Baboon HQ

Hi, this is a nice sunny day so we started the day by going for a walk.  We visited the hardworking monkeys in our Sainsburys window, who advertise products for special occasions.  Today they were all ready for Valentine's day.

They have been resting since new year but are busy again now.  They work very hard all year and we do like to visit them.

Then we thought we might introduce you to some of the more unusual residents of Baboon HQ and a new arrival.  I'll let the baboons introduce the less usual residents.  There are a lot of non-baboons at Baboon HQ, most are lions, bears and other monkeys.  These are some of the more unusual ones.

Hello, I'm Edward and I would like to introduce my friend Westbourne.  He lived at Baboon HQ before there were any baboons here and in fact when it was in London.  He is called Westbourne because he came from an antiques shop in Westbourne Grove, London.

Our people used to go for dinner some Fridays to a pizza place in Westbourne Grove, they saw Westbourne in the window for a couple of years and always stopped to talk to him.  However, he was far too expensive for them and they hoped he would find a good home.  One day they were going on holiday and they decided that if he was still there when they got back they would buy him, never mind the price!  He needed a good home.  When they got back he was no longer in the window, so they thought he had found a home.  Manperson decided to ask the shop owner about who had bought their friend.  It turned out he had not been sold, just put in the back of the shop.  The owner sold him to manperson for half the price.  He as been with them for nearly 20 years.

Westbourne has an interesting history it seems he was a bellhop in a hotel in Philadelphia and had a tray on this head for drinks to be rested on him.  He had no tray when our people met him so we were not sure.  However, wait for further information in a minute.  We became friends when I arrived, we have a shared background of living in an antiques shop window.

Hi, I'm Hoppo and I would like to introduce Socrates.  Yes he is similar to Westbourne.  We saw him recently in a shop window in Union Street, Ryde.  Manperson decided to buy him.  He somewhat confirms the story that Edward told you about Westbourne's origins.  When Socrates arrived he had a tray on his back.  We removed it as he doesn't need to work as a drinks table here.  We called him Socrates because he looks philosophical.

Hello I'm George and I am introducing two of the four Tibetan monks who live at Baboon HQ.  These two live in the living room, two more live downstairs in the study.  They are very quiet but they help with our meditation.

Hello, you all know me, I'm Harry!  I am introducing Johann.  Now, this is an unusual story.  Manperson went skiing with his brother and brought Johann back as a present for our person.  Right, yes, I can see how you are thinking!  How many people would go on holiday and bring back an oven glove for their partner.  Yes, it would often not be welcome!  However, Johann was welcome, he is not used as an oven glove, he is our Baboon HQ kitchen manager.  He makes sure we have all we need and helps us with our cooking.

Hi, I'm Little Tony.  Please meet Brian, he is a celebrity robot who advertises car insurance on television.  He is sweet and funny and talks a lot.

Howdee I'm Ozzie, this is Benny, the skeleton sock monkey and Mungo who is a gorilla.  They are good friends.  Benny is unusual and funny.  Mungo arrived at Baboon HQ because he was described as a baboon.  Well he is not a baboon but he is very welcome here!

Finally a not unusual, but new resident of Baboon HQ, a celebrity bear, who advertises holidays.  In the adverts he goes through lots of troubles but ends up happy on holiday.

Hello, I'm Freddy, I am introducing you to Tom.  He only has one eye, but look at that smile.  He even has a smile on his foot, look!!  He makes us happy with his smile.

Well there are some non-baboon residents of Baboon HQ.  We have more unusual ones who we can introduce another day.

First weekend back at work!!

We were very glad when the weekend came.  First weeks back at work are always stressful.  We started the weekend on Friday evening with Fish and Chips, but we were so hungry we forgot to take a picture.

Saturday morning started with a rehoming.  You will no doubt see more about that in my next rehoming blog.  I always cry when baboons leave so you can see I am looking sad.  He is going to a great home though where he will have a wonderful life, joining another rehomed baboon.  This one is a cousin of mine and he looks like my brother Roko!

Now we know why our manperson wanted the extendable ladder.  Its to check the skylight to make sure its not leaking.  It needs checking regularly.  Jack couldn't resist trying out the ladder.

Suddenly he realised how high up he was.  He came down quickly and carefully.

In the afternoon we all listened to the FA cup third round games on the radio.  Our team got through but they gave us a few nasty moments.  Sadly Hoppo seems to be hidden behind Tashi and Jack seems to be hidden behind Oregon, you can just see his sleeve.  He is a bit camera shy but Hoppo isn't usually.  Washington is only showing his hat and Yaya is hiding.  It hard to take a picture of 33 excitable baboons and get them all in.  I can't see Denis either.

