… which as you can probably figure out, is jambalaya with Spam in it. No photos, we ate it up too soon. But it was basically some onion and yellow pepper fried up till soft, with some mushrooms and the chopped-up Spam and some chopped-up chorizo sausage all added in and fried a little bit too. Then all the spices - with much chilli - and the rice got added in, stirred around, and then the stock added in on top. Oh, and some pineapple to give it a nice Hawaiian feel.

It was surprisingly tasty, and will be a good way to use up the other can of Spam that’s been in the cupboard for way too long.

Also today, I am mostly … listening to the Lions beat the Springboks

… at rugby, via live internet-streamed radio. And I was paying attention to the score in the women’s singles final at Wimbledon too. Ah, the power of the interwebs - what the hell did we do before?

It was nice to get a win in the Lions test series anyway, even if it was a bit too late. But I’m glad I didn’t put any money on Venus winning, as I almost did. Don’t have a bet on for the men’s tomorrow either, but I suspect Federer might clinch it. Although it’s probably a good idea not to underestimate the power of the Roddick serve, after yesterday.

I love big sporting occasions. And if that makes me a fair-weather fan, and unworthy in the eyes of the dedicated followers, then so be it.

… because the clocks went forward on Sunday morning, making my usual wake-up time of around 6:45 happen an hour earlier according to my body clock - which unfortunately can’t be adjusted by turning a little dial.

On the other hand, despite my brain being insistent that it was too-early o’clock when the alarm went off, I didn’t actually have any trouble getting up, showered, dressed and organised for my drive and my day. If only that were the case every day!

At least I had a very quiet weekend, with plenty of sleep. OK, I watched too many Buffy episodes, and I’m way behind on my writing for the month, but I went out for a lovely meal with Colin - the first time in months that we’d actually been out together. I even expanded my culinary horizons by eating beetroot - something I’ve been avoiding ever since primary school dinners, where the salad comprised a limp slice of ham, some limp lettuce, and some soggy beetroot.

Also today, I am mostly … buying Easter eggs and bunnies

… but not chocolate ones. I paid a visit to Lush at lunchtime, to buy some of their Easter-themed bath ballistics. My cold is still bad enough that I could barely smell anything in there, so I might have to wait until my sense of smell is back before I actually use any of my ballistics.

… because for some reason, I can’t find it any of the supermarkets or corner shops in my town. Which seems pretty sinister to me. Either very few people in the north-west eat Marmite (which is entirely possible) which leads to it not being stocked, or there is some Evil Plot designed to deprive those of us who do.

Oddly enough, I could still buy Twiglets if I wanted to (which are of course flavoured with Marmite). And Asda even sells little snack packs of crackers and Marmite. But nothing to go on my toast (or be sneaked into casseroles and stews).

I do love my Marmite though - in fact, I actually prefer supermarket own-brand, but the Tesco Express in which I found Marmite (in two different sizes of pot as well - I got the large) didn’t have their own-brand. The flavour’s subtly different; the own-brand tends to be lighter in colour as well as slightly lighter in flavour.

One of the high points of my life (and there have been many) was touching a Marmite tanker while visiting the Bass brewery in Burton-on-Trent. Mmmm. All those thousands of gallons of Marmite, just waiting to be potted and shipped and spread on toast…

And of course, it’s very good for me, chockful of B vitamins. I rather crave some now, but I’ll wait for breakfast tomorrow. I have leftover beef enchilada waiting for me right now… Mmm.

… and even more of one than I already knew I was, in fact.

I can’t handle injections - even the thought of maybe having to need one makes me turn pale and feel faint. The only time I’ve been to try and give blood, I went so white and shaky after the finger-prick (to test type and quality) that the nurse told me to go away and never come back.

(At least I tried - most of my colleagues wouldn’t even do that.)

Anyway, I thought my twenty-year phobia was limited to injections, since I’ve had my ears and even my navel pierced quite happily. (Dad, if you’re reading, it was years ago, and I took it out fairly soon because the skin wore thin.)

