Life's ups and downs

OK, this is not really what I wanted to write when I returned, but because it cannot all be doom and gloom I'll start with something nice.

Lovely hubby and I went out for a meal yesterday, in lieu of our birthday meal (er, more of that later). I had an onglet steak for the first time (thank you very much for offering it, Hotel du Vin) and it was fabulous. I'm a real carnivore by choice - a steak hound, with my usuals being either rump or rib eye, for both flavour and texture. For me, there's no point having fillet, although I know a lot of people differ.

Well, my medium-rare onglet was amazing. It was a little more on the rare side than medium, if I'm honest, but that suits me just fine. If it could, it would have hopped off my plate and cantered around the room for a while before settling back down for yours truly to enjoy. Beautifully seared on the outside, full of meaty, almost gamey, flavour and with a gorgeous colour and texture, it was a serious treat! It came with some lovely hand cut chips (yes, I did eat some but not all) and a grill butter. The latter amazed me. I've never eaten butters of any kind with my steaks as I've always figured they detract from the meat, but made an exception for this one. It was laced with pink peppercorns, anchovies, juniper berries, parsley and lemon and was incredible, really enhancing the flavour of the steak.

The not so good stuff is what lies behind our original birthday meal not happening quite as planned. There we were, away on holiday in our lovely remote location, but my darling lovely hubby had a problem. After just a day or so, we ended up spending time at the local hospital to find we had to cut our break short and return home. Not going into great detail, but he's had a serious setback after the operation he had in August and needs major surgery pronto.

So, surgery Mk II will happen first thing on Tuesday, with his fantastic surgeon from August back at the helm... thank heavens! Wish her (the surgeon) and him luck.