Saturday evening

It's been a long day, one way and another. After finding the freezer - er, I mean the not-freezer - this morning, I did what I had promised myself and took a trip in to our new Hobbycraft and indulged in some retail therapy which cheered me up temporarily. Close by was Comet and Curry (they do stick together those two, don't they?) so I took a look at what they had in the freezer line. It was all rather disappointing really. Very few chest freezers and the few they had were not at all what I wanted. I then popped into an 'amalgamation' shop - Miss Selfridge, Burtons, Dorothy Perkins, etc, all under one roof and, three cheers, they did my size. I'm gradually, slowly shrinking into 'normal' sizes. Well, I had to celebrate, didn't I, so I bought a pretty top that was in the sale at £10 (from £25).

Then it was homeward bound to deal with the freezer mess. Some stuff has been salvaged, but a fair amount has been binned. Working out the cost is likely to be beyond me. How do you, for example, price out portions of blackberry and apple when the apples were windfalls and the blackberries foraged? The biggest loss was of time and work before the food was frozen and, of course, the time I am going to have to spend again, remaking the Christmas stuff I was so pleased about in an earlier blog.

So - the stuffing patties have been cooked and re-frozen, the pigs in blankets have been cooked and await DG's tender mercies tomorrow, I'm going to boil up the cranberry sauce again and refreeze when the new freezer comes and the Streele Farm blackberries are in pots now and will be simmered and jelly-bag strained before preserving in the usual manner. I've never done proper blackberry jelly because I kind of resent the 'waste', but I can push the pulp through my mouli to make blackberry sauce for yogurt and/or ice cream.

And yes - I've found a company that does next day deliveries and will be delivering the freezer I wanted (after research on the Internet and consulting Which), a Bosch, at some point tomorrow (weather permitting, I suppose). They will also take the dead freezer away for a price considerably less that the council wants.

So the day started miserably and has ended up much more hopeful, which is great!