Bratus Major's Birthday

To celebrate his ascension to teenager-hood we all went out for a meal at Cadmore Lodge on Sunday with another group, then just us back to their place.

The starters were fine Major and Minor playing safe with melon and ham, though Major dislikes ham for no real reason and left his. I scooped it up with Minor's fork and gave it to him; oh yes sorry they were sat either side of me as they always insist on doing. I had goats cheese and tomato bruschetta, otherwise known as a posh pizza ;-) The cheese was light and the tomatoes full of flavour that complimented it well. A little too much cress on the side for my personal taste, but it all went so not off by much.

Timing was off on delivery - all the lambs came out at which point we all sat there looking at it until the vegetables arrived, fortunately the plates were good and hot so everything stayed warm.

I had lamb, Major had pork, Minor had beef. Minor cleared his plate though it was painful to watch him hold down the meat with the knife and tear chunks off with his fork. I did suggest he switch, but he just seems to lack the dexterity either way. Major left most of his meat and his mother, who'd had the same, did say afterwards it wasn't that good. My lamb shank was nice and the crisped skin was full of flavour; sadly as I got further inwards the taste started to turn bland and I cast around for some mint sauce.

There was some at the start, just not near me, but as there had been a lot of us having lamb and there wasn't much to begin with and now it had all gone. Someone had asked for some more and it wended its way down to me; it did help. I will say the lamb stripped off the bone with ease so I'll put the slight lack of taste down to the lamb rather than the cooking; that's just what you get sometimes.

The roast potatoes were nicely crisp without being floury, the boiled were okay with some mint added to them. The cauliflower was apparently crisp (I'm not a fan) but not as crisp as the beans that were al dente to say the least and almost appeared raw. The cabbage was perfection - firm enough to hold, soft enough to bite and still retaining enough flavour to have taste without being overpowering. The carrots were the let-down personally.

I noticed as soon as I had one, but no-one said anything so I thought it was just the one; until I had another. "These carrots taste... unusual.", I essayed. "Sort of... I don't know, creamy?" Major agreed, my mother agreed, my father and the Brats parents couldn't say until Bratus Pater considered that they'd been cooked in butter. Yes that was it exactly. Now hey add some in no problem, but these tasted like they'd been coated in the stuff. On a blind taste test I doubt you could tell they were carrots.

Puddings and in a surprise twist neither of the Bratii went with the ice-cream. Minor had a raspberry meringue and Major strawberries and cream, I had a white chocolate truffle cake. When the meringue arrived I warned Minor about attacking it lest it explode into chunks and then had to warn him again as he repeatedly struck it with the spoon. Major's strawberries were big and came in a knickerbocker glory type glass. Minor ate the majority of his, Major left some; unusual.

My white chocolate truffle cake was sadly disappointing, normally the sweetness of the chocolate would be offset by a slightly tart sauce. In this case some fool had dumped a metric ton of dessicated coconut over the top of the cake, so the sweetness vanished under the creaminess of the coconut rendering the smear of sauce too tart. If there was any sweetness to the chocolate at all I couldn't taste it.

Finally the coffee was... well the coffee you always get out - slightly too strong in a cup I can barely fit a finger through and never quite hot enough.

We then had a quick raffle to raise some money for Macmillan Nurses; we always bring something to these things, but it's almost embarrassing as we rarely walk away without something. So much so that we normally choose to recluse ourselves after two wins. In this case we walked away with three prizes, but that's my father's fault.

My mother won and shooed my father up to get something; he came back with a bottle of white to "I thought you'd have picked up the chocolates"; they drink only slightly more than me so this action was plainly weird. Then I won and got a murmured "chocolates" from my father as I went past. Dutiful son that I am I picked them up and dropped them before my surprised mother. Then she won again and obviously not trusting my father went up herself and dropped a pack of assorted biscuits, that I'd have picked, in front of me. All my father's fault see :-)

I'd bought two strips of tickets one of each colour, my parents had done the same and the Bratii Famili had bought six, two for the parents and two each for the Bratii. They won nothing, which seems to be the norm for them.

Ready to go and Bratus Pater had wondered off to talk shop, we couldn't leave before them for obvious reasons; so we stayed put, and waited... until I (the driver) got fed-up and walked over to him and told him we were going to break into his house if that was okay with him. My father said we could take Bratus Mater and he could take the kids on his own; that spurred him to action.

The rest of the afternoon was spent with us playing on Major's new XBox360 a quick burst of Sega Superstar Tennis which was bloody awful - yellow ball on a green background on a 15" TV with cutscene interruptions as the players activated their special moves; and Major obviously used to an AI partner playing the entire court-end. We ditched that after he got his present from me Sega Ultimate Megadrive Collection and we headed for the classic "Streets of Rage 3". Highly amusing to play the these 'ancient' 16-bit games on one of the latest consoles, but damn fun. We unlocked Roo and Major had some serious fun playing him

Finished up with Lego Indiana Jones solely because he couldn't seem to save the game to the memory card. We solved that problem, but highlighted a small bug I'd forgotten about that also shows up on the PS3 version. If the second player decides to leave and turns off their controller, the game pauses and won't allow player one to continue. See player two is supposed to access the menu and "Drop out" then turn off the controller. Just leave and the game goes into a sulk until player two comes back.

Sad to say I slightly neglected Minor; with only two controllers and a tiny screen it's difficult for three. Also he'd decided to play 'swing the plastic thing around on a string' in that confined space while we were concentrating on the tennis and smacked me in the thoat which resulted in some sharp words and him sulking in his room with the PS2. We were alright later, just neither of them seem to have a spatial awareness beyond their own bodies and that needs addressing (which I constantly try to do).

We also had fun with one of their cats, the exact number of which they own eludes me, who shies off with human contact except for Bratus Pater. Watching as Bratus Mater yelled at the Bratii for yelling and chasing it that holds no surprises for me. Bratus Pater found her and as he held her and the Bratii had scampered back clutching one of the other cats I slowly edged up and let her sniff and lick my hand. She bolted soon after entering the house as the Bratii shrieked and tried to force behind the coach where she "likes to go". They vanished upstairs and I followed both cats outside and just stood at a distance; they eyed me, I eyed them. Nothing much happened until I leant a little more on a pipe which let out an awful creak and the shy cat scampered off; setting off the other one who came to a halt shortly after and then eyed me again in embarrassment before I headed back in.

Animals and children; I don't know why I seem to get on with them both so well.