The World at War

The world today is a much more dangerous place - it is all very worrying.  The situation in the Ukraine is on a knife edge.  It would appear that the Ukranian's are putting up strong resistance with their president leading by example on the front line - he is becoming an unlikely hero.  I have no doubt that most Russian people would not have wanted this to have happened but Putin seems hellbent on following a path to destruction.  I think he thought the Ukranian peole would just capitulate without a fight and he was mistaken.  We can only hope and pray that there is a diplomatic resolution and soon but at the moment that does not look the case at the moment.

In an attempt to cheer up our Sunday I scoured the garden and found two little daffodils adding some welcome colour.  These were a gift many years ago from Laura and Mark - they sent a load of daffodil bulbs.  I planted them along the front path but sadly think they did not get enough light there so only one plant flowers.  We have subsequently dug up the other bulbs and put them in a bucket where they did flower last year and hopefully will flower again this year.

We were waiting for Mum to arrive.  It was to be a less fraught lunch than it might have been now that we know Mum's missing pension has been found and Aviva have worked out what caused the problem and rectified it and are monitoring it for three months to ensure there are no further issues.  

Mum arrived safe and sound - she said that there had been no traffic on the roads which was good.  She was suffering with her back today.  I think the cold snap probably doesn't do her any good but she soldiers on!

We didn't have any Olympics to watch this week - it was good to have something that we could chat about.  The paralympics starts at the end of the week and Mum should be able to get it on Channel 4.

Today we were having escalopes of pork.  We had bought a pork tenderloin and chopped it and hammered it out into thin pieces which were cooked with a cream and mustard sauce and served with jacket potatoes, green beans, leeks and carrots.

Mum seemed to enjoy it which was good - it was quick and easy to prepare and the pork was tender and tasty and one tenderloin did all three of us.

The veg that I got from the little shop yesterday was excellent - I shall definitely use that place again if I am down that way.

John was on pudding duties.  Between us we had made a lemon drizzle pudding - the only trouble was that I had mistaken the flour as being all purpose or plain and had added some baking powder when in fact it was self raising so the bloody pudding sank in the middle.  

John attacked it with an engineer's eye and removed the top so that we were left with an unsunk slab which we liberally laced with the lemon syrup which was very very lemony indeed.  In fact what we thought was going to be a disaster turned out to be lovely and Mum went home with the last of it and some cream - she does like a bit (a lot) of cream!!!

We didn't do much after Mum left - we have next week earmarked for decorating - we want to freshen up the light walls in the lounge, the 'downstairs' toilet (both are downstairs but that is what we have always called the one by the kitchen) and the walls in the kitchen - we haven't done them for some time and we can see how they have discoloured over time and with the smut from the woodburner.

I am keen to get started because every year we say we will do it after we have finished burning and then we stop burning and then it gets hot and it is too hot to paint!!!

Great excitement this evening as the final series of Peaky Blinders is aired - we shall wait for at least a couple to have been broadcast before we start watching and will have to watch out for spoilers in the paper so as not to ruin it for us.