and the first day of spring for Australia, so my son tells me, and good weather, too
However, for us today, it was cold and grey and dull, and then the rain began just as we were going to our harvest festival lunch; the rain stayed with us for the remainder of the day. Yesterday, was one of those beautiful English late summer days, warmly hot, with a bright sun which lasted well into late afternoon. Not quite Indian summer weather yet, for that happens in October but, well then, we're almost into October already and businesses are beginning to urge us forward to the Christmas season, and I for one am simply not ready for that yet.
Now my dear daughter, who's getting ready to return to work after her maternity leave, is already planning to do her gift shopping before she does; she gets so particularly busy in December, which leaves her with practically no time for festive shopping. And now she has two little boys, she and my son-in-law, will have their work cut-out trying to juggle all the different strands of their lives, and they will be stretched as never before.
I shall wait until after our property renovation is complete before attempting to get serious about my festivity plannings, particularly since on Friday evening I gave myself another project to undertake and which has to be utterly finished by next Friday evening. What am I doing, I hear you chorus?
Well, let me tell you!! I'm giving a coffee morning for the Macmillan Cancer Support Charity, which has its yearly "World's Biggest Coffee Morning" event in September, and my own event will be held next Saturday, 29th September, in our village hall in, Oxfordshire. I've not held a fund raising event for many years and I have to admit to great feelings of excitement and panic at the prospect of all the work involved plus the utter dread of failing to encourage enough guests to attend!
Not to mention all the cooking that will need to be carried out by Friday afternoon, like sponge cakes and cupcakes, meringues and fruit tarts, cookies, Brownies, scones perhaps, for strawberry jam and cream, and a banana cake, a carrot cake and perhaps a fruit cake with a glazed fruit topping. We shall have to see what I finally decide to conjure up?
Unfortunately, neither my boy Lewis Hamilton nor Jenson Button managed to win today's GP in Singapore but well done to Vettel for his win, and happy news for his team and supporters. There surely can't be many more Grand Prix events for this year, which will be a great blow to my dear SO, but next March will soon come around again for the 2013 season.
Our harvest festival lunch was a very jolly affair, with lots of happy chatting folk and many good dishes of food to consume. Actually, probably just a little too much food, if I'm going to be honest of which I'm just as guilty as our other providers; don't we always produce enough to feed an army, and knowingly providing too much because we love to feed our friends and neighbours, and ourselves?
I really do love feeding people and, if there are leftovers, I'm perfectly happy to eat them up for another meal time, with the saved preparation time being allocated to a project, or an outing with the dogs or a good read.
We've all watched Downton this evening. Friday evening gave us the last episode of Parade's End, of Tom Stoppard's brilliant adaptation of Ford Maddox Ford's Great War tetrology and on Thursday evening we watched the third and last episode of the Bletchley Park murder mystery. My daughter has been telling me of the Great Bake-Off cooking programme and of its participants vying with each other to bake the most gorgeous choice of baked cakes and pastries, bread and buns. And apparently
the programme has garnered an enormous viewing capacity, which just goes to show how many of us are seduced by a cream bun or gateau, fruit tart or a freshly baked loaf of bread.
Isn't food glorious and hopefully my home made cakes for my coffee morning will be equally seductive in their power to attract many willing visitors to my "do" next Saturday. Wish me luck?
On Friday I went with my daughter and my two adorable grandsons to Knew Gardens in Richmond, Surrey, and we had a glorious outing, with coffee and lunch, and time to be with my eldest grandson as he happily walked and climbed on the wooden climbing frames and rope walks, and scrambled thru' a tunnel and slid down the grassy slopes, which even had me almost falling over and down!
My youngest grandson was teething and very miserable, which was a new thing for him, for his first two teeth came through with no discomfort at all luckily, but he perked up after lunch and all was well again.
Tomorrow morning I'm off to get my posters laminated, my invitations written and my lists of things to do and remember and organise. Then I'm off to my book club meeting before supper and goodness knows whether I shall get down to that pile of ironing awaiting my attention. And the poor dogs only had garden walks today so they will be very keen for me to exercise them first thing tomorrow morning, which reminds me, I should stop writing right now and retire from the lists for today.
Enough is enough, wouldn't you agree??
Daisy x
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