Anniversary

Phill and I were married on this day seventeen years ago at the Sydney Registry Office.  We had our wedding reception at the Concorde Chinese Restaurant in Chinatown.  I was fifteen weeks pregnant with Sarah (hence the maternity suit). 
I've never done anything for seventeen years, except raise one child to that age.  And even then, only just, she left home at 17 1/2. 
It's been an interesting time, often happy, sometimes hard, never, ever boring.
Tonight we had our celebration dinner at home as we always have.  I set a pretty table.  We used the crochet tablecloth that Mum made me and our good Wedgewood china and Gran's monogrammed silver and bone cutlery.

I made a chocolate cake and decorated it.  That thing in the middle is a candle in the shape of a wedding cake.  All special occasion cakes are presented on an Orrefors Swedish crystal "cheese plate" that was a wedding present from my first marriage.  It's been a cake tradition since then, over thirty years ago.

I made Baked Camembert for an entree, same as last year.  It's an inexpensive and really easy starter and tastes great without being too filling.

We did fillet steak topped with prawns in a garlic cream sauce.  I hadn't done it before and wasn't happy with the sauce at all.  Cornflour was used to thicken it and I don't think I cooked it long enough as it tasted floury to me.  We had it with new potatoes with sage butter and a little salad. 

We had some white grape juice with our entree and a bottle of sparkling red grape juice with our main.  Bit sweet for me, I'd just as soon have my water with lime I think, but the bottles made it look festive.

Halfway through dinner I suddenly got really, really tired.  I did have a full on day.  Usual house stuff, then I had to take Phill to work in Junee so that was an hour and a half out of my day.  Then shopping and more cleaning and getting stuff ready for tonight.  So by the time we fed the kids and ate ourselves it was fairly late.  I got into my nightie and we sat on the couch and watched tv before I just had to come in to bed.  My favourite place to watch tv these days, the screen is way smaller and the reception terrible but I love it.

So I guess, as you can see, our marriage is one year older and we most definitely are.

I made some Chocolate Rum Clusters, it's an old Weight Watchers recipe (???).  It's sultanas soaked in Creme de Cafe essence for a few hours, then melted dark choclate (I only had milk) with some light thickened cream and the sultanas and some chopped macadamias chucked in.  They didn't set properly though.

So we had some cake and chocolate dipped strawberries and then it was time for bed.