MY NEW BED

Hooray! It arrived early this morning and in spite of the fact that he was very tired my son heroically offered to assemble it for me. Of course I agreed at once and as soon as we had finished breakfast we tackled the job. The bed is very similar to the one my son purchased for himself last August, the only difference is that mine does not have a foot board. It is quite an old fashioned style which suits the room with it,s Victorian fireplace, we have one in every room upstairs, even the bathroom!
The bed was assembled in record time, it took us longer to take off the packaging and I must say it looks splendid.
It did not arrive a moment too soon as last night the old one collapsed completely and I spent a very uncomfortable night with the bottom of the bed chocked up on some books. It felt like trying to sleep on the “Titanic” as she went down. I got up early this morning as there was little inducement to stay in bed and got on with the day,s bread making, one of the loaves is a prosciutto loaf and we shall eat it this evening with a lovely creamy vegetable soup

PROSCIUTTO BREAD
One and a half pounds of strong bread flour
! sachet of quick yeast
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 teaspoon of salt
3 slices of Prosciutto or any air dried ham
half a pint of warm water (you may need a little more, it depends on the flour)
Grease a baking sheet and heat the oven to 230 C. Put the flour ,yeast and salt in a bowl and add the olive oil and the waster, Mix together and if the mix is dry add a little more warm water. All the dry ingredients should be moistened but not too wet.
Turn out on to a floured surface and knead for ten minutes.
Shape in to a round and then using a rolling pin roll out to a circle of about ten inches.
Break the Prosciutto in to pieces and scatter over the rolled dough the roll up like a roly poly, lay on the greased baking sheet with the join underneath. Make three slashes with a sharp knife and then cover with a damp cloth of a sheet of oiled cling film until it has doubled in size.
Cook at 230 c for fifteen minutes and the reduce the oven temperature to 200c and cook for a further fifteen minutes. Test with a skewer to make sure it is cooked or turn it upside down and give it e knock, if it sounds hollow it is done. Place on a wire rack to cool and cover with a dry tea towel, this stops the crust from becoming too hard.
This type of loaf is good with cheeses or soup and is a lovely picnic bread .

My sons appraisal went well, it seems that they were in a hurry to do them as the head honcho is visiting in the next week or so and I think that the fact that there have been no appraisal,s for over two years may have caught his attention, that means that he at least is awake!
I have a man coming tomorrow to relieve us of a huge pile of rubbish and I shall be glad to see it go. There are now so many things that the dustmen refuse to take that it hardly seems worth their while to turn up at all.
We are all having an early night tonight as it has been a tiring week for us all. Tomorrow our week off will really start and I am planning a feast for tomorrows dinner.
I am looking forward to getting into a bed that does not creak like an old shipwreck . Sweet dreams one and all.