Thursday

Good morning, gentle readers, and welcome to Thursday.  It seems to be a dressing gown but no slippers morning here in mid-Essex and, obviously, it's too dark to see exactly what the weather is doing.  A peep out tells me it is dry and there's a real nip in the air which wasn't there yesterday evening.  The heating has clicked on and I have clicked it off again!  If I don't need slippers on, I don't need heating on either!

Yesterday was a fantastic day, one way and another.

I was doing supply cover at school in the morning.  Year 2 until playtime, doing music and RE and then year 3 (my old class) after playtime which was just amazingly brilliant!  They seemed pleased to see me again and were just as responsive as they were last year.  I had a lovely time all morning.

Then it was home, James, to get the place tidied up a little bit before my guests arrived.  I noticed that there were ripe tomatoes but when I looked more closely, every single ripening tomato had split.  I suppose I have been a bit lax in watering them and, after the rain this week, that was the result.  I brought them in, added some onion, half a sweet potato, some garlic and some oil and roasted the lot, then added stock and so on and finished it off in Thermione and it made the best soup ever.  I will never be able to reproduce it, of course, these ad hoc soups are one offs.  We had it for dinner with fresh bread to dunk and mmmmmmmmmm.

I also made another batch of Rachel's ginger nuts which were very well received indeed and I may just be forced to make some more soon!

After that I had to whizz off to school to attend the full governing body meeting and left early because we (my guests and I) went into town to the Civic Theatre to see 'An Evening with Lesly Garrett.  This is a show that she's been doing around the country for a while now (according to Google) and was fantastic entertainment.  Songs, chat, a vote for songs, a question and answer session - it all combined to create a magical evening.  My goodness, not only can that lady sing, she can keep an audience in fits of laughter.  A big voice and a big personality and she came over as a thoroughly nice person.  We had a great time.

This morning we are off into town to attack Lakeland and then off to Hyde Hall for lunch and a stroll around the autumn gardens.  I'd put a note on my calendar about going to HH this month so was very pleased when they suggested it!  The forecast is good so what's to stop us?

I now have a stable table again!  A couple of weeks ago I leaned on the table and was astonished to find that the top almost came off.  Yesterday we had a closer look at it, worked out what was wrong (I had a few screws loose - wouldn't you know!) and got going with a screw driver and now it it rock solid steady again.  A great relief.  I wouldn't have been able to tackle it on my own - too heavy and awkward (no, not me, the table).  Now I know that every time I extend or shorten the table I must just check that the screws are tight enough and that will never happen again.

Food:
Breakfast: toast and things
Lunch:  soup and bread
Dinner:  lasagne (must get it out of the freezer), a simple salad and garlic bread, followed by cheese and apples.