Sue's Blog - Some assembly required.

Basements, Barbeques and Thumbs ......oh my.

What an exciting weekend.

Saturday was spent clearing stuff out of the basement ready for the men who should appear on Wednesday at 8 am.
We won't be able to finish it completely until Tuesday evening as we have to move the computers and desks away from the wall in the other part of the basement because that is cracked too.
I am not looking forward to moving these.
My desk is quite small and reasonably tidy but Philip's is a big desk and "tidy" doesn't apply to any part of it.

In the evening we decided to have a barbeque.
We bought an large gas barbie last year with the money from the change pot.
Amazing how much was in that simply from emptying pockets.
We only "cooked out" as they say over here, a few times last year and on Saturday I remembered why.

We are crap at it.

We really are.
It seemed like such a good idea.
Philip got a steak and I got some prawns.
I had seen a recipe for potato and halloumi skewers which looked fab so I pre cooked the spuds and marinated them with the halloumi.
I marinated the shrimp (prawns) and some mushrooms in roasted herb and garlic. These were going on skewers too.
Then I marinated some tomatoes in balsamic vinegar.
To go with this (can't believe this was just for two) I cooked some garlic & herb pasta and vodka sauce.
I should have just cooked all this in the kitchen or better still ......gone out for pizza.

Philip went off to do the actual cooking. Men love all this outdoor cooking mallarky. It is the only time he cooks so I make the most of it.
But, of course it didn't go according to plan.
The mushrooms, halloumi and pots were done. So I had to keep them warm in the oven.
After a bit the steak was done, he likes it medium rare, but nothing else was....oh stick that in the oven too then.
I cooked the pasta which is difficult to keep hot as it turns into a squidgy lump.
Just then Philip informs me that the gas has run out.
Sigh.......he bought a gadget that fixes on the gas bottle that is supposed to tell you how much gas you have.
It did. It said "Half full".........then it said "Empty".

So, now I have half of the stuff keeping warm in the oven but the shrimp (prawns) are not done.
He put the lid of the barbie down thinking that the residual heat might finish the shrimp.
It didn't
I had to bring them in and cook them under the grill which took forever to heat up but made a good job of drying out the shrimp.

We eventually sat down.....at the dining room table because no one over here actually eats outside and we have got into that way too.......although to be fair all of our stuff was inside anyway.
Philip had a well done steak.
I had dried shrimp.
We both had a lump of squidge in vodka sauce.
The best bit was the potatoes and halloumi.
The bottle of wine we put away wasn't bad either.

After this disaster what could be better than another.
Whilst clearing everything away and putting it in the dishwasher I happened to jab the fleshy part of my thumb onto a knife that was sticking up in the cutlery basket.
Of course, it couldn't be any old knife could it?
It had to be the only knife we possess that would cut anything other than soft butter.
It was the knife I use to devein the shrimp. It is thin, curved and very sharp.
It made short work of my thumb.
Fortunately it is my left thumb. Even so it is very painful and you might be surprised how much you miss being able to use the little bugger.
I can't open things because I find it hard to hold things in my left hand to be able to twist the top with my right.

Next time we think about having a barbeque we are going to have Chinese.

posted by Sue Banks @ 9:13 AM