Ordinary weekend stuff

Running around type chores yesterday, some of which I should have done on Thursday but parking in town was impossible. Impossible. Our local council, bless its stony little heart, is turning all the free on-street parking into paid parking slots, redoing the space available in the process. Someone, for some unadvertised reason, was digging a large hole in the middle of town, taking away more parking slots, at least temporarily, plus making progress around very slow by virtue of a traffic light system. And it was market day. I spent a tedious half-hour trying to find a space and gave up. What on earth will happen well the new system is completed, I shudder to think. Prolly, we'll all go to Tesco.

I invented another recipe. But not quite so successful this time. Nice, very nice, but not exceptional. Tomato and goats cheese tart. I made a white pastry shell, part-baked it, made a rich tomato sauce with lots of basil and a good slug of sherry, reduced it down a lot and then whizzed it to a thick puree. Put it in the crust, and put fairly thinly sliced bouche de chevre on top, with more basil. (I like basil.) Baked until the cheese was brown and slightly crusty. Did taste good.

Got up early, for a Sunday (sometimes the DSM is a saint.) We went to York to visit the mater - I had decided to see how a morning-only visit went, as she had got pretty tired the last couple of times we had been over, and was still not wanting to go out. She seemed a bit perkier than recently - she will be over the abrupt cessation of the medication that some idiot doctor told her to do, which had put her into a form of withdrawal, and has lead to this latest bout of depression. Anyway, all went quite well, and we stopped in Bishopthorpe for a sandwich, thus finding a very pleasant pub that we can take her to next time.

We visited a garden centre on the way home, and got a pot for the eucalyptus which has survived my total neglect of it all summer. With a bit of luck, it will get through the winter with a bit of nurturing and I can trim it somewhat next year and actually get to dye with it! Did a few other outside bits and bobs.

Around all of these utterly riveting goings on, I have been spinning cashmere. I need to was the mountain of grey Falkland, and the Lambspun blue/green stuff before starting to sample for the next knitting project, and I needed something to spin, after all. I find cashmere rather nervewracking, and I am not getting a totally consistent yarn, dammit - but that may just possibly be because of the source, not from Adelaide Walker, who have the most yummy stuff, but from slightly further south, where I often feel the quality is a tiny bit sus. Going to be nice and soft, though.

The major decision of the weekend, though, is to really start on the website. If I begin on the design for the pages in Word, then just maybe my computer professional could be persuaded to action this winter????? (If you do ever get around to reading this, sweetie, you could leave a comment pledging thus.....) So, tomorrow, to work.

And finally....Neelix's turn. Please note the total mess behind this pair - that's the stash. Not to mention the grubby gardening pants. But cute.....