My little masterchef

Despite being together three years, Dave and I (and Jackson, obvs) don’t live together yet.

Oh, how I fondly remember the days when you could meet someone, have a drink with them and then three weeks later pick up your backpack and move in together. Only to leave again three weeks after that, same small backpack in hand, heart broken in chest.

Somehow things get more complicated as you get older – suddenly you have dogs and cats and kids and houses to rent and schools to find and routes to plan.

This complication is something Dave and I have managed to skillfully avoid for many years, and, in truth, I think we’d both like to continue avoiding it for a while longer. But that’s not to be, because if we are ever going to actually get married, then co-habiting is kinda inevitable.

In the meantime, Dave lives about 30 minutes drive from our little house in Blairgowire. It’s a journey Jackson and I make often and I enjoy it thoroughly because it gives us a chance to have random conversations that are so often missed in the rush to get to school, get home, clean teeth, go to Kung Fu, eat supper, do homework, read stories, have a bath, play Wii and so on and so on (and on and on and on and on).

Conversations like this one:

Jackson: Mommy, did you know that Masterchef is a REAL THING, not just a programme on the TV.

Me: What do you mean?

Jackson: Well people REALLY cook and they are REALLY on Masterchef.

Me: Well, yes. It’s a competition and they are competing to see who the best cook is and then that person is the winner, the MASTER of the chefs as it were.

Jackson: Oh. *siiiiiiigh*….I wish I was on Masterchef.

Me: Really, what would you cook?

Jackson: Guess.

Me: Um…spaghetti bolognaise.

Jackson: No

Me: Hamburgers

Jackson: No

Me: Chicken and brocoli pasta

Jackson: No. I’ll give you a clue Mommy. It starts with Fireman Fred. I’d cook F…F…fi…fiiii…

Me: Fish fingers.

Jackson: YES MOMMY THAT’S RIGHT. Fish fingers and chips and pink sauce.

Me: Fish fingers are a great meal.

Jackson: I’d totally be the Master of the chefs with fish fingers.

And here is my precious little Masterchef rolling and making his own pizza on Sunday night…

Kung Fuey

Jackson embarked on his quest to become a Shaolin monk at the beginning of this year.

He had been begging me for ages to start Kung Fu, but he had to wait until his little bones were strong enough to take it.

He’s very, very, very good at it. In fact, the other day his teacher came to me and said that she thinks that he is so good, he’s going to be a brilliant cage fighter in the future.

I was all like: “WHAAAAAAAAAAAT?? YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING! OVER MY DEAD BODY! IT’LL NEVER HAPPEN.”

But only on the inside. On the outside I totally agreed with her, I mean have you ever *seen* Jackson’s Kung Fu teacher. She’s the kind of person everyone agrees with. All the time.

Even Jackson.

A friend of little doggies everywhere

Jackson spent the entire time in India patting, playing with, feeding, cuddling, kissing, rollicking and annoying the many, many, many millions of stray dogs that can be found in every corner of every road in every town across the continent.

After half-heartedly wiping his hands with Detol gel for a day or so, I just gave up and let him get on with it.

(As an aside, during the whole trip, I got ill twice, Jackson vomited once and Dave…well Dave’s is a story that you’ll have to get him to tell you one day…)

Anyway, the upshot of all this is that Jackson desperately wants a puppy.

I do not want a puppy and Dave has a kinda vicious pit bull terrier that will eat any puppies that come near her.

So sorry Jackson, despite your sweetest pleeeeeeease-can-I-have-a-puppy face (as demonstrated above), there will be no little doggie in your near future. Totally sucks to be you.

Poor child

It looks like he has been scared to death by possibly the most moth-eaten tiger in the world.

A very Goan Christmas

Just because it was three months ago, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. And if it happened, I can write about it. Even if it was three months ago

Getting to Palolem beach from Goa airport takes about an hour and a half in a car that looks like this (love the devil eyes, child)…

We drove through hundreds of thousands of people going to midnight mass. Dave, after 24 hours of solid travel, fell asleep, Jackson did too because it was most definitely passed his bedtime.

I didn’t.

Instead, I sat there clinging desperately on to the thought that it wasn’t my destiny to die in a car decorated with carnations on the road to Palolem. I think I may be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder because I have blocked out most of that journey, what I do remember though is going around hairpin bends in the pitch dark ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD.

