Blood, Sweat and Barbecues

Not a very exciting title I know, but I don't really know what to write about tonight, so I will tell you a bit about my day. If you are still puzzled, then all 3 of the things mentioned in the title were part of my day.

It's been another scorching hot day, if this is what the weather people have predicted for us this summer, then I am certainly looking forward to it. I do like the sun, although I don't seem to be able to sit in it for very long. It can make me feel really drowsy and a little ill. Therefore it's not unusual for me to split a hot day between being outdoors and indoors, hence the reason my legs resemble bottles of milk.

One thing I do love about sunny days though is being able to cook and eat outside. I love a barbecue, although I do prefer to be the one cooking it. Perhaps it's the control freak within me, perhaps its the hostess. Who knows. All I know is that I love to cook on barbecues. This weekend is the second weekend that we have been using the new gas barbecue. Deciding that Mr P's barbecue was not large enough for me, I took advantage of the Argos half price sale and treated us to a new one. I do admit that it is slightly larger than I was expecting, and I may go and hide at the end of the summer when Mr P is trying to squeeze it into the already quite full shed.

So today, being sunny, we decided to put the barbecue to good use again, and cooked our dinner outside, with the help of Ainsley Harriet and his Barbecue Bible. This is quite possibly one of the best cookery books I own. We had a feast of chicken, burgers and sausages with potatoes, asparagus and caramelised red onions. Which brings us to the blood. During the slicing of the onions, I very nearly sliced the end of my finger off. The sight of blood doesn't usually bother me, but this did leave me a little shaky and in need of a sit down. Luckily a plaster seems to have sorted it out, so not as bad as it initially looked.

Mr P certainly has his hands full with me. Earlier he told me that I am an accident waiting to happen. I must admit I can be a little clumsy at times. Our other incident today, or should I say mine, was nearly causing a garden fire. For ease of cleaning out the drip tray on the barbecue, I thought it a good idea to fill it with cat litter. I have done this before on a previous barbecue and it makes clearing up much easier. However, when I went to purchase the litter, they were all perfumed and the thought of this near the food wasn't good. So I decided to buy the wood based one. What was I thinking? Last week it was fine, but today as it got hot and the fat kept dripping into it, it started to burn, and a small fire started. Ooops!! Luckily Mr P came out and sorted that one out too! I really need to start being more careful.

So that was my day. Sorry it's been long and not very exciting. We are off to look at kitchens tomorrow, so no doubt will be using that as another boring topic tomorrow night. But for now, sleep. Goodnight.