Autumn's Arrival...

reminds me of the kind of cooking I like doing...soups and stews and bread. In the summer, it's too hot for such fare, but I'm sitting writing this and smelling the wonderful scent of a slowly simmering soup (leek and tattie (potato to the non Scots among us!)). Healthy, filling stuff...no fat, very little salt, low in calories; those of us trying to Lose Weight Through Eating Healthily find these things Very Important! Just veg and water. Yum.

Joining the soup pot out of the cupboard is my slow cooker (crockpot). In there, there is diced pork, with peppers, onions, carrots, tomatoes, mixed herbs, smoked paprika, garlic...that doesn't smell bad, either, and it will taste great (she said modestly...).

Bread, though, I haven't made for a while, and it brings me back to the debate...to buy a bread machine, or not to buy a bread machine. I suspect, on the one hand, that if I did buy a machine, I'd use it. On the other hand, it feels a bit like an unnecessary expense (a bit like a yoghurt 'machine', when all you need is a bowl, some live yoghurt and a warm place...). There's nothing like a bit of hand kneading for getting rid of stress... And I do have some lovely bread recipes... And it doesn't take all that long to do by hand... Oh, decisions, decisions... I'm off to stir the soup.

Oops...

I was woken at 6am on Thursday by the words, Happy Anniversary, dear, here's your present. And as usual, I had forgotten. Sigh. I'm very good with birthdays, but somehow the anniversary just falls out of my head every time. Fortunately, I was going into Norwich anyway, to buy some bits and pieces, so got my dearly beloved a sports anorak to wear to the football (he's Chairman of a local amateur team). But I did have to admit that I'd forgotten...or rather, that I didn't realise that it was the 21st on Friday...I don't keep a diary, don't really read the papers, so how would I know...the date doesn't even come up on my computer screen. I do always know what time it is, though.

And for those of you who count, it's our 28th wedding anniversary. Doesn't time fly when you're having fun? My mother stood arranging my collar on The Day and said, I give it six months. Hah. Shows what she knew... and whilst it's possible I just stuck it out to spite her, it seems unlikely, even for me...particularly as she died three years ago!

The photo was taken at an organic farm in the Borders a couple of weeks ago, just to remind me what the hills look like... the view is stunning, though.

It's All Her Fault...

...that Alison woman, her and her partner, Michael. They came down to visit from Scotland, and after a whirlwind of cleaning and a bit of cooking, I got immersed in a whirlwind of sightseeing and Having A Good Time, which involved eating lots, drinking quite a bit and generally having FUN! No time to blog at all...

And now the party's over...awww...and I'm back to normality such as it is experienced here (ie messy, disorganised and full of art. You know you don't clean enough when the thing that you thought was a dried up leaf was actually a mummified mouse...either that, or I'm needing my eyes tested. It was definitely mummified, though; we saw a mummified cat at Lavenham, an exhibit at the Guild House there. Apparently they used to put dead cats up chimneys in ye olden days, to scare off bad spirits and the like. Not sure what a mouse would scare away...probably all visitors in future, if they're reading this blog...

I was also presented with a dead mouse this morning. Breakfast in bed, according to Advo. Time to get up, in my opinion. Yuk.
ps Alison, I told you I would put that photo on my blog...you didn't believe me, did you... hehehe...