Roast beef

 I cooked a roast beef on Saturday and I think it was probably one of my best.  I'm experimenting with reducing the temperature I take the beef out of the oven at.  The internal meat temperature continues to rise for a short while once out of the oven.

Florence has lost another tooth

 2 or three are wobbly too.  Let's hope they mostly grow back before her birthday in 2 months.

Sleep over

We had a sleep over last night, our friends from school needed a little help so hopefully they can reciprocate later in the year.  Their mum stayed to put them down so I popped to the pub.  Too many cooks and all that...

April has the day off so is looking after one of them today too.

Legoland on Sunday

 Arthur has been asking to go to Legoland for ages now.  It's not that we don't want to take him it's just we didn't want to go when the weather was rubbish earlier in the year.  Our weekends get fairly booked up these days so it's also hard to find a free weekend.

Anyway, we're now going on Sunday morning and Arthur will love it.  Having been to Euro Disney a couple of months ago the kids are used to the inevitable long queues.  There's queues jumping available but I think it's not right so won't be doing that.

He's going to Diggerland with April next Friday and i'm taking him to a hotwheels show at the O2 in October.  He's going to love that too!  Lucky boy. 

Back to the games cafe

 We visited the games cafe for our latest game and had good fun.  Only the 4 players as we had a couple of late call offs but still a laugh.

Kids park run

 I ran around with Florence at her junior park run on Sunday.  She's been having trouble keeping pace and stops still 10+ times to catch her breath.  I'm no expert at distance running but managed to get her round 2 seconds off her pb which she's been missing by minutes this past year.  We only stopped twice, and by stopped I mean keep walking.  Very proud of her and will keep with her next time we do it.

Legoland this weekend so will have to be the week after.

Fancy Sunday food

 Our usual Sommelier Soiree group (dinner party) decided to go on tour this Sunday and headed into London  We usually take turns and go round each others houses, each taking it in turn cooking starters, mains and deserts, whilst sampling 6 bottles of wine.

This time we went to Marjorie's, on the recommendation from the Guardian's food critic Grace Dent

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2025/jul/06/marjories-london-w1-restaurant-review-grace-dent

It was pretty good.  It was a sort of a small plate sharing affair similar to tapas where we had lamb carpaccio, escargot, langoustine, beef and an awful lot of cheese.

We were home in time at 6 for our childminder who looked after our 2 and another couple of kids from the other 2 couples.

Have I been taking the jabs?

 Fuck off!  I've had two friends over the weekend complimenting me on my weight loss only to then ask if i've been taking the weight loss jabs! Fuck off!  It's really annoying as i've friends that are on it and are losing weight but i've been doing it by eating better and in the gym as much as I can.

One month till my birthday

 I'll be 46 next month.  Yes, I know it's hard to believe.  My bathroom scales think i'm 49.  Prick.

We're off to Fallow in the afternoon for my birthday

https://fallowrestaurant.com/

I follow the two head chefs on youtube and they've had a lot of positive reviews so thought i'd give it a go.  We're on the Chef's counter which means we'll get to see them all preparing the dishes.  Should be good fun.

As for presents, I have no idea.  I've probably said it on here before but i've probably got everything I want (within reason).  I don't want to get anything just for the sake of it but it's still nice to open a present or two on the day.

Pickled Ginger

 https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/pickled-ginger

Made this yesterday, I made some a couple of months ago but in a much smaller jar and it didn't last long.  Let's see how long this lasts.