Well, here I am, in on my own today. My husband is off at a 2 day meeting and will be home at teatime. I don't know what to cook as I don't know what sort of meal he will be served for lunch today. He might have a full cooked meal or it might be a buffet sandwich and a sausage roll kind of thing. At least he will be paid for going to today's meeting :) - a little bit extra in the coffers.

The hens have not liked the weather reverting to normal British cold and rain and are not laying many eggs. It beats me how farmers make a living out of eggs. Hens either seem to inundate you with eggs or lay very few. They don't seem to have "happy medium" programmed into their system. My laying hens are around 18 months old now so any egg farmer would be thinking of sending them for pet food. Mine don't realise how fortunate they are to be living with us and not a farmer... I'm hoping that the new ones will lay a bit more consistently once they start. It is embarassing to have to tell my friends at work "Sorry no eggs today - they haven't laid enough." "But I thought you'd had new hens last year..?" "Yes but they still don't lay enough eggs." Non-hen people can understand when old hens don't lay enough but not when the hens are relatively young. It is not that I have millions of customers - only a few friends at work that take their turn in having a box. And I still don't break even with the costs.

With my husband being out at his meeting today and the weather forecast, I think that the weeds might start winning at the allotment this week. I'm hoping that we might be able to pop down one evening to do a little bit of work with the hoe - meetings and weather permitting. My pea shoots in the kitchen are growing nicely. I've planted some each week for three weeks now. Those from week 1 are about ready to eat and are nearly 4 inches tall, those from week 2 are growing little green leaves and those from week 3 have germinated and are starting to shoot. Added to a lettuce from the shop (until my homegrown salad leaves are ready) they should not only stretch the bought lettuce a bit further but taste delicious. And think of all those vitamins and goodness straight from pot to plate via the tap and then straight into me within less than two minutes. I've given a pack of dried peas to my friend and to my daughter and their shoots are coming up lovely too.

I've been following with great interest Weezl's blog and the development of a month's diet (one each for carnivores, vegetarians and vegans) on http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/. She and her team are developing and testdriving this month of recipes, including snacks, which comes out at £100 for a family of 4 and that is 80p a day each. They are paying great attention to making sure the calories are right and the fruit and veg and also vitamins and minerals, including trace elements. It is a huge job to sort all that out for each of the three groups of eaters. My hat is well and truly doffed to them. And I am looking forward to testdriving the final version myself. If you go to the forum on http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/ and go almost to the bottom of the page, there is a board called "How much have you saved?" and the thread about these recipes is almost at the top of the list of threads. Definitely worth a read!