The Gucci Gardener

Ah dear. Yet another one of those "good grief my life has changed SO  much!!" moments. And don't get me wrong the change is not bad at all it's just such a 180 it stopped me in my tracks.

In the dark days BH, I was known by many nicknames which reflected my 'rush about the world pretending to be happy' status; JetSetGlam being one of them (seriously I am not making this up!), the Prada Princess being another. And whilst Prada & Gucci are quite different they are the same if you see what I mean - overpriced aspirational Italian brands offering covetable bags & shoes that fitted me & hence whose shoes I coveted & bought. With alarming frequncy. Meaning I gathered quite a collection

Fast forward 8 or so years. The weather in FauxSurrey whilst not flooding like other parts of the UK has been pretty soggy & grey. Yet spring bulbs will not wait forever to be planted and as I had in excess of 50 that needed to go in ASAP the grey soggy Sunday just gone seemed as good a day as any to get out there & garden.

Looking at the weather I donned jeans & a hoodie and thick socks  grabbed my Burgon & Ball gardening stuff (aka Prada for the garden!!) and pondered my Hunter wellies (I have 2 pairs ... come on, some things fundamental don't change...!) but quickly thought nah too hard as I needed to be in & out of the utility and needed shoes I could kick on & off easily. In the garage I peered into the cupboard where shoes go to die looking for something disposable, sliponable and chunky & staring back at me were 2 fab candidates. It was only when I had pulled them both out & decided which pair I would stomp about a muddy mucky garden in I realised what I was doing. On the floor in front of me was about £400 worth of shoes. 1 pair Gucci trainers, 1 pair Prada. Both black, funky & very early 21st century ie very much of their time & not really what you would wear in 2012.

So the Gucci trainers have become gardening shoes. I vividly remember the days I bought both pairs - one pair I was wandering about Selfridges wasting time and found myself in the Prada concession & thought ooh they are nice I'll have them; the other I was on a  Gucci mission with a gaggle of gay men (yes correct collective noun) and we all came out swinging the dark brown carrier bags and then had sushi for lunch. Cos that's what you did in 2001. My my how times have changed.

Starry starry night

Finally! We went away & it all (pretty much) worked out! To celebrate our 5th year of wedded bliss we booked a stunning restaurant (L'Enclume), a stunning 2 bed cottage 5 metres from the door of the restaurant in a stunning village (Cartmel) in the stunning south lakes. Yes, stunning. There were bed issues (as there always are - WHY do cottage people think you want to sleep on a marshmallow? Just one night in the soft mess & I was swallowing painkillers & being carried by hubby; naturally we then swapped rooms and the second night was, if not brilliant, better) so on balance all was excellent.

The weather was kind, the antique shops & cafes were amazing, the pubs were brilliant; as well as L'Enclume we ate at Nigel Howarths pub The Bull at Broughton - I had a celeriac souffle to die for -  but the rest of this blog is dedicated to L'Enclume.

I must admit FauxSurreyHubby & I were more than a tad nervous as we reached the restuarant door. We had read mixed reviews, we are difficult customers (he is seriously allergic to nuts & all soft fruit, me a sort of veggie I eat fish but loathe shellfish ..) and there was no menu and no sense of what we would be offered as Simon Rogan, the chef & proprietor is well known as a forager. He gets the best of what he can on the day. But our concerns were dissipated the second we walked in. The staff were amazing. The sommellier was brilliant, the maitre d' a joy. No pompous service or people looking down their noses but a heap of personable talented & engaging people.

And the food. 17 courses of sheer bliss. All foibles were catered for and each dish superceded the last for inventiveness & sheer brilliance of flavours. I have my personalised menu somewhere in the house but am still unpacking so from memory I was knocked out by a duck egg yolk with baby leeks & onion ash; a pocket full of scrambled eggs & garlic & light potato foam; stunning Jersualem artichokes (no idea what they did to them but OMG) and a mouthful of creamy perfectly cooked Hake.

I did have 2 tiny 'hmm not sure' moments, for 2 of the pud courses but I am not really a pud person and the flavours were slightly bizarre BUT they were meant to be! Overall top marks. 10/10 and I would go back in a heartbeat & would encourage EVERYONE to go there & taste a piece of heaven at least once on their lives!

Carted Away

No I haven't finally gone mad (although given what's going on I am surprised I haven't) it's just a feeble attempt at regaining my sense of humour as it's that time of year again - it's our wedding anniversary (5 whole years now!) and we intend to leave the KC in the capable hands of her best mate Iris the catsitter, point the Volvo North and head for the pcituresque village of Cartmel, the home of sticky toffee pudding for 4 whole days a deux.

Huh? I hear you mutter, Shanghai, then Hamburg ... now the Lake District? In November? Can this be true? Oh yes. And there is method in our madness. No foggy delays at airports, no jetlag, and no fancy pants "I saw you coming" hotel this time with its paper thin walls & bad beds & £12 for a glass of average fizz.

This time we have been smart & we have rented a whole detatched 2 bed stone cottage with king sized beds, its own stream in the garden, an open fire in front of huge sofas to lounge on & we are bringing our own Krug & Perrier Jouet Belle Epoque to pop in the huge fridge & as our little cottage is in the middle of the village we only have to stroll out to sample award winning bistros & pubs & we have already booked dinner at L'Enclume, the restaurant of The Great British menu winning chef Simon Rogan. Will have to do a big country walk the day of that dinner and I cannot wait!

Getting back to normal ...

Long time no blog - have been having vile time chez the FauxSurreyHousehold. My little sister, the beautiful bouncy baby who was my 5th birthday present, has had breast cancer.  No pretty pictures for this post as none are apt. She is far too young for something like this (43) and whilst all has gone as well as it could physically, emotionally she is wrecked. They managed to remove all the cancer (when I say all, there were 2 tumours - more cancer than breast) with a full mastectomy and luckily there is no need for chemo or radiotherapy but the poor girl is sledgehammered by this. She feels violated, butchered; almost abused. She even genuinely considered not having the surgery as the thought of what was about to be "done" to her was too much to bear. She understood it was the knife or death but that didn't help. Unlike Sharon Osbourne, for my sister the removal of a breast was NOT a no brainer.

There is no gentic cancer in our family. Her lifestyle suggests she should live to 120 disease free. She runs 7km daily and does half marathons for fun, she has never smoked, barely drinks (unlike me...) is almost a vegetarian, and is incredibly active - she goes diving & kite surfing when on holiday. It just shows you. Cancer really is no respecter of age or lifestyle.

Right now those closest to her, me included, are doing our level best to help her through this emotionally. The surgery is done (although I am NOT impressed by the private hosptial she went to - the surgery was on a Thursday evening & she was sent home in utter confusion & pain the next day - Friday PM less than 24 hours after MAJOR surgery - as  they had another paying customer for the bed. It's a disgrace), and the prognosis is full (physical) recovery so the future should be on the horizon. BUT she cannot see past the cancer. She is still struggling to understand how this happened to her. She cannot get perspective. And before anyone reading this goes off about how lucky she is (I know in the context of what happened she IS lucky; incredibly lucky) life, hope and experience are all relative.

Today she is seeing a counsellor from the Helen Rollason cancer charity http://www.helenrollason.org.uk/ ; I really hope that this counsellor can help her find some perspective, some hope, something to look forward to.