timtum

Is it appropriate to go "woo and hoo" 'cos BD92 has popped back in to say hello?

I've just been to see the quack, in his surgery in the small village of Axat in the foothills of the Pyrenees. While I waited his return from a call out from the local Babylon to a RTA I leafed through the reading material on offer. Not for him the French equivalent of the well thumbed Readers Digest of my youth, or the ripped pages of Hello and its ilk. I instead found myself reading the 2013 Hull and East Yorkshire Tourist Board magazine.

One's a Haggerty and t'other's a Haggarty. With a dog called Timber.

After 9 curries in 10 nights, for my latest farewell to the UK I am making my wife a fillet steak, red wine and onion gravy, potato dauphinoise and broccoli tea tonight.

While out walking the dog in the local park I bumped into new St Helens prop forward Matthew Haggarty. Very pleasant chap. Huge.

I'm strangely smitten by Lucy Worsley and her murder series on the BBC iplayer.

To be fair, cassoulet round these parts of S France is a bit of a hotch potch of whatever you want to throw into it. Another one of the "classic" dishes that originate from the "whatever you have left in the larder" school of cooking. I've seen and eaten cassoulets with chicken, duck, pork, lamb, beef?!, and all have had the beans thing in common but not much else.

Last night I went for a pave steak (can't work out how to do accents), served a point, with chips and petit pois. I also made a rather lovely red wine, onion and smoked lardons gravy to go with it. Same again tonight!

Thoroughly enjoying Smiley's People on the Iplayer. What a cast. And just discovered that Sara Martins has left Death in Paradise. I'm utterly bereft.

For visitors down to the Catalan Dragons who are staying a little bit longer, or travelling via Carcassonne / Toulouse airports, and like a bit of a slurp http://www.brasserieduquercorb.com/ No idea what it tastes like as its unpasteurised state means that I can't drink it but the whole concept looks tremendous.

Speaking of Islay, has anyone tried the Bruichladdich range yet?

Easing my way through the listings to see if there is anyone I want to go and see in that there Paris I came across this: http://www.infoconcert.com/concerts/concerts-par-departement-5.html?departement_id=75&genre_id=3 Is our Lincolnshire based Swinton / Wigan fan branching out into matters musical? Is he supporting Larry the Leit, and his band? I think we should be told.

I was on the Chain on Radcliffe & Maconie again today with this little gem from the late 80's I once made up their rider for a gig at the Town & Country Club in Kentish Town!

I'm currently thoroughly enjoying Carl Hiaasen's Star Island. Hysterically funny with the return of the governor from the swamps, a paparazzo with BO, a pop starlet who is the embodiment of everyone out there, a bodyguard with a prosthetic weed whacker..... I really would recommend his canon. Previously read the Jo Nesbo Harry Hole in Thailand which I really enjoyed, and his latest ( I think ) Police, which I didn't.

I was served prawns, and thought very carefully about sticking a goodly serving to the back of "that painting" of the Roses match.... And from one of the other threads, a couple of days in the smoke and I must have been called boss on a dozen occasions.

I'm off for a business meeting at Twickers tomorrow. My first thought was, where can I secrete a carton of off milk, or some dodgy prawns behind a radiator.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds live in Austin http://video.pbs.org/video/2365359284/

Celebrity special!!! one of the guitarists of Badfinger - which incarnation I have not a clue - apparently resides in Puivert, the village down the hill from my gaff my big brother, a 50 year old priest, has as one of his 7 friends on facebook a BBC 6 music DJ ....and that is it I'm afraid. My wife has gone back to England after a four day break so I'm a bit down in the dumps.

Good on you. The very best of luck! My li'le bro is a clinical director not far up the road from you and is close to despair....

Are you doing the employed rather than self employed thing now?

I'm limbering up for Wednesday when I have to shift and stack four cubic metres of wood..... All my friends seem to be occupied that day for some reason.

People are regularly killed or badly injured round here by stags, deer and boar running into the road. Big beasts they are. Today, my puppy used up another life by discovering and having a good sniff at a viper which was out on the path catching some rays.

My neighbours were out potato harvesting over the weekend, backsides pointing to the sky. Looked back breaking work (which I obviously didn't join in with).

Home made traditional style pork sausages, two free range eggs, bread, butter with camembert to follow. Weight loss not imminent.

With the end of the hunting season round here the other week, a stag has decided to come down to the outskirts of the village and bellow in a splendidly defiant manner. Scared the Bejaysus out of my puppy. As did the he hawing of a pair of beveiled donkeys in the next field.