Friday

 Good morning!  It was a glorious day yesterday, plenty of sunshine and nice and warm.  Lo9ng may it continue!

I have found out that the dehumidifier can be used to help my bread dough rise.  Excellent!  I have also discovered that unripe allotment pears make the most delicious dried pear chips.  I will definitely be making more!  Also, I've ordered some corn syrup from Amazon, so will hold off making the apple leather until that comes.  

Yesterday's plans rather unravelled.
I had my early morning swim and very nice it was too.
Then I messaged Beth because she didn't look all that well the day before and I wanted to check that she was OK to come over.  She has IBS and it made its presence felt yesterday as well as the previous day so she didn't come.   I was going to go to the allotment myself but then Kevin came, gave me a quote and said he might very well be able to come back in the afternoon to do the job.  So that was the afternoon taken, more or less, waiting in.  He did come and he did the job and now I can move on to the next stage of the work - ordering the shelving.

I spent some time making tomato soup for me and a friend who is coming over for lunch today.  Lots of garden tomatoes, the dregs of a jar of roasted red pepper, some onion, some tomato puree and various seasonings.  Not only is it absolutely gorgeous, there's also loads left over for the freezer and other meals.  Three cheers!

Throughout the day, in next door's garden, there was a rumbling and a banging while two big trees were being cut back.  Suddenly, both our gardens are a lot brighter and sunny which is really nice.  The poor trees look a bit 'dismembered' but they will recover and come spring, when the leaves return, they will be fine - just smaller.
Another bonus is that there will be significantly fewer leaves to sweep up next month!

You can see the difference looking over the fence.  Those two trees would have reached the top of the photo yesterday morning and met in the middle with no light or sky showing between them.
Such a difference.

Tuition was lovely.  Without exception, all my students have turned up this week bright eyed, bushy tailed and full of enthusiasm for what they are doing at school.  It was lovely to see.  Apparently, they have all been 'playing games' all the time (something of an exaggeration!), although on further questioning, it turns out they have been 'learning games' as one of them put it.  The year sixes, wise in their mature years, explained that it's to ease them gently back into learning after such a long time off.
Well, it seems to be working if enthusiasm and happiness is anything to go by and a positive attitude makes my work with them all the more pleasant and fruitful too.

Finally, I walked around to Slimming World group.  It was very well attended and I enjoyed it very much, despite the distancing, etc.

So that was yesterday.  Not exactly what I'd planned but good, all the same.  I'm having a more restful day today as I'm going to pick up that friend and bring her back for lunch and a good chat before dropping her home again.  After that, Chris is coming over for our regular natter.  All very simple and sociable and it should set me up for a busier weekend with lots of allotment work!
Have a lovely day and I hope you have the the same beautiful weather as I'm expecting here.  xx