury of going to the buffet car or the toilet!  Would I regret that pint of shandy I thought?
But all's well that ends well and I arrived safely and without the need for a toilet break in Bridgend - allbeit some 3 hours after I was supposed to have arrived.  The man flu however had now fully developed so it was off to bed to try and sweat it out!

More next week - if I've recovered!