Wednesday 15th September 2021

Halfway through the month.

Already.

It was Wednesday, halfway through the week too, and we had no washing machine to be delivered.

I did have some baking to do, however.

There was the usual ritual of the morning; coffee, reading the news pages and checking Flickr. Drinking more coffee.

Outside it was cloudy but warmer, the wind had dropped, but little sunshine, sadly.

As ever, there was work.

At eight once I had read the three or four mails, I cracked and separated 12 egg whites from their yolks, saving the yolks. I really should make merangues, but I don't like 'em, so they go down the plug, sorry.

Then open the new bottles of limoncello and grappa, pour out measures for the tart and add sugar, chopped almonds, roll out the pastry and pine a tin, add raspberries and pour in the mix.

It takes a lot of effort, and makes a lot of washing up, but once the tart was in the oven I tidy up and back to work to find no one had missed me for half an hour.

The tart cooks and smells glorious, and after baking for an hour, then ten minutes more, it was done, and looked wonderful. I took a shot.

The day drags.

I have lunch.

Pick some raspberries.

Five more minutes had passed.

No sunshine means no butterflies, of course. No butterflies means no pictures of butterflies to post. Sadly.

I make fritters for dinner, use lots of cheddar and Italian cheese in them. I had just finished when Jools arrived back and I found the mix had made 50% more than usual, so we could have some for lunch the next day.

One of them win/win situations I guess.

Football on the tellybox; Stoke v Barnsley, and Stoke has Super Mario Vrantic playing for them, as we sold him over the summer. Looks classy at this level, but even with him on their side, Stoke only draw 1-1.

It was half nine, time for bed. Out back, a yellow gibbous moon rose over the village.