Friday Fritterings

The Builder had yesterday off. Hooray! No reason to get up at 05:30. He can take me to the station for the half past seven train. And pick me up again later. Hooray!

Well, the best laid plans …. Drifted back to sleep. Woke up -- to find that it was 07:50. Oops. Should be walking through the doors of the Adsetts Centre by now. Fortunately, The Builder is not working. He can drive me in.

Rush about. Leap into car. Off we go ……… Very, very slowly. Traffic horrid in Chesterfield. Traffic horrid in Sheffield too. Walk into building at precisely half past nine.

Hmm. Hungry. Amble off to the student refectory for an egg, bacon and tomato sandwich. Grab a glass of orange juice. Whole lot comes to £2.06. Excellent value. Return to office. Eat sandwich. Drip egg yolk all over desk. Clean up. Drink orange juice and a cup of coffee (sequentially!) Go on Information Desk. Finish at one. And GO HOME AGAIN!!!!!! A fantastically short day.

The Builder met me at the station and we wended our way home, via Hasland. We stopped for a mooch in the shops, something I’ve been meaning to do for many months. Like Chesterfield itself it’s an interesting mix of tacky discount stores and rather nice gift and flower shops. Plus an astonishing number of food places. We found a fabulous present for Jeanette, whose birthday is on Saturday. I might find it a bit of a struggle to post it, though. I think it wants to live at my place :-s I’ve also found a tiny, tiny Christmas tree and a holly stick for Freyja. The holly stick is full of berries and VERY prickly!

The reason that we both had time off is because today is finally the day of our Registration-at-a-new-surgery medicals. It’s a cute, tiny, wee surgery just up the road. I think I was the youngest person in the waiting room, though I suppose it was half past three on a Thursday afternoon. The doctor seems to think that my BMI is just fine (though I think it’s a bit high). He says I have slightly elevated blood pressure and wants to monitor it. Plus he thinks that a gin and tonic when I come home followed by half a squillion glasses of wine might be a trifle too much alcohol. Knew I should have lied about the wine! The difficulty lies in deciding which glass to give up. The first one? The last one? One of the ones in the middle? And in any case, I can’t reduce my wine intake at this precise moment. I’ve just taken delivery of 51 bottles of wine. 12 free using my Nectar loyalty points and 39 through the National Trust Wine Club offer. The whole lot cost me the grand total of £145, and it’s excellent quality wine. But anyway. Back to the medicals. I shall go back to yoga which should fix my blood pressure and revert to my normal practice of doctor avoidance. Though I suppose I ought to see the practice nurse to have my BP monitored over the next few weeks. The Builder, in the meantime, came out of his appointment looking smug and cheery. NO BP problems for him. No suggestion that he cut back his alcohol intake. Pff!

Still, at least we're now registered with the practice

And so home. An early G&T, in defiance of the doctor(!), then roast chicken and some wine from a bottle (rather than a cask) for dinner. A very pleasant evening.

Woke up at 04:00 this morning :-( Was up and running about by 05:20. Had The Builder ready to leave by 06:00, by which time I was mixing together the ingredients for another batch of fruit mincemeat (it does smell fantastic when you mix it all together). And now here I am. Back on the Information Desk. It is drizzling outside in an irritating, grey and gloomy manner. Everything is waterlogged. And yet the South East is still declared to be a drought area!

Tell me what your favourite cake or cake-like pud is.