Night out

Spent a night out in NYC last week, stayed overnight in a hotel so felt very exciting. Cocktails (well G&Ts for me) on a Manhattan, lovely warm evening and great company. Finished off the night checking out the sky to see Mars being close to the Moon - in our jimjams - which must have amused the taxi drivers. Turns out the Mars thing was a hoax - mainly.

America, America

JD is back home! He told me how cold it was back in Belfast and hard to find stores open. Hehe. Already turning into a Soft American Man!

Tomato sauce

4 lb of tomatoes this week! Jeebus. And they were all super ripe, if left would be gone by tomorrow. So we have peeled, de-seeded and grated all evening. Then added the good olive oil, salt, pepper and smidge of sugar. Mmmm. Now will be frozen to cheer us up on a dreary October day.

Done but not done

Carpets all cleaned, hard work but looking nice.

Just sat down to enjoy a well deserved cup of tea.

Woops!

Tea cup fell over.

Tea stain on carpet.

Lets start again.

Cleaning

Gosh carpets are disgusting. I wish we didnt have them in the apartment but we do so have to live with it. As I am too lazy to go and sort out a rental machine and too tight to get a company to do it for us I bought a carpet cleaner vacuum cleaner machine thing. It arrived today. It works! Unfortunately I have to move all the furniture before starting. Its hard work. But 1/5 of living room done (the manky area by my recliner) and 1/3 of bedroom. Tomorrow will attack another part and plan is that by end of weekend it will all be done.

Veggie box

This week in our veggie box we got:

1 cucumber

3 peppers

2 chilies

1 bunch of basil

1 small box of cherry tomatoes

2 lb summer squash

2 lb tomatillos

3 lb heritage tomatoes

1 bunch spinach

1 bunch edamame beans

I gave away some squash, tomatoes and peppers as I still had plenty from last week. This is what I have done with the veggies:

• Heritage tomatoes - raw tomato sauce (grate skinned and de-seeded tomatoes, add 2 tbsp olive oil and salt/pepper)
• Squash bread - they call sponge cake bread here, funny. Its nice and has ground cloves, ginger and cinnamon in it.
• Steamed edamame beans and just ate.
• Salsa Verde with tomatillos.
• Cucumber peeled and cubed was served with the scrambled eggs for brunch.

Made pesto with last weeks basil so have used this weeks as garnish as plenty of pesto left. Spinach is staring at me whenever I open the fridge so will have to make something with it soon...

Last weekend of summer

It feels a bit like the last weekend of summer. Not because its going to be cold tomorrow (oh no, we are back to 28-29 and high humidity next week) but because we are just back from what we believe will be the last camping trip of the year. From now on in we are too busy with other stuff to go camping. Which feels a little sad. But all the other stuff is good other stuff so I wont be sad for long.

We went canooing down the Housatonic river yesterday. The nice man from Clarke's Outdoor Store drove us 6 miles up river and then we paddled slooowly down the river passing massive corn fields and sighting the occassional house a safe distance away from the river. We had a snack break and two swimming breaks so we were not working overly hard. We finished by a line of orange buoys indicating a fall - a power station. Turned out it used to be (about 120 years ago) a bustling place where the Housatonic Railway had its repair shops and turn table thingymajig. Now its the middle of the forest. Nice little history lesson for the day.

Today we started off with breakfast by the Housatonic river (scrambled eggs with bacon and new potatoes) we headed back via Macedonia state park camp site - a definite one to add to our list for next year. As we made our way south and west we hit Wassaic - small village in NY State which also was a bustling place 120 or so years ago. The man who supplied the Confederate army with condensed milk built up the place after relocating his business from Texas, dontchaknow. All very quaint and sweet and very sleepy on a Sunday morning.

Kayaking

So at end of last weekend I was convinced I was never going to go kayaking again. The teacher lady was insane and while I learned how to get out of the kayak even with a splash skirt on the next person panicked and B had to help her get out of the kayak, somewhat shaken... I was not able to get back in on my own and while teacher lady finally showed us a way of helping each other into a kayak in deep water it was too little too late. I did learn that the paddle is key and the theory behind the stroke. But it was a lot of hassle carrying kayaks, loading on and off and on and off the cars. Phew.

So last Sat night I was happily committing to a kayak free life. A week later we rented a tandem kayak (recreational this time, not sea kayak) and practised getting back in as well as paddling technique. Great fun! So we will continue renting kayaks. Just not buy any. Which is handy as we have no space for them.