…of people I call my own.” Tim and I have about 20 minutes before we are to jump on a bus to Rotorua for my cousin’s 21st, after which we are going up to my home for a spell. Didn’t get to sleep till 2am last night, because Ange was visiting and Team Hadfield was united once more! Nevermind – we will have alllll the time in the world to sleep on the bus. For anyone not from NZ – find a map, look at where Wellington is and then where Rotorua is – you will see what I mean.

I think I’ve mentioned before that I have been trying to cook purely from what’s in the cupboards, since we are going away. It’s actually a good excercise in restraint. Last night I made the Union Square Nuts from Nigella Bites, which were incredibly moreish and quite beautiful looking, all burnished in varying degrees of gold.

Above: these are maaaarvelous; mixed nuts tossed in a little butter, brown sugar, cayenne pepper, and rosemary before being toasted in the oven.

Keeping with the nutty theme, I made some satay sauce to be poured over brown rice, which was just too overwhelmingly brown to take a photo of – trust me, it didn’t look so good on film. All in all a very unhealthy dinner – turns out I was labouring under a misapprehension that nuts are good for you, apparently the little blighters are densely packed with pure unadulterated fat. How depressing! They are very filling though, Tim and I ended up staggering about in a nut-filled stupor for a while after.

Am very much looking forward to going home, I’m sure I’ll get a chance to cook dinner and put it up here – not to mention a few gratuitous photos of Rupert and Roger the cats.