Secrets

I have a secret!  That’s rare for me.  I’m not very good at lying, y’see, guilty of every tell in the book, so I avoid it as much as possible.  Secrets are a lot like lying: it’s fine until someone asks, but as soon as I’m on the spot and being asked to reveal what I know, I’m lost.

 

So it’s actually a pretty big thing that, for the first time in 3 years of going out with my girlfriend, I have given her absolutely NO clues about what we’re doing for her birthday.  Not one. She has no idea what we’re doing. I’m so proud of myself!

 

One year, an old boyfriend of my sister’s planned a surprise for her that required her to have a certain amount of special clothing - I forget what it was, perhaps waterskiing - so, to cover his plans, he had he pack for all eventualities.  She arrived with wellies, waterproofs, wooly jumpers, the whole lot. Brilliant.  I have not done such a thing, as I’m just going to tell her what we’re doing when she wakes up.  One step at a time, Mac.

The Suffolk Show

Last week I went to the much talked about (at least, amongst my in-laws) and very exciting Suffolk Show.  Such a rural event might not seem like my sort of thing, but the quality of food and drink there would be quite enough to keep me happy, even if I didn't secretly enjoy looking at cows.

The show is a combination of craft stalls, farm equipment sales, and livestock shows.  Modern farm equipment reminds me of constructs from the Terminator movies, being many-armed and designed to destroy just about everything in its path at high speed.  Obviously we didn't hang around it much, but the sight of it all is pretty epic up close.  Farms are big places, obviously.  We didn't see many shows either, but we did get to see the shetland grand national, which was quite cute.  Tiny horses!

The big highlights for me were the wine and the food, though.  Incredible, farm-fresh bacon rolls and burgers!  Chocolate fondues!  Amazing pastry!  And a gaggle of friendly English vineyards.  I've never had the opportunity to drink more than one English wine in the same session, so it was a bit of a treat to try several at once, including some of the rapidly-becoming-famous sparkling wines that we're now producing as a nation.  Fantastic stuff!  The quality of the wine blew me away - England is truly a quality wine producing country.  I can't wait to see what happens with our wines in future.