Heres some pics!

It was absolutely freezing, we walked up and followed my pre match tradition of having fish and chips. I had curry sauce, and Rach only wanted chips – is it only Welsh people who like curry sauce?

We met up with someone I had to give some tickets to pre match, and he said “enjoy the prawn sandwiches” as we were sitting in the exec area. This made Rach think we got free food, unfortunately not her silliest comment of the night.

We did get a free program as we walked through the fancy exec area, and Rach prepared herself for the cold

The match itself, well Spurs battered us in the 1st half, but somehow we came into half time 2-0 up, thanks to two fantastic goals from Darron Gibson. We had pretty awesome seats with arm rests and cushions almost on the halfway line!

Rach was more excited though that at half time in the exec seats we got free tea and coffee. We warmed up, then afterwards went back for the second half. About 15 minutes in I realised I wasnt talking too much, turned to Rach to check if she was bored to be greeted by this

Oh Ayresy.

On the pitch we ran out the 2-0 win easily, me enjoying every minute

After the match we wandered home. A good night!

And this is my report!

We left on Saturday night after Ayresy got home from a late finish from work. It took much umming and ahhing before we decided to take Chopsy with us as Ayresy was too worried about leaving him on his own.

The drive down was uneventful, and we to Rach’s family home. We were a bit knackered, so had an early night, planning on getting up early to get going. We’d also made a decision that rather than use some money we’d got for a refund for overpaying some bills of about £60 for a meal out for our anniversary next week, we’d instead use it to buy food and treats at the food show. We’re such losers.

We were up for about 8, and left just after 9, early as we had tickets for me and Rach to see the Hairy Bikers do a cooking demo in the Supertheatre.  It was top notch, with the Biker boys on top form, with some very dirty jokes for 10am, and you could see that the editing team for their shows clearly have their work cut out for them. They cooked some scallops with apple and black pudding, duck breast with apple and asparagus, and a strawberry desert with  balsamic and some kind of cream.

Ive been a big fan of balsamic lately, having it on steaks ever since it was suggested to me on the Something Awful forums.  Seeing it used on strawberries was quite interesting and I decided that’s something I’ll have to try.

After we walked out of the hall we met up with Rach’s mum and sister briefly, before deciding to head off separately and meet up at about 1ish. While I was looking at the floor plan and looking to get us a route that would take us past every stall and make sure we’d see everything, Rach had one mission – cheese.

When we cam last year we’d visited a stall by the Snowdonia cheese company that had a variety of cheeses such as cheese with cranberry, cheese with garlic and herb, pickle cheese, and ginger cheese. I’d seen them at a welsh food show a few years back and told Rach they were great and she tried them and loved them, and we’d ended up buying £10 worth at last years show.

So this year Rach was determined to find the Snowdonia stall and get some cheese. She practically pulled my arm off dragging me to the stall, where she elbowed her way to the counter and started sampling every type of cheese. I began to chat with the lady on the stall, complimenting the cheeses and telling her we’d loved them last year. Meanwhile Rach at this point had eaten a moons worth of cheese samples. I turned to her to see what she wanted to get having seen the sign that said 1 for £3.50, 3 for £10 or 7 for £20. Needless to say we bought 7 blocks – 2 ginger, 2 garlic, 2 pickle and a cranberry. After Rach had many more samples we walked off.

Next up was the other stand we’d checked that would be at the show – Jimmys Farm. Jimmy is one of Jamie Olivers mates, who decided to try and start up a rare breed farm in the UK, and a tv show was made about his struggle to get the farm to be successful. He now presents a show on BBC2 called Jimmys Food factory. Last year we’d bought some of his sausages and without doubt they were some of the best I’ve ever tasted. Since then I’ve regulary looked at his website to consider ordering some, but because we’ve had parcels left just outside our door at the apartment I’ve been reluctant to go through with it incase they “go missing”

When we got to the stall we were surprised to see Jimmy himself on the stall, and after buying £10 worth of his sausages I asked and got a pic with him

Nobody else will probably recognise him, but I was pretty happy.

After this we started to try and follow a bit of a more concrete route round. As we were already in the produce section we were pretty much in sample city, basically walking up to stands and trying whatever was on the counter. We tried loads of produce, many different types of cheese and sausages, salami, pies, shortbread, chocolate, crab meat and much more. The only other thing we bought at this point was some Scotch Eggs, after finding a stall that sold special different types of scotch eggs for £2.85 each I decided to buy 4 for £10, picking up a Scrumpy (extra appley), Scarecrow (uses beetroot, carrot and parsnip crisps for its outside), Black Watch (using black pudding with the pork) and Christmassy – I don’t remember what was special about this one.

We ate the Scrumpy one as we were excited, then continued sampling stuff. Next up was the alcohol section, where I proceeded to try all manner of samples – strawberry cider, 3 different types of toffee vodka from 3 different stalls, ginger ale, 2 fancy sambukas, blueberry vodka, and various other shots that we didn’t really know what they were. After this I was feeling a bit tipsy – Rachs solution was to go and get more cheese samples!

We met back up with Rach’s mum and sister, then headed back to a fancy herb stand where I got some cumin, bay leaves and coriander. They then left us again – when we’d been apart we’d ended up looking at the opposite stands, so the ones we hadn’t looked at they had, and the ones we had they hadnt .

We looked at various stands, picked up a knife sharpener, then stood for 10 minutes while Rach got sucked into a demo of one of those slicing machines, the type that you put say a carrot on a dome, flip the lid over and it chops it for you. Rach was really into it, to the point where I dragged her away, she then went back when the guy said “don’t leave now, you’ll miss the best bit” then I finally dragged her away again. It was like one of those late night shopping channels but in person.

