A cold and chilly week – absolutely lovely. Frozen ground, bright and clear blue skies and no mud! Hurray! Daisy certainly enjoys not being hosed down with frigid water from the outside tap and I enjoy not sinking to my bootlaces in the quagmire as we traverse the fields. Hurray, hurray! It’s supposed to get up to 14o C on Wednesday – go figure.
We had some of our lovely neighbours over for dinner the other evening and Penelope produced another of her many masterpieces – a Three Cheese Pasta Bake (One Pot recipe). The evening was extraordinarily delightful, several bottles of decent wine were consumed and the pasta bake was absolutely scrumptious. So, I thought I would share it with you and, at the same time, introduce a new feature to your MPP Subscription – the occasional recipe and archive section at absolutely No Additional Cost to your already incredibly valuable membership.
And, while on the theme of eating we had lunch with Nick, Lucy and Annabelle at the Plough Inn in Everdon yesterday on the occasion of his birthday. It was shut for a brief period earlier in the month and has just re-opened this week after a bit more renovation. The food, once again, was very good although Penny did concede that her sea bass was not outstanding – vegetarians/pescatarians are not exactly spoiled for choice.
It’s Sod’s Law, though. Yesterday should have been a nice relaxing day, nothing really to do other than enjoy ourselves with good food and even better company. Alas, when we awoke we had no electricity and no central heating. Quelle merde! A bit of an investigation determined that it was an electric fault with the central heating circuit. So, having isolated that circuit, at least we have power. Naturally, we telephoned our Emergency Cover insurance. The good news? This is an “emergency” which is covered by our insurance policy. The bad news? They cannot get an engineer to us before Monday! Quelle merde encore! Not exactly my definition of “emergency” cover but what do I know? We’ve got an electric fan heater and Nick brought a few more when he arrived so we should be OK until then. And, the temperatue is supposed to be 12o C today so we probably won’t even need the central heating.
Happy Birthday to the magnificent Max on Wednesday – he’s going to be six. What a marvellous little miracle.
Also looking forward to another night out eating good food – we’re out with Adam, Ava, Jessie and Julieta to La Terraza Tapas Bar in Northampton on Wednesday evening just for the heck of it. Always a fun night out.
Meanwhile, keep happy, keep smiling, keep exercising, be good, be careful, and keep safe. And be gentle to wasps and bees.
Lots of love to you all,
Greg