Sunday

Well, despite the rain which returned in the afternoon, I had a lovely day.

First of all I baked bread, trying a half and half bread flour and ordinary plain flour and it worked a treat.  I prepared stuff for today's meals - put the chicken in brine, prepared the ingredients for the wrap pizza (recipe on Teacher's Recipes), got on with a variety of Saturday tasks including collecting the eggs from Julia, sorting out the kitchen a bit, etc.

Just before two I went to pick my friend Pippa up and off we set to Hyde Hall.  It had rained a bit just before but it cleared up quickly so all was well.  Well, all wasn't really well because we'd just climbed up the hill to the gardens when it rained again and boy, did it rain.  It stopped, it started, it eased off then got really heavy.

We managed to get around some of the gardens but in the end we gave up and walked down the hill, whereupon the sun came out again.  We looked around the garden at the bottom and around the garden centre and before deciding to have a cuppa - and it's just as well we were under shelter because the heavens just opened and there was an almighty downpour.  That was when we decided we'd give it a miss and come back another time.

We got chatting over our drinks and I discovered that Pippa is a volunteer worker at our local food bank, something of which I had no idea , so we talked a lot about that and the sort of help that is needed.  Very interesting indeed.  And then we came home, having made plans to take a few more trips out together this summer.

So, it was a very good day, despite the rain.   A day I am glad happened.

And here's a few photos . . .