Any one for soup?

I popped into the new international food store on the High Street this morning and spotted this.  Each to their own...

Made me chuckle far too much

We often get the children's artwork to take home with us but this has to be my absolute favourite.

 Arthur the butterfly

Rather rude swan

I was walking across a bridge with the dog yesterday when I heard a loud hissing sound.  One of these swans had taken offence with us. 

Cooking new recipes

 I've been doing a little bit of new cooking recently.  We've been very lazy and eaten out a fair bit and ordered lots of takeaways so though i'd try a few new ideas.

Salt and chilli king prawn (one of our favourite dishes at our local Chinese)

Double coated in corn flour

Air drying

Frying the rest

Finished dish

Griddled Apricots and Goats Cheese Salad (There's no photo of the roast beef I did to go with it)

Griddle pan

Finished dish

Potential game store / cafe in Tonbridge

 We spotted this a while back but looks like there could be a new addition to Tonbridge.

Meeples

Saturday

Sunday

Tonbridge Pirates

Our friend Laura took Flo out on their kayak on Sunday.  Flo loved it.

 

Spot the difference

 Arwen had her second haircut this morning

Before

After

That was a bit of a scare

I was looking into paying another income tax instalment (due end of July) and couldn't find a the entry going out of my bank account for the previous one.

As part of being paid in dividends as a contractor I have to fill out self assessment tax returns and one of the weird quirks is that you pay for the first year then half again for the next then the remaining half 6 months later, despite the fact that you may actually have earned more (like I did).  It will all even out in the wash but it's still odd to me.

Anyway, I couldn't find the year and a half's worth of tax that I thought i'd paid going out of my account.  I initially panicked as I certainly didn't want to have to pay for it again.  I searched our joint account, my business account (or old business account) but couldn't find it.  It was only when I was mid call to HMRC where I realised where it was.  I had a savings account keeping tabs on all of my tax that was due to make sure that I didn't spend it.  Phew!  What a fool.

Upon the high seas

 A couple of weeks ago we took a trip on along the river Medway.  We were supposed to go the week before but there were wind gusts of 50 mph+ so thought better of it.

 Went for a big dog walk with a friend yesterday.  Had lunch in a village pub, then walked back, stopping off at a new brewery and tap room in town for a couple more.  Arwen was pooped afterwards!

Eastbourne Trip

A good portion of the Tonbridge Massive went to Eastbourne on Saturday to visit some of old friends that had moved down that way.  April decided to hitch a rid on the back of Jono's bike.

Long time no post

I quit my job a few weeks ago.  Leading up to that I was fairly stressed with work and on the Monday I decided to hand my notice in.  Seeing what had happened to Ross a few weeks previous I didn't see the point of doing something that was stressing me out and also something I didn't even enjoy.  Anyway, luckily I didn't have to do much handover so am now in the last week of a nearly 3 week break which has been great, the recent spell of good weather has certainly helped too.

I've now got a new role lined up and am due to start next week (the laptop arrived yesterday).  They wanted me to start this week but I really need the break so pushed it back.