It was my husband's birthday yesterday and most of the family gathered for a meal. Some are away on holiday but they rang up and had a chat with him. Sometimes it is just lovely to gather as a family and chat and eat together. As the majority of the people who came are vegetarians, I made the Shepherdless Pie from the Cheap Family Recipes website that I've mentioned before: http://www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/ It went down very well although I topped it with mashed potato rather then sliced because there was an element of uncertainty about the start time of the meal and I thought mash would keep in the oven better. I didn't say that it was an economical recipe but just served it and got compliments :) My little grandson who is nearly 10 months old absolutely loved it and wolfed down two bowlfuls. In fact, his parents asked to take some leftovers home for his lunch today. I can see that recipe appearing on their menu in future. My daughter had brought pudding (raspberry and apple pie - guaranteed father pleaser!) and homemade elderflower champagne and my son had baked a birthday cake.

After dinner we chatted for a bit and then went for a walk together - calling by the allotment on the way so that we could water the seedlings and beans and also those of my friend on her neighbouring allotment as she is away on holiday this week. Many hands make light work. The cash-strapped city council have recently created a "nature walk" from a piece of waste ground near us so we went and walked around to see what there is to see. It is still a work in progress but they have laid a grid of allweather paths and it was fun to go round together. Then we came back for tea. I had popped some scones in the oven after the pie came out and we put a quick loaf in the breadmaker to cook while we were out so we had fresh bread and then homemade scones and homemade strawberry and gooseberry jam with Cornish clotted cream for tea. The cream was a birthday treat for a Devon boy who prefers Cornish clotted cream to Devon clotted cream. We had just got to the blowing out of the candles on the cake - a token number of candles only because we didn't want to set the cake on fire... :) - when a friend called in and stayed to chat with everybody and eat cake.

It was a lovely day. Today we are going to a church bbq and I need to make something to take with us. It is a "bring something and we'll all share" kind of bbq but I need to make something because it could be quite expensive otherwise. Maybe some bean burgers...?

Tomorrow we need to get up early to get the car to a garage. It is showing a few poorly symptoms and needs a diagnostic run on it to find which electronic gismo needs to be replaced. I can remember the days when you could mend the car yourself. Now you need a computer to find the fault and you just chuck out some large and expensive part and slot in a new large and even more expensive one. Ah well.