Chicken pies

Cooking for people on Tuesday's has fired my enthusiasm. I'm making a small batch of chicken and veg pies for my lunches this week.I'm adding carrots, onions and leeks to the chicken, the mixture smells good already.

I'm doing the pudding on Tuesday, I have a sweet pastry case and I'll add strawberries/raspberries and top with jelly. Steve wants me to make brownies instead as he doesn't eat fruit. Betty is doing a liver casserole which Steve won't eat. I'm really not sure why he comes along.

The weather is still very cold here, I think it's tried to snow a couple of times but so far  we've had none.

I still have some mistletoe on the sideboard, I love mistletoe, it is a sacred plant to me. I don't use it to kiss under, that's not it's appeal. A branch fell out of a nearby tree when the wind was high, the mistletoe is attached to the fallen branch.

A little treat.

I bought myself some new earrings, I seem to have lost all my others when the boxes we had in storage were flooded out.

Here is a very bad photo of them.

It's difficult to take a good photo with a dog sat on my knee.

I bought them from lunarrosecrafts.co.uk.

They were inexpensive and arrived within a couple of days of ordering them.

Fish pie

Last week Betty suggested to Steve that she would prefer to do the main courses for our Tuesday lunches if I'd do the puddings.  I agreed as I'm happy to do this. 

The following day Steve announced that he wanted me to make fish pie this week. I don't think Betty was best pleased at this sudden change of plan but she agreed as she knows what Steve is like.

So today I made two dishes of fish pie, one including hard boiled eggs and one without. Steve wasn't happy as he likes eggs but Harry doesn't. I served them with carrots and peas. Two of the group are away on a cruise but a new person joined us so there were five of us.

Betty made a fruit crumble and custard. Next week I'm making a strawberry tart.

Last ever Sunday lunch

Today I'm cooking what could be my last ever roast dinner.

Last week Steve bought a piece of beef and complained that I hadn't cooked it properly.

This week he bought a boned rolled breast of lamb. He got it out the fridge at 4 o'clock and hit the roof when I said it wouldn't be cooked until after 6 o'clock. I've cut it in half to speed things up but it's not cooked yet. Obviously this is because I'm an idiot!

Another day out.

Today I went to Sainsbury's with Betty and one of the Pam's, we have three Pam's living here.

I didn't need much but it was nice to get out, I treated myself to some sushi. Steve cooked himself four lamb chops for his tea.

It's rained a lot over the last few days, part of the garden is flooded and the nearby river has burst it's banks. The nearby pub garden is under a few inches of water too. We have another day of rain forecast tomorrow as well

Tomorrow Harry is giving me a lift to the post office to return something to Amazon, I've banned Steve from ordering stuff for the neighbours from Amazon as it's left to me to sort out the problems.

Going out.

I went to Aldi y'day to buy the fruit for the fruit salad I made. I still get excited when I go out, even if it is just to the local Aldi. It was a dreadful day y'day strong winds and heavy rain. Beano didn't go out until mid afternoon and then only briefly.

The rain has stopped now and the sun is struggling through.

Col, we can't exclude our tightfisted neighbour, it goes against the ethos of the community living here, but we can damn well ensure he pays his share. If he couldn't afford it that would be different and he wouldn't be forced to pay.

I've just had a visit from John who lives above us, some thieving barsteward has broken in to his bike store, they couldn't steal his bike as it's bolted to the wall but the bike store is badly damaged.  He's gone to have a word with Harry as Harry never locks the outside door. He will try to persuade him to keep the door locked from now on.

Lunch club today

Lunch club has restarted, we had chicken casserole today, it was served with new potatoes and French bread. I also made a fruit salad, there should have been six of us but an extra resident turned up.

We take it in turns to cook, Betty made the casserole, Harry was going to cook the potatoes but his back seized up so I did them instead. I made the pudding. There was ample food, most people had two helpings

The extra resident was asked to contribute £3 for the two course, he wasn't happy. But thems the rules, if you aren't one of the cooks you are expected to make a contribution. The extra resident was told in advance about the payment but he didn't have any change. Said resident also never pays into the tea money. I don't drink when I visit but I pay my contribution as do at least two other residents.

It wouldn't be so bad if this resident didn't spend so much time telling everyone that he is a millionaire twice over. He goes to three lunch clubs locally and he has to pay for those, so we expect him to pay if he joins us.