Sunday

. . . the last day of a very pleasant half term break. We're on the home stretch now, with quite a lot to do before the end of term and thirty five days to do it in. Thirty five days sounds better than seven weeks, doesn't it? Three tens and five units, one score and fifteen. And no morning playground duty!

When I went shopping yesterday I got a real bargain. They were selling three packs of chicken for a tenner and, after comparing prices, weights, etc, I went for the chopped chicken pieces because that's what I would do to it anyway. It wasn't 'friendly' meat, unfortunately, but great value. And I have three jars of curry-type sauce which need using up, so yesterday I used one pack and one jar and made chicken pasanda, a sort of nutty, mindly spicy dish into which I added onion, red and yellow pepper, sliced apricots and some toasted flaked almonds. I'll do lemon chicken today.

The tomato plants seem to have bedded in well. Yesterday they were all curled over and sulking (don't blame them, crammed inside a little box as they were) and they were definitely root bound, but in less than 24 hours they have straightened up and look really healthy. It was a mixed pack of three varieties, Conchita (a large cherry tomato), Dasher (a mini plum tomato) and elegance (a standard tomato). I realise that I need to get three garden canes, unless I can find some in the depths of my garage.

My other big achievement yesterday was getting the backlog of ironing done. It's nice to start the second half of the term with an empty basket, not that it will stay like that for very long I'm afraid. Ironing is one of those chores that rarely seems to get completely finished, there's always something left to do.

Photo: courgette flowers are rather pretty close up.