We like to move it, move it!

The movers and shakers are here and it feels a bit strange because, well, I'm not exactly doing very much.

In fact what I'm doing is sitting in my bedroom as the packers get on with it in the kitchen (no breaking noises so far) and the living room (which is filling rapidly with tall box sculptures and artistically blue and yellow bubble wrapped furniture). I could just have a snooze and wake up and it would all be done. Really, not an altogether bad idea.

While the tape has been unravelling and glasses are being swaddled I've managed to book all the restaurants we're going to eat in for the rest of the week. It reads like an around-the-world ticket: Pakistani, Spanish, English, Lahore, Cantonese, Vietnamese. I've also been polishing off the last of the Belgian chocolates (Neuhaus, if you must ask... the 'Millionaires' are the best).

So this moving business, is feeling far too easy for my liking. Where's the catch?!

Ahhhh. Saying goodbye. That's right.

Still got that bit to go.

But right now I'm remaining blissfully ignorant as I have the soundtrack of Madagascar II playing (and replaying) in my head as King Julian prepares to fly back to America and it's just a massive party in the jungle.

Physically fit, physically fit, physically physically physically fit.....  

WE LIKE TO... MOVE IT! 

xxx

The party's not over folks...

Last Saturday night was the party of our lives.

And it has taken me two days of solid sleeping to get me over it. (Yes, age is a factor.)

Our talented, beautiful jazz-singing friends, the brazilian band with the rio carnivale dancer (in full headdress and not much else), the superbly gifted dj to rock the party into late into the night, the most welcoming and fabulous bar staff  and of course our dear and wonderful friends who made it out into the wet wintery night to make it an evening we shall never ever forget. We thank you. And of course thank all the people who could not be there for their support and friendship over these 7 amazing years in London.

Now comes the hard part. The elation of finally obtaining the visas and realisation that we were going has quickly transitioned into the difficult task of actually physically and emotionally leaving. I've not been looking forward to this bit. Not one iota.

In two weeks from today we shall be moving out of our very first owned home. And one and a half weeks later we'll be going to Australia for 3 weeks before we return for one bittersweet week before we leave for good good good. The countdown is truly on.

I am going to enjoy this though. I will I will I will. Because there is no point in being sad in my last weeks here. It's time to be happy with my friends and live every last moment to the maximum, it's the only way. The tears can flow later.

So gorgeous people, lets keep the party pootling on until we go... so I am filled with gorgeous memories that will keep me sated for the days to come.

Thank you thank you thank you for the outrageously fanstastic last blast in London. We couldn't asked for a better send off... We love you all so very much.

xxx

Too easy.

The visa application went a little bit like this:

GV: Hello, I'm a perfumer. We would like to come and live and work in your country.

US Embassy: Ok, no problem, so did you really start off brewing beer? I like beer.

GV: Well, yes and the aromas are....

US Embassy: Yes... I love the smell of breweries, I grew up next to them....

US Embassy: And I loooove Aveda. The peppermint lip salve is amaaaaazing.

30 seconds. Job done. She was a hippy chick. We love her.

Hellooooo Mini Aaaaaaple!

Creaks & Creatures

Well, the cogs in this big mechanical beast have moved on. Creak creak. Can you hear it?

We now have an appointment to go and talk to the big important people at the US Embassy on Grosvenor Square on Monday 23rd Nov at 9am. Poor husband has to shave off the beard he's being trying to cultivate over the past week. But all going well, we hope to be skipping out of there with visas in sweaty palms at circa 10.30am. Excited? Well, just a little bit!

Apart from that, pantry success stories I'm afraid have been few and far between. But I have managed to wear down the bag of lentils, start on the jar of green peppercorns (getting a little enthusiastic with the little buggers in a creme fraiche and mustard sauce was not a good idea!) and whittling down (literally) the strands of wakame seaweed – they do a rather nice 3-point pike into a bowl of miso.

So, Minnesota and the snow shoes don't feel so far away now, so I think I'll soon be reaching for the credit card to buy that duvet coat with the fur lined hoodie!

