Saturday

Well, the rain certainly did the trick as far as humidity and temperature were concerned.  After a great night's sleep snuggling under the quilt, it is almost chilly this morning.  The sun is shining but I gather there might be bad weather heading this way at some point.

I'm sitting here typing while my guests are getting ready to leave for a drive up to Yorkshire.  It's been fun having them - safe journey to you both!

After talking about apple chutneying yesterday, I didn't.  So that's on the cards today, especially as someone else is bring over a bag full of cooking apples too.  Excellent!  The first lot are eaters and are really tasty so I shall sort out the most whole ones for eating.  Now I have to decide on some more preserving recipes.  My idea of holiday fun!

What I did do is make another batch of lemon curd as a gift for the lady who is dropping off the apples this morning.  Barter is great! I also had the pulp left over from the lemon drink the day before and made a spread with that (and wished I hadn't later because S and M asked if I could make some more drink so now I have another batch of pulp to deal with).

S and M suggested pizza for dinner and, as we'd had a take away the night before, I said I'd make it.  Now, pizza can be impressive but a doddle to make, it just takes time, so I had a great time preparing everything.  We had it with a simple salad and the last half jar of the red onion marmalade (which is absolutely gorgeous now and I'm definitely making more, it is wonderful!).

I wouldn't say what I produced looked all that impressively cheffy but it tasted wonderful, even though I say it myself, the onion marmalade complemented it perfectly and the salad gave the impression of healthy eating!  It's so nice to have a mix of tomatoes in a salad and when the black tomatoes are completely ripe, it will look even better.  They are taking quite a long time to fully ripen so I hope they are worth the wait.

So - today is breadmaking as usual, preserving and ironing.  I might do a spot of gardening too as there are some baby weeds showing their cheeky little heads and I want to zap them before they get to be a real problem.

But first it is bath, hair wash and get dressed before the apples arrive.  Oh, I do love this holiday!