Food, glorious(?), food

Getting ready for the onslaught

Almost three weeks since my last posting. Gee, doesn't time fly? It's not that I've been lazy (although that's a subject in which I could win an Olympic Gold), it's that our time has been amazingly well utilized.

A more than usual proportion of our energy seems to have been spent on food, either eating out or entertaining. That, inevitably resulted in me gaining a few extra pounds, "oh dear, how sad, never mind" (no prizes for guessing what TV show that quote comes from). We had eaten out so much that Gail needed an orientation course just to get back into the swing of preparing meals in our own kitchen!

The eating marathon concluded on Saturday when we held a cook-out for friends and neighbors. It seemed, from my vantage point slaving over a hot grill, to have been a success by the 39 guests who attended. I thought I would never stop grilling ribs, dogs and burgers and swore that I wouldn't want to see another rib for months. Needless to say, by Monday, I could have died for a rib!

I mentioned above a favorite TV sitcom (It Ain't Half Hot Mum), which is now considered not politically correct, but really is a classic. I have just been informed by Amazon that my order or the complete series of another of my favorites, (thanks to my amazing friends Dawn and Michelle sweetly remembering my birthday) has been shipped. I had pre-ordered it six weeks ago and have eagerly awaited it's release on Region 1. It is "Open All Hours", starring the exceedingly talented Ronnie Barker and David Jason, and is an English classic. I don't think PBN would have shown this here, as I'm not sure that an American audience would be able to grasp the Northern humor (the series was set in Doncaster, Gail's home town).

A friend recently lent us the BBC adaptation of Barchester Chronicles. Some of my favorite actors starred, Donald Pleasance, Nigel Hawthorne, Geraldine McEwan and the wonderful Alan Rickman, who played the creepy Obadiah Slope and the equally wonderful Clive Swift playing Bishop Proudie. What a great adaption of Trollope's masterpeice and just like the books, we didn't want it to end. Thank you Lynn for sharing.

Okay, I think that's enough of the TV theme. Now, what was I going to do? Oh yes, get ready to out for the Ninth Street Neighbors Lunch with some of our friends. And that's where we came in.