So, after deciding it was time to get the crop of harmless skin tags removed from my neck, when I went to my doctor’s appointment today, I thought I’d be fine. My GP was going to nick the damn things off with a scalpel - minimal bleeding and no fuss, although I have so many that I’d need a couple of appointments. Still, it would all be over quickly enough today.

And yes, in the event, it was over quickly. My doctor carefully and quickly removed the first of the tags from the back of my neck - I couldn’t even see what he did. It hurt, but not even as much as burning my fingers on a hot plate had done the night before. The silver nitrate tab he touched to the wound stung a lot too, but it was still just a small pain. It didn’t even bother me to look at the little lump of my skin now lying on a piece of tissue on the table.

But the low level of ouch didn’t stop me from going white and starting to shake, not did it stop the irrational and involuntary tears. A few sniffles later, and we decided not to carry on with cutting the tags off.

Thankfully, the other option was to have them frozen witha dab of liquid nitrogen, which kills the cells so that they drop off in a week or so. Although this actually hurt a lot more than the slicing, it didn’t bother me in the slightest, and my GP successfully attacked at least half a dozen. (And on the plus side, I didn’t have to have black marks all over my neck from the silver nitrate.) And I’ll be going back in a few weeks to get another batch done.

But I was still rather embarrassed to realise what a wimp I can be…

Also today, I am mostly … cooking yesterday’s leftover asparagus

… into a very tasty omelette with ham and cheese. I’d do that again - not that I have leftover asparagus very often in the first place. But it was good. And the asparagus counted as one of my 5-a-day… I’m desperately trying to eat more fruit and veg at the moment as I haven’t been getting enough this winter.

I did quite a bit of cooking over the weekend, and made sure we both got our greens though. I hadn’t been going to bother on Saturday; I couldn’t have cared less about Valentine’s Day and anyway, the rugby was on (Wales beat England, thankfully - I hate it when we’re favourites for that match; it makes me nervous of hubris). I did cook dinner on Saturday in the end though - a two-course candlelit dinner with wine, no less - and I’m glad I did, since I’d barely seen Colin for a week or more. We crashed out on the sofa afterwards with the cats to watch Tropic Thunder, and all-in-all, I had a good weekend. And I’m looking forward to a peaceful and productive one next week too.

… for the first time in bloody ages. I don’t think I was over there the last couple of times I’ve been back to Barry; no real reason to, now that none of my family live there.

I might not have bothered this time either, but a friend back in Northern Ireland is a Gavin and Stacey fan (and so am I for that matter) so I wanted to take some photos. Of course it was cold and grey, with snow on the English hills over the channel, so the Island wasn’t at its prettiest. But then I’m not sure it has a prettiest anyway.

And I’m allowed to criticise! I’m a third-generation Barry Islander after all… :)

Also today, I am mostly … recovered from reacting badly to mussels

… which although tasted pretty good when I ate them for lunch yesterday, made me queasy during the England v Italy game (although the game itself was dreadful enough to make me feel ill) and then throw up horribly at half-time in Ireland v France.

I was recovered enough by 7;30 though to wolf down some of the Indian takeaway that I’d been promising my parents. I’m just annoyed because I like mussels, and I don’t want to have to stop eating shellfish for fear of a bad reaction to them.

I could blame my dad, I suppose - he cooked them. But I won’t. (Though my mum probably does.)

A proper Sunday dinner today though courtesy of my mum, the kind I rarely bother to cook, with roast lamb… And she’s made me Welsh cakes to take home.

… because I’ve eaten too much of it over the past few days. Colin was bought one for his birthday by his work colleagues, and he brought the whole damn thing home. And unfortunately (well, maybe unfortunately), he doesn’t eat cake.

And I do.

So I’m rather chocolate-caked out.

I’ve also had enough to eating out for a bit, having been out for dinner 4 times in the past 5 nights - Wednesday, Friday and tonight at restaurants, and Thursday at Marion’s. It was actually enjoyable to make dinner myself last night - we had some good steak from the farmers’ market. I have enjoyed having other people cook and wash up for me, of course. And I’ll get a lot more of it later from the middle of next week, what with my trip home to Wales.

Apart from all the eating out, life is quiet though. And it’s wonderful that way.