Sunday

It crossed my mind a little while ago that we hadn't seen Penny, Steve, Joseph and Imogen for about a year, when we all met on the last day of October last year on the Norfolk coast to farewell Peter on his final voyage. Penny and I have communicated by email and postcard on and off over the year and have made vague plans to meet up, but there has never been a time when all of us were free at the same time, and the year has trundled along and here we are, nearly at the end of it.

Penny and I had both earmarked November 20th as a date when we were all free and had blacked it out in our diaries.

And so it was that The Builder and I took ourselves off through the fog towards Sheffield yesterday lunchtime for a merry afternoon chatting to Joseph and Imogen, admiring the renovations that Penny and Steve have made to their house, and eating the delicious soup, bread rolls, apple meringue and steamed syrup pudding that Penny and Joseph had prepared for our repast. Joseph and Imogen seem to have grown since last we saw them - but are not too old to appreciate the Advent Houses we took for them :-)

We haven't seen Joan this year either.  Penny reports that she is quite well but does get a bit bored on days when she doesn't see anyone.  I can entirely understand that! The Builder and I are going to sort out a weekend when we can meander over to Cambridge and visit her and possibly even potter about in the market as well!

Yesterday was also the day when both Chesterfield and Sheffield turned on the Christmas lights. So after a lovely afternoon catching up, The Builder and I pottered into the Sheffield city centre, where we met Tabitha, Gareth and Cally for a wander around the market stalls, carnival rides and various other activities that were taking place in town. We didn't stay for the actual turning on of the lights - it was getting a bit crowded. We accidentally wandered into The Rutland Arms instead for a quick one before The Builder and I drove home, and Tabitha and Gareth and Cally walked home. Well - Cally didn't walk - she rode in her pram.  And she didn't have a quick one, she's a bit young at 8 months.  She had a doze instead.

Cally out on the razz. (If you click on the photo it will take you to the rest of the album)

It is very seldom that I have occasion to cook chestnuts. I, alas, am unable to eat them. The Builder loves them and buys them at chestnut braziers in the winter. I buy them for him sometimes too, but he usually has those unroasted. When I bought some for him on Saturday, I decided to treat him and bunged them in the oven for a bit - not wishing to light the barbecue just to roast a few chestnuts!!  I probably should have pricked or cut the ends. I probably shouldn't have forgotten all about them.  I was forcibly reminded of them when there was an explosion rather like a small cannon going off in the oven. There were bits of chestnut shell all over the bottom and the rest of the oven was coated in what can only be described as chestnut flour. I took the tray out of the oven and put it on the gas stove so the rest of the nuts would cool, and went to tell The Builder what had happened. I was in the middle of relating the tale when there was the sound of a shotgun going off in the kitchen. Another chestnut had exploded, covering most of the kitchen in chestnut flour. This is not entirely desirable when you have a nut allergy!!!!!  I nearly decide that it would be easiest to buy a new oven (can't afford a new kitchen!). But fortunately all the chestnut bits were easily brushed out using my dustpan and brush (once the oven had gone cold, of course). And I've been meaning to clean the extractor thingy over the gas stove for months!!