Wadi / Badi / Vadi

Basically these are dried spiced lentil dumplings - sun dried in India, but rayburn dried here in Wales. 

Prepped them earlier this month - soaking white lentils (urad dal), which were spiced and ground to a paste, then dished up into teaspoon sized droplets for drying.  The Indian sun may be quicker - these took nearly 3 days in the warming oven of the rayburn - but they should keep for around a year. 

Today they went into a chicken curry - most recipes said to deep fry them first before putting them into a sauce, but these went straight in - after around 2 hours they were just tender, so maybe the frying would have helped . . .

Tasty but a bit of a faff!

On Safari

Well maybe not quite a 'Safari', but an overland trip round the country for work and leisure, encountering a variety of (almost) wildlife along the way.

Here we have Lego beasts in Cardiff Bay . . .

. . . an upturned 'crane' near Llandrindod Wells . . . .

. . . and a 'Dirty Duck' by the river in Stratford-upon-Avon

Concluding with swans on the Nene in Cambridgeshire (they are there, you can just see the wake!):

Did actually get some work done, enjoy a few sights, and meet up with family too!

Winter Wonderland

Left the house this morning just as it started to snow - already a light dusting on the car . . .









Arrived in work - just a few minutes later - and it was snowing quite heavily, already settling on the road outside the office.


And it continued to snow for most of the rest of the morning - with Aberystwyth gradually turning into a Winter Wonderland:

By lunchtime though it had stopped snowing, and by the time I left work it had almost all melted - a different world.  It was pretty while it lasted though . . .

In 2017 I Mostly Read . . .

The reading list for 2017:

August-December 2017 - back to Pratchett, Maskerade to Thud (another thirteen).

July-August 2017 - time to take a break from the Discworld for a bit of Gaiman, inspired by the tv series of American Gods, which was of course first on the list (twice in fact since I acquired the 'definitive' version with an extra 12,000 words, after finishing the original edition). Again had forgotten what a fantastic read it was. Followed up with Anansi Boys (just as good but a bit lighter in tone), the Coraline (strictly speaking a children's book, but seriously spooky!).

March-June 2017 - Pratchett all the way, sixteen down (taking me through to Interesting Times) - had forgotten quite how good (funny, thought provoking, insightful) some of these are. Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Vimes, Vetinari - such fantastic characters - mind you, never quite took to Rincewind.

February 2017 - Not gripped by the science, decided to revisit the Discworld novels, from the beginning - first up The Colour of Magic . . .

February 2017 - have started Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow inspired by a training course I recently attended on Influencing Styles and Persuasive Negotiating. First chapters are interesting, but it isn't something to be read in one fell swoop - if only because the writing is pretty small (might have to break out the reading glasses!).

January 2017 - Still have Dan Jones' follow-up to the Plantagenets, The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses and the Rise of the Tudors on the cards, but haven't been reading much.

Waterlogged Wales

Well our bit of it anyway. 

Rain, rain and more rain, and the fields below our house are developing streams . . .

. . . with actual flooding in the village and over the cross-roads.

Hopefully it stops raining before we float away!

By the Sea . . .

First sunny weekend of the New Year, and we were out on the prom enjoying the sunshine and the sea.

Storm Eleanor may have moved on (leaving its debris behind it), but there were still some impressive waves to be seen at high tide on Saturday.


Here we are by the harbour, trying to capture a good wave while freezing our fingers off in the bright cold that comes with a sunny January day!




Sunday saw us walking alongside a much more civilised sea - as the sun set on the horizon . . .

Still pretty cold out mind you - at least it wasn't raining!

New is The Year

Here's hoping for Better in 2018!