Transferred

With two mornings of dry weather it’s been more like ‘view from the kitchen roof’, as my skill scrubbing carrots was transferred to the plastic corrugations above the back path. I teetered on egg shells and slimy planks trying to avoid an appointment with the stone flags beneath and asked myself if it was worth the bother; they leak like the new sieve from Mame and need replacing like the old one, which couldn’t distinguish water from rice. The newly-returned Ajahn Sawaeng nearly got a soaking from on-high, but otherwise no one seemed to mind my absence from the kitchen, which is not surprising with our Italian friends around. Yesterday, for instance, was the birthday of our good friend Cesare; a kind and refined Milano gentleman with a surprising distaste for coffee, and English grammar acquired from Jane Austen and the Bloomsbury group. He invited various friends to join us (all past visitors of the informally emergent ‘Ratanagiri-Milan branch’, for whom Northumberland is more accessible than Rome) and gave his culinary flair – as well as theirs – a long leash. Happy birthday Cesare.

For the rest, our needs remain the same as the blog in the beginning – though did I mention egg shells??? Then we must be using them all up. They rarely languish in the cupboard for long and are almost always welcome. Along with the occasional bottle of fresh milk. Till next Friday…