Friday 13 February
Carol, Jeanette, Linda, Sally, Sue, Wendy
We decided to have a foodie weekend - this had been inspired by Angela talking about different types of cooking she had mastered whilst fostering children of diverse nationalities. Of course she was now unable to join us after her fall injuring her back and foot so we were down to a select few as another couple of schoolies also had to drop out. But this gave us the perfect excuse use the weekend as a trial so we could plan to do it all again at a later date!. 👍
We arrived at our accommodation on a farm in the midst of lots of sleety rain. It was lovely and warm! We unpacked and settled in.
Little duck in the water filled trough outside the front door.. 😁
Beautiful views from the windows - even with the rain.
Going slightly off topic.. one of the items I had received from Siobhan's sister Jenny was an unworked cross stitch table cloth. No idea where it came from and no idea why Siobhan had it as she wasn't a hand sewer.
We had decided to adopt it as the 'schoolie' table cloth and make it uniquely our own. Jeanette had been delegated as table cloth monitor.
It was quite large but Jeanette had already made a small start on the stitching.
We would like everyone to add at least a few stitches to it when we get together - and we intend to use it at future schoolie events. We want to add our sewn signatures to it as well but we haven't quite worked out how to do that bit yet!..
I made a four ingredient slow cooker fruit cake.
.. I used half quantity for a smaller slow cooker and reduced the cooking time. I also used more Bailey's and ordinary milk, added apricots, prunes and cherries - in fact I don't know why I bothered to print the recipe really as I changed everything - but it's a very forgiving recipe.. 😁
We said how much Siobhan would have enjoyed watching us all squinting as we struggled to thread our needles and tried to work out how to get back to a little cross that we'd somehow managed to work round and miss (and me nearly sewing the table cloth to my jeans!)
So we enjoyed jelly and cake - a delicious way to end our meal.. 😋
We assembled back in the lounge with a glass of Bailey's and put the world to rights for the rest of the evening.
Perfect.
Saturday 14 February
When I got up in the morning I opened my bedroom door and there was a small box of chocolates on the carpet outside. What a lovely surprise! When I went upstairs to the loo (my bedroom was downstairs) there were similar boxes outside the other bedrooms.
Noone has owned up to placing them there despite extensive investigations! We were all very puzzled.. and very suspicious!
It was a very cold morning - the poor little duck had frozen sideways in the trough overnight.. 🤣
So lovely to see some blue skies and to see the surroundings in the sunshine - a bit different to the wet and grey of yesterday.
The outbuildings were very dilapidated but the barn was still home to a herd of cows.
Sally cooked us a wonderful shakshuka with breakfast muffins and we ate delicious sour dough bread made by Mark.
A great start to the day.
Then we drove into Melton Mowbray for a little wander in the cold sunshine.
Of course some of us had to buy pork pies!
It was built in 2017 and shows all the things Melton Mowbray is famous for including the pork pies and Stilton cheese. Also depicted was a bird carrying a paintbrush which was reference to the time all the local hoi poloi had ridden into town in a drunken state and covered the buildings in red paint.. hence the term 'paint the town red'!
Artwork on the wall.
We stopped at a little coffee shop for a drink and yet more cake.
Four of them went back to the accommodation to watch the rugby whilst Sue and I had a further wander.
Jeanette cooked the evening meal.
West African peanut stew with rice.
Then back into the lounge for a bit more sewing, a bit more Bailey's - and a Traitors type interrogation into the 'mystery of the valentine's chocolates' with suspicious scrutiny of everyone's facial expressions and body language, much finger pointing, dodgy timelines, accusations of double bluff and some wild and not so wild theories - then we all made dramatic exits and farewell speeches from the kitchen doorway.
But no admissions were made, no conclusions were drawn, chocolate-gate went unsolved and the mystery remained unresolved. We all have our own suspicions.. 🕵️♀️
Sunday 15 February
A very big change in the weather after the cold sunshine of yesterday - heavy rainy sleet. Not a day for going out so we decided to have a lazy morning.
I made a lemon posset for later.
Lavender shortbread biscuits had been made at home to serve with it.
We pottered around doing nothing in particular between more bits of sewing.
Linda did her first sewing stint - we were all impressed with how neat it was!
When the weather cleared up slightly four of us went for a short car ride to the Belvoir Castle farm shop and retail park. We managed to walk from the car park to the bistro for a light lunch and then we had a mooch round the farm shop and a wander to the other few shops which were open.
When we got back to the accommodation we found Sally and Carol still working away at the cross stitch.
Jeanette organised us and we all started to add our names to the table cloth - she'd found a little haberdashers in Melton Mowbray and bought a special pen which meant we could write directly onto the table cloth. Then we were able to embroider over the top of our writing as the scribble slowly faded to nothing. Every schoolie who does a bit of cross stitch will be adding their name to the cloth.
I don't think that this will be a short term project as the table cloth is quite long and it will require a lot of stitching.. 😁
Sue and Jeanette finished 'signing' their names on the table cloth and went for a rest and a sit down.
Carol started the prep for her curry.
After the torrential rain the sky cleared and there was a beautiful sunset.
Another lovely meal - chicken curry in red pepper sauce and the same with paneer for the veggies.
Then a bit more sewing for Sally, Sue and Carol.
Everyone had sewn at least a small section - some with more enthusiasm than others - and 'signed' their work. Other schoolies will add their own mark at later dates.
Monday 16 February
It was the usual early get up to sort out and pack the cars ready to leave. But for once there was no huge mountain of unused food to pile up, sort out and distribute!
Each one of us had bought the ingredients (and other equipment etc that we thought might not be provided in the house) for our individual recipes and we'd also bought our own breakfast foods and drinks, liaising a bit to make sure that we had sufficient tea, coffee, milk and a few bottles of wine.
We decided that if we needed anything else we would buy it whilst we were there. But nothing was needed!
Some of the left overs from the meals had been frozen so they were very easy to sort out. And that was it!
Sally and Carol set off for home and Linda, Jeanette, Sue and I went back to the Belvoir castle bistro for breakfast and a debrief and planning meeting for future trips.
We agreed that it had been a very laid back and successful weekend - lots of good food, drink and plenty of laughter and conversation - and we agreed that it should be repeated very soon!
Chef's kiss for the foodie weekend.. mwaah.. 😘
Several days later..
Well I need to confess, own up and come clean.. 🙏 I was the phantom chocolate dropper.. though I think you'd all worked that out anyway despite my denials 😁. I hadn't really intended for it to remain a mystery but it was quite funny hearing all the different postulations, theories and speculations so like Topsy it just growed! I tried very hard not to actually lie directly but lie by omission.. (saying I am a faithful NOT I left the chocolates.. 😁) but I was broken by Sue on the drive home when we talked about it again and she said - you wouldn't lie to me would you? And I did.. again by saying something a bit sideways (can't remember what now) but I felt GUILTY! So Sue I apologise for obfuscating (great word - don't think I've ever had to use it before!!). It was me. I did it.. 😟 To all of you.. It was me. I did it. Mea culpa. Soz.. 🫣
.. as a little side note if any of you are planning any bank heists or such like could you please not include me in the team as I'd be too guilt ridden lying to the police.. 🤣
But quite apart from all that it did give us all a huge laugh and I hope that you enjoyed the chocolates.. 😁😘
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