And Our Lucky Winner Is ….. Daphne

Unfortunately we were unable to contact Daphne despite numerous requests on both blogs and after 10 days we drew for the prize again on Thursday 9th September.

Last night, just before the stroke of midnight we held our Prize Giveaway Draw, the tension in our kitchen was palpable.

Darrell was blind folded and I was in charge of mixing the entries in our large salad bowl.

Auntie Jan came over to adjudicate, she (and we) thought it would be good experience for her if she is selected as a volunteer for the London Olympics in 2012

When everything was finally ready Darrell made the draw…..

……..with Auntie Jan standing behind him, poised …. with her clipboard and adjudicators pen. The tumble dryer was going at the time and the sound of clothes tumbling was almost like a drum roll……. and added to the atmosphere.

 
Jan took the winning name from Darrell’s shaking hand.

Darrell’s duties were done and as his eyes adjusted to the light all we had to do was wait for Auntie Jan to announce the winner.

And the winner is DAPHNE,   well done, we will be in touch a little later today to sort out your prize.

How exciting!


Daphne can you e-mail us on MonkeyandDarrell@hotmail.co.uk please

Free Giveaway To Celebrate Our 1st Blogging Birthday – Wooooo Hoooo

As promised we have a BRILLIANT celebratory giveaway in honour of our first year of blogging.  The lovely people at CSN Stores will be giving one of our lucky followers a £40 gift voucher to use in one of their online stores! They’ve got everything from lights to bakeware and cookware and furniture

(Darrell fancies this digger bed, while I quite like the look of this cake stand, how wonderful would Mr Kipling's Fondant Fancies look on that!)

For a chance to win the £40 gift voucher just leave a comment on this post or for a couple of extra chances become a follower, or SPREAD the word about our giveaway on your blog and/or beyond……. for each option, please leave a separate comment on this post with a link to where you have posted about it. We've tried to keep it really simple so Darrell can help in the organisation.

( We both fancy this football popcorn maker!)

The  winner will be drawn at ransom random by Darrell and me in the comfort of our kitchen. All names will be put into our big salad bowl. Darrell will be blindfolded and pick out the winner guided by my instructions (up, down, left a bit, right a bit, ...... plunge and pick!)  We will be watched over by a person of impecable character and good standing. Our invigilator of choice is Auntie Jan, as she used to be a Police Officer and helps with the Brownies. She will ensure that all procedures will be scrupulously followed to the letter.
Please leave your comments here by 11:59pm (GMT) on Monday 30th August …………how exciting and GOOD LUCK!!

SPREAD THE WORD, SPREAD THE WORD, PLEASE!

Sad, Sad News to Impart on A Bank Holiday ..........

Remember my little Christmas trees?

Alas, they are no more.  I blame myself, I never gave it a second thought, when e-mailing Darrell from Turkey, to tell him to water them in my absence. 

As French gardeners, in France, have been known to say in such situations “Quelle dommage, ils est mort”

I don’t think there is anything we can do, but I thought I would try them in our little green house for a while, perhaps the warmth will revive them.

Poor Darrell is very upset, but I’ve explained to him that Mother Nature can be cruel at times, and not every fledgling Christmas Tree is destined to "deck the halls".

Far La La, La La La Laaaaaaa!

The Real McCoy

 

I knew that the one thing that Darrell was desperate to try from my travels was real Turkish - Turkish Delight. A doner kebab holds no mystery for him, but  the thought of tasting Eastern Promise sent little shivers down his spine in a foreign comestible type way.

He’s tried this ……. but it just isn’t the same!

So when Darrell thought he’d had all of his surprises from me, I sat him down at the table and said we were going to nibble in the manner of Sultans.

To see the delight (and sugar) on his face (and fingers) was a joy akin to watching Wolves win at the Molineux. Bless him.

We’ve Had Cool Mail ….. Man!

We’ve had a letter and present combo from Sean a real cool cat, who is one of our top fans - “Hi Five, Sean man!”. It came right out of the blue, and caused much excitement at our crib.

His letter was real bad, he is a Jazz musician and has kindly offered us some cookin’ advice after we said that we thought we might try finding our untapped musical talents via the medium of Jazz.  He also included some links that we can visit, which is the bomb!

The present was the end, a really funky pencil and a fly pencil sharpener with monkeys on, they are far out. Sean said that they were to use when we are making notes on our favourite acts on the X Factor.

