ALL SORTS

What a day! My goodness we have been busy, the house has been a bustle since the crack of dawn . It has been the sort of day when you can see at the end of it all you have done, to me that is the best sort of day there is.
After a leisurely cup or two of coffee I went downstairs and set about the days baking. Two large split tin loaves, two small cottage loaves and a bloomer, all made with a mixture of wholemeal and granary flour. While these were baking the groceries arrived and my son and I stashed them away while Pa got dressed. I was glad to see the things arrive as I was almost out of flour, a circumstance which is most unusual. Breakfast was next on the agenda and we decided on blueberry muffins so I made two dozen which we ate hot from the oven with a lovely pot of tea, during our meal we planned out the day and divided up the chores in order to get things done as fast as possible. While I was washing up I received a visit from Chips, the squirrel,he is very tame and bangs on the window if food is not forthcoming by eleven in the morning.

Before we started my son and I took a trip to the local garden centre, we are lucky enough to have one practically on our doorstep. I needed to arrange a delivery of 16 bags of bark chip for the front garden. The soil is very sandy and in spite of almost ten years of covering it with good compost every year it still dries out far too quickly during hot spells and I find it difficult to get sufficient water on the plants. This year I have decided to give it a good mulch of bark chips. This should stop the soil from drying out so quickly and will in time rot down to give the soil some much needed fibre. It will take a few years but gardening is a slow process and requires a good measure of patience. I hope that if I can spend less time in the front garden I shall have more time to spend in the vegetable garden and my son has promised to give me a hand with the heavy work, bless him. It is a kind offer as he detests gardening at this point in his life, but he comes from a long line of first rate growers and I an sure that a love of gardening will crop out eventually, it is in his genes,you see.
Once back from the garden centre my son hoovered the whole house from top to bottom and I followed him around with the steamer. The carpets and rugs always look marvellous after being steamed as it both cleans them and raises the nap to make them look almost like new.

When the kitchen floor was dry I did the final baking of the day, a dozen plump sausage rolls, a dozen savoury cheese scones and a dozen fruit scones. These with lots of salad and assorted pickles and some crusty bread and cheeses made a sort of tea meal for tonight instead of a normal dinner,we all love this sort of meal and these days there is seldom time for tea as well as dinner,so once every week or so we do this instead. It is the sort of meal that we can relax over and we chat away and take our time, it is lovely after a busy day.

I hope for some fine weather so that I can get out in to the garden but the forecast looks uniformly gloomy over the weekend. If the forecast is correct I shall make a huge batch of treacle oat biscuits, another jelly and a big cake for the tin. Perhaps on Sunday I may have time to try out my new water colour pencils, we shall see.
Have a lovely weekend where ever you are, and keep safe and warm. Night night.