Proper rain came at last yesterday, just after mum and I returned from walking the pooch. Since then we’ve had gallons of the chilly wet stuff, much needed by the garden, but a little dreary for the humans. Alas, it put an end to my excuses for not getting on with indoor jobs. Yesterday thereforeContinue reading “Rainy Day Madness”
Category Archives: baking and cooking
Like summers of yore
The knees say early spring, the nose says summer! The blistering heat and endless blue skies of a week or so ago are gone. The sky shades unnervingly from brilliant blue to steely grey with mounds of clouds, heaped up like tumbled bedclothes. The sun is still very much there, its rays focussed by theContinue reading “Like summers of yore”
A Lidl Therapy
As some of you may know, my driving history is chequered. I never quite got to learning to drive when I was 17. A couple of lessons with Dad tattered my nerves and his and once I was living away from home in Edinburgh and then London somehow it never seemed essential. Indeed, there wasContinue reading “A Lidl Therapy”
The Advent of Auntie Granny
Lyra and I came back from a sunny walk to visit the Alpacas a few days ago to a message from my mum to say dad had been taken onto hospital after a mini stroke. I scooted over to take mum in to the hospital to see dad, who was getting very confused and distressed.Continue reading “The Advent of Auntie Granny”
Coorying In
Increasingly, I have to trick the dog into going out for a walk. At the sight of the lead she hides under the kitchen table and I have to lay a trail of gravy bones to get her into the porch (where there is nowhere to hide….). She has a point. The rain is ceaseless,Continue reading “Coorying In”
Reversing the sausage…
We are back to alternating days of grey sleet and rain and frosty sunshine. Comfort food has come to the fore and I am snazzing up my porridge with the pears I bottled in late summer. I thought I had overdone the bottling this year but I am powering through them. I like the wholeContinue reading “Reversing the sausage…”
Asceticism Abandoned
This morning, after considering the bathroom scales, I donned leggings and exercise wear with the tentative thought that, if the weather was not sufficiently clement for gardening and Lachlan was hogging the dog, I might hit the exercise bike. Obviously not immediately, I put a jumper on too and determined to work up to it.Continue reading “Asceticism Abandoned”
Listing to port
This is the time of year when the dreariness of the weather (stuck on the spectrum from drizzle to downpour), the necessity of eating the remaining dribs and drobs of Christmas chocolate and the sheer impossibility of deciding on and then commencing a new project together force a sedate (and sedentary) reconsideration of the pastContinue reading “Listing to port”
Rebooting
Between the celebratory bookends of Christmas Day/Boxing Day and Hogmanay/New Year’s Day I have successfully rebooted the Ruthven system by switching myself off and then on again. Several days of barely cooking have passed and, somewhat astonishingly, the leftovers from the gargantuan turkey and slightly more reasonably sized ham are largely all used up. AsideContinue reading “Rebooting”
T-1
I have finally sat down with a gin and tonic and my feet are gently throbbing. However, I think the initiative has been regained. Monkey’s jumper is complete – so that’s the most important thing done. Wrapping paper has been plastered on anything that looked like it might be a present and some that didContinue reading “T-1”