Today's soundtrack: Miles Davis - Sketches of Spain
Easter Monday morning, and it's all hands to the pump to get the house looking respectable before the boys turn up - my two sons are both coming up together to spend the next few days here, so we've been busy changing beds, hoovering carpets, washing floors etc to straighten things up a bit.
Not that they'll notice of course, both being tax-dodgers at Portsmouth and Huddersfield University respectively, but the house needed a bit of TLC anyway, and this is as good a reason for doing the chores as any [EDIT: Son No 2 just read the above over my shoulder - and tells me he did notice. Not sure how taken he was with the tax dodger line though....]
The boys duly turned up at around 1:30. I'd been texting Son No 2 to find out ETAs etc, but since he was doing the driving, he wasn't responding. Which I should be thankful for, I suppose. His first long drive since passing his test last year, and his first motorway journey as well - all managed with his customary aplomb and lack of concern. I'll just have to do the worrying for him, I suppose.
With the boys up, there was the customary need to stock up on DVDs and to do some menu planning for the next few days. So it was out to Blockbuster to pick up a few films (four for a tenner, midweek!) and to pick up a few bits and pieces for the evening meal - a big lasagne, since you ask. I'd also put the breadmaker to good use - using the 'Italian' loaf setting with the addition of a couple of finely chopped cloves of garlic to produce some home-made garlic bread! Very nice too, even though I say so myself. It's the future, you know - a taste sensation! You read it here first. Probably.
The lasagne required some careful construction. Whilst Mrs W and myself consider the mushroom to be a fundamentally important ingredient, neither of the boys are particularly partial. So the lasagne incorporated a 'baffle board' down the middle, comprised of a couple of vertically-stacked pasta sheets. On one side of this barrier, I put together a mushroom-free lasagne, and a fully mushroomed-up version on the other side.
The things you do to keep your kids happy, eh?
Lasagne (both sides) slipped down a treat, as did the garlic bread, while we were watching a piece of fluff called 'Pineapple Express'. Mrs W and I tend not to watch 'funny' films when it's just the two of us - our default film setting tending towards the gory - so it makes quite a nice change when the boys are up for their tastes to prevail and for us to watch something a bit out of the ordinary. And quite an entertaining piece of fluff it was too.
So not too much to report on the personal front today - just a nice day spending some quality time with my kids. Likely to be the theme of the next couple of posts as well, I guess.
Bit of jazz on the soundtrack today - Miles' version of 'Sketches of Spain', recorded with Gil Evans in 1960. I don't listen to a lot of jazz - and when I do it tends to be Miles I listen to - but by any standards this is a fantastic album. It's source material is a Spanish classical piece - and at times it feels like more of a classical album than a jazz album. In a good way. A beautiful, beautiful piece of music.
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