Walking off the Christmas food...

One of our favourite walks when we are in the UK is along part of the Ribble Way following the course of the River Ribble. The part we do regularly is from West Bradford bridge along the northern bank of the Ribble to Grindleton bridge and then return down the southerly bank.

It is a pleasant walk and usually muddy at this time of year!!

The village of Chatburn with Pendle Hill in the background

The village of Grindleton with the fells in the background 

Some of the wildlife we see

We see a blue flash many times...

but very rarely get a photograph...

and likewise of a woman who can walk in thin air!!!!

Have a very happy and prosperous new year...

In the kitchen with Colin...(3)

The third in the 'series' is from a loose recipe card I have had for many years. It was most probably from a set given free in one of the weekend newspaper supplements.

The dish is Oriental Pork, which is pork (I used pork fillet) marinated in soy sauce and red wine for several hours and then cooked with grated fresh ginger, carrot, leek, and green pepper with frozen peas added at the end.

The pork marinade...

The ingredients.

Cooking the pork, which is then removed from the pan.

Frying off the vegetables.

With the meat and liquids back in the pan..

and the peas added

The finished dish served with basmati rice... yum yum.

Elizabeth loved it that much she has requested a large batch for our Boxing day meal with the family... So it looks like I will be BACK in the kitchen!!!

Christmas and Friends

Wishing all our readers new and old

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM COLIN & ELIZABETH

As last year we will not be sending Christmas Cards but instead making a donation. This year it will be to two charities which support epilepsy, Headway and Epilepsy Action as coincidentally we both have offspring affected by the condition.

Our celebrations started early this year with a meal - meeting up with two fellow bloggers, Gaynor and Jean, not in France as we normally would, but back in the UK. That seemed quite odd but it was lovely to have the chance to meet up before they both set off to spend Christmas overseas...

Since then our days have been filled with preparations for the big event. The sprouts are on to boil and the turkey is basting as we write. We've taken the bang out of the crackers to conform with H&S over here and now all that remains is to open our presents on the day. As we both know what we have bought for each other ... that could be interesting, but I'm sure we'll make it fun!

All the very best to you all. Don't over do it! We probably will!

Dressing Up for Christmas...

We thought this house was pushing it a bit with its Christmas decorations...

....until we saw this house!

And tucked down the drive was a nativity scene, guarded by yet another inflatable Santa and his clear plastic reindeer... Oh and a rather large inflatable candle (all good mangers have them!)

Any advance on this property then, for *OTT Christmas Decorations?

(*OTT = Outside, Tacky and Tasteless!)

Milestones...

Early this afternoon we reached a milestone we could never have foreseen when we started writing our blog...

100,000 page views since we started back in January 2011!

Thank you to our readers and particularly those who have added their comments over the years. We very much appreciate your participation. And if you were looking at the blog around 2:30pm you could have been our 100,000th viewer!

So to celebrate, here's a short video, posted by Richelieu's tourist office, of the finale of the fireworks at the close of Richelieu's Marche Noel this last weekend...

             
Click here to see the video

   

Colour Palette...

Bracken doesn't always get the best press but looking at these photos, taken in local woods, you can't help but admire the beauty of its form, backlit with sunlight on an Autumn day...

What a colour palette!

Going...

Going, Gone.

Elizabeth's photographs of the sun over our back fence...

Looks like the sky is on fire!

Footprints in the mud!

A couple of days ago I put the hosepipe on our stoned parking area with a view to cleaning it. It worked great but we did get a mud patch at the end where the stones meet the grass.

This morning we noticed these tracks...

Who knows what has been trampling on our mud?

Stand Off!

It didn't take our hens long to find the seeds and grain put around the base of the bird-table for the ground feeders. But whilst the brown and white hens were happy to share...

the grey one spent her time chasing off the small birds...

Until she was challenged by a rather bigger bird...

STAND OFF!!