Tuesday

Good morning, gentle readers.  It's another dull and gloomy morning here in not-so sunny Essex but then yesterday was the same but we had some lovely sun later on.  It was a proper April showers day but in between showers Beth and I skipped off to our allotment and got started.  She started digging the potato bed while I got to grips with some of the edging with my new shears.  I left the cuttings in a pile and today I want to take an old laundry basket to transport it all to the compost heap!

Before we set out for the allotment, I set to and made some pasta and a vegetable sauce for a quick lunch as I guessed we would be hungry when we got back.  It was very nice - I love home made pasta and made enough so I could dry some.  Not having a proper pasta rack, I improvised!

It worked a treat and now I have pasta for today and maybe another day this week too.  I am guessing (hoping) that, once dried, it keeps for a while.   I have some bacon that needs using up so I think I will use it to make a smoky tomato sauce to have with the pasta.

Later on, Beth finished the owls, all but one big one, and now I have nine sets of owlish button eyes staring at me from the chair.  While she stitched, I knitted away at the next aran cushion and it is now nearly finished.  A few more rows and then I just have to do the button hole band on 2x2 rib and sew it up!  I have decided what pattern I want to use for the next one and now just have to work out the numbers.  It will be a trellis with cables up each side, I think, and I might have moss stitch as the background stitch.  I think I need to do some swatches to see how it all goes.

We're off to the allotment again today.  Being terribly unfit, both of us, we can't do a very long stretch and there's some heavy work to do, but I'm looking forward to being able to take a picnic along there when the weather gets better.  Little and often should do the trick quite nicely, I think!

Later on my two friends are arriving for a few days.  I need to make up their beds and prepare some kind of vegetable soup, that being their meal request!  They seem to like my veg soups, so thank you, Thermione!

Well, I had better get going.  I have sourdough starter to deal with, pikelets to make plus a soup and a pasta sauce.  That should keep me out of trouble, shouldn't it?

Today's food:
B:  pikelets and a poached egg
L:  sourdough bread with soft cheese and chutney, apple
D:  pasta with smoky bacon and tomato sauce, orange