The taxi driver, mensch that he was, dropped us at the south end of Palolem beach, took our money and made a dash for it. Well, it was 2.00am and the only way to get to our hut was a 10 minute walk along the sand, a wade through the sea and a stroll over a makeshift rickety bridge.

But we got there in the end.

And this was our Christmas day…

Sum total of our presents. Sorry, Jackson, no iPad for you, buddy. But here, have a nice book of Indian folklore.

Dave got the Kama Sutra. Well, you know, when in India…

Christmas breakfast. Eggs on toast (Dave), some kind of spicy scrambled eggs in a chapati (me) SIX CHOCOLATE PANCAKES (Jackson). We had this same breakfast every day for the whole time we were there.

Christmas lunch. Yeah, I’m pretty much going to say that we had this same lunch every day for the whole time we were there too.

This is the bridge that you have to walk over to get to Ordo Sousar, the beautiful (magnificent/posh/bad-toileted) grass huts where we stayed. We joked about trolls living under this bridge, but seriously, that water you see there housed ARMIES of these weird, shiver-inducing crabs with one massive pincer.

A million times worse than trolls.

Santa’s little…um..I don’t know what really.

I freaking love that mask though. I made a taxi driver turn around in the middle of the street so that I could go back and buy it. It’s okay, people do perfectly legal, extremely dangerous u-turns on the roads in India all the time.

Jackson and Dave playing with his plastic airplane at dusk. Jackson’s only other Christmas present, poor child.

I can’t even remember what we did for supper, seriously. I’m going to guess that we ate pizza, like we did every single night we were there. Because that’s what happens when you go to the culinary capital of India with the world’s two most fussiest eaters.

But anyway, forgive me if I get a bit soppy here, but I just can’t help it.

This was, without doubt, my best Christmas ever. Jackson and I had been in India for 10 days before Dave arrived and they were incredibly difficult. India is an assault on every sense and Fort Cochin (where we stayed before Goa) was not exactly child/single woman friendly.

So although we were pretty short on gifts, just all being together again was the best present money could never buy.

And now I can’t wait to see where we end up for Christmas this year.

Guys and guitars

On Saturday night Dave and I went to go and see this achingly hipster woodland elf with a guitar and a Bob Dylan voice called The Tallest Man on Earth.

(Before I go any further, I think I should mention that Dave thought that we were actually going to see the actual tallest man on earth, a point proved by the fact that he asked me on the way there how I thought he’d be transported to the venue seeing as he’d be too big to travel in a car. Which in itself just goes to show that Dave’s love for me – and my sometimes questionable taste – is pure and true, because he unhesitatingly said yes to come with me on a Saturday night to meet and greet a what he thought was a just very, very, very big man. I am a lucky lady.)

Anyway, The Tallest Man on Earth (not really, he looked pretty small from where I sat) was kinda cool. I think Dave would have preferred meeting a real live giant, but whatever – it was nice to go out on a date that didn’t involve eating at the Spur.

One thing I learnt though, was that cute girls sure like cute guys who play guitars and I especially like it when Jackson gets out his guitar and puts on a show. The little video below is one of his original songs performed for Dave and I on Sunday night after our supper of meatballs and spaghetti.

So much sweeter than dessert.

Engagement

Dave asking me to marry him was the very first thing that happened to me in 2012.

We had watched all the midnight fireworks go off from our vantage point at the north end of Goa’s Palolem beach and then he opened a bottle of Pongracz (brought all the way over from home), got down on one knee and popped the question. It was very romantic.

He got the ring made in one of the many jewellery shops on the Palolem high street, one squashed in between an authentic Indian pizza restaurant and a shop dealing in spices and incense, Chinese sarongs and fake Crocs. It was exactly what I’ve always dreamed of – 36 uncut diamonds set in an eternity band. The diamonds started falling out pretty much the next day. But it’s cool, it’s getting fixed.

We had our engagement shoot round the pool at Taj Palace Hotel where we stayed when we got to Mumbai.

Jackson was the photographer.

So there you have it, not exactly conventional but then I can’t say that our relationship has ever been conventional. Or easy. But everything that we’ve been through has brought us to where we are now – a place filled with love and happiness and fun.

We’re very lucky, Jackson and I, because no matter what else happens, we get to spend the rest of our lives in the company of this incredible man.