Monday.

Still practising publishing photos via the new arrangement that my computer has imposed on me. On a comment on my previous blog entry I was telling Sir Bruin about our family celebration on Saturday next. Browsing through my photographic files (to experiment with) I came across this one, which shows a small portion of the tribe in our kitchen, celebrating during the Christmas before last.

Back to today (which has been a good and relaxed one). We went and had lunch with our good friends David and Sue, who live at the opposite end of our town in a very pleasant bungalow set in a surprisingly large garden - they are both keen gardeners. When we got there, there appeared to be no
 one about, but we finally located them at the far end of the said garden, where they were rescuing a pair of greenfinches from David's fruit cage. After which little excitement we went in to lunch. David usually makes a curry of some sort when we lunch with them, and today he had surpassed himself with (I think he said) a 'biriani' (apologies if I've got that wrong, David).  Whatever it was , it was a delicious mixture of oriental spices and chicken, with rice and two sorts of chutney. Sue followed this by three sorts of pudding on a plate. As my late mother in law would have said "Ten out of ten for presentation, Sue". The puddings were a pear and almond tart with cream, two dabs of ice cream, and some stewed blueberries. A lovely mix which we lingered over. We then adjourned to the sitting room where we chatted over tea/coffee and shared all our local news.  It was, as always, good to catch up with them.

We left them just before four, and I have spent the rest of the day in my workshop, doing odd jobs, one of which was the re case-hardening of a fire steel, so that an eighteenth century tinder box I've been restoring is now in full working order. Don't suppose anyone will ever NEED to use it, but I do like things to be capable of fulfilling their original purpose. Antiques are like us - they last better for being kept in use and at work.
Goodnight all.