Friday

. . . and a pinch and a punch for the first of the month.

No April Fools - I'm too old for them.

It might be the beginning of April but when I woke under an hour ago (disgracefully late: I blame the cold) there was a thick frost over everything.  It's melting rapidly now but the early morning must have been chilly.

I got a lot more done yesterday than the rest of the week put together, I think.  Washing, drying, ironing, recipe tryout, finishing a Kitty Stitches waistcoat (big one) getting on with a Kitty Stitches doggy coat, tidying a kitchen and generally bustling around.  Shows how much better I am feeling now, thank goodness.

While I was hanging out the washing, to my delight I noticed that the tayberry is sending out shoots (as posted yesterday) which, sad to say, really made my day.  I sent the good news to Beth because, after all, she will share the fruit with me when it finally arrives next year and we had a daft little conversation on Facebook which made me laugh so here it is.

Me:      Looky look look - the tayberry is not dead, it has risen! (well it is Easter!) It's sending out several new shoots.
Beth:    lol the second coming
Me:      Third coming, more like!
Beth     he's not the messiah, he's a very naughty plant hahaha

With any luck, this is what it will look like in a year and some months' time.

Well, one can hope.  A lot of gardening is about hope.

I was pleased to finish the Elmer waistcoat.  All done, even down to the ironing so Beth can post it off.  It does look lovely, very bright and happy, and we're well pleased with it.  Now I'm working on the dog coat and want to finish that before the weekend is over.

I dearly love bread and butter pudding but hardly ever make it because it means having the oven on and it's all a bit of a fiddle faddle with bain marie, etc.  However, as I mentioned earlier in the week, I wondered if I could steam a B&B pudding in the Varoma so yesterday I had a go and yes, you can, it was delicious.  I've posted about it over in Teacher's Recipes but it is just a recipe for Thermione.

http://fooddiaryofteacher.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/spiced-bread-and-butter-pudding.html

Today is another stay at home day except that I need to trundle over to Aldi at some point today or maybe tomorrow as I'm nearly out of various bits and bobs that I buy there.  I will get on with my knitting and do a bit of tidying and clearing.  Nice, homey stuff.

I haven't had my first coffee yet and it's getting late so I'm off into the kitchen to make coffee, sort out the dishwasher, feed the sourdough starter and start off a loaf.