So, Cara Sposa passed her exams with flying colours! It's been seven years she's been working towards certificates in environmental studies in between cleaning the Aegean Stables' worth of web and humanitarian work.

All of this, I admit shamefacèdly, to make up for the time she threw away her future by changing her university degree from Wildlife Biology to English Literature in order to graduate quickly and marry some fool in Georgia who was frankly not worth her time in the first place. I can't believe that was twenty years ago...

So, she got notice yesterday that she now qualifies for TWO certificates at once. Don't know what can be done with said pieces of paper, but in celebration, I went all baroque in the kitchen. Dinner last night was a small sirloin roast in Waterloo Dark gravy with roast onions, yorkshire puddings (in little cupcake tins), pickled cardamom-beet and dill-carrot salad, A sour-cream-and-dill cucumber salad, and dessert was these little peach and raspberry crumbles in ramekins with cream.

This, of course, accompanied by my deadly cranberry-and-Tanqueray martinis, Pelee wine, and finishing with some 'orrible sweet anise thing from Italy and ginsing-mint tea.

[Ironically, we watched "Cronos" that evening, followed by an episode of "One Foot in the Grave"]

Very proud of my sweetie, and hoping she can take some time and relax before finding something new to consolidate and conquer.