Today I have been convinced all day that it is Saturday, it is not, it is Friday so I have to apologise to my mother in law because as a result John forgot to ring her - sorry Janet xxxx

I am becoming very inventive with my zero waste policy meals - we had some roast pork left over from our meal on Monday and I found a recipe for Char Sui Pork with spicy egg fried rice.  The Char Sui sauce recipe required some Hoi Sin sauce and some time ago my lovely friend and now neighbour Nicky had made some and given me a pot.  It had been sitting in the cupboard ever since waiting for the right recipe and today was the day.  Normally you smother an uncooked piece of pork with the Char Sui (also known as Chinese Barbeque Sauce) and leave it to marinade so that the meat gets that unmistakable tinge of cerise pink on the outside but our meat had already been cooked.  The meat was accompanied by onion, chilli, water chestnuts and cashew nuts and I made a spicy egg fried rice to go with it and this was our supper and it was lush.

The weather for February has been absolutely incredible so far - in fact I had a memory come up the other day which showed that this time a couple of years' ago our bedroom was only 7 degrees in the morning - today it was 15!!! now there is a significant difference.  We have signs of spring all over the place -  not least just outside the back door where we have one cheery little miniature daffodil adding a welcome splash of colour.

We also have quite a display of cyclamen - the wild ones with the rather more insignificant flowers.  I have no idea where this one has come from - it suddenly appeared under Aunty Friday's jasmine - as these delicate plants grow from tubers I can only assume that there was a bit of one in the soil that surrounded the jasmine - I cannot think how else it would have got there.  The leaves are amazing - huge compared to the flowers and with fabulous markings.

The garden is springing into life (pardon the pun) but if we get a late cold snap (which we generally tend to do) it will go into a state of shock.  I remember one year we had terrible hail storms in May and all sorts of things in the garden were knocked for six.  Currently the hydrangea, magnolia and pandoria have all got fresh new green growth but that is so tender that it is easily burned by keen winds or hail.

Our garden seems to have escaped fairly unscathed after the terrible storm last Saturday - we found everything that had been blown away and really it was just a bit of old stuff that got damaged.  John is busy tidying up the wood store in readiness for a delivery of wood for next year which is due to come on Saturday.

On the subject of the storm and wood this is a photograph taken just by Sonia's house - this used to be a line of about half a dozen massive fir trees which are no more.  

What remains of the large one standing is about two thirds what it used to be - the top part was sheered off by the winds.  The one next do it is now on the floor completely uprooted and in falling took several others out like a row of dominos.

What is on the floor is systematically being removed by people in need of wood - John tends not to burn pine because it is messy and it will take several years to dry out enough to be able to burn.

Sonia says that she noticed something was different when she was cleaning up her garden but couldn't put her finger on it until she looked closer and then saw the damage.

It is quite scary when you can see the damage that the elements can wreak - we got away lightly thank goodness because we reckon this was the worst storm we had experienced in the last 10 years.

My poorly laptop got poorlier as the day progressed - even though I bit the bullet and went back to a restore point way back sometime last week prior to when I thought the issues started to manifest themselves the issues I had with the internet and email just became terminal and I was tearing my hair out trying to work out what to do next.  It is no exaggeration that I spend hours today trying to send and receive emails which is something we really don't want to be without.  When I was just about to wrap my hand in I got it sorted - sort of!!!  Anyway we are back in the land of the living thank goodness.

Having sorted out the woodstore John was more than happy to light the woodburner tonight - it looked like we were welcoming in a new Pope at the beginning but apparently this shows that the system is working properly and that as the stack pipe warms up the smoke lessens and peters out - which it did.

Really we haven't needed to have the fire on that much this winter which is amazing - we have had it lit and then had the door open to the conservatory so that the temperature evens itself out and the whole house gets the benefit.

Mark and Nicky have now had their woodburner installed - and they are very happy with it - John is going to organise a load of wood for them when we have ours delivered on Saturday.

An early night for me - John decided to sit and watch some TV but I am walking at 8.30 in the morning and I was feeling rather tired!!!