A DAY TO OURSELVES

My sons Saturday game has out grown the kitchen and they have moved to another venue which gave Pa and all a day all to ourselves. This is an unusual occurrence and he used the time to catch up on a few jobs while I did lots of baking. It was so nice not to have to rush things and some outstanding chores such as putting in two new lamps in the small kitchen windows and making a hole in the front door for the cable that charges the electric buggie were finally sorted out.

I made four dozen cookies called little sinners, they are made with eggs and walnuts with cinnamon and vanilla sugar. I often make them in the autumn as the spice reminds me of the lovely scent of fallen leaves. Two Pavlova,s were next on the agenda, one for next door and the other to be filled with fresh cream and chocolate shavings for us. Finally I make a cranberry and raspberry jelly for tomorrow.

I am rather in disgrace today as I had promised to make a lasagne for dinner tonight, a great favourite here, there was just one snag, I had forgotten to buy fresh lasagne sheets this week. I really had to grovel when I announced that dinner would have to be cottage pie instead. To my way of thinking we have lasagne far too often and I much prefer cottage pie myself........I know what you are thinking but upon my word it was not done deliberately. Tomorrow the Sunday gamers will hold court here so we shall have a Chinese take away tomorrow, as I never quite know when they will leave and that makes timing a meal a trifle tricky.

The kitchen looks much brighter now the new lamps are in, the back of the house is surrounded by trees, vines and ivy and can be quite dark on dull days. We do see some wonderful sunsets in the winter months when the trees are bare which we all love. It seems odd to have three windows in a room and because the house is old they are cut in rather like arrow slits in a castle in order to let in more light, and the stone mullions are splendid, although it can make decorating difficult and curtains never seem to look quite right.
The cat Twiggy is sitting on my desk as I write,she has discovered that my little laptop gets quite warm and I have found her sitting there several times this week. She is in her pussy cat mood at the moment and is very cuddly and comfortable, she had more sides than a fifty pence piece and by tomorrow she could be in a standoffish,tigerish,playful or a number of other equally amusing moods. She is such a dear and I have to say that photographs never do her justice.

We all slept well last night and fell the better for it today. It has been a strange week as we have all felt completely exhausted for most of it, perhaps it is the weather,who knows?.