Sue's Blog - Some assembly required.

Where's Chippy?

There is Chippy, well one of them.
We have lots of chippies this year but they have drawn the attention of a red tail hawk.
It is a magnificent looking creature but I wish it would go elsewhere.
I am very fond of my chippies and, apparently, so is he.

"One of these things is not like the others"
They are such cute little buggers and very cheeky.   One sits on my back door step and doesn't seem frightened of me at all.
Pah..and me being so scary too.

This has been our Labour Day holiday weekend.   Philip was off on Monday, which was nice, and I managed to pry him away from his computer game yesterday afternoon - we went out.
We just went for a drive and then stopped for lunch.  Oh how I miss British pubs when you want lunch.
Here it is all McDonald's, Burger King, Subway etc. etc......which are all good, but sometimes I want something different.
We found a place that was a little different.   It was mostly burgery type things but the setting was almost pub like, so we ordered some grub.
Philip's was better than mine (well there's a novelty).  It is difficult living in Wisconsin and not eating meat.....oh and cheese now.
I seem to have developed lactose intolerance..........and I am bloody annoyed about it.
It has taken me some time to work it out but now I am certain.  I started having stomach pains, bloating etc for days at a time.  For instance, last Christmas I could barely eat my long awaited Christmas dinner because I was in so much pain and discomfort.  It didn't occur to me that it might have something to do with the cheese & wine supper we had on Christmas Eve.  This has been our regular Christmas Eve treat for years......why should it be a problem now?
A couple of weeks later, when Philip was out gallavanting, I decided to finish some of the delish cheeses off. Oh bad move.  The next few days were agony.  Another couple of instances that occurred after eating cheese produced the same results and the penny dropped.
I am really cross about it.  I really love cheese......good strong cheese.  I am like Wallace or Grommit (can't remember which) and adore a good ploughman's etc.
I am going to research stuff that you can take before eating cheese to see if that might work for me.  Bundle of laughs being a vegetarian who now can't eat cheese.
Anyway...I digress....back to the restaurant......I found an item on the menu which sounded lovely.
Grilled talapia fillet with pineapple salsa on ciabatta bun with salad.  Brilliant.
It wasn't bad.
The fish was so over cooked it was all dried up.
The ciabatta bun had been sort of fried on the griddle and was so hard I couldn't even break it.
The salsa was nice and the salad was saladdy.
But, looking on the bright side, at least I had found something on the menu I could order even if I couldn't eat it all.

Less than 4 weeks until my trip back to Blighty.   Donna has promised that we can go out for a pub roast every Sunday I am there. You have no idea how much I am looking forward to that.
I can't wait to go round the shops, buy lovely vegetarian food to eat there and of course, lots of Christmas goodies to bring back.
This time I shall make sure I list every bloody item I am bringing back so that the man at immigration doesn't lecture me again.
"Do you have any fruit?"
"No, mainly chocolate."
"Ah well, a chocolate could have a strawberry centre. Now, that might be considered fruit?"
Really.

posted by Sue Banks @ 10:25 AM