Love is friendship that has caught fire

Good Afternoon,  

Snow melted (again) and all but a distant memory from last week, although the lightness of the flurry made it seemingly stick around for longer, making me feel like I lived in Michigan or Canada every time I walked out of the front door to empty the bins. Alas there has been not much further progress with the spare room come office. Whilst I have indeed moved everything around and bought a nice office chair, the funky beanbag for the corner of the room has yet to be sourced, and said Mandela wall art has yet to be hung. To be honest I know how this will work - I will find multiple other things to occupy my weekend and evening time with than finish off said office / spare room and by the time I even think about getting round to it Boris would have said it is time to frequent the office again. Although when that is is another question entirely.

A week from now the country will be sat on tenterhooks as we wait to see which journalist was correct in their PM's predictions and which Newspaper is just full of dog shite like normal. This time next week we should hopefully know a little more about the reopening of the UK and a road-map to get out of this awful mess caused by Coronavirus. The BBC confirms that the death toll is fading fast with just over 250 being recorded yesterday (Sunday 14 February 2021), a drop of 50 or so in the last week. With more than 15 million people in the UK have now had their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine everyone is certainly pushing for the reopening to happen sooner rather than later. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been aloof in his replies and ever so careful with what he is saying now in the count-down to when the government will set out a "roadmap" for easing restrictions in England on 22 February.

With months of frustration being cooped up in our houses, some with kids and others with snoring partners, you can understand why the public are chomping at the bit to get out and back to normality That being said though, this weekend I felt quite happy with the situation as it is. Celebrating Valentine's day yesterday was simply wonderful. Now I won't lie, it was hard looking back on Valentine's days of yesteryear knowing this one is not the same. Mr. Warehouse and I are not hopping on a train to London for the weekend as we would normally do. We were not, as we were last year, writing in our cards to each other the number of days until we were husband and wife, and I have yet to save that "Hubby" card for yet another year.

But despite the hardship and turmoil, we had fun. The morning was spent sipping coffee and reading our cards as we watched mindless TV and ate Percy Pig Pancakes (But I like to call him Peter Pork Head - sounds more street) from Marks and Spencer (which, like a brat, I was insisting Mr Warehouse buy me - Although annoyingly we forgot the Percy Pig Sauce). The afternoon we donned our wellies and fluffy big coats to walk the puppo's down at a local park and I was pleasantly surprised at the little one's recall ability, albeit with a tennis ball in hand.

That evening, after Mr Warehouse's other love (Arsenal) he made me a beautiful dinner which was incredible, again from the British establishment - Marks and Spencer. On the website First Dates (not from when I was on it I must say) Fred Sirieix serves up a fuss-free and next-level-tasty Dine-In-deal; Because to be fair where else are we going for a meal out other than maybe another room of our own home!? For us, it all started with a Gastropub inspired Runny centre scotch egg served on a bed of rocket. Next up was a rack of lamb smothered in a mustard herb crust served with the most fluffy and crispy triple cooked chips. To end on a super-sweet note, it’s got to be the cookie crumb topped billionaires dessert with chocolate and caramel sauce with caramel and Belgian chocolate ganache! Although by the time we got round to the dessert we were stuffed.

Of course, no Valentine's feast would be complete without a top tipple and chocs so the chocolate love bug choccies and dessert are our little Monday night treat. Speaking of which, I best go an stick dinner in ...

'Til next time, Love A.Lou x