Tomatoes and more

 It was my birthday this weekend and I have had a lovely time. All three of my children have been for a doorstep chat along with most of my grandchildren : ) I have also had emails and phone calls and cards through the door from various friends. My littlest grandson had made some biscuits for me and they taste lovely although they are weird and wonderful shapes : )

I have been preserving tomatoes in oil for the winter. I did not have enough of our own tomatoes to preserve so they will all be eaten fresh or at least as fried green tomatoes. However I found some cherry tomatoes and baby plum tomatoes on offer in Aldi and Lidl and I now have 3 jars of roasted tomatoes preserved in oil sitting in the fridge. I had in mind that they would be a great treat in the winter but I am going to have trouble keeping my hands off them as they taste fantastic.

I read this article (and there is a video too):

https://theelliotthomestead.com/2020/08/preserved-tomatoes-in-olive-oil/

I have had an eventful day today. I was in school this morning and wanted to call at the shops on the way home, making it a multipurpose journey. In my area, they have been campaigning and complaining for many years about the amount of traffic that goes up the main road. So to try and alleviate this, they have blocked off all the side roads which means that all traffic must go up the main road. There is a major T-junction off the main road and they have blocked off all the side roads off this road too. We are going to be using a lot more petrol because there are no short routes left. Think going around three sides of a square to get from A to B every time with long queues everywhere. Honestly, where are their brains and common sense? 

So I got what I wanted from the shop and got back to where I had left the car. This was quite some distance from the shops and it had started raining so I was soaked by the time I reached the car. I turned the car round and headed back up the road which leads to the T-junction. There is a junction with four-way traffic lights just up this road. I waited through seven sets of traffic lights to get to be the first car in the queue for these lights because they were only letting two cars through at a time. At the lights there is a pedestrian crossing with an island in the middle of the road. There are metal fences both on the island and on the pavement which narrows the road lane considerably. Guess where my car broke down......? Eventually several men left their cars to help me push it through the pedestrian crossing gap in the metal railings on to the pavement but by the time we had done that, I had about 400 yards worth of cars in the queue behind me. It is a good job that this didn't happen at rush hour! I was so embarrassed and so grateful for the help given.