15th January

The grey wet weather continues although today we were blessed with some brief periods of sunshine which was good because that warmed the conservatory.  I was grateful that Lilian was picking up Mum and bringing her here for lunch.  They managed to get up and back with only a few spits and spots which is good.  The weather was coming from the direction of Lara which for us always means stormy and often thunder and lightning.  

Our lunch today was a pork, apple, leek and cider one pot and, if I do say so myself, was really tasty.  So much so that I forgot to take a photograph so had to use the one from the recipe I followed but mine did look pretty much the same.

I served it with green beans, baby carrots, roasted sweet potato and smashed and roasted new potatoes and there was next to nothing left, just a bit of the fluid which will probably be the basis for a soup over the next couple of days.

Lilian had kindly brought a pudding, she had made a cheesecake and brought cream which was good because I had run out and as I don't really like making puds was great for me plus cheesecake is one of John's favourites.

Mum seems to be pretty good at the moment, feeling the cold but she always does but actually brighter and chattier than she had been leading up to Christmas.  

As it is chillier outside the cats spend most of the day indoors, normally snuggled up on our bed but occasionally putting in an appearance.  Miss Minnie is getting braver with strangers as she came to test out whether or not Lilian might possibly want to feed her - she was to be disappointed!!!  So sat in one of the chairs giving Lilian on of her hard stares.

We had lit the fire early today so that when we sat down for lunch we could all enjoy the heat - John had it ticking over nicely so it was nice and comfortable whilst we had lunch.  It was toasty warm when Mum and Lilian left to go home and I hadn't had a great night's sleep the night before (something giving me chronic heartburn so that I had to sleep propped up even more than normal) so I was quite sleepy whilst John watched a couple of football matches.  The only trouble with dozing on the sofa is that I don't sleep well when we actually get to go to bed - a bit of a vicious circle really.  So as a result we decided that we would continue binge-watching Succession which has turned out to be a really good series.  I said to John I thought it might be loosely based on the Maxwell family or actually any other powerful family with a ruthless Patriarch at the helm.

We left it on a cliff hanger - we are saving the final episode of Season 2 for tomorrow.  The weather is tipped to be miserable and wet so that will be our afternoon's viewing!