I’d sort of thought I might go out. I’m on annual leave, and I want to start getting back ‘out there’. I had a lovely day over in York a couple of days ago.
But the rain against the window was what woke me up in the early hours, the sky was heavy, and there was no sign of any improvement any time soon. This going out malarkey is all very well – but in this weather? Nah.
I took my breakfast back to bed, and checked out facebook and twitter while I ate my cereal and drank my tea. I heard the lodger go out at 10 past 7 – he’s not on annual leave.
By the time I was downstairs, just before 8, nothing had changed. If anything, the wind had got up a bit. Definitely a day for staying in. Quite autumnal. I was tempted to put the fire on.
It was a day for staying in and doing nothing. So that’s what I did.
First I braved the rain to pick some rhubarb, which I’ve stewed with sugar and ginger.
Then I darned some socks.
I decided to do some batch cooking for the freezer, so that when I’m working late I can pop something in the microwave rather than starting from scratch or just eating crap.
I had some mince and half an aubergine that needed using. And enough of everything else (tinned tomatoes, onion, red wine, cinnamon, the makings of bechamel sauce), so I made moussaka. A blast from the past!! I don’t think I’ve eaten moussaka since 1979!!
Continuing the theme of batch cooking and using up, I had two superannuated bananas, so I made a dozen banana bread cupcakes while the oven was still warm from the moussaka.
I spent a bit of time on ancestry.com – I’m going through all of my Australian relatives at the moment, tracking them down in the Electoral Rolls from 1930 – 1980, seeing what I can find out about who married whom and what their kids were called.
I watched Poirot in the afternoon – it is supposed to be a day off, after all. And I even managed not to fall asleep.
Dinner – fish with potatoes and courgette. Another finishy-up – the courgettes came in packs of three. That’s quite a lot of courgette for one person to get through before they go off. If I’d been able to buy them loose, I’d have only bought one. But that wasn’t an option, and I fancied a change. So – that’s another one used. Pudding was a portion of the rhubarb that I cooked this morning. And a glass of wine – because it’s been that sort of day.
I spent the evening watching two episodes of Africa’s Great Civilisation that I recorded some time last week. Really ashamed at how little I know about Africa.
And then I rounded the evening off with back-to-back episodes of Call the Midwife, a nice cup of tea and a banana cupcake. As do-nothing days go, it’s been fun.
But tomorrow will be a doing day.
