New Year at Baboon HQ

New Year's Eve was quite an exciting day at Baboon HQ.  It started with a disappointment.  Our dear friend @Henryandfriends was going to come over for lunch, but the weather was forecast to be too windy in the afternoon and he wouldn't have got back until late, and he had plans for New Year.  Anyway, the morning was sunny so Harry went for a walk to Fishbourne.  He saw some interesting things.

Just past the golf course, and before the church he came across these snowdrops.  This was a bit surprising as we would not normally expect to see these before February.  However, it has been warm.  He saw lots more snowdrops on his way.

He went on past Holy Cross church in Binstead.  This is a 13th century church in the woods and it is very atmospheric.  We will take Harry in there one day but it was not open yesterday.

Normally when we walk this way it is to go to Quarr Abbey which has a nice cafe and farm shop, as well as being a beautiful and interesting abbey.  However, Christmas time is a time of quiet contemplation and prayer for the monks so we didn't.  Harry looked at the ancient ruins of the original abbey, that was destroyed when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries and took England away from the Roman Catholic church and to the Church of England.  A very tumultuous time for English Christians, leaving many monks homeless and starting centuries of conflict.

Just because the cafe at Quarr Abbey was not open did not mean that Harry missed out on coffee.  We went to the Fishbourne Inn, near the car ferry terminal.  This is a lovely pub for food, great fish and chips and puddings and an extensive yummy menu.  We did not go right down to see the bay where the car ferry docks, as the weather was getting a bit windy, earlier than forecast.

Harry saw quite a lot of primroses on the walk, these are outside the Fishbourne Inn.  This is surprising.  We would expect to see these around Easter time, in March or April, but we had seen more primroses by the seafront so not such a surprise.

In the evening Freddy helped manperson to cook pizzas.  He prepared the toppings.  Manperson was having a Fiorentina with mozzarella, parmesan, spinach and an egg, person was having a Veneziana with mozarella, capers, sultanas and pine nuts (a real Venezianna would also have onion and black olives but we are not big olive fans at Baboon HQ and prefer pizza without onions (pizza names curtsy of Pizza Express restaurant).

We baboons have what we call the Arsenal pizza, mozzarella with tomatoes and little red peppers, so red and white.  When England are playing we can rearrange the red bits to make a St George cross so it becomes an England pizza. 

Freddy arranged the toppings on the pizzas to get them ready for the oven.

When they were cooked he served them with a side salad with different coloured little tomatoes.

Freddy and manperson worked hard and the pizzas were lovely.  A New Year's Eve treat.

On New Year's Day morning we were all hungry again and manperson cooked pancakes.  Washington was very excited about those.

He had them with maple syrup and coffee, from the big Starbucks mug, well he does come from Seattle!!  The mug was actually from Portland, Oregon, but when we go to Seattle this year we will get him a Seattle one.

We will have a quiet day today, a walk, lunch, a relaxing afternoon (after the Friday cleaning) and a curry tonight at our favourite Indian restaurant, Monsoon in Ryde.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE AND I HOPE YOU ALL HAVE A WONDERFUL 2016.