A better day than expected

The weather was not quite so grim today - in fact we had a little sunshine between the storms this morning which made the conservatory feel warm.  It was a bit disappointing then that Nicky and I had not walked today but opted instead for a coffee although I think we might have set off and got a right good soaking en route.  John was going into the village to meet up with Rob and have a coffee in the village and a man talk.  We often say we don't use the facilities in the village enough - they are (apart from the Hotel) very traditional and will disappear before we know it.  I invited Bee to join us as I hadn't seen her since we did our progressive dinner last week and knew she had been suffering with toothache amongst other things.  I know that she is, in her words, a 'dentaphobe' and I was going to try and persuade her to go and see Dr Harris at Perfect Smile because he has been brilliant with both John and I and I think John would also admit to having been a bit of a dentaphobe in the past.

I felt really bad that, having invited them for a coffee, I had not checked on our milk situation and as neither John nor I drink much milk I was horrified to discover that the milk that was in the fridge had gone well past its 'best before' date which was something like Christmas Day.  It was no longer milk but something which resembled yoghurt so a bit thanks to Nicky for bringing some milk over to rescue me.  Nicky and Bee did not stay long and once they had gone I decided I needed to get on with things.  First of all I wanted to plant up the two lovely pinks we had bought to go in the trough at the end of Dad's grave.  We had bought the plants at the garden centre on Tuesday.

This is what the trough looked like - originally this had been planted up with one red flower (pink) in the middle and a white on either side.  One of the original white plants had survived and was looking quite well and had some buds on it but the others were either dying or dead and they were pot bound and the soil was soggy and smelly.

I took out the old shingle and washed it and also gave the pot a bit of a wash - it is rather discoloured from the elements but not too bad.  I cleared out the old smelly soaking soil and rescued the white 'pink' and moved it into the middle and put the two new ones either side - I can see from the new ones that their leaves are bigger and greener and generally looking more healthy but I hope they will all do well and I will take it back to the cemetery in a couple of days and hopefully it will provide some welcome colour soon.

My next job was to make some histamine friendly dips for this evening as we were going to Liselotte and John's for a game of cards and not a meal (much to Liselotte's concern because, as she said, she is Danish and Danish people feed guests!).  I didn't want to make things difficult for her so we had agreed on dips and nibbles.

I made the cauliflower hummus I had made for New Year's Eve with a couple of tweaks to improve the flavour and then made a Roasted Carrot and Tahini dip which, of the two, was the much nicer and one which I will definitely make again.  

Liselotte had made an olive tapenade and a lovely red pepper salsa and some incredible home-made 'Ryvita' which were delicious and I most definitely want the recipe.

We had a lovely evening.  I was drag-arse Charlie along with Liselotte when playing their version of Noms but her John and I partnered each other for partner whist and were victorious!