Thank the Gods that today is almost at an end,it has been one of those days when absolutely nothing has gone right and it began in the early hours of this morning. For a variety of reasons my sleep was disturbed but the crunch came when having got up to make myself a coffee I spilled the whole cup full on to the bed. By the time I had cleared up the mess and changed the sheet I was even more wide awake and rather cheesed off into the bargain!
Sleep eluded me after that and I was glad to get up at seven thirty to make tea for Pa and my son.
The high spot of the whole day was looking at photographs of my sons recent visit to Sark, today we looked at the garden of the Seigneurie, it was quite beautiful and I was pleased to see that lots of the flowers and herbs which grow in my modest little garden also grace this much grander show place. After this delightful interlude things went down hill quickly.
I believe I have mentioned that we have a friend from America visiting tomorrow and that he had asked me to bake him chocolate cake, a breeze, I thought......until my oven gave up the ghost half way through cooking the blessed thing. The result was not entirely a disaster but certainly not worthy of our guest. Having ascertained that the oven was not maintaining an even heat we fiddled about with it and I tried again................the result this time was to awful to contemplate so I shall hurry on.
Obviously a home baked cake was out as indeed were my neighbours who I know would be happy for me to use there cooker so I set of to buy the largest nicest chocolate cake that I could find. I was in such a hurry that I left the kitchen covered in chocolate and the dreadful remains of my failures, I needed to be somewhere else, so that was that.
After much travail found a cake which looked good, I had already purchased a box of Swiss chocolates to decorate my own cake so I thought that I might add these to the bought one to glam it up a little. Leaving home as I did in a terrific hurry I had not noticed that the battery on my electric buggy was low, I made it home but only just and at a crawl which a snail could ha e outrun.
There was my kitchen, smothered in chocolate, I opened a beer, downed it in one, gritted my teeth and pitched in.
Chocolate is without any doubt the most messy ingredient there is , I even managed to get some in my hair. Woe, woe and thrice woe the sink became blocked and I had to poke about with a wire coat hanger for ages before the blockage gave up and the sink emptied. The clock struck four, I had been working hard all day and had achieved damn all.
Outside the strawberry bed was heaving with ripe fruit, the green house needed watering, fifty young beetroot seedlings were waiting to be transplanted and I had less than an hour to do all three jobs. Strawberries must come first so I took of the nets and began to pick, there were lots,and lots,and lots, the rain had swelled the fruits to a good large size and I filled a very large bowl before I tripped and fell while trying to avoid treading upon a toad, the toad fared better than I did as I sat down with a bump and hurt my back.
Hey hoe and on with the motley I staggered off to turn on the hose and watered the green hose where the tomatoes are looking excellent and the potatoes which were very dry and was just about to plant out the beetroot seedlings when my son arrived home and in I went to cook dinner.
Than heavens we had decided upon scrambled eggs on toast with fried panchetta which is nice and easy and needs no oven. Doubled up by this time I managed to present a decent plateful to each of the boys and was pleased that they enjoyed the meal so much. After the meal was over I washed up , again cleared the kitchen and escaped to my room to apply some liniment to my outraged back muscles and to write this blog.
The way things are going today anything could happen and I shall not draw a clear breath until tomorrow arrives...that is if it does.
I feel like the old Irish man who exclaimed “Sure and if it wasn't for the bad luck I'd have no luck
at all.”
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