Top Fab Fave Five

Top five for this week:

1. Top escape attempt. I can't even see where his tiny little fingers could go to haul himself up this wall, but he found a way. Then shimmied down on his bottom. And repeat. Honestly, the photo makes the wall look shorter and less freaky than it really is ...
2. Top hosiery. I rather fancy myself in these, don't you know ... You can't see the purple houndstooth action properly. I think you can see that my shoes need polishing, though. Just look away ...

3. Top meaty goodness. This week's stewy fiesta from Hugh F-W involves a lot of rubbishy chops, fried off for a little, then simmered in stock, lemon juice and thyme. I used commercial stock and I think that's really what informs the resulting flavour more than anything. Next time I'll use much more juice and thyme, and fry off some onions with the chops at the start. But it's still flipping delish!!

4. Top outing with Sweeney. Girded my loins - is that the term?? - and took Sweeney for a jaunt on his scooter to the Sunday market at Waitangi Park. He was so great about traffic, other people on the foothpath, stopping when he was supposed to. So chuffed. And then he was mostly co-operative about following instructions when we got there. Okay, we wouldn't have fruit this week if Kimberley hadn't arrived and taken over wrangling him for a bit, but details, shmetails ...

5. Top 3.5 hours I had all to myself to do whatever I wanted to, while Sweeney was at Harper's and I wasn't at work. Sunday afternoon. I did some washing, cooked a few meals for the week, tidied the deck, knitted a little and watched a bit of afternoon telly with no-one campaigning for the 10 millionth playing of Cars instead. Blissful. Thanks, KimberleyJoe Harper!!

More people's five top things over here ...