Yesterday I went to Stamfords book store on Long Acre Lane in Covent Garden to meet a friend (wondering all the while why I had never ever been in there before... what an amazing place!) and discovered to my slight consternation that there wasn't a guidebook on Minneapolis & St. Paul. I don't think I've ever lived in a city which didn't proudly bear the badge of a Such & Such Guide Book being dediated to its every corridor. Which on one hand of course, takes the fun out of discovering the place, but on the other makes me a little worried about the amount there is to find.

But I'm sweeping any of those negative thoughts firmly out with the autumn leaves and packaging them up into bags to be picked up from the street and taken away. If there isn't a brilliant guide to what is going down in my almost-new-hometown, then I'll make one. So, that when you all come over to visit I can present your very own HelloMiniApple Guidebook.

I think we need a character here. A little cute bunny or something: À la Hello Kitty. Hmmm. I think I could so with some suggestions please. If you have an ideas of what creature/animal/ameoba should be the mascot of  HelloMiniApple please let me know!

This is not a competition, but the winner gets the first edition, first.

Isn't that a nice prize?

Ciao bambinos! Lunching awaits me!

(Don't forget to tune in on Monday to be the first to hear the news.)

x

It's not the destination, it's what you have to eat to get there.

For those of you who have just returned from some far away orb, you may or may not have heard that husband and I are planning to jettison off across the Atlantic next year to make hay in the twin cities of Minneapolis & St Paul in Minnesota, USA. A new job, a new life, a new front door and a new pair of snow shoes.

But right now it feels like we're quite a long way away from even leaving London – although the proverbial ball is actually in serious motion. However painfully slow it seems to be rolling, the dogged determination is there and I think if I was going to stand in its way I would most definitely be resembling a sorry smear of overstretched pastry. 

And to be honest I really do prefer puff.

So, here we are: mentioned job's been offered to husband and signed into, our flat has a buyer and is in the middle of the process of that very long process it takes to sell a property, we're practising the theory that 'patience is a virtue' with increasing impatience as we wait for the visas to materialise and I'm on 'Day One' of my voluntary redundancy where I'm trying to find some kind of nine-to-five rhythm at home which doesn't begin with rolling out of bed at 11am and end by me running around madly at 5.30pm wondering what the hell I've been doing all day and why I'm still in my dressing gown.

Still, I think I should be easing into this slowly, since the last time I had a break like this I was galavanting around Asia aged 27 with a backpack strapped to my torso not sure if I was going to get to where I was going on the back of a ute/bus/boat/plane in Cambodia/Vietnam/China/Nepal. To really get into the spirit of things, I'm feeling an innate need to inject my own tiny sense of adventure into this otherwise very organised departure. 

Which is why today marks the beginning of a very special kitchen odyssey, which kills two birds with one spatula: 

1) what to have for lunch everyday, and 
2) how to empty the store cupboard between now and christmas. 

Contents of the cupboard (in no particular order) include: pink peppercorns, green peppercorns, pickled lemons, preseved lemons, chickpeas, lentils, sundried tomatoes, tahini, yellow bean sauce, ackee, split peas, pomegranate molasses, shrimp paste, anchovies, fish stock, olives, porcini mushrooms, dried chinese mushrooms, baking supplies, dried fruits and nuts, pastas, gram flour, chocolate spread, honey, vegemite, rices and grains, lots of tea, spices from everywhere around the globe, verjuice, vinegars and nam pla... and the list goes on and on. Now do you see the challenge?

So, it was a pretty tentative start: yesterday's white kingsmill bread, toasted, with half a tomato that was lurking around since last monday (!!), halloumi – which has been hibernating in the cheese box for half the year (unopened, if you were wondering... it's amazing how long that rubbery dairy keeps for!) – grilled and then sandwiched around some fresh parsley, rocket and olive oil. 

No, it's not crying-out-bonkers but it does the tick the right boxes in that I haven't bought anything new to concoct it and I am making things that have been morphing in the darkness of the pantry for whoever knows how long, into an edible lunch of sorts.

Feel free to stay tuned as this moves from the weird to the surreal and onto the downright disgusting.  But please remember this is designed to keep me amused rather than you salivating at the mouth.


(Small disclaimer: You do not necessarily want to try this at home, infact I strongly advise against it.)