“Thank you Sean, they are smokin’ and we are very lucky dudes”  We have got some Aka Bilk and Howling Wolf CD’s to listen too and we’ll let you know when we start jammin for real.

Treasures from A Far Away Land

Darrell has been fascinated by all the little bits I have bought back from Turkey, like the stones I collected on the beach.

He especially liked the heart shaped stones I like to collect, but which are hard to find.

I was waxing lyrical and told him that they were the hearts of sailors who feel in love with beautiful mermaids but drowned in tempest tossed seas trying to find their beloved in a storm. His eyes misted over a little and he gave a little sigh and said sadly "If only they had had a snorkle, mask, flippers and an underwater torch, ......." and sniffed.

He also loved looking at my Azda receipts and sunbed and umbrella tickets

He was very funny when he tried to read the receipts out aloud, the only thing he could say properly was Kat Kat Tat and he laughed so much I thought he was going to have a little accident!

I can’t fathom why I put the tooth picks in amongst my treasures ……… and Darrell didn’t seem too impressed by them either, perhaps I should have told him a romantic tale about them too!

Anyone For A Banana?

Lucy was very taken by all the banana plants we saw growing in the grounds of our holiday hotel, so much so that when she saw a banana plant in Wilkinson's she decided to buy one for our kitchen in the hope of providing us with fresh fruit to eat…… one day.

It’s quite large and Darrell reckons that if it doesn’t bear fruit we can always use the leaves for umbrellas.

Darrell’s First Cocktail

This post contains flashing images

I showed Darrell all the cocktail paraphenalia I had collected from my many "Happy Hours" in Turkey, he was very impressed.

He was in awe of all my wondrous treasures and couldn’t believe that you could actually get a drink with sparklers and umbrellas and bits of fruit stuck round the rim, "It sounds like a posh runny pudding!" he said…. and he loved all the romantic names like Tequilla Sunrise and Banana Cow.

And then he gave me one of his looks that said  ….. "I want to try a cocktail of my own".  What could I do ? I said I would make him one, but only with orange squash and lemonade, and  as I didn't have any fruit, I'd have to use slices of cucumber and tomato instead. I also told him that when I lit the sparkler we were to stay VERY, VERY still, because I was using a full size sparkler left over from bonfire night (I didn't have any cocktail sparklers unfortunatley) and it would get very hot and we didn't want to get hit by a rogue sparkle.

I apologise for the abrupt end to our short film, but as you will hear at the end all three of our fire alarms went off!   But at least granted  Darrell his wish!  I have a spooky feeling that cocktails will now become Darrell's refreshing drink of choice from now on, bless him.

X Factor is Back!

It’s hard to believe but it’s a whole year since we were rooting for either Joe and Stacey to get to the X Factor final last year.

Fortunately, I didn’t suffer too much jet lag and so was able to fully enjoy our favourite search for undiscovered musical talent show of choice.

We both missed Dannii, as we are not too keen on Gerri Halliwell (bit barking in our estimation).  But Cheryl, who Darrell adores, looked fragrant despite sickening for malaria.

We try not to get involved in the sob stories but sometimes it’s hard not to and then we fill up and get emotional.

We know it’s wrong to wish our lives away ……. but we can’t wait till next Saturday!

We said we were going to enter this year ……. but as of yet we still haven’t worked out which musical genre brings out our untapped talent …… we are considering having a go at jazz, as we are quite good at doing all that doooobbby, doobbby, boo,boo,boo improvised stuff they do.

A Smorgosbord of Turkish Delights

When Darrell and I finally woke up after my disturbing him in the early hours of the morning, I bought him my gift of Azda’s finest comestibles.

He couldn’t believe that there was an actual  Azda where I was, but it reassured him that I had had adeqaute nutritional snacks while I was away.

He pored over his gift for ages and was amused by some of the names they had.

He chuckled and said he couldn’t wait to see what Loony’s tasted like and thought asking a Turkish shopkeeper if they had any Kat Kat Tat’s in stock would be hard to do with a straight face

 

He was particularly taken by the pufs, they look like marshmallow tea cakes, but are bright orange with pink, brown and white sprinkles and a chocolate covered base. He said he would like to experience one of these first, but after breakfast, naturally.

We are hopefully going to review all these delicacies with, perhaps, a few serving suggestions, this could prove most helpful/useful to any of our readers travelling to Turkey in the future.  We are also wondering whether we should review them on TripAdvisor …..