First weekend

Well its now Sunday afternoon, there is a roast in the oven (courtesy of Charlie) and the girls are away to the beach for a walk. I am chilling in front of the Grand Prix and awaiting the slow roasted pork joint and fresh garden veg and herbs. The weekend has been a welcome break from the manic week we have just had. So today I will update you on what we did on Friday and Saturday.
Friday had the usual start with a 6.45am walk around the gardens with Lucy, Charlotte has attempted to join us on a number of occasions, however she has yet to make it out of her bed at a suitable time!! The usual frenetic activity continued  with everyone in the kitchen early trying to get their ingredients together and get a quick start to the day, I was on bread and lemonade duty so it added a few extra tasks to my day. I also made fresh raspberry jam and penne pasta with mushrooms and marjoram. I must admit that I had never heard of the herb marjoram, but it was absolutely delicious and worked out really well. I did however, get more grief for my seasoning which is really tough to get right but I guess that it would be pointless if they told you everything was great. My teacher last week was Rosie, who is an absolute gem and really good craic in the kitchen, it has taken me a week to understand her Cork accent though and now I will have a new teacher next week.
Lunch was amazing as we got to try the other pasta which was made (tomato, rosemary and chorizo), fresh green salad and a selection of amazing desserts (chocolate and hazelnut tart, and a rustic summer fruit tart).
The afternoon demonstration was excellent and featured one of my favourite topics, ice cream!! A raspberry ice cream was made along with a Gruyere and dill tart, a variety of salads, how to kill and make a dressed crab, crab and coriander tart and fresh fruit Popsicles!
After such a heavy week, we felt a few pints was in order, so we headed out to the Black Bird pub in Ballycotten for few hours, great craic was had and we eased ourselves home at 1am slightly worse for wear.
Saturday started a little later than normal, I took a nice walk down to the beach to ease the back and then we made plans to attend the farmers market in Middleton, it was great fun and we picked up a few treats to cook later on.
We had a quiet one on Saturday night, as we cooked quiche and the chorizo pasta for dinner. An unexpected call from Darina had me down in the manor home, meeting some of the family and having a glass of wine, it was really nice to meet them properly as I have seen them about the school but have been far to busy to stop and chat!
So that's it for now, Charlie has done an amazing job with lunch and we are looking forward to chilling out, meeting our new flatmate and getting some rest before the madness starts again tomorrow.
Man flu has also arrived so will be hitting the hay early to try and beat it before it takes hold, should make the tasting a bit harder!!
Will update you all later in week!
T