New Kitchen Toys, Jazz Bands & the Sunderland Airshow

It has been quite a busy couple of weeks. I sometimes wonder how I fitted in the time to go to work. The solar panels are clocking up some clicks and helping out slightly with the bill and repaying some money quarterly. Just  as well cos DJ thought that we would benefit from one of these.

You can see Percy the paper holder through the eye of the Dyson Air Multiplier. It does make the place cooler and it has been a pleasure to have these last couple of weeks.
Then I decided to join in the spendfest and bought an ice maker. Our fridge doesn't offer ice-making options and previously I've found separate ones too large and costly, even though the Oz in me wants ice in everything. So I bought this...and it works very well. I had to buy an insulated ice-bucket to keep all the ice in! And it had to be put in the shed. More about the problems of space later.

And then the real retro Oz in me decided that an electric multi-cooker, known in Oz as a "lectric frypan" was needed too. So this one was tracked down on ebay and immediately put to use. You can cook everything from a roast chook to dinky gem scones without having to put the oven on, on a hot day.  So there we are folks... lots of advice for the hot weather in the kitchen now that it's all over. This pic shows the prawns ready to go into the paella.

BUT...all these new toys means finding space for them. This is usually accomplished by squeezing unused stuff into the corner jam cupboard with the clever roll out shelves, or the old sideboard in the sitting room, or the "shed".

Kitchen toys recently downgraded from the kitchen bench are the "Espresso/Cappuccino maker" cos it's no good for more than one person at a time. It takes too long to heat up between steam squirts and there isn't enough pressure to knock up more than  two espresso shots in ten minutes. And the Jamie Oliver style blender.  You know...the one you use in "fifteen minute meals" if it is on your bench top all the time. These things were firm favourites only a few months ago.
So far the fan is a life saver of quiet cool, the ice maker has enhanced the drinks tenfold and the lectric frypan has cooked up some great food quickly, easily and without heating up the kitchen. They are still winning their place on the benchtop.

We spent some time with friends watching the jazz bands in the Durham Band Fest.

They come from all over and are really great.

And last weekend we went to the Sunderland Airshow. It was alright till it started and then everyone arrived. They were expecting about half a million and they all turned up between one and two pm and stood near us.

The Red Arrows arrived first and were marvellous. They did great stuff and were described brilliantly.

Eventually they went off to do another show that evening halfway across the country. We hung around awhile but the crowd grew beyond bearable so we rode the bus back to the Stadium of Light and drove down to Seaham to watch the Battle of Britain Flypast from the clifftop. It had got hazy by then but we saw it and the Lancaster loomed into view a couple of times.

Then we went home.
We are enjoying the cooler break. Great reading all your news even though I haven't blogged for a week or two, it's been good keeping up.
Cheers for now,
Gillian