We have had a great time off from work in the sun.  Pics include a couple of BBQ’s and images from York where we spent 2 nights last week.  As well as eating and enjoying the sun we have got some good work done in the garden and started a path in the community garden.

There’s also a seperate gallery with pics from Beverley and Brandesburton.  This town and village in Yorkshire feature heavily in the Grayburn family history that Mike has put together so we went along for a look.  We parked in Grayburn Lane carpark and found a few gravestones bearing the name at St Mary’s church in the town.

John and Andrea.

Massive. That’s a family size naan hung next to my heavily gelled bonce (I’m still getting used to having hair).

We visited Akbars last night, really good curry. We made the mistake of seeing someone else with MASSIVE naan and thought it was the “family naan”. It turns out that was a regular naan and we’d ordered the comedy size naan. Awesome!

Andrea has taken out all unwanted growth from most of the borders and I took this fella down to size… All with a hand saw.

• a visit to Durham in January,
• Edinburgh in February to see Dave and Wendy,
• the community garden and the coast in March,
• and finally in April, some gardening and a walk to Tynemouth with some Front street resurfacing shots!

The first BBQ of the season is lit, hear it roar!

It turns out a jet washer is the key to cleaning off 6 month old grease and ash…

We are now proud bread maker owners once more. We had one in NZ (thanks Christine!) but it didn’t fit in the luggage home.

Now, thanks to a scorching hotukdeal.com, we have another. It’s first task was a wholemeal loaf on Sunday and it delivered in style. Mmm. Fresh.

Last night I tried the dough option and made pizza. I have been trying to make the perfect pizza for over a year now. I have tried several doughs, pizza stones, I even have a peel (a pizza shovel). This looks like being the best pizza dough I have tried.

I just cooked them in metal pizza trays this time. The next step is to incorporate the pizza stones. The awkward part is moving the fully laden gastronomic delight, even with a specific utensil. I feel much practice is in order…