chilly days

Autumn is edging towards winter.  It's not there yet, and we still haven't put the central heating on, but the fire is lit in the sitting room after several attempts and much newspaper, because I forgot to buy firelighters when I was shopping and we only have one left, which the Systems Administrator is saving for later to light the stove in the study.  The fire eventually got going once we added a beeswax candle stub to the starter mix, but we need to get back into the habit of buying firelighters.  John, Susan, Titty and Roger may have managed with dry twigs and only one match, but we must have the wrong sort of twigs.

Tonight's supper is Chicken Marengo, another recipe from Good Housekeeping, chosen partly because it would use up some of the celery and carrots I'd already got, without leaving me with half a cabbage or three extra packets of spice.  I am still trying to work out how you add stock to flour that you've fried in the remains of the oil without it turning into a gigantically lumpy mess.  I ended up rubbing the lumps through a sieve, while making a mental note that next time it would be easier just to dust the fried vegetables and chicken with cornflour and give them a good stir before pouring the liquid in.

I still haven't planted my lily bulbs in the wood.  I finished pulling up the brambles, and got as far as rounding up twenty bamboo canes to mark where I'd planted each one and taking the box of lily bulbs out to the wood, and then it began to rain, quite hard.  Just after the rain started I heard the SA's feet crunching down the path by the dustbins, and thought firstly how sweet that the SA was coming to see me, and then was seized with alarm that something must be wrong and the SA was coming to fetch me, but it was merely the SA going to retrieve the jump starter pack left out on the lawn with the ailing lawn tractor.

And now I must go and see how the supper's getting on.