Z stays in

I woke to the sound of rain and wind against the window, and was in no hurry to get up.  I thought of Al, who normally would be getting the shop ready at that time.  I've done it myself in the winter, they used to go on holiday the first week in January when things were quiet and I took over.  I remember one week when, every day, I had to weigh down the display as I put it out because the wind was so strong and even so, I had to hurry down the road after various baskets and cloths that had blown away.  I also remember cycling against a wind so strong that, in quite a slight upward incline, I had to get off and walk.  I didn't go out all day except to pick Pugsley up from nursery school.  Jo brought him to the gate for me.  "Tell Granny what you have done this afternoon" she prompted.  "I've made cake!" he announced.  "Carrot cake.  I love carrot cake!"  I was slightly surprised as well as pleased, because he isn't all that keen on vegetables usually and so I'd have thought he'd have a prejudice against cake containing them.

We were lucky with the weather, the sun came out ten minutes before I left and then the rain started again on the way home.  It rained hard and turned to sleet.  We sat in the car and waited for it to ease, while I showed him an app I'd downloaded for him, and then, as it dried up, hopped indoors.  Minutes later, it was bucketing down again.

I've not really got myself sorted out this week.  I meant to go shopping today but changed my mind, and so actually emptied the fridge.  We finished leftovers from the past couple of days for lunch, and then there was nothing left.  Some milk and cheese, butter and champagne, the tail end of a jar of pesto, a tube of the children's cheese spread and some orange and apple juice and half a jar of mayonnaise.  That was it.  Not a lot to base dinner on. Fortunately, I had vegetables so improvised.  You can make a delicate soufflé from cooked squash mixed with cheese and a couple of egg yolks with the whisked whites folded in.  No flour or anything else.  I seasoned it with cumin and piled it back into the squash shell - it was a largish Festival squash, that is, some 5 or so inches in diameter, plenty for two - topped it with flaked almonds and baked it again.

Ro phoned to say that he and Dora will come over on Sunday, so I've said I'll do dinner a bit early, and Weeza and Zerlina are coming over tomorrow.  It was a fortnight ago I saw them, at the auction, and we were busy then, so that will be good.  I haven't set foot in the dining room since I got back, I bet it's cold in there.  There's no point in lighting the fire for two of us to have dinner at an 8 foot long table so we don't use it much in the winter.

Phil had a job interview last week and has been successful.  He likes his present job, but it's a long way to travel every day and takes him ages.  He'll be working in Great Yarmouth, so he'll still be cycling and then travelling by rail, but the train journey is much shorter.  The road from Acle to Yarmouth is far too dangerous to cycle.