We had a lovely and peaceful Saturday, we did.

The weather wasn’t entirely delightful. We had been hoping to get into the garden and do a few, autumnal things, but the weather wasn’t really encouraging.

So we pottered about, and went to Chatsworth and Bakewell, and pottered about, and had lunch at the Three Merry Lads, and pottered about, and went to the garden centre and supermarket, and pottered about some more.

Mind you, I was fairly productive as well over the weekend. I’ve made and steamed two Christmas puddings. (The first one was well and truly steamed – I went to bed on Saturday night having forgotten all about it. Woke up with a start at about 3 am, having suddenly remembered it. Fortunately, it was in a stock pot with an extremely well-fitting lid and there was plenty of water left in there. But it was steamed for close to twelve hours. Hope it’s ok!). I made a large pot of pea soup. I did all the washing and all the available ironing and cleared up a bit and sorted some things out. And I’ve made up a curing mix, using a variant of a Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall recipe. I figure if you can use beer as part of your curing mix, then you can probably use cider instead. And if you can use malt vinegar, then cider vinegar is probably just as good. And I’ve got a small pork loin joint covered with the cure in a plastic box in the bottom of the fridge, in the hope that it might turn into a nice ham. I had a bit of the cure left, so I’ve put that with some belly pork strips in another plastic box in the hope that might turn into something you could use as bacon. Though I must find a proper bacon cure.

That was all fun.

Sunday was fun too, though the weather was, if anything, worse. We dropped by at Freyja’s place to deliver a play station from Taffa, plus some Aussie dollars, our bathroom scales, a universal adapter – and our spare, pay a you go mobile phone. Freyja’s phone still hasn’t reappeared from its adventure, and we have a pay as you go phone from when The Builder’s phone went missing and we needed a cheap, temporary replacement. It won’t work in Japan, but it should work in Oz and certainly works here and is at least *a* means of communication. The number, if you should wish to contact her once she hits Oz is +447964532695. I put it onto my Facebook page – and caused Tabitha deep confusion by inadvertently putting up my mobile number instead of Freyja’s!!! I think Tabitha thought I’d sent my phone a-travelling with Freyja. As if I would willingly be separated from it for a whole three weeks!!!!!

We went from Freyja’s place to Paul and Carol’s, where we had a lovely afternoon eating and drinking and chatting and generally having a good time. They both seem very well. The food was lovely. So was the wine. Walter the cat was very pleased to see us. We caught up on all the news – I didn’t think there would be all that much news; we last saw them at Taffa and Gaz’s wedding, which wasn’t all that long ago. But there was some. Including the information that Simon was living on his own in East Melbourne. That juicy little nugget had completely passed them by!

As you see, a lovely and peaceful weekend. I didn’t manage to get the house cleaned, but I don’t suppose anyone is going to die because of that.

The weather continues to be dreary. It’s proper November weather now, rather than a preview of January or February. Misty, not all that cold, drizzly, damp. I might buy some candles and some fairy lights for the dining room.

I was peacefully in the office yesterday, talking to Rupert and Gavin and Paul, when all of a sudden – the lights went out, the computers went off, the air conditioning hum faded. Power gone! Power gone not just to the Adsetts Centre, not just the most of the SHU buildings in the city centre, but to the city centre itself. Somebody decided to evacuate the students (it mercifully wasn’t drizzling at the time!). I’m not absolutely sure why because the emergency lights were still on and it wasn’t management who asked us to get them out. In the meantime, staff made their way to Level 4 and just kind of hung about. Lasted for just over an hour and then abruptly came back. Some sort of problem on Leopold Street, I believe. Was nice to see the building all lit up again. And at least the servers are now isolated from these sorts of events – they were trundling along quite happily somewhere and wren’t even a little bit put out when the power came back!

Freyja left on her adventures very, very early on Monday morning (there is a random train which passes through Sheffield to Manchester airport at 03:45. The station is closed at that time in the morning – you have to alert the security people inside to be let in!). She has now arrived in Tokyo.