We did however get sucked in again, this time by a rep for Vol who was demonstrating some of their non stick pans. These were amazing, with a ten mill base and a special coating that’s guaranteed non stick for life, better than Teflon. Because of this they can cook with no oil, and he demoed a way of cooking a fried egg with no oil which really left us amazed. Even when he put some plastic in the pan it didn’t stick. After this me and Rach spent ages looking at the pans, wondering if we could afford one of these that retailed at £70. Ultimately it was a no, but its one of those things that I really can see buying.

How fucking sad is that, I could care less about where my clothes come from but I’d love to buy a £300 quid set of pans.

After this we did another route around some stalls, seeing Gordan Ramsey signing some autographs, then Mr Reggae Reggae himself, Levi Roots at his stall. We went and bought ourselves a hot pork bap, then went and had a few more samples – including Rach visiting a different Snowdonia cheese stand to the one we bought our cheese from and helping herself to a load of samples which prompted the man on there to shout “samples here, but we aren’t paying for your dinner”

We ended up buying even more sausages from another stall, another 4 packs for £10 which tasted good but not as good as Jimmys Farm. We also found a stand selling some fancy balsamics and oils, something I’d been really looking out for. I tried a Balsamic with blueberry and vanilla, and it was awesome, so I snapped up a bottle and some fancy oil. Not sure what I’d use a fruity balsamic with but its recommended with fruit and icecream so will give them a try!

I went back to Jimmys Farm stand to pick up our sausages that had been held for us, and ended up buying another 3 packs. We’re going to be swimming in  sausages for the next few weeks.

We went back home to Raches mums, and then ended up going out for dinner – which none of us could really finish because of the amount of samples we’d eaten! With our bellies full and our legs knackered, it was time for an early night.

All in all it was a great day, and I’d always recommend a trip to any food show. You get a ton of samples, and can find plenty of top products to buy.

It’s mid-September and I’ve just been to the shopping centre on my lunch break. Much to my complete delight, and probably everyone else’s horror, I’ve seen my first Christmas product on display. A Cadbury’s Selection Box. Two minutes later I saw Christmas cards for sale in Marks and Spencer.

I love Christmas. Without a doubt it’s my favourite time of year. Most people moan about how depressing it is to see Christmas window displays in October, or when they do a Countdown to Christmas on the Breakfast News, but I relish all of this. I’m certainly no Grinch!

It’s not because I had bad Christmas’s as a child, in fact I had great ones. One of my favourite presents when I was a little ‘un was a Mr Frosty (come on now, you all remember the theme tune), and my best memory is my Grandma and my Great Aunt arguing over who had the best Christmas season coverage – ITV or BBC.

My love of Christmas has stayed with me all these years and I delight in every part of it.

Christmas day was always spent at my Mom and Dad’s, usually with my Grandma too. My sister and I would usually get a couple of the same gifts as kids, just to make it fair. My Mom would be moaning that the food was taking ages to cook because everyone was using their oven at the same time, and the Queens Speech was an absolute must.

Last Christmas was mine and Taffy’s first in our new home, so we really made the effort with decorating. The tree went up on 1^st December (much to Taffy’s annoyance) and tinsel covered most other available surfaces. It was weird not waking up at ‘home’, but we moved the tree and presents into our room on Christmas Eve, so the next morning felt really festive.

Christmas is split between both our families. Mine on Christmas Day, and Taffy’s on Boxing Day. This is what I love about Christmas. I know it sounds cheesy, but being around family and having fun is what it’s all about to me. Giving someone a present you know they’re going to love and seeing how happy it makes them.

Everywhere has a totally different feel about it when Christmas comes around. So personally, I’m crossing off the days on my calendar until the big day arrives, and here’s hoping I’m the first person to wish you Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Here’s an unrelated link as a favour to Scots – “Casino Signup Bonus“

Written by Rach

I’m one of those annoyingly calorie conscious people. I drink two litres of water a day, I get prangs of guilt when I eat a chocolate bar, I eat five portions of fruit and veg, and for as far back as I can remember I’ve used skimmed milk in the things I eat and drink.

And this is where the story of the milk thief starts…

When I moved to Manchester and started working at an Internationally renowned Charity, imagine my elation when I found out that all the tea I could drink was provided free-of charge. I should probably mention here that I am an obsessive tea-drinker. I get caffeine-induced headaches when I go without a cup and have a tea schedule that I stick to religiously. The only downfall of this is that the milk was semi-skimmed. Well that simply will not do. I’m grateful for the tea, but offering me semi-skimmed milk is like a slap in the face.

So the practical solution was to buy myself my own milk, just a pint, which would be ample for my four cups a day. A few of my colleagues brought in full-fat milk, so it seemed it would be acceptable for me to do the same. I scrawled my name in black permanent marker all over the carton and for nearly twelve months my weekly pint sufficed.

That is until the milk thief reared their ugly head.

It started in the usual way; the contents of the carton looking a little lower than to be expected. Part of me thought I was being paranoid and the other part knew I had no clue who it could be, so I let it lie.

But two weeks ago, the piss was well and truly taken, when a half of the pint was taken. My suspicions grew as to who it was and action needed to be taken!

Now I can be accused of being passive aggressive. Or obsessed, but I really don’t care. I toyed with the idea of marking the carton each time I took some milk, but figured I would eventually forget to do this. I briefly thought about writing obscenities on the pint but the Charity I work for would surely frown upon this. I could have written a friendly but firm message to the milk thief on the carton, but I doubt I could fit it all on.

I resorted to buying a plastic beaker. The thought behind this being if people didn’t know what kind of milk was in there, they would be more reluctant to use it. So far, so good. The mystery of what kind of milk is in the jug is keeping the milk thief at bay. After all, you wouldn’t want to risk having some of that Soya crap in your brew!