Foody Things

I shouldn't be hungry today. I really shouldn't!

I wasn't working yesterday. Hooray! Neither was The Builder. Double hooray!

So we did useful things. He went out and bought concrete posts for the new fence for when we take possession of the land at the back (Let us home that the Post Office Savings people process his request for a release of his funds very expeditiously!). He also bought some wood to make airing cupboard shelves for the boiler cupboard in our room. I figure if we are to be woken at 05:00 every morning when the boiler creaks into action, we might as well have towels, sheets and ironing warming gently through at the same time! In the meantime I sort of cleaned the kitchen and made a stew for dinner for Sunday evening. I am working today, Sunday.

The problem with us having a day off together is that we tend to eat. Really eat. We seem to have taken a leaf from Lindsey and Ian's book. A weekend (or indeed any mutual day off) is a day for Lunching! Although, we didn't really intend to lunch. We intended to shop. We did shop. We went to Autoworld to collect the touch up paint we had ordered last Saturday. Then we took ourselves off to Chatsworth, for The Sidings was virtually a vegetable free zone; I had put all the fresh veg into the stew. All there was left was some stuff in the freezer. At least, we intended to take ourselves off to Chatsworth. For some reason my navigating skills decided to abandon me. Then, when I found them again, I resolutely navigated us to the Garden Centre on the Cutthorpe Road. Can't think why. Didn't have any need for stuff from the Garden Centre and we did need the Chatsworth Farm Shop! Finally got us onto the right road. We called at Pets At Home to buy Marlo food (I was clearly in a Very Grumpy Mood Indeed. Not only did the woman in the Cat Food section who was chatting interminably to her husband drive me absolutely insane, so too did the cockatiel's squeaking. Would have cheerfully massacred both of them. Very grumpy!) Then we took ourselves, finally, on the Great Vegetable Hunt.

It was very, very busy at Chatsworth. Got Grumpier. Also got strings of shiny white and glowing red onions, a red cabbage, two little green ones, lots of various veg, some fruit and one or two lunchtime bits and pieces. The vegetable racks in the larder at home are now full and healthy and happy.

Then we went to Bakewell, where we had lunch in The Peacock, on the thinking that food might make me less grumpy. I had a lovely steak sandwich. The Builder had scampi and chips. I might have stolen one or two of his chips. Perhaps! I had cider, The Builder had Black Sheep. Was very nice. The combination also rendered me no longer grumpy. Then we went Christmas shopping in Bakewell and back in the Chatsworth Garden Centre shop. Spent an absolute fortune, but we are making great progress with the Christmas list. And it's only mid-November.

Then we went home. Put the shopping away. Planned our ongoing garden attack. And I made a batch of Christmas chutney. Might have to make some more though. The end result was only 5 jars and I think I might need more than that. I shall make some more during the week. I can feel another trip to Rowsley coming on! And a bath. A bubble bath. With wine. I do like a nice bath. With wine. And bubbles.

Then we went out to dinner!!!!!! Haven't been out to dinner in a restaurant from home for months and months and months and months. Obviously we do if we are away in a B&B, but when we are at home we tend to go out to lunch (having learned, as I said, from Lindsey and Ian). We don't usually have any impetus to going out in the evening. Or not to restaurants. We went to the Old Post restaurant in Chesterfield. And we went on the bus so no one would have to drive home and we could share a bottle of wine. The Old Post is in a lovely building right in the town centre, part of it 15th century, part 18th. It has had a variety of manifestations, including being a post office at once point -- hence the name. And the food is *fantastic*. They gave us tiny, tiny munchies -- a minute salmon mouse flan (half a bite); a tiny, minuscule triangle of toast with game paté on it; a miniature cheese biscuit with half a quails egg and something mustardy. We washed these down with gin and vodka (not mixed, I had gin, he had vodka). Then he had a Lincolnshire pork plate, and I had a simply sumptuous (and rather large) bowl of lobster bisque. Yum, yum, yum. They brought around a bread basket with several varieties of fresh baked bread, none of which I could eat for one of the varieties was walnut bread. They brought me my very own piece of fresh baked bread, untouched by walnut contamination. Then they brought The Builder a soupçon of Proven?al fish soup. Because I had already had soup, and fishy soup at that, I got some melon with a red, autumn fruit sauce. It was all very, very delicious. And washed down with a bottle of Pinot Grigio which I graciously shared with The Builder It also meant that by the time my absolutely magnificent sirloin steak arrived, accompanied by some sort of potato concoction, braised red cabbage and vegetable medley, I was struggling for room :-( Gamely, I carried on. I munched slowly and carefully. I jiggled and wriggled to make room. And I carried on for two or three mouthfuls more than I should have and had to stop, defeated, and very very very much, painfully too full. The Builder finished my sirloin (he had had sirloin too, so didn't really notice when I added half of mine to his plate). I sipped white wine slowly, as a digestif, while he, somehow, managed to find room for an apple suet pudding. The food really was magnificent. And it wasn't all that expensive, when you consider what we had. It was also quite a treat to go out for a meal in the evening -- booking in for 7 meant that we weren't too tired to eat!. We had intended to go home in a taxi but in the end went back on the bus (it's only about 10 minutes; hardly worth a taxi when it is not raining or galing) and had another glass of white wine. For digestive purposes, of course. And so to bed. All very civilised.

So I really shouldn't have been hungry at all today. But was, of course. We had Chatsworth eggs and bacon for breakfast on toast made from one of their crusty loaves. Wandered into the kitchen while the toast was toasting, to find a curtain of smoke emanating from the toaster and making its way to the smoke detector in the dining room. Closed the door post haste to prevent an outbreak of detector outrage. Later I drove through a glorious winter morning (I know it's only late autumn, but it was a winter style morning), just a tiny tad worried by the bank of very scary cloud hovering over Sheffield. It had moved off by the time I got there. I have used the ice scraper The Builder gave me to clear ice from the windscreen. The fish pond was semi frozen. And I am wearing a big thick, woolly, snuggly jacket that Kathryn at work gave me a week or so ago, sat at the Information Desk at Collegiate Crescent. All very pleasant.

The Builder on the other hand has been busy doing useful things at home. The landing cupboard door now opens and closes. The shampoo and soap in the shower now have a shelf to sit on. When I spoke to him he was on his way outside to carry on filling the wooden boxes and to do handy garden things. He was intending to go to the allotment and carry on there. But the grass needs cutting up there first. The wet grass. The wet, knee-high grass. And his gumboots are in the car. And I've got the car here in Sheffield. Oops!