Things are not going very well with the moving. A month ago we had a viewing in a just-like-we-were-looking-for flat and we immediately made an agreement with the landlord (lady?). The only problem is that the current tenants don’t know when they could move out… and we are running out of time. Sux!  :-|

To cheer ourselves up we invested in a new oven-top espresso maker and a coffee grinder as well so even in our home-to-be we can drink fresh and aromatic coffee whenever we want. :))

Today we arranged a few more viewings: one of the flats was in a dream location, only about ten minutes walk from our workplaces! The other one is quite far, but for some reason I liked that one a little more.

The shittest thing is the electric hob in both places, even worse than the lack of the washing machine. I used to have an electric hob and it’s impossible to cook on that. It takes ages until it reaches the desired temperature, but from then it’s beyond human abilities to control it. Either too hot or nothing at all. Making a coffee on it was an everyday challange. (Anno we solved the problem by placing a table top gas cooker on the top of the stupid electric one!)

So, yes, life is quite shit right now, but we all know that in return something good is going to happen, some times, when we expect it the less…! ;)

Anyway, on my way home I made some further shopping: two bottles of still cider, cinnamon sticks, cloves and brand new star anise! – Not that we didn’t have these spices before, but these are nice, big and whole ones, not like the crappy smashed spices we’re using for actual cooking purposes. And the reason why I needed beautiful new ones is this:

I had absolutely no idea how to make it, so just randomly squeezed some orange, mandarin and bramley apple in the pot, simmered it for nearly an hour with all the spices, some sugar  and dried apricot, and  later on I poured the cider in it. By the end of the cooking process I’m sure that the alcohol content dropped to a shocking 0% but never mind, it was delicious!