The Ashes are getting exciting today....

Wow very relaxed today which is so very nice, feels like having our old life back again, we have always enjoyed hanging together.

Weekends was a favourite time, usually Richie would get the dogs out nice and early and then wake me up with tea and toast.

Or he would make croissants which took awhile but were well worth the work.

Then we would laze around and talk about recent events, our plans for the day and what we would be eating.

The dogs would be got in as soon as we had eaten the toast and they would excel themselves by showing us how well they could play.

Years ago we listened to John Peel’s (Déjà) Saturday program; it was good at the start but as so often happens it became a caricature of itself.

At that point we departed to Radio 5 and the Sport program, not my fav at the start but got to like it, right now we are missing the avuncular Eamon Holmes.

Gethin Jones is the placement for Eamon and just does not do it, Gethin is not good on the radio, and he just has no got a good radio voice.

He leaves too many gaps, his voice flags and we drift off and lose the thread, something that never happened with Mr Holmes.

The Eamon Holmes was 2 hours and seemed to go much quicker, say 45 minutes, whereas Gethin’s show seems to take all morning.

We enjoy talking and laughing and generally enjoying our conversation, when I was not disabled we would have to keep our eyes on the clock so we did not miss the market.

Realised with great pleasure just recently that we do not use any processed foods apart from stuffed dolma leaves and little hot peppers filled with creamy goat cheese and little plastic containers of mango strips which are sweet and peppery and olives.

Everything else Richie makes, and I used to when I could still use my hands, these days I can’t hardly believe that I used to cook and so very well too.

It is all a dim memory, wish now that we had a video and recorded me, mind you that may not be a good idea, as things could get too damp.

Can just see myself howling cheerfully while watching myself expertly making some delicious dinner.

Amazing that I used to work as a cook, when I was the chef at Toi Toi, later it was called Sisters; we went from 4 to 5 diners when I started to over 60 a night.

It was a small place with inadequate kitchen equipment when I started work, had to produce good food on two standard home gas cookers and an electric oven and a set of aubain maries, to keep some things warm.

At the end there was a good extractor fan, not when I started, one summer I was working in shorts it was so hot.

I did enjoy the work and all the adrenaline that you need to perform each evening and keep the customers happy.

When work was finished at 10.30 to 11 pm I would sketch out my ideas for the dish of the day and the salads and soup for the next day.

Still think it is a shame that I did not have the money to buy into the place when the owner sold it.

He was a dreadful fellow who had been a terrible boss; he got people to work for peanuts on the promise that once it did well he would turn it into a co-op.

After I had been working there for a few months it became clear that he was forgetting to pay the bills and I had to deal with the cheese and milk deliveries which were not paid nor was the vegetables paid for.

Horrible to go into work and expect deliveries and nearly not get anything to prepare tasty morsels to tempt passing people to step inside.

We started hiding money from him so we could pay the bills and he would not go down to the one arm bandits and lose all the money we had worked hard to earn.

We had to keep money by for our own wages as otherwise he wo0uld be off down the arcade and gamble and lose all the money.

Once he told us we could o0rganise to keep Toi Toi going for 5 years, until 1989, when he sold to two colleagues.

Who renamed it Sisters and did very well until 1997 when the lease ran out and the building was sold to the theme pub in the road behind who has made it part of their Irish pub, only theme not actually Irish.

Missed the buzz of working in a restaurant for some time, refound some on the IT Helpdesks I worked on.

Teamwork can be good if the team operates well as one, used to give me great pleasure.

Now I get my pleasure writing and reading and listening to the radio and talking to friends and blogging.

Life is right here and now and it is good very good.

Ricky Ponting has just been bowled out by Andrew Flintoff and it looks like England will win back the Ashes equally heroically as they7 won it in 2005.

Happy Days.

Cricket Info:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/5livesportsextra


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ashes

http://www.ecb.co.uk/