Raise your glasses

...to Andrew and Melissa, friends and fellow-pilgrims I met at WYD just over a year ago: though I'd lost contact with them for ages, by pure coincidence, I received a message from Andrew just before dinner, and thus just learnt that these two Americans were married (in the Traditional Rite) on the 2nd of May this year, and now make their home together in Arizona. Many congratulations! May Christ and His Mother, who graced the wedding at Cana, bless them also.

In belated honour of their nuptials, I had a glass of Chimay Blue with my goulash for dinner: very nice.

Here, unlike in roastingly hot Arizona, the weather remains cold and very wet - you'd think it had rained on St Swithun's day (the 15th of July), and indeed it did (though July wasn't very wet), for the rain has just kept on coming all August, which is our rainiest month: 101 mm so far, 18 days of rain out of 24. Just this evening after work I drove home over the bridges that link Launceston over her rivers, and both the North and South Esks were in flood (as are other northern rivers): the water has crept up and up, even onto the riverside boardwalks around King's Park, as the Tamar rises higher. The Cataract Gorge still foams (literally) with the roiling waters descending its rapids...

******

The saints in heaven all rejoice together in the happiness of one communion with the Lord and with each other in Him: so, as St Swithun would say, happy St Bartholomew's day for this feast of an admired Apostle:

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui hujus diei venerandam sanctamque lætitiam in beati Apostoli tui Bartholomæi festivitate tribuisti: da Ecclesiæ tuæ, quæsumus; et amare quod credidit, et prædicare quod docuit. Per...

(Almighty everlasting God, Who hast granted a venerable and holy joy to this day in the festival of Thy blessed Apostle Bartholomew: give unto Thy Church, we beseech, both to love what he believed, and to preach what he taught. Through...)

Cookery and Drink-ery

A sample of what I've whipped up and partaken of:

1. Yestereven: some stew - and a bottle of Chimay White - for Rob my guest, Steve and myself, before a screening of my DVD of "Kundun" (very apposite, no?); the stew, my own concoction, contained beef mince, bacon, ham, and turkey leg meat (would have been better with some stewing steak and chorizos, but I was making do with leftovers), with chickpeas and butter beans, in tomato puree, with onions, garlic, salt, pepper, paprika, olive oil, chicken stock (there being no beef stock to hand) and some extra seasoning as for a goulash - all served on mashed potatoes. (I wished I'd bought some sour cream.) For dessert, pears cooked in red wine with sugar, cinnamon and cloves, served with custard. (This desert is better with the pears standing upright, robed in Chantilly cream - cream whipped with castor sugar and vanilla - in which case it is called Pears Cardinal.) A cup of tea washed it all down nicely.

2. Tonight, home alone, a "scratch tea", after my walk: bottle of Chimay Blue (why not treat myself?), with leftover stew, some cashews to nibble on, and the last of the custard. Not bad at all.