One Sleep to Go

Hmm, the whole "We'll-Manage-Without-An-Oven-Until-We-Get-Back" thing didn't go well!

But it's only small, and it only cost £30 and I've been thinking of getting one for absolutely ages. And it did lovely baked chicken fillets with mushrooms, cheese and tomato last night, not to mention potato croquettes (made by me in the early autumn with our potatoes from the garden and kept in the freezer).  And it will keep the Housesitters happy while we're away.  It will take me a while to get used to it, though.  The recently deceased oven was a fan oven and this isn't.  You wouldn't expect it to be at £30 and a microwave size.  But I have got very used to having a fan oven in the seven and three quarter years I've had one!

So.  there's only one sleep to go before we head off.  We are unusually organised this time.  I've even done the packing - largely because we were trying on our party clothes and summer clothes to see what we should take with us, and it didn't seem worth while putting them back in the wardrobe or leaving them on the spare bed.  So I got out the suitcases and put the clothes in there instead.  And then  I figured I might just as well pack everything else that was going while I was at it.  This seriously confused the cat, who knows what the suitcases mean. But usually, of course, it means that we are going that day or, at a pinch, early the next.  This time, however, the suitcases have been sitting on the bed since Wednesday, and thus far The Builder and I haven't gone anywhere.  Or nowhere out of the ordinary!

And I have decided that I am going to have to give up foreign travel.  Last time it was a hurty eye on the morning that we left, followed by an infected foot in Singapore.  When we went to Japan, I got an infected ankle or two.  And this time?  This time I have an infected fingertip.  I assume I caused it when pruning the apple and pear trees last weekend.  It started to hurt a bit on Monday or Tuesday, on Wednesday I noticed that it was a bit swollen.  By yesterday it was swollen and red and sore ;-(  It still is.  It's my right hand middle finger - and it's amazing how much I use it.  I had never before noticed that I used it much.  But I do.

If it's not better by, oh Thursday or so, I shall give it to a doctor to have a look at :-D