Roast pork

truly has to be one of the best foods in the world. Actually to be perfectly honest with you I could take or leave the meat, but the crackling. Oh my god the crackling. I have a confession to make. In times past, many years ago, I decided that crackling was what I wanted so crackling was what I would get. And so I bought the pig skin. A roll of it. It looked not unlike very fat (and fatty) wallpaper. And it was rolled up the same.

So I got home with my pig skin, and I unfurled it and looked at it and thought wow that is one big ass piece of crackling to be. So I set to working my crackling magic on it, scoring it in different directions, different depths, and then gently massaging the oil through it before coating it liberally with salt, giving it another turbo massage and then another whack of salt just for good measure.

And into the oven it went. And was I like a kid watching paint dry. No, that's not right. Kid waiting for christmas. But it went as quickly as watching paint dry. You know what I mean.

Anyway, eventually my beautiful wonderful joyful piece of mega crackling was ready. And with mouth salivating, I broke it up into hundreds (yes it was large) of pieces, and I began eating. Unfortunately I continued eating. And no, there was none left.

Just a word for the wise. If you eat a wallpaper sized roll of crackling in one hit you will become uncomfortable, and you will then need to drink hot water in order to melt and break down the huge amount of congealed fat in your rapidly spasming gut.

But it was worth it.

Back to the subject at hand, I made roast pork tonight. It rocked. BEST crackling EVER. Without a doubt. To top it all off it was Aldi pork. Yes, I went to Aldi, and I did a full shop. Mum looked after the kids so I was unfettered in my attempts to get some serious bargain shopping done. Don't get me wrong, it isn't the be all and end all. There are things you can't get. However there are many things that we usually DO get in a weekly shop and they are truckloads cheaper, and when you have three kids in nappies, when you see nappies that are GOOD at a hugely lower price I tell you, you celebrate. Happy dancing down the aisle, bumping into the poor oldies who are there bright and early cos it's pension day and that's apparently what they do.

I am living in the country at the moment. It is wonderful. So quiet. So much space. Cold at night, but we're getting used to that. Today was an interesting experience. I had to take the bins out. Oh that sounds so simple doesn't it? It is less simple when the driveway is not even crushed rock but big mega chunks of rock, and it is several hundred metres long, and is a hill. Compound that by the fact that garbage collection is every two weeks, not every week, and there were both normal rubbish and recyling bins to take out.

I had a plan. I was going bit by bit. So I started out taking the normal bin 30 metres. Holy crap did that bin weigh a tonne. I felt the burn straight away. Then I went back and got the recycle bin, and wheeled it 60 metres, so 30 metres past the heavy smelly nappy bin from hell. And then I went back and got the heavy smelly nappy bin from hell and wheeled it 60 metres. And you get the drift. By the end of the garbage bin taking out exercise I was absolutely sweating and puffing like a marathon runner who has miscalculated just how much water they need to function before they start burning fat, and I have much fat to burn, so it was not a pretty sight.

Well, I figure at this rate at least I might have lost a little weight today.

The kids seem not to want to go to sleep tonight. Actually that's a lie. They went to sleep fine. They just don't want to stay that way. So what is meant to be me finishing off my essays is in fact me alternating between Tabitha's room and Angus's room, and chucking my head round the corner of Lexi's room just for good measure. And now I'm here blogging away, as you do when you know you should be asleep but also know that at least one of your children is going to wake up any second.

And as if on cue, there we are. Coming Angus.......