Week's End

J's been very busy this weekend spending Friday all day trying to put the allotment in some kind of order, helping a friend re-fettle their shed on Saturday and then catching up with various jobs here today so I've had a quiet couple of days preparing food and pottering around doing domestics, reading my book and playing with another jigsaw. I get frustrated that it now takes me all day to prepare a meal that would have taken me just an hour or so before but then remember that just a few months ago I wouldn't have been able to do it at all, so back to taking each day as it comes and making the most of the good ones.

French & Runner beans 

ready for drying

On the menu this weekend was homemade feta and mushroom pizza - we have a bread-maker that works magic with the dough so we've given up buying ready-made pizzas in favour of any topping we fancy whenever we fancy at a fraction of the cost of shop-bought and with the added bonus of knowing exactly what is in our dinner. Saturday I made a lentil and mushroom pie which proved a really tasty, filling way to use up some of the store cupboard supplies and gave us enough leftovers for a quick & easy lunch today. I made enough of the lentil mixture to do a few extra meals too so am back to having homemade food in the freezer for the not so good days. J brought home some more beans from the lotty on Friday so whilst he was out on Saturday I shucked them and set them to drying ready for soups and stews in the next few months. It's great to be able to top-up our own supplies again even if the crop is much smaller than previous years.

From this 

to this in just a week!

On the chilling out front I finished the Lucinda Riley Shadow Sister and am rattling through the brilliant Pearl Sister - both are really enjoyable reads and I thoroughly recommend the series. We also completed another jigsaw this weekend; this time one a friend gave me to try and it's a beautiful medley of British Wildlife that was a real pleasure to put together and gave my brain a bit of a workout as I tried to recognise the species portrayed. I think I might leave this one made up for a few days as it's so pretty.

New week tomorrow and we have our solar thermal system and boiler being serviced on Monday and I have a consultant's appointment on Wednesday, so let's hope that brings some good news and the antibiotics have finally seen off the infection.