I also came home to a lovely meal where we could sit at the table and be sociable. Speaking to each other has become a bit of a novelty at the minute as we have both been working so much and at completely un-co-ordinated times so it was really lovely to have the time to sit together and eat.
Adam had made some lamb meatballs during the day and we were to have these with pitta breads and some salad. We did pop out quickly when I got home to get some cheese to have with them. We decided on hallumi cheese which we could lightly fry off and some tzatsiki although when we got the the shop, the only dip that there was a gap for on the shelf was typically the tzatsiki.
Plan B...what do we do? We can't eat it without any sauce at all. I thought it couldn't really be too difficult to make tzatsiki as it must just be Greek yoghurt and cucumber really. We had a little Google and it turns out it is really easy. You need a small pot of Greek yoghurt (or more depending on how much tzatsiki you want to make), a whole cucumber chopped up fairly finely, lemon juice, a small handful of mint leaves and salt and pepper to taste. It's really easy to make and even if we do say so ourselves, it was a million yes nicer than the stuff that you buy in the shops too.
Our version of tzatsiki was lovely and went really well with the other ingredients to make some well loaded and lovely pittas.
It was a proper feast really by the time we were ready to eat. We both thoroughly enjoyed our meal and I loved sitting in the kitchen to eat it too. It always feels like a real treat to sit properly at the table and actually speak to each other.
On Sunday my plan was a pretty boring one really as my hubby was on call for work so we couldn't do too much and I had full intentions of getting some college done but this didn't really end up happening.
Adam had the idea a while ago - almost when we bought the house really - that he wanted a brick built BBQ in the garden. It's always been something that I am not too fussed about so I said that if he could find a way of doing it relatively cheaply then I didn't mind him doing it.
He put a message out on Facebook a little while ago asking anyone if they had any free bricks that we could collect and use to build it. A lovely couple replied and said that they had almost a full pallet of bricks leftover from their house extension so as long as we could go and get them then they could be ours.
We got the message about a week or so ago but hadn't managed to get around to going and collecting them in the evenings after work. Sunday seemed to be the best option and the only time over this few weeks that we would both be free at the same time to go and collect them.
We took around a couple of bottles of wine on Sunday morning and began the process of loading the car. We were quite conscious to start with to not over-fill the boot and weigh the car down but on the second load we were aware that they still weren't all going to fit and there were even more left for a third run as we had just loaded.
The second run I unloaded most of myself as Adam had to do some work at that point. As I was outside by the car to unload them and carry them around the back a man who lives on our street came and asked what we were building. When we told him he revealed that he is in fact a builder and could therefore do it for us for a reasonable price. We were both slightly gutted I think for not being able to do this ourselves really but also pleased as I'm sure it will look a million times better built professionally than if we had tried to do it ourselves.
By the third go I was really happy to see the man who's bricks they were come out to help us put the remaining bricks in the boot. I was starting to flag by this point and in need of some lunch! This did finish the whole pallet of bricks in the final trip. Once unloaded we had a nice lunch of scrambled egg & smoked salmon on toast and then we were fuelled up enough to keep going.
If we didn't go then then we really weren't sure when we would be able to go to look for the rest of the stuff that we needed to buy before the builder could come and do his work. We got a couple of bags of cement and some sand for the mortar. We needed some blocks to go around the top of the bricks that we have. This will hopefully make it look a bit nicer. I had thought that a darker grey-ish coloured block could look good with the light coloured bricks that we have. We have got 20 of these (no idea how many we will need really, this was a pure guess!) We also had decided that, as we have quite a lot of the matching bricks, hopefully there will be enough to have a shelf on either side of the actual BBQ. We wanted a couple of basic slabs really but it would be good to have some grey coloured ones that would match the blocks. We have ended up with some huge slabs that are going to be far too big but, as we now have a builder to make this for us, we are hoping that he will be able to cut these to size well with his saw.
It is a pretty decent size pile of bricks/blocks that we have ended up with!
Since then, we have had a pretty busy few days really - pub last night & I feel like I have managed to just about get caught up with the college that I should have done at the weekend tonight as well. I just did a couple of hours when I got in from work tonight. I sat downstairs on the sofa tonight and we have had Classic FM on the radio too. I have never really listened to classical music before (& didn't really tonight either) but it was lovely to work to.
I have a few more things that I am aware I need to catch up with blogging about for you - hopefully I will be able to get these written up shortly. Also, there will be the BBQ building starting to happen this weekend as well. Watch this space. See you soon! Hope you're having a good week.
Edit: Oooh Adam has just read this and pointed out that it might sound like we took the wine for our last visit to the people's house to collect the bricks just to drink and make it more bearable. I really didn't mean that! We took them as a thank you for the bricks!
