Our Day Out

We had a lovely day out last Wednesday. We had been recruited to help our daughter and another teacher take their two classes of 8 to 9 year olds to Kenilworth Castle. The original keep was built in 1120 and various owners added bits over the next 500 years. It was fascinating to see the changing styles of architecture over the years and also to see which bits were decorative and which were for defence. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, had built a grand house on the site and also a fabulous Great Hall, in hopes of persuading Elizabeth I to marry him. It didn't work! After the Civil War, 1642 - 1651, Several of the walls of the castle were knocked down to prevent the castle ever being used for defence again. We learned lots of history, had lots of fun and managed to come home with the same number of children as we started out with. The coach was awful - a mobile torture unit. It was an old coach that had been refitted to hold 70 small bodies and I do not qualify as a small body...  There was not enough knee room either and suffice to say that none of the adults enjoyed the journey there and back. But my, were we tired that evening!

And then the next day I managed to do something to my back and have been hobbling around ever since. I'm glad I did my back in after the day out and not before because I would have missed a grand day out : )

Mad March

It has been a mad March so far. We had snow and lots of things cancelled and difficulty getting to other things that were not cancelled.  The hens just didn't like all that cold white stuff and I'm not sure I did either. the cats were not overly keen either and spent more time than usual in front of the fire. (So did I.)

Life had got frantic last week and this, with the normal load of meetings and busy-ness and rescheduled things from the snow time on top. We are having the kitchen at church redone from next Monday and so there will be no access to cooking facilities for the coffee shop for four weeks. So I've been cooking soup to get enough for the four weeks in the freezer. I've done that now so I'm on to making cakes. Four weeks' worth of cakes for a coffee shop is a lot of cake to be made! I'm glad I didn't have to bake all of them by myself : )

On Mothers' Day all the females in the family got together for a meal as a kind of not-baby-shower for my daughter whose first baby is due in four weeks. It was a really nice evening together. It was supposed to happen the weekend before but snow stopped play. It was quite fitting for it to happen on Mothers' day, though.

We've had a second lot of snow this month. On Friday afternoon my car thermometer said it was 16.5'C but on Saturday the temperature plummeted and the snow began. On Sunday, we awoke to four inches of snow and the temperature never rose above -3'C. That is a drop of 19.5'C in 48 hours. Brrr! I'm sure you have a similar story to tell.  I wore my hiking boots to church for the second time this month.

On Saturday, when the snow was just starting, we went to my son's for my Mothers' Day treat - brunch (French toast) with the grandchildren. That was lovely! Of course, the bread had been bought seriously yellowstickered by me earlier in the week and my hens laid the eggs. My son did the cooking and had produced some fruit compote to go with the French toast. That was a lovely treat and I enjoyed it far more than the more traditional bunch of flowers. And when I got home, my daughter had been round in my absence and planted up my planter at the front door with pansies. It was a lovely surprise but I don't think that the freshly planted pansies will survive the snow.

Today the work in the church kitchen is beginning and I had a day off from baking and cooking. I celebrated by going for a little walk and not doing anything much useful at all in the house. That is what a day off is for : )