Happy Birthday, Queenie!

I just love long weekends! Even seriously soggy ones such as this! This 3 day weekend-fest always tickles me so! I love it that here in Australia, we get a day off to celebrate the Queen’s birthday, despite the fact that we are living it large in a whole other hemisphere. In England, we never got so much as a long lunch, let alone a long weekend, to bring forth that birthday bonhomie! Today is the one day in the year when I’m positively Royalist!

It looks like it’s one long, wet weekend and that rain isn’t going anywhere fast. By the time we meet Pippa, Colum and Eve for a Queen’s Birthday Breakfast, we look like a right pair of soggy doggies! After, I insist on getting the groceries and shop for siege conditions. I always feel the need to overshop in any kindof wild weather. There’s nothing like a full larder to give you an enormous sense of wellbeing!

Back at the ranch, we crank up the heating, snuggle into our pyjamas and batton down the hatches. There is no way I am going out again in THAT! Even the lure of  a long weekend workout isn’t enough to tempt me out of the front door. I spend most of the afternoon, freaking out on the sofa while watching  The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. It’s the final part in the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy, which ironically, I started watching after my thyroidectomy; it’s quite fitting then, that I’ve finished the final episode, after a clean sweep of a scan!  The movie makes compelling if not stressful viewing. It’s on the edge of the sofa stuff!

I need to calm my nerves after all the high drama so chill out in the kitchen and feel wella with Nigella. Of course, on day like today,  I can’t go past her Rainy Day Biscuits.   I dig out my Aussie animal cutters and create kangaroo and koala cookies, because forget cats and dogs, today it’s raining kangas and koalas! The cookies look so cute, that is, until I attack them with a bowl of yellow icing. I think when it comes to icing I’m a bit over zealous and under skilled! In hindsight, I realise kangaroo and koala shaped cookies are not easy to ice! At least they taste better than they look!

David is clearly experiencing the Masterchef effect because tonight he makes his speciality a la maison Simple Chicken Pies. When I was under the scanner on Friday with all that extra time on my hands, I was fantasising about which iodine-laden dishes I wanted to eat first… and this little beauty was the top of my list. It’s as good as I remember it, only better. The perfect end to a long weekend. David’s dinner is a winner!