My experiment with cooking lamb worked nicely this evening.

Lamb steaks were covered in a paste made from Colman’s Mint Sauce, vinegar and some salt and left for about 3 hours to soak in. They were then fried on a very hot cast iron griddle pan with no oil or fat as lamb’s quite fatty anyway. They were cooked for about 10-12 minutes, turning regularly.

They were then served with mini new potatos and peas.

It’s twenty to nine at night.

That flippin alarm’s been going ALL DAY.

Ok, for a while it sounded as though its battery had run down, but now it’s got its second wind and it constantly shrieking away.

I just hope someone manages to kill it before it’s time to go to bed otherwise I’m likely to have a rather sleepless night in store.

It’s sunday morning, there’s a car alarm constantly going off a couple of hundred yards away making an intermittent racket and being really annoying. The sky is cloudy but for the time of year it’s quite warm.

I’m sitting here on my sofa trying to ignore the car alarm in the near distance as otherwise it’d send me rather potty.

So, on to happenings…

I did stay for Happy Hour in the department on Friday evening and had an enjoyable time talking to those who were there, most of whom were flying out to Caan(sp?) in the south of France to pick up a couple of 35ft yachts to sail to Nice to use as floating accomodation for the AGU/EGS/EUG combined conference there. As it turns out, it’s cheaper to hire these two yachts for a week than it would be to stay in a cheap hotel in Nice! (There are 12 people, 6 to a yacht.)

Yesterday turned out to be very productive. I managed to get my hair cut, get some new shoes (well, trail shoes, Columbia Sawtooth), buy a replacement timer light switch for the living room and fit it. It was also a very nice, warm and sunny day. You have to take the opportunity to make the most of these sorts of days when they appear at this time of the year. I even needed to turn on the sir conditioning on my car at one point to cool the inside down!

This morning, I was going to wash the car but it’s a bit too windy. Not only would I get rather wet, but conversely, the car would dry too quickly for me to wash it properly. I will probably cut the moss in the back graden this afternoon. The bits of grass which ar eleft are getting a bit tall. I’ll also probably do the washing and hang it outside.