Rudders at Home

I’ve been hungry for home recently. With the small spurt of warm weather here, I’m really in the mood for a picnic. I’ve also been yearning for a cookout. Really yearning. A warm summer afternoon up on top of the hill, with a fire, hot dogs and marshmallows. I can almost close my eyes and imagine opening a cooler and setting things out on the picnic table – isn’t that crazy? Give me a bar of Hershey’s, some graham crackers, a bag of marshmallows and we’re all set for some s’mores.

I was browsing through some food blogs the other day and when I stumbled across this S’more pie recipe at Smitten Kitchen, I knew I had to make it. If nothing else I thought it might curb my hunger for the sweet treat.

It turned out pretty well, and it was definitely well received by Paul. I used a combination of digestive biscuits and ginger snaps for the graham cracker crust, and in place of the corn syrup, I used golden syrup, which worked as well. Next time I might split my chocolate and do half milk and half dark. I used all dark this time, and it was just a bit too strong and overpowered the other parts.

If I get a hankerin’ for s’mores again, this will definitely be a good option. Now, I think next weekend I might just fry some chicken and make potato salad.

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This is a picture of the ruins of St. Andrew’s cathedral. I’ve been here several times over the last five years, and it happens to be one of my favorite spots in the UK.

Why is it one of my favorite spots, you ask? Well, it just so happens that not only is it a beautiful ruin in a lovely town, but also one of the first places in Scotland I visited way back in December 2002. Oh, and did I mention this is where Paul proposed and I accepted?

St. Andrews is located on Scotland’s east coast in the Kingdom of Fife. I asked Paul innocently enough one time why he wasn’t from the Kingdom of Tay then, and he told me to stop picking and making fun of him. I just don’t understand why he always thinks I’m making fun of him.

In all seriousness, though, St. Andrews is a wonderful place to see if you’re making a trip to Scotland. It’s a lovely town, with a beautiful ruin right next to the sea. I just hope your weather is as good as ours was when I took this photo.

I should also point out that he didn’t propose to me in a cemetery. The actual deed was done to the right of this photo, nearer the cloister of the ruins.

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They’ve found a bomb in East London. No, not the kind you’re thinking of. They’ve found an unexploded World War II bomb in a place called Bromley-by-Bow. (No, this is nowhere near where I live, folks – closer to where I work!) This has, of course, disrupted travel in the city. And, in true London style, the news isn’t about the fact that a 60+ year old bomb has been found, but about the fact that travel has been disrupted.

Tonight, they’re trying to difuse the thing – which seems to be a good thing because reports say that it’s been ticking.  “They” are the Royal Engineers. Apparently, they seem to have a bit of experience with this sort of thing. There seem to be any number of left over unexploded bombs in London. It’s good to keep in mind that some of those on that list have been taken care of since it was produced, so it isn’t definitive. So, why are these bombs all over London? Well, they are all a consequence of The Blitz.

When you start to think about this, you begin to realize that there’s a bit more to the reason why people are constantly bringing up “The War.” Somehow, it doesn’t seem quite so out of touch to me now.

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I really like The Proclaimers. And I personally feel it is my duty to to spread the word about them. They make me smile, and that’s what I need today. That’s why I’m posting this video.

I found out today that the bank has a two week back log and it will be at least two weeks before we see our money back. If we get our money back – that still seems to be up in the air, but the signs look good. When you only get paid once a month (seriously, what’s that all about, anyway?), it’s a pretty big deal. I guess we’ll just have to dip into the caribou hunt fund… (shock, horror!!)

To make matters worse, I heard my voice on the “answerphone” (that’s the answering machine, mom and dad) yesterday. And I’m afraid I’ve heard it with my own ears now – I AM starting to lose my accent. To quote the song… I’ve been so sad, since I said my accent was bad!! 😥

So here’s The Proclaimers. They’re not for everyone, but they do make me smile.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=066oSmDRKPA

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Someone in France is living off of my salary right now. I checked my bank statement online today and spotted that two withdrawals have been made – in FRANCE. They had taken out what appeared to be the maximum amount two days in a row. Now, we’re not in France this week, so this is quite unexpected. Not only that, but when we do travel, we don’t normally clean out our bank account in quite the same way. And with that, the bank we call.

With a phone call to the bank, we discover that someone has been taking money out on us all weekend. It just hasn’t registered on our online statement yet. I actually am quite glad it hasn’t, as I think I would have been even more upset. Seeing the two withdrawals was bad enough, to have seen four or five would have been heartbreaking for me.

What is the bank going to do, you wonder. Well, I wonder that too. First off, they’ve cancelled my debit card. Apparently, it was my card that has been stolen. Somehow, someone was able to get a hold of my card information AND my PIN number. Everything’s all fine and dandy with Paul’s card on the joint account.

So, the first step, cancel the card and send me a new one – to do what with, I don’t know. We haven’t got any money left in the account at all. The second step, the bank says it will investigate. They gave us a number to ring back in a couple of days, and all we’re left to do is wait.

I can’t stand waiting. The bank did say once it was investigated we would most likely get our money back, so if that’s the end result, I suppose I can be patient enough. I’m just irritated that this has happened at all. It irks me that someone has stolen my card, when my card is the least used card in the house.

I’m angry. I’m irritated and angrier than I can even express. And I absolutely cannot believe that we’re paying someone else’s way through life at the moment. I hope they get caught. I hope they get a surprise when they try to make their daily withdrawal tomorrow. I imagine though that they’ll just pull another card out of their pocket. This sucker’s finally caught on.

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