Sunday

Good morning to my gentle readers.  After a cool night, it is still a bit chilly this morning but they say it's going to warm up and turn into summer over the next few days.  I hope so - the tomatoes could do with some warmth and sun.  I haven't heard any rumours of the dreaded B but one always worries a bit when it is cooler and damp.

Well, yesterday turned into a busy day!  Just homey pottering about things and very pleasant it was too.

By the time Beth came to pick up Alex I had used up some yellow plums I had bought at half price and made four and a half pots of yellow plum jam.  Plums do jam very easily and it always looks gorgeous.  The colours are so radiant - yellow, green or reddy-purple - and the taste is great.  One pot went straight home with Beth, of course!
I blogged about it on Teacher's Recipes.

I had also made a quick loaf as I was out of bread.  For speed's sake I didn't do two risings, just popped the dough straight into the loaf tin and let it rise once there.  It worked fine, the crumb is fine, the flavour, as always, is great - I mean was great!  It was only a little loaf after all!  I shall remember this when I need bread in a (comparative) hurry.

My parents make their own bread too, using a bread maker though, so not so much fun (sorry, Dad).  The loaf Dad makes is a half-and-half - that is, half wholemeal flour and half granary flour.  Granary flour is very seedy/'lumpy', of course, so I've never made it in Thermione because I would have thought the action of the blades would chop the bits too fine.  However, the flavour is to die for so I decided to have a go and see.  I was wrong, there are still 'bits' in the loaf and the dough was beautiful to handle.  I shall be making this on a regular basis from now on, even though it ups the price of the loaf.

After Beth and Alex had gone I brought the first load of washing in and started ironing.  That's something new too - usually the ironing sits in the basket until I need it and then it's hard to iron!  I'm not sure what I am turning into at the moment but not only did I do several loads of washing, I did all the ironing too.  A habit worth developing, I reckon!

And that was it yesterday, more or less.  I watched a Harry Potter film on DVD in the evening as I finished the ironing.

Today is a day to myself.  The big target for today is to clear the other big cupboard  which sits the other side of my desk.  Then I can put my remaining papery things in one of the cupboards and devote the other on to crafty things.  That is the idea anyway!  Fingers crossed.



Food for today (I must get back to this now)
Breakfast:  toast and jam, fruit yogurt
Lunch:  Ham salad with lettuce, tomato, red peppers, cucumber from Dad's garden, coleslaw, potato salad followed by apple and melon (that's my five a day in one fell swoop!)
Dinner:  Ham, egg and oven chips, peas, fruit salad.  Or maybe more ham salad, depending . . .

(lots of ham because I came home with some that Mum boiled - most for the freezer and for Alex but I will indulge today)