Wednesday saw Keith’s 66th. The festivities commenced at breakfast with indecent quantities of sausage. The now traditional bunting was still out (it has now been agreed that we may as well leave it up until my retirement celebration at the end of the month). Home made cards and wellington themed gifts were produced. Lachlan rustled up a cake and candles for tea (though we substituted champagne for the tea, as you do..).
An extravagant dinner had been planned for the evening but in the end it was such a sunny day no one could quite face cooking. The Plough stepped up to the mark and we had fish and chips instead. Lyra is a keen fan of the Plough takeaway offering as she knows I can never quite finish a Sarah sized portion of chips. Her views on mushy peas are not known at this time.
On Thursday the weather forecast was declared by Keith to be favourable for both (a) the barrowing of compost to the cabbage patch and (b) fancy cooking – dinner was back on.
I was overtaken by the usual manic desire to “do everything” which comes over me on the day after the last workday of the week. I had barrowed half of my allocation of compost before breakfast and then moved on to digging out overgrown plants and moving them somewhere else. I have the same zeal for this as I have for moving furniture to see if it looks better elsewhere. This is not a trait Keith finds attractive. By six I was soaking in the bath in a heady mixture of Radox for Men muscle soak and Radox (gender neutral one must assume) stress reliever and wondering if I would ever stand up straight again.
We took a course each for dinner. Keith continued on his Covid19 theme with Risotto and Beef Fillet “Lombardy style”. Lachlan produced a lovely stuffed shoulder of lamb (from Claire and Ned’s little Shetland sheep). The creamed potatoes were lovely and light, and also made a fetching frieze on the toaster and the kitchen wall (further testing of the new gas gun device is expected soon). I came up the rear with a trio of fruit puddings using fruit from the garden frozen last year. The little blackcurrant jelly babies looked sweet!
Live from Ruthven 