When we woke this morning it was fine and bright and I had such plans for the day. A bit of washing and a bit of gardening and then maybe a little walk down on the coast followed by a nice meal before John watched a crucial game in the footballing diary - 2nd (Sheffield United) against 4th (West Brom)...
... and then it all went pear-shaped when the weather closed in and it was, once again, stormy and by stormy I mean heavy rain in fits and spurts with some sunshine in between, unsettled enough to render my plans absolutely useless.
I had not wanted to go shopping today so was making our meals from whatever we had in the fridge, freezer, veg box and store cupboard so there was no requirement to venture any further than our house but I am really really getting fed up with this winter - it is considerably warmer in the UK at the moment 😟😟😟
To cheer me up John took charge of breakfast. This weekend is a difficult one for us because exactly one year ago today was the last time we saw my Dad alive, we had been to pickleball on the Friday and called in for a cuppa as we normally did. Dad was suffering from the after effects of having a growth removed from his scalp. I remember thinking he didn't look his normal self and remember saying to Mum that if he didn't want to come up for lunch on the Sunday not to make him but she thought he would be ok, little did we know then that he was to pass away in the early hours of that Sunday morning. Sometimes it seems like it was only yesterday and at other times it seems such a long long time ago. Monday will be a milestone - it will the first anniversary of his passing and John and I will have Mum here with us and we will spend the day together.
Confined to the house and it being rather chilly I decided to cook - if nothing else it keeps me warm! For lunch we were having the meatloaf I had made the other week in slices as the filling to a sandwich. The flavour is great but the texture is too 'bitty'. The recipe did not ask for anything to bind the ingredients but I added a couple of eggs and actually it could have done with even more as it cannot be sliced as it is too crumbly.
For supper we were having curry and I tried out another of the kits that Laura and Mark had sent us for Christmas. This time we were having a Punjabi Chicken Curry which needed very little from my store cupboard to create. This was absolutely delicious but possibly just about on the edge of what I can cope with in terms of spice and heat. Anyway this was bubbling away whilst I sorted out what we would be eating with Mum tomorrow and this was going to be a Stifado which is always my 'go-to' meal and cubed beef had been on offer in Paps when we had been - at only 5.99 a kilo it was a bargain because when you are cooking the meat for an extended period of time you need a reasonable amount of fat for texure and flavour.
To keep my quiet whilst the afternoon footie and result show was on John gave me a 'crafting task'. Lakis had purchased a 'build your own' wine rack before he left and it needed putting together (with glue obviously).
How difficult could this be? Well it was a bugger of a job because these are cheaply produced so nothing, and I mean nothing, is square so you get one bit done and then you realise that if you put it all together it looks like you have built the leaning tower of Pisa rather than a wine rack.
We had words about the construction - we do not normally work well together and today was no exception. John was unconvinced about the general stability of the construction and remains so even after it had been completed. Rather than go for a square we opted for a rectangular shape as this was less likely to collapse but John remains adamant that he is not attaching this to the wall because he fears that if and when the sun puts in an appearance it may dry out the glue, the rack will start to fall to pieces and then Lakis will end up with a storm room floor swimming in broken bottles of red wine and I have to agree with him even though I used lots and lots of wood glue!
I had a bit of a panic on when I came to make my regular weekend banana loaf in readiness for Sunday's pud because I realised I had left the butter I needed at Mum's (she had got me some from Lidl as it was very reasonably priced). I had to find a recipe that didn't require butter and found one that used oil instead. It looked ok when it was cooked but I will wait for my tester-in-chief to give her opinion on Sunday.
As I said at the outset today was a key match in John's footballing calendar so it was important to start the evening off well with a nice supper and the Punjabi Curry hit the spot with enough left over for a meal in the week - it was a bit of a Kings of Leon Curry - (oooo oooo my mouth is on fi-re!!!) but really tasty and when served with some poppadoms and my lemon pickle would have given the Koh-i-Noor or Poppadoms a run for its money and then the icing on the cake was that Sheffield United managed to secure a win which left John a very happy bunny indeed.
... and then it all went pear-shaped when the weather closed in and it was, once again, stormy and by stormy I mean heavy rain in fits and spurts with some sunshine in between, unsettled enough to render my plans absolutely useless.
I had not wanted to go shopping today so was making our meals from whatever we had in the fridge, freezer, veg box and store cupboard so there was no requirement to venture any further than our house but I am really really getting fed up with this winter - it is considerably warmer in the UK at the moment 😟😟😟
To cheer me up John took charge of breakfast. This weekend is a difficult one for us because exactly one year ago today was the last time we saw my Dad alive, we had been to pickleball on the Friday and called in for a cuppa as we normally did. Dad was suffering from the after effects of having a growth removed from his scalp. I remember thinking he didn't look his normal self and remember saying to Mum that if he didn't want to come up for lunch on the Sunday not to make him but she thought he would be ok, little did we know then that he was to pass away in the early hours of that Sunday morning. Sometimes it seems like it was only yesterday and at other times it seems such a long long time ago. Monday will be a milestone - it will the first anniversary of his passing and John and I will have Mum here with us and we will spend the day together.
Confined to the house and it being rather chilly I decided to cook - if nothing else it keeps me warm! For lunch we were having the meatloaf I had made the other week in slices as the filling to a sandwich. The flavour is great but the texture is too 'bitty'. The recipe did not ask for anything to bind the ingredients but I added a couple of eggs and actually it could have done with even more as it cannot be sliced as it is too crumbly.For supper we were having curry and I tried out another of the kits that Laura and Mark had sent us for Christmas. This time we were having a Punjabi Chicken Curry which needed very little from my store cupboard to create. This was absolutely delicious but possibly just about on the edge of what I can cope with in terms of spice and heat. Anyway this was bubbling away whilst I sorted out what we would be eating with Mum tomorrow and this was going to be a Stifado which is always my 'go-to' meal and cubed beef had been on offer in Paps when we had been - at only 5.99 a kilo it was a bargain because when you are cooking the meat for an extended period of time you need a reasonable amount of fat for texure and flavour.
How difficult could this be? Well it was a bugger of a job because these are cheaply produced so nothing, and I mean nothing, is square so you get one bit done and then you realise that if you put it all together it looks like you have built the leaning tower of Pisa rather than a wine rack.
We had words about the construction - we do not normally work well together and today was no exception. John was unconvinced about the general stability of the construction and remains so even after it had been completed. Rather than go for a square we opted for a rectangular shape as this was less likely to collapse but John remains adamant that he is not attaching this to the wall because he fears that if and when the sun puts in an appearance it may dry out the glue, the rack will start to fall to pieces and then Lakis will end up with a storm room floor swimming in broken bottles of red wine and I have to agree with him even though I used lots and lots of wood glue!
I had a bit of a panic on when I came to make my regular weekend banana loaf in readiness for Sunday's pud because I realised I had left the butter I needed at Mum's (she had got me some from Lidl as it was very reasonably priced). I had to find a recipe that didn't require butter and found one that used oil instead. It looked ok when it was cooked but I will wait for my tester-in-chief to give her opinion on Sunday.
As I said at the outset today was a key match in John's footballing calendar so it was important to start the evening off well with a nice supper and the Punjabi Curry hit the spot with enough left over for a meal in the week - it was a bit of a Kings of Leon Curry - (oooo oooo my mouth is on fi-re!!!) but really tasty and when served with some poppadoms and my lemon pickle would have given the Koh-i-Noor or Poppadoms a run for its money and then the icing on the cake was that Sheffield United managed to secure a win which left John a very happy bunny indeed.
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