A rare day off - The BBC Good Food Show

It isn't very often I have a day off from caring for my little ones.  I breathe a huge sigh of relief when Friday night arrives and I can hand over some of the responsibility to The Daddy for the next two days.  Every once in a while I manage to get a day to myself (well, at least until the children's tea time anyway), usually at the weekend, but last week The Daddy took Friday off work so I could go to The BBC Good Food Show with my lovely Aunty.

We had a really fabulous day.  There were lots of stalls with different food and drink to try and buy (although as I'm doing Weight Watchers I had to behave myself a little bit!), and I managed to get fixed up with a stash of tasty goodies for The Daddy's Fathers' Day present.  We had tickets to see The Hairy Bikers on the main stage and they were really good; highly entertaining, and it was quite bizarre being able to smell what they were cooking (including when they burnt the bacon) - you don't get that on the TV! 

A few weeks ago I bought Lisa Faulkner's book, 'Recipes from my Mother for my Daughter', so imagine my surprise when I discovered she was going to be doing a book signing that afternoon!  Then imagine the pain in my ankles when I realised I didn't have said book with me and I had to kick myself quite hard (wearing Birkenstocks.  Ouch.)  I went to buy the book again and was overtaken by my Aunty, who offered to buy it for me and she would have my other copy.  I went along to the signing and Lisa was totally lovely, and really quite energetic considering she had been on the Masterchef stage most of the morning and was due to be there most of the afternoon too!

Felt a bit daft confessing that I'd bought her book twice.  Oops.  Can tell I don't meet celebrities very often...  Anyway, I'm going to be making her beefburgers next week so they'd better be good!   Here she is on the Masterchef stage with Shelina Permaloo, who won Masterchef this year:

Apologies for the blur - I was standing at the back!

Shelina made the most amazing-looking and -smelling fish curry, but I was too busy listening to them chatting away to take enough notice of what she was putting in it to actually replicate it!  Fingers crossed for a book soon...

We were shattered by the end of the day, having been on our feet almost the whole time, and this wasn't really helped when I got on to the M6 proper, rather than the M42 so I could get on the toll.  Birmingham at rush hour is noooo fun.  By the time I had dropped my Aunty off and got home, the children were tucking into their bolognaise and pasta (Thursday's leftovers, and you wouldn't believe how much they ate...), so all that was left was to give them a bath and put them to bed.  I had to squeeze in lots of extra cuddles because I'd missed out on them all day!

I'm linking this up with Emma's brand spanking new linky 'Monday Me' at The Mini Mes and Me.