A visit from Amanda

We had a fabulously foodie weekend. I'll put the food details on the food blog - but I'll tell you here that we ate a great deal of really lovely food on Saturday and Sunday!

Amanda, Zoy's girlfriend, has been touring around Scotland and England for the past few months. For the last little while she has been living and working in London. Ian and Lindsey met up with her in August. Ian and Freyja met up with her in September. And now it is oh-so nearly time for her to head back to Ballarat.

And, of course, we couldn't possibly let her go without making her come and admire the delights of the Peak District. So she came up this weekend just gone. And the Peak District turned on some gloriously autumnal weather for her. It was misty and the trees were in full colour. Then the sun came out and the trees all glinted gloriously. We went out for a country drive, then fetched up in Bakewell for a wander around. And then we went into Sheffield via Hathersage to collect Freyja, who was also coming to our place for Saturday night. It is also possible that we may, quite by accident, of course, have possibly found ourselves in the Chatsworth farm shop, where we may have bought a wonderful carrot cake, and maybe some salady things for dinner. Maybe!

We had roast vegetable lasagne to go with the salady things. Freyja and Amanda helped to make the lasagne sheets. It was very delicious.

Sunday was pretty much devoted to food. The Builder and Amanda went to the allotment to collect the last of the peas and some corn. We had roast rib of beef with all the Sunday Roast trimmings (Freyja didn't have beef. She had a veggie alternative roast which tasted remarkably chicken-like). We had steamed chocolate pudding with ice cream left over from when Ian was with us. We had a proper red wine to wash it all down. We had good conversation and a merry time.

The The Builder took Amanda back to the station to go back to London, and Freyja back into Sheffield, and I stayed at home and made a start on the dishes. It was a fabulous Sunday. And I found the battery charger for my camera. I've been hunting for it for weeks. We have turned the house upside down and looked EVERYWHERE. On Sunday morning I found it sat under one of the spare dining room chairs. And I know it hadn't been there before, because not only had we looked there, but we had also hoovered there. I suspect Marlo of having hidden it!!

But we ought to have visitors more often. When visitors come, I pretty much deep clean the house. This is not to say it doesn't get cleaned when there are no visitors; it does, just not thoroughly and properly cleaned. And you don't count as a visitor if you are family and less than 10 years older than me, or if you have already been more than two or three times. On the rare occasions when people come who fall outside those categories, I pull out all the stops and dust the skirting boards and the irritating little ridges on the doors, and I scrub things that usually only get wiped down. So we need to organise real visitors perhaps three or maybe four times a year!! Amanda says she may be returning to the UK in the spring. She would still count as a visitor. She'll just have to come back!!!

I still have that irritating, low level cold. Sigh!

A busier week in prospect this week. More teaching than last week. But nothing like as daunting as it would have been without Caroline. My diary looks quite manageable when you take out the sessions that she is doing :-)