I have done a prodigious amount of baking. I have made: vegetarian party pies, bride and groom biscuits, raspberry jam tarts, apricot jam tarts, cheese twists, sesame twists, more ordinary party pies, meringues … Then I ran out of caster sugar and milk :-S

While all this was going on, I heard Margaret saying: You need to read the ingredients of things carefully. They put wheat flour into the oddest of things. I nearly poisoned Paul the other day by putting soya sauce in his food. You wouldn’t think that soya sauce would have wheat flour in it, now would you?

This was a conversation I had had with Margaret more than twenty years ago. If she was minded to remind me of it from beyond the grave, then I was certainly minded to listen! I went and checked the soya sauce bottle and there indeed was wheat flour listed in the ingredients. But that’s all right. I haven’t put soya sauce in any of the Paul-friendly food. Thinking, thinking, thinking. No, I’m sure I haven’t - except, BUGGER. Yes I have. In the bean and sushi patties I made yesterday. Damn!!!

I’ll have to make something else. I know. I’ll make some of the risotto, mozzarella and vegetable balls that I make for The Builder and me to take to work sometimes. But not right now. Right now, The Builder and I are going in search of some more caster sugar, some milk, some cat food and some lunch (Telmere Arms because we were going past it). Then we went home and I made some plum jam tarts, decorated the bride and groom biscuits, burned the jam tarts because I was paying too much attention to the biscuits, cleared up the kitchen, dashed about, sorted things out - and left more or less on time to relocate to Oxford where we were due to meet Ian at 6:30. Need to make more plum jam tarts. Need to do LOTS of cooking. Shouldn’t have left my kitchen so far away. Panic, panic, panic.

Was making a list of the things that need doing (forgot to add: make savoury, gluten free (no soya sauce!) mince for the lettuce boats) as The Builder was driving us down the M1. Suddenly, the traffic came to a halt. Quite a serious halt. There was an accident two junctions down. Actually at the junction. The motorway was closed. The motorway was actually closed in both directions - the air ambulance landed on the opposite side. We came off and rejoined the M1 beyond the accident. But this made us quite seriously late for meeting Ian at 6:30! About half an hour late. We ended up even later yet - there were further hold ups on the way down. Ian sent a text message suggesting that we meet him and his mate Tom at the restaurant. The Cherwell Boathouse on Bedford Street. I put the details into Jenny. Off we detoured. Eventually we arrived in Bedford Street. And there the Cherwell Boathouse wasn’t. Mind you - you might think that it would be somewhere near the Cherwell, and we were about 4 or 5 miles away from it. We asked a passing person walking a dog. Oh no, said he - the Cherwell Boathouse is about 5 miles away in north Oxford off the Banbury road on the bank of the Cherwell. I rang Ian. He was adamant that it was in Bedford Street. He and Tom would come and find us. Stay where you are.

We stayed.

My phone rang. It seems the restaurant isn’t in Bedford Street (No? Really?) It’s in Bardwell Street. In North Oxford. Off the Banbury Road. On the bank of the Cherwell! I think Ian was trying to shake us off :-(

But to no avail. Jenny found it! She had always had misgivings about going to Bedford Street

It clearly wasn’t meant to be an easy dinner, mind. Tom had booked a table for us all, for 7:15 on Wednesday night. The restaurant had put it down for 7:45 on Thursday! They had no table inside. We had to sit at a table outside and watch the punts and the ducks and the river. It was lovely!

So too was the food. Fantabulous food. The parmesan crisp I had with my vegetable ravioli and sweet potato coulis was amazing. The lamb fillet wasn’t bad either! Mind you, I’m not sure about smoked potato mash. It was beautifully made but seemed - well, odd to me. We even had dessert! Tom was very nice. He has an ancestral pile in Ely and is the Emergency Physician at The Radcliffe in Oxford.

And so on to the apartment. Too late to have my regular Skype conversation with Tony and in any case we has something of a battle to get onto the internet. Only one computer can get on to each registration and we only had one. Ian’s computer had connected to it first and so, of course, mine wouldn’t. Had to commandeer Ian’s!