I sort of expected winter to start a while ago. I've been waiting since we got back from our New Year visit to my sister's in Dorset. It has rained a bit and the wind has been wickedly icy at times but the roses still have a bud or two and only the dark mornings belie the true season.
Some dawn skies have been very colourful...
and...
...but the bright mornings are followed by dreary afternoons. This brings out the slow cooker!
This stew has done two meals already and a third is in the freezer. The freezer is also loaded with soups. Food is a major preoccupation with me in winter and another trip to the farm shop for chicken and eggs is on the cards today. This is a biggish decision because a chicken lasts us four days and I have to have a mind -set ready for the use of it. I get a great deal of satisfaction out of using up all the food we buy but I do relent when something comes out of the fridge for the third time.
Billy is preoccupied with food too and had become a veritable dustbin. One session of night starvation lead to him demolishing the of a corner of this christmas cake. Those are his teeth marks! He must have enjoyed the icing and marzipan as well.
He was neutered last week and has been quite a bit calmer and far less demanding of food. Hopefully he will settle into a sensible eating pattern and also sleep through the night.
We continue to plough our ways through as many Robert Harris books as possible. I recently finished "Ghost" and "The Fear" and DJ couldn't put down "The Fear" and has now moved on to "Imperium". That could lead to a trip to Rome just as the reading of "Pompeii" last year lead to a holiday there.
However, I had already browsed the Travelsphere catalogue and found a holiday to Carcassonne, Andorra and Barcelona and we had loved the description of it and decided it would be terrific for this year. A friend asked if that was because I had read the Kate Mosse books....No, I hadn't! Not then, anyway!
I finished "Labyrinth" yesterday and shall start "Sepulchre" tomorrow but I had to knit another square for a baby blanket for a baby due soon and at the rate I'm going it won't cover her feet. Anyway, as they say, that settled it and the holiday to Carcassonne is booked and the volumes returned to the shelves for DJ to read when the RH books are done.
Also busy now with painting again. Classes started this week and production began.
I quite like this sort of work. It is easy and once the sky is right the moors are great fun. This is Cronkley Fell up in Teesdale where I once went to study lichenology for the day in a downpour.
Cheers for now
Gillian
