Just like that, a whole month passed in no time at all. My brother left for Oregon with his wife and son this morning, and all is quiet again at home. This one’s for you guys! Last night was an opportunity to reminisce and look at old photos albums, comparing the new generation Douglas with the last bunch. I can’t wait to get back over to the states and visit them again. These days I feel hard done by if I don’t make it to America at least once a year…

Tonight, I took my nostalgia trip a step further and recreated one of the culinary delights of my childhood – chocolate pudding and chocolate custard! The last time I tried it was in primary school, so it was nice to give it a go considering I haven’t done a lot of baking recently. This was a particularly interesting one, as the pudding was baked in the oven in a bain-marie for an hour. The chocolate custard was not too different from normal custard – the only addition was cocoa powder to give it the desired colour and flavour. I didn’t have any vanilla pods here so I resorted to cheap vanilla extract which was less than ideal, but it still worked. The bain-marie method made for a very moist pudding, and I hope I bested the school version. I’m sure my standards were lower back in those days, as I ate pretty much anything. I still eat most things, but at least I can tell the difference between good and bad food.

In non pudding news, we’ve been playing quite a few games recently, but in dribs and drabs. I’ve put a few hours into GTA V, which I’m enjoying a lot more than GTA IV at the moment, and we’ve also started playing Mass Effect. I have avoided committing any amount of time to Mass Effect as I knew it would be a time vampire, but I finally conceded, and I’m glad I did. So far so good – Ford Shepard, our blonde haired, green eyed protagonist (with cheek bones to rival Sherlock) is trying his best to be a good citizen, but it’s not always possible…sometimes people just ask to be shot in the face.