Home alone...

Today Ben, the cats and I have had a lovely time at home together.  D is at Silverstone so we have had the house to ourselves which is such an unusual treat for me.  In the week I'm at work, and at the weekend we're either out and about, or I'm out or shopping etc etc etc so today has been a really nice change.  I got most of the shopping yesterday with just a brief trip to the 24 hour Tesco very early today.  Then after D had gone I got the boring stuff out of the way and cleaned the kitchen.  After stopping for this...

...I chopped up some carrot, swede, potato, and leek, cooked them for a few minutes in the frying pan then threw them with some vegetable stock into this...

...which is my tiny, new slow cooker, ideal for one or two servings, and which I got for the bargain price of £3.99.  The result was that after I'd liquidised it, I ended up with the most delicious Winter Vegetable Soup for lunch.

Then in between watching a few episodes of StarTrek: Voyager (with the Borg in them), I made some cupcakes and then put a bramley apple filled with sultanas, spices and some sugar into the slow cooker as an experiment.

As well as making some of the tried and trusted Gingerbread Cupcakes, I became adventurous and tried these, which are Chocolate Orange Cupcakes. I then became very ambitious and put Orange Buttercream Frosting on top.

If D gets back in time tonight, and if I haven't had a glass of wine or two by then and fallen asleep... we're thinking of going to see The Secret in Their Eyes at Warwick Arts Centre.  It's a Spanish film and won this year's Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

Oh yes, and Pod has Cat of the Week this week for her exemplary behaviour at the vets yesterday.  She had a sore ear and also had to go for her thyroid check (she's fine and has put on weight as well so the tablets must be the right dose).  She's also got tablets for a skin irritation which should hopefully clear up in a week of two.  Of course the day after she went to the vets is when she started limping on the leg that the cyst is on.  Apparently the tablets for her skin should help with this... so we shall see.  At the moment she couldn't care less and is fast asleep on the basket, the now rather flat basket, that the cat toys are kept in.

Another piece of news that has please me is that the BBC have filmed Patrick Stewart in the Macbeth we saw him in at Chichester.  It was a wonderful production and I can't wait to see it again.  Perhaps they'll show it as Christmas like they did with the RSC's Hamlet last year?  Something to look forward to anyway...