Winking and Blinking

Everyone left except Squiffany, who was quite happy to stay and play on her own.  Eventually, her mother came and fetched her home for lunch.  Wink had phoned to say that she was on her way, so I expected her for a late lunch.  Then she rang again.  Assuring me that she was fine, she had been involved in a car accident on the M11.  A woman, driving fast, had lost control and swerved into Wink's lane - fortunately, Wink had seen her in her wing mirror, driving erratically  and had slowed.  The very front of Wink's bumper was grazed, not even dented - we think she was remarkably lucky, if she hadn't slowed there could well have been three dead people - the other driver, her teenage daughter and Wink.  Although delayed considerably, Wink was pretty relaxed about the whole thing.  It didn't happen, so no fuss.  Worse things have happened, no one was hurt and she drove away from the accident.

I was down at the church when she arrived, for the last hour of the Church Cycle Ride (you may remember, Phil, Weeza and I took part last year), so she came down to see me.  I was getting ready for tomorrow's 8 o'clock service while I was in the building anyway.  After we went home, she couldn't find her phone.  She thought she'd left it in the church, so we went back - several times, as we kept thinking of another place to look.  I phoned her, of course, but we couldn't hear it ring.
At last, we came back and gave up.  Then my mobile rang, and it was from her phone.  A lady had found it in a plant pot in the supermarket 5 miles down the road - Wink had stopped to buy me a begonia and the phone had evidently fallen quietly out of her bag.  I thanked her profusely and she said she'd hand it in - it was nearly time for the shop to shut.  We'll go and fetch it tomorrow.

The Sage was given a large quantity of overripe, though freshly picked, figs and home-grown peaches today.  I sorted through the figs.  Dilly took some, and then there were 60 squashy ones and a couple of dozen still intact.  I hastily looked for a suitable recipe, and found one for fig and cardamon ice cream.  I used the 60 to make three batches of that - at any rate, the first part of the process, which is simmering the figs with sugar.  I'll do the rest tomorrow.  And decide what to do with the rest of the figs.  I know I've got a good recipe but I can't find the book.  When I have home-grown figs, I usually just eat them.  They don't last long enough to cook with.