OK. I think that might now be almost enough rain. I know I’ve said several times that it hasn’t rained as much in Chesterfield as it has in much of the rest of the country – and that’s true. But it’s been raining consistently for most of August in Sheffield and I do spend quite a bit of time there!
It rained all day on Friday. ALL day! There was thunder in the evening and everything.
It rained (in Chesterfield) on and off on Saturday. More off, to be fair. Except that we went from the Chatsworth farm restaurant (where we had lunch – a lovely roast beef and salad sandwich for me) to the farm shop in sunshine. Emerged some time later, bearing a half a lamb (in pieces, you understand) in a box, together with a few other bits and pieces stashed in a trolley, to find it raining VERYHARDINDEED. The Builder, in his haste to get to the car, rushed down the ramp, the trolley wheel hit an upturned bit of flagstone, the trolley tipped – and lamb chops went EVERYWHERE! The box had clearly not been properly closed :-( We very hastily grabbed them and shoved them back in the box. They’ll be right. I patted them down with some kitchen paper when we got home! Mostly, though, the day was dry even if overcast. It didn’t really rain while we were pottering about in Chesterfield in the morning. We got to the allotment to water the greenhouses and pick tomatoes. It did rain later in the afternoon and in the evening (more thunder) but we were back at home and inside and didn’t really care very much.
And I suppose it was all right, really on Sunday. We got back to the allotment. We went back to Chatsworth to buy a pork box (having discovered that there was still a bit of space in the meat freezer). Just as well we had bought the lamb on Saturday, though. It was on special on Saturday and not on special on Sunday! We had lunch in the Three Merry Lads on the way home, and there were people sat outside in the courtyard. The lunch, though, was something of a disappointment. The food there is usually really nice, but it is never a good sign when you order a roast meal and it is brought out to you within minutes (normally, I am almost ready for a second glass of wine before my food arrives). The meat had almost certainly been in an oven for part of the cooking process, but had spent quite a bit of time (I’m fairly sure) in a bain marie keeping warm. So not crunchy on the outside and virtually tasteless. The baby potatoes were cold in the middle. The vegetables were raw – couldn’t even get my fork into the broccoli! I’m not sure how you manage to make broccoli and cauliflower hot in the middle while still being rock solid on the outside, but they did. It makes me very cross when places which normally do good food manage comprehensively to ruin a roast which surely has to be the easiest thing to get right!
Anyway. Enough of that. This is supposed to be a weather report, not a food report!
Actually, it wasn’t too bad on Sunday afternoon, really. A few showers. And overcast. I made jam tarts and a quiche, which was supposed to be for lunches this week, only I kept nibbling on it so by the time dinner time came along, I wasn’t hungry any more and half the quiche was gone :-S The Builder had some for his dinner and we had the rest for lunch yesterday! It rained on Sunday night.
And on Monday. All day! Again. Until we got home, when it had stopped. In fact, it had stopped pretty much as we left Sheffield. This morning, as we left Tupton, it was quite a pleasant morning. We got to Dronfield and it started to spit. It was raining when we got to Meadowhead. It’s Sheffield, I tell you. I reckon it’s got a huge big storm cloud tethered over it on a semi-permanent basis (although the storm cloud has been affecting Wales and the south of England as well this week).
They say we are likely to get the tail of Cyclone Hanna in the next few days. Not wind, so much, as yet more lashing rain. What fun!
At Tabitha and Gareth’s wedding afternoon, The Builder had resurrected his video camera to record parts of the proceedings. I went into PC World on Sunday to see about getting a cable to connect the camcorder to a computer so we can transfer the movie onto DVD to send out to people who couldn’t be there. Hmm, said the boy. You’ll need a Firewire card and cable. Will cost you about £50. Fifty quid?!?!?! Not spending that amount. You can buy a basic DVD camera for just over £100, so I’d only need to use the Firewire connection once. I’ll take it into work and see if the techies can do it for me. Gavin tells me that they probably can (but not until next week, so if you’re waiting for the DVD, I haven’t forgotten, it’s just more complicated than I expected it to be). He also says that he thinks it’s unlikely that a six year old camcorder will work with Firewire, so it would probably have been a complete waste of £50. I’ll bring the camcorder in next week and see what they can do. Otherwise, I’ll need to sort out a video to DVD conversion. Assuming I can still find a case to put the video in, so we can play it! (I may need to use The Builder’s eBay account if all else fails)
I’ve been trying to lay my hands on a list of course codes recently. You would think, in a University, that course codes would be dead easy to lay your hands on. Module codes are. You run across module codes all over the place. Course codes? Forget it. You’d think I was asking for the keys to Fort Knox. To get course codes you practically have to seduce the course administrator. Always supposing that you can find out who the course administrator is! Can I go home now this very minute and never, ever come back again? I’ll make jam tarts and fruit scones if I can go home now this very minute!
The nights are getting noticeably longer. It's dark now when we wake up in the morning. Properly dark. The radio is waking us up. And it must be getting colder at night. Marlo has taken to sleeping with us rather than outside or in the bathroom
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