On Sunday morning we started our breakfast at home with blueberries and raspberries with yogurt.  Very nice and healthy!!

As if that wasn't enough berries we went to Olivos for breakfast blackcurrant pancakes!  With cream!!  Manperson had maple syrup with his instead of cream.  They were completely yummy!!

We got the boys who were camera shy yesterday to have their photo taken.  Hoppo and Jack at the back and Washington and Denis at the front.  You can see they were reluctant, but there was no need to be they are all good looking boys!!

In the afternoon it was raining so we dozed and watched more FA cup football.  Manperson was cooking a dish with this vegetable.  Harry and Little Tony found it and wondered what it was.  I explained it was a butternut squash.

New Year weekend

Just a little bit of holiday left and its raining all weekend.  We baboons cooked one of our favourite dishes, on Saturday.

Bradley decided to cook a dish that we call 'crispy cheese', but is really called pasta parmigiana.  Well kind of!  As you know we baboons are no respecters of other people's carefully designed recipes so we add a leek, change the cream for yogurt and we have a bit more cheese.  Other than that we are completely faithful to the recipe.

Bradley may look familiar, he is a cousin of Hudson, one of the #BaboonsThatCook, Hugo who lives with Zack Rabbit and BiddyBT's Brian.

He assembled the ingredients, well almost, olive oil Bradley!!  You will need it!!

He chopped up the vegetables, grated the cheese and measured out the yogurt and pasta.

He got the pasta boiling and the vegetables frying in the olive oil (I said he'd need it)!

While the pasta was boiling and the vegetables frying Bradley did a bit of multi-tasking, checking on how Manchester City and Watford were doing in Premier League football.

When the pasta had cooked and the vegetables were softened he added the yogurt, pepper and lemon juice to the vegetables (he drained the vegetables to make sure the dish wasn't too wet, because we like it crisp but the recipe doesn't say to do that).  Then he mixed the pasta and vegetables together in an oven proof dish.

He sprinkled the grated cheese onto the pasta and vegetables, so the dish was ready for the final stage.  It  goes under a hot grill to crisp the cheese.

So now for the washing up!

Not the laundry basket trick again Bradley!!  Its getting old!!

After 15 minutes it was necessary to get the dish out of the oven.  This used to be really hard, as a Pyrex dish, under a hot grill, gets very hot indeed.  We used to double up the oven gloves and still found it too hot.  However, our friend Miriam, from Germany, sent us these silicone oven gloves.  They are fantastic, you can't feel a thing through them.

 

So out of the oven and ready to serve.  Look at that lovely crispy topping.  How crisp it gets depends a lot on the cheese.  This was a good one!

Today the weather is awful, wet and very windy.  We were going to go out for breakfast, to finish the holiday off with a treat, but its too horrible out there and we have nice bread at home, so we will do it another Sunday.

We'll have a quiet, restful day watching the cricket.  Sadly, we will take down the Christmas tree and put the decorations away carefully for next year.  Thank you for reading my blog this holiday, I will try to keep it up to date at weekends during the working routine.

HAPPY 2016 EVERYONE!!

New Year's Day at Baboon HQ

We had an exciting Christmas and now it is the new year.  We had a few things to do on New Year's day.

After our breakfast pancakes, made by manperson, we did a few chores and then headed out for the traditional new year walk.

We drove out to Yarmouth, listening to our new Patsy Cline CD, lovely music but she does seem to have had a lot of problems with her love life!  We got to Gossips cafe in Yarmouth for coffee.

Now I need to correct some misconceptions here, it is my fault that everyone probably thinks Harry is addicted to coffee.  Actually he never drinks it, none of us baboons do, even Mini-Kolo (Jackson), who claims a caffeine addiction.  If we have hot drinks its only milky tea or hot chocolate.  But Harry does like the little biscuits they give you with coffee.

Harry is looking out at The George pub which is next Yarmouth Castle, you can see the walls.  This forces me to mention King Henry VIII in two blogs running, the castle was built by him in 1547 as part of the coastal defenses.  In those days England used to fight the French and Spanish regularly so they needed to make sure they didn't get their ships into the Solent, the strip of water between Baboon Island and the mainland, and threaten England, especially the naval base at Portsmouth.  There is another castle on the mainland side, Hurst Castle, so any invaders didn't stand much chance with all those cannons pointing at them.

