Far too long

My friends, my people! It has been far, far too long since I've last posted.

As expected, in Buckingham, life is rather dull and boring...unless you're me! Then it's self-imposed dull and boring. Really, it is. It's all on me this time around.

In an effort to write my papers, I have watched all of Downton Abbey (omg...if you haven't watched this, DO IT. ) and caught up with every single TV show I care about (sadly extensive these days). Guess how much work I got done for a while there. Oh! And of course cooking and cleaning and baking and feeding ducks and oh! there's so many things to do when you don't want to work! But I digress...because they're DONE. Done, done, DONE! I'm like anti-me having all this work done days before it's due!

On the cooking front, I've become quite good at budgeting and making ever so delicious food! Tuesday is also decidedly my favourite day to shop as I have the day off and the market in town. I love the flower stands (though I never buy anything and lust after the tulip and daffodil bunches instead) and the fruit stand where the gentleman has a table full of bowls and anything in them is 1 pound. This is how I got 10 kiwis once! It also gives me time to visit our most excellent butcher with the best-value eggs in town if you're a heartless person like me who deigns to buy caged hen eggs (the horror!) and ogle everything in that shop. I swear, I am this close to buying a stock pot just so I can pick up one of the 50 pence bone packs and make my own stock! Oh, it is lovely.

Two-yolk egg whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!

I do so love the simplicity of the recipes I've been making lately, such as Jamie Oliver's Tender and Crisp Chicken Legs with Sweet Tomatoes

NOM NOM NOM

and I've also become a willing slave to BBC Good Food. My latest dinner from them was Bacon, Bean, and Pasta Soup--so filling, so cheap, so good!

I've discovered a love for sausage since being in the UK, and lemme tell you, our butcher delivers on taste and value! I always go to Clay's for eggs and non-chicken things (but those butter garlic chicken thighs are calling my name...).

Off-topic, but lovely tidbit about Bucks: the people who run the local businesses tend to be ever so nice. Not like Southern I hate you so much I'm going to smile it away nice, but genuine nice. Especially at the butcher's! It very well could be I'm terribly enamored with the whole idea of a dedicated butcher shop (and the 50p stock bones, let's not lie here), but the gentleman who always serves me is quite nice. And has a mind-boggling array of meat. :P

So the butcher's also has a nice array of in-house sausages that I have a fancy for, and I decided earlier this week to purchase the tomato and pork sausage. Oh my. I'm onto something here! This took my sausage casserole to a whole new level of delish! I was so excited! I took pictures of my ever-so-colorful dish and was so proud and it smelled amazing and then I realized those pictures are definitely on my camera's internal memory...and I don't have the cord. Que cry!

In other news/pictures/videos, SWANS. For all the crests and whatnot you find in Buckingham (read: swans plastered everywhere), you certainly don't see many swans. Unless you're me. Apparently. But like all the river birds here, they come to us humans when we stare at them long enough.

This one really isn't as bright as Daffy the duck who knocks on my door to remind me he wants food, but I think I'd be a great deal more unnerved by this bad boy doing the same thing. I think I'd run and hide...

U haz bred, hoomin?

Furthermore, they're big. Big freaking bird, y'all!

Color me horrendously unnerved! And entranced, oddly enough.

I take this all to mean spring is on its way! Nevermind the entirely realistic possibility it could snow in April, I have decided! Come, take a look at my lovely flowers to prove my point.

A true bumblebee, y'all.

This is something I've noticed around here now, but the first time I saw it: in parks and public spaces, rows of flowers just spring up (ostensibly from someone planting them there, I'd imagine). It's really lovely to come across something like this when you least expect it. :) 

Uri! This is my row of five lovely purple flowers I was telling you about!

A lovely day in the park. :)

On that lovely note, I draw this sorely belated entry to a close with one of our gorgeous sunsets and leave you with the knowledge that an epic entry will soon come...for tomorrow, I travel to Dublin to see my boy! Our adventures await. :))))))

Cheers!