Aude getting ready to enjoy a spring BBQ

Neil complained the other day that there were more pictures of the cats on my blog than Aude (I notice he didn’t mention anything about there not being enough pictures of me on the blog, but I’ve chalked this up as an oversight on his part and have included one of myself as well).  It’s only fitting, then, that I dedicate this post to him.

They say necessity is the mother of invention, and that was definitely the case today.  I bought a few racks of ribs to throw on the BBQ, neglecting to check in advance whether I had any barbecue sauce in the fridge.  Sure enough, the cupboard was bare, and this being Sunday, all of the shops were closed.  Two trips to the local petrol stations yielded plenty of ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise, but no barbecue sauce.  So I had no choice but to make my own.

Fifteen minutes of Googling later, I had a recipe that I could assemble with the ingredients in the house and a little creativity.  Ketchup, tomato paste, garlic, onions, paprika, chilli, cayenne pepper, black pepper, cider vinegar, brown sugar and bourbon, plus a splash of Worchester sauce, a dollop of mustard and a little soy sauce all came together to make an improvised BBQ sauce that turned out to be great.

All in all, a pretty good Sunday.  We had a nice walk through the forest behind our house this afternoon, discovering a new castle (how often does that happen?) and finding a great vantage point to survey our whole village.  Five loads of laundry.  Lunch and dinner on the balcony. 

What more do you need on a weekend but that?

Caught! Daisy maintains she wasn't in the flowers, but her yellow nose tells a different story!

It’s a beautiful spring afternoon and we just finished lunch on the balcony.  The barbecue has had a real workout over the past few days, Aude has been busy potting plants, and all around us the trees are beginning to bloom.  It’s getting tougher and tougher to spend time in the office, staring out the window at the glorious weather outside and hoping that it lasts until the weekend.  This weekend we’ve been lucky — the weather has lasted and the weekend as been picture-perfect.

I made the mistake of taking my winter tyres off too early last year, just in time for a late surprise snowfall, but this year I think I’ve left them on long enough.  We’re about to go on vacation for a few weeks, but after we get back I think I can safely remove them without the danger of an early May snowfall.

We are getting excited about our upcoming vacation — a few days in Singapore followed by a week-and-a-half in northern Vietnam.  Friends of ours were scheduled to visit Tokyo at the same time, but they’ve sensibly decided to take a detour and will be coming to Vietnam instead, so we’ll be able to catch up with them in Hanoi for dinner. 

For today, though, we need to juggle a mountain of laundry and my US tax return with a walk in the forest and some beautiful spring sunshine.  I suspect I know where my priorities lie…