When we set out to walk we realised that the weather had changed a lot since New Years Eve.  It was quite wintery and windy, although still not very cold.  Harry stopped for a climb.

Later Harry looked out a the water, the River Yar (West Yar, there is also an East Yar on the island), it seemed wintery all of a sudden.

Back to Gossips cafe for lunch.  Do we call this lunch?  It looks more like tea to me, German apple cake with whipped cream.  Well we had walked a long way!!  It was very tasty with apple, pastry and almonds.

Next we had to fulfill a British Bank Holiday tradition.  That is a visit to a DIY store.  On the way back we went into B&Q in Newport.

Harry admired the power tools!!  Baboons love power tools but we are seldom allowed to use them.

Now explain this!  This is what manperson bought.  He thought Baboon HQ needed a telescopic ladder.  Harry didn't really do his job here and explain that manperson could have saved the money.  We are baboons, we climb, its what we do, why would Baboon HQ need a ladder?  If we can't climb it its not worth climbing!  Oh well, there you are!

So that was our New Year's Day adventure.  We went for a curry in the evening, to Monsoon in Ryde, we didn't take pictures because baboons posing with curry are likely to get very mucky.

I hope you all have a wonderful 2016!! HUGS HUGS HUGS!!

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.

Macaroni cheese a la Baboon HQ

Yesterday we were planning to go out for a curry in the evening, but the weather was so bad that we decided to stay at home and cook.  We only had ingredients for macaroni cheese, so that is what we cooked.  Like everyone we, at Baboon HQ, have our favourite flavourings.  Tashi volunteered to cook.

He started by getting the ingredients ready, including our favourite flavourings and the Baboon HQ secret topping.

He cooked the pasta and made the cheese sauce, adding our favourite Baboon HQ flavourings.  Well it may be a strange combination to other people but we like our macaroni cheese with black pepper, paprika and thyme.  Those are not the flavourings that the recipe suggests but we like it.

Before putting it in the oven Tashi had to add our secret Baboon HQ topping.  So, to let you into the secret, along with the grated cheese we put half a bag of crushed Walkers Sensations chili flavoured crisps (to our readers from outside of the the UK Walkers are known as Lays in other countries).  We think it is yummy!!

Once the macaroni cheese was in the oven Tashi prepared some green beans to have with the macaroni cheese.  Once they were boiling there was one job left to do, lots and lots of washing up.  That is when Tashi disappeared.

Ah ha!! That is why the large laundry basket was chosen is it!  Tashi is hiding from the washing up.  Well I guess he has worked hard cooking so fair enough!!

Christmas eve and Christmas day at Baboon HQ

Christmas eve promised to be a busy day at Baboon HQ so we started with breakfast at French Franks, in Ryde.

Croissants of course.  It was Harry's first visit there.  When we got home there was cooking to do.  Edward started it off by making the apple cake that we baboons have for breakfast at Christmas.

Edward is a methodical baboon so he assembled the ingredients first.

Then he mixed them in the bowl.

Eventually it was ready for the oven.

Then Yaya decided to stew some fruit for breakfast, the pears and nectarines wouldn't ripen so that was the best way to use them, and its very tasty.

Learning from Edward, Yaya assembled the ingredients first.  The he had to cut up the fruit into small pieces.

Once he had done that he mixed in some ginger, allspice and honey and then left it to simmer.

In the meantime Edward's cake was ready to come out of the oven, he left it to cool while he made a veggie lasagna for our dinner.

In the afternoon we walked along the seafront for some fresh air after all that cooking.

You can't see them clearly but Harry found some primroses, on Christmas eve, strange!!

On Christmas morning we ate some of Edward's apple cake for breakfast.

Marley and I found it very tasty, we also had some of Yaya's stewed fruit.  Great team work!

After breakfast some young baboons got a bit over excited.

Little Tony climbed the Christmas tree, silly boy!!  Don't worry we got him down unhurt.

Then Arne got excited about climbing the vegetables and called Ozzie to join him!!  Oh those boys!

We had a lovely light lunch of smoked salmon, salad and baguettes.  Tashi is just waiting for his baguette.  That calmed the little ones down a bit and they watched The Wizard of Oz in the afternoon.

Here are Oregon and Jack just waiting for their dinner, we had mushroom en croute, from Marks and Spencer, roast parsnips, carrots and potatoes and some peas.  It was lovely.

What really interested Jack was the crackers,  yes, Arsenal crackers for Baboon HQ this year!