Monday meanderings – except it’s Tuesday

It seems like Monday – largely because yesterday was Easter Monday and therefore Part-ner-who-drinks-tea was home marking papers and not rushing off to teach her students. Mind you, she works Saturday and Sunday teaching so our week-ends are not normal at the best of times. This week-end was special with it being Easter, with Partner-who-drinks-tea’s birthday, and with Son-who-watches-films cooking us all some lovely meals.

I’ve reached the conclusion that he is now a better cook than me. He still needs to ask questions because I’ve got forty years more experience but in terms of the various skills he uses and the manner of his cooking he has an innate ability and it is really beginning to show. He made us both dinner and supper on Sunday and supper consisted of various Chinese and Indian starters and little parcels of chicken in breadcrumbs with herbs and spices of his own concoction. They were such simple little things and yet the flavouring was brilliant and the deep-fat frying would have been such an easy thing to get wrong. I’m sure if I had tried them the breadcrumb mixture would have fallen off and I doubt I could have made them as tasty. The girls’ skills have long since surpassed mine in many areas – Food-loving-daughter enjoys her partner's cooking but you only have to taste one of Daughter-who-takes-photos' cakes to know she outshone me in the kitchen years ago.

Fortunately I had redeemed my self-esteem on Friday by making one of the best soups I’ve made in years. The problem is I never measure the quantities of anything so reproducing it exactly is not feasible but I did add one ingredient that doesn’t normally go in - Asparagus. Even though it was only three or four sticks and was competing with many other vegetables and pulses it seemed to make a world of difference. I must try it again today but this time I’ll measure the ingredients.

The weather has not been fit enough to venture into the garden. It wasn’t only raining outside but it came in through the conservatory roof again. A sure sign that it’s unpleasant out there. So I spent some of the time sorting my photos of the garden flowers from the last few weeks of sunshine and I have started posting them on my Garden blog. There will be a lot more on there in the near future. I hadn’t posted on there since last July so there’s some catching up to do but I think I’ll just start at March 2012.

On Friday I posted a ‘hidden niche’ in my house and it excited some comment including the question as to what exactly it was. So here is the answer. If you look in the bottom right hand corner you’ll see it.

I’ve shown you my post-card board before but these are my current favourites. I now have so many lovely ones that I have to rotate them regularly.

That is not the only notice board in the study. To my left as I type there is a little one which serves no great purpose. I rarely use it for notes.

But it does have some things to liven my day like Lisa Simpson carrying books and this fridge magnet.

This ‘postcard’ is a fridge magnet I got from an Etsy shop.

And finally here are some lovely flowers that Partner-who-drinks-tea got from Daughter-who-takes-photos and Son-in-law-and-Friend-who-loves Otters.

That’s all for now, folks. Have a good week.