Monday morning

No school!!! NO school! No SCHOOL!
However I say it, it sounds brilliant. I think that of all the days in a half term break I enjoy Mondays the best. OK, so it's a bank holiday anyway, but that doesn't impact because just about all our bank holidays are in holiday times (no complaints, just saying).

I'm expecting to have another day at home, doing pottering-around stuff as and when I feel like it. People who work to a timetable regulated by strict timings will understand the pleasure of having the occasional day with nothing set in stone. More than occasionally and it starts feeling aimless, so I have to impose structure. Just now, however, it feels good.

These are the things I might achieve today.
Three reports written
Some gardening
Some washing, drying and ironing
Some 'networking'
A tidier bedroom (hollow laugh)
Baking a couple of tea loaves.
Might go swimming, might not!
Might look round Matalan, might not!

I have a friend to lunch on Wednesday and, as I made cupcakes last time, this time I have decided it is tea loaf. It's so very easy. Soak sugar and mixed dried fruit in cold strong (strained) tea for several hours, then add SR flour and an egg and bake. So easy peasy and so delicious. Usually I use a packet of the mixed dried fruit you can buy, but I had a nosey in the depths of my cupboard and found some dried pineapple that really does need eating up, plus some lovely dried cranberries that I bought fairly recently as well as some sultanas, so I've used a mixture of those three. It makes two small loaves and one can go straight in the freezer, sliced, for another time.
Here are the actual quantities (which can be a little either way):
340g/12 oz mixed dried fruit, washed.
230mls/7 1/2 fl oz strained cold tea
120g/4 oz demerara sugar
230g/8 oz self raising flour
1 egg
. . . and the oven temperature is 180C for about 75 mins or until done according to the skewer. You might need to cover it towards the end.

I've got two more bloggy things to do but I shall make them separate messages or this will be way-ay-ay too long.