Rolled roast of pork belly with wild rice and quince stuffing

Tonight, there were 130km an hour winds. They were blowing in a southerly direction. I rode home from work in a northerly direction. My 45 minute ride took 1 hour 15 minutes. My hips (yes, hips) started cramping about 5km out and I was nearly blown from my seat (oh vicar!) around six times. I hopped off my bike a sweaty mess and ready to collapse in a heap.

The upside to this disaster of a ride? I've burnt approximately 93 thousand calories and can eat whatever the hell I like tonight and you can't convince me otherwise. Unfortunately I arrived home totally pooped, couldn't be bothered cooking and made a toasted sandwich instead of pigging out on a luscious meal. Boring.

I wish I had that ride (or some more pleasurable form of exercise) on Sunday when my Mum came to visit. We'd been shopping for wedding dresses and she joined us for dinner that evening. I wanted to make something special for the lovely lady and so bought a gorgeous pork belly from Skinner and Hackett (a Bundarra Berkshire free range one, no less).

Quince and pistachio tartlette

My friend Lesley and I have at least one thing in common: a very inappropriate sense of humour. We laugh as hard and as often as possible, quite often at the most inopportune moments.

Once, in a free meditation session at work designed to de-stress, we were doing neck stretches, turning our heads slowly side to side. We managed to face each other only once and as soon as we made eye contact we were away. We were asked more than once to stop laughing, but it was useless - I couldn't get the picture of her suppressed laughter out of my head. The snorts were unstoppable.

The 'out of order' attitude extends to our nicknames for each other: she's the Old Tart, and I'm the Tartlette. Some might be offended by these name tags, but I guess we're pretty assured of our affection for each other (either that, or we've both accepted the fact we're tarts and have moved on).