A busy week

It's been a busy week! A slight crisis at work has meant I've done more hours than usual, at all times of the day, including staying overnight. I also went on a surprise visit to my family at the weekend. All this would have been fine, but I've had a dreadful cold too, and been completely worn out. I've been burning tea tree oil in an attempt to avoid giving it to guests. 

We had two guests last night, and we had curry, baked potatoes, and home made bread. I also made a version of another Entertaining with Stork recipe - a ginger and cherry loaf, with banana instead of the ginger. It was beautiful straight out of the oven with hot custard, and tasted very nice cold this morning too.

In a break from the phd this morning I made another batch of the face scrub. I've enjoyed using this for the past couple of weeks, it feels nice and smells gorgeous. It's quite abrasive the first day or two, then softens a bit as the days go on. This little jar holds enough for about a week, so it's a scrub for a couple of days, then a paste for 5 or 6 days, then the new batch starts as a scrub again. It works well. 

Something unusual happened this morning - a man knocked on the door and asked if we'd like to buy some fresh fish. I vaguely remember there being a fish man when I was little (although I don't think we ever bought anything). I don't even eat fish, but we decided to have some for Peter. We had to change our minds slightly when we discovered the price... But we got 5 pieces (about a pound) of oak smoked kippers for £8. Probably not a bargain, but apparently it was very nice, and it'll do a few meals. 

I've said before that we spend lots of time watching the birds out of the kitchen window. The other day we were having a cuppa and this squirrel turned up.

He stayed for ages, snuffling up all the seeds on the bird table, and ignoring a wood pigeon that was trying to intimidate him. I know some people try to keep squirrels off their bird food, but we don't - and isn't he cute?