*suspicious*

...but of course.

La Casa Mágica del Pan

There's a place in town, near a fabulous outdoor market (more on that another time!), which has got to be one of the best bakeries around. It's called El Bolillo (The Bread Roll) which is as great a case of understatement as I have ever heard. I gave it my own name, in the post title above, with the help of Google Translate - I can't be sure it's grammatically correct, but either way it's more accurate.

It's filled with racks and shelves (in gorgeous wooden cupboards) loaded with every baked good you could ever imagine, and a few you never could, and customers walk about and fill their trays using big silver tongs (see them on the chair?).

 You can pause for a bit at the back and watch the fresh new plain rolls going into or coming out of the ovens..

 
...or watch the tortilla machine in action, with little blobs of dough flattened and cooked almost instantly and pushed out the end, or you can admire the made-to-order extravaganzas for weddings or quinceañeras.
 

The first time we went we were a bit shy, and just observed; the next time we dived in and selected a trayful of random goodness; when we brought it to the cashier I thought we'd pay at least $15, but it was about $5. We wandered up the street munching :)

Crawfish Boil

My apologies for such a long absence from this blog. Busy-ness at home and work, a "new" church, and a malfunctioning computer are all contributing factors... But now I'm going to try and get caught up... we'll see. 

Starting easy with a pic of a very Texas tradition - a crawfish boil we went to with Rebecca. Money to charity, and you eat a great big pile of crawfish! Not my favourite thing but interesting and fun and worth doing just for the experience.

The video below isn't very good - I had been hoping that the band would be more audible as they were pretty classic - but it gives a bit of an idea of the atmosphere (and the size of the event! We could see them cooking the crawfish from where we sat and they were being brought in in enormous vats...)

Three years!

As with so many things, it sometimes seems like longer, and sometimes like no time at all :)

Kathryn loves Eddie

I think we're both looking a little older than in the first post with this title, but that can be a good thing too, right?

And I DO love Eddie; it was so good to see him (and his family) in London at the end of April. More about that when I have time :)

Impossibly cute

Look who moved in just down the road!

This gorgeous little crew lives just outside our neighbourhood; they have a beautifully uncomplicated daily ritual, which starts with them up by the green and white barn (standing about the doorway, or lined up in a row staring through the bars of the side fence waiting for the breakfast-bringer), then playing about in the larger field - which is when you can visit them and pat the lovely soft noses through the fence - and ends with them back in the barn in the dusky light; we think they have soft little hay nests, and curl up with a good book and a mug of cocoa.

Our favourite is the stumpy baby, who is even sweeter than the rest, but we love them all... they have become part of our morning and evening spotting rituals; on our way to and from work, we look out for the same things, sometimes with the same commentary. It reminds me of being a child and going to my grandparents' house; my family will remember such gems as 'look at the little cubby' (correct response: 'I did already'), and 'that's where the children played'; there was also the chant 'look at the coloured wiiiindows, and the blue one is cracked', which, after the owners did some repairs, had to change to the ludicrous 'look at the coloured wiiiindows, and the blue one is-not cracked!'

Our spottings are all animals - the mini-donkeys; some even stumpier and shaggier ponies who live in a tiny bit of forest by the side of the road, and even some llamas, one of whom has ridiculously fluffy legs. There may be photos later; in the meantime use your imagination...

The magic windowsill

Dave's parents gave me a beautiful orchid for my last birthday; it bloomed for a few weeks, and then all the flowers dropped off and it turned into a bare stick with some leaves at the base. I researched 'care of orchids' on the internet, and found it a place with indirect light, as instructed, and watered it a little once a week, as instructed... still, I had bare sticks. I kept watering it regularly but gave up hoping it would ever do anything more.

But one evening I noticed that it had developed some buds - over weeks, they grew larger - and finally, they started to bloom!

Once it had a few flowers on it I moved it into the entry to show it off - and yesterday, the final bud opened. Over the last 6 weeks, 19 flowers have opened. And the oldest one is still as beautiful as the newest!

I have moved my second orchid (also no more than a green stick for months) onto the magic windowsill, which suited the first one so perfectly - so far it has 10 buds...

Piggen Wiggen

In the late summer last year, we were driving home one evening and, stopped at the lights going into our neighbourhood, I was looking idly about me. Suddenly -

"I see a pig!" I said to Dave, half jokingly, and we both tried to get a closer look in the half-light of dusk. Concluding I'd made a mistake, and seen nothing more than a dog, we went home and I didn't think about it any further.

...Until the next evening, when there he was again, quite unmistakably; whiffling about in the grass and undergrowth right by the side of the road, cars a few metres away.

We went around the block and tried to get a closer look, but by then someone else had seen him and parked nearby; the car didn't bother him but the person getting out of the car scared him and he scampered off into the undergrowth.

And so it went for at least a week; about dusk, he'd come out of the trees and rootle about for a bit; and every attempt we made to get a photo of him was foiled by people or darkness or both.

Finally, we decided to ambush him; we waited, camera at the ready, in the nearby school parking lot at the time we were used to seeing him, and waited... and waited... and just as we were about to give up, out he came.

And it was lucky we did that, as we never saw him again after that day. But even now, we look wistfully at that corner when we pass; it's much more interesting to have a Piggen Wiggen in the neighbourhood than a bare mound of gravel.

Tempting --

 -- but no.

Suburban Deluxe

A Grand Day Out

I know I've said it before, but one of the best things about living in Houston is leaving it... there are so many interesting places just a few hours away; it's one of my favourite things to have a semi-early start on a Saturday or a Sunday and go driving out to somewhere new (or old!).

A few tell-tale clues will reveal that this trip actually took place in mid-October last year, but due to aforementioned laptop issues I didn't get to post the pictures until now.

Old Courthouse - Blanco. We went in and looked at historic photos which lined the hallways on the ground floor - fascinating!

The current Blanco Municipal Court. I guess while you wait to be judged you sit in the porch swing and compose your mind.

I have to confess that I have developed a real taste for proper Barbecue, since living here - and this sort of place, somewhat rough-and-ready, one-off places in small towns, tend to have the very best. As witnessed below (that's for Dave AND me - I'm not quite such a piggy as to be able to eat all that alone!):

Above and below - Wildlife Garden and seed farm.

Courtyard of an antique store in Fredericksburg (our actual destination, but it took us most of the day to get there, as we stopped off so much!)

The eight-sided church in central Fredericksburg. It was in a park in the main part of town, which was holding a mesquite festival the weekend we were there - lovely handmade furniture, Christmas decorations, and similar.

The Big Freeze

It was quite a cold winter here this year; thankfully I had grown wise from last year's cold snaps, and left most of my plants in pots so that they could be carried in and out of the garage as need dictated... and in and out they went! The coldest snap was in February, and lasted for a few days - my newly-installed bird bath froze solid every night for three nights running. Of course, a week later the temperatures were in the mid-20s (Celsius) - that's Houston for you!