Monthly Archives: November 2010

Milk/cream/mascarpone – all based on, erm ……. MILK!

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“It tastes a bit like custard”, I say.

There are some important words there.  ‘Bit’.  ‘Like’.  They mean it’s not exactly the same but it reminds me of custard.  After all, custard is made with beaten egg yolks, caster sugar mixed with milk and a touch of vanilla.

Unlike the cream used in tiramisù.  Instead, this is made with beaten egg yolks (check), caster sugar (check), mixed with mascarpone (a light cream/yoghurt-like cheese made from, erm …… milk) (sort of check) and the beaten egg whites.

OK so one is missing vanilla and is not cooked and the other is missing egg whites.  Overall, almost the same ingredients.  It not only tastes a ‘bit like’ custard but is, in fact, a ‘bit like’ custard!

However, the look on the face says everything.  Apparently, even if it wasn’t said, the cream for tiramisù IS NOT, IN ANY WAY, ‘like’ custard, even if, of course, it is, actually, quite a lot like custard.

Hmmmmph!  Bloody Italians and their ‘our food only tastes like our food and has no similarities’!

Sorry, can you say that again, please?

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These spam comments just get funnier and more weird!  I am posting the whole comment each time and exactly as it appears (without any links, of course):

i choked on amarble when i was like 4 on my bed while lying down. it was not a normal sized marble. it was big.

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im not sure what the exact average shoulder with is but it varies depending on your body frame. Im not sure the names I know there are 3 types of body frames and yes all 3 frames that everyone has 1 of will let your shoulder width get wider if you build muscle.

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Do not delete, please: (link removed, obviously)

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The best way that worked for me was to do chair push ups for the upper body. And the way chair push ups work is you get three chairs, then you make it where the two of them are the ones your going to put each hand on one. Then the last one is going to be the one you put your feet on. and if you want to make your waste get a work out too, then when you do the chair push ups, put one foot over the other and balance your wait on that. by doing that you will balance your wait and have to keep your waist up and work those muscles. Be sure to breath in and out when your doing the chair push ups! And drink lots of water. :)

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Calf Brains – yuck!!

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All you need to know is that the poor could only afford bread. All the other foods are all wonderful things that only the rich could afford. Oh, and crepes are not french, they are Canadian.

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Ain’t the 1st commenter speaking the real truth or what??

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Red and green, take a very small amount of the frosting in a bowl and experiment.

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You’ve gotten a lot of good answers about the sugar/water mix, but I thought that I’d add that I have several pots of nasturtiums near my hummingbird feeder, and the nasturtiums get visited just about as often as the feeder does! Nasturtiums are super easy to grow from seed (you pretty much just poke them into the dirt, water, and watch!) and will generally self-seed, meaning you won’t have to plant them again next year. And they’re edible! Amazing things. Anyway, good luck!

Please note that, although many of them seem to be about food, they are being ‘posted’ as comments to old posts and, so, have no relevance to that post.  Just plain weird!

This is NOT a food blog ……… I promise!

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The men arrived at 5.  By 5.30 they had already left!  I was expecting it to take longer.

It’s brand, spanking new!  It shines.  All stainless steel and glass.  Out of place, in a way but that’s not why I bought it anyway.  It won’t last (the super shiny bit) – or maybe I’ll try to keep it like that.  Well, I will try.

I thought, for a horrible moment, after the man had gone (of course) that there had been some mistake.  The numbers I was expecting were from 1 to 6 – not 150 to 275.  But, no, it’s OK after all.

It’s a little wider than the last one.  But that’s all to the good.  More room and I like room, especially for cooking.  See this is turning into a food blog or cooking blog or something similar.  For I am talking about my brand new cooker.

So, let’s see what makes it better.

I now have proper temperature control on the oven.  I have missed that so much.  Now I can cook things at the correct temperature instead of guessing.

It is both bigger on the hob and in the oven.  A baking tray I had bought some time ago but would never fit in the last oven fits easily in this.  Now I can use all four burners on the hob without having to have half the pans halfway off the cooker.

I do not have to use one of those hand-held electronic ignition lighters.  It lights automatically. The oven also has a light.

It has a grill (as an integral part of the oven), something I kept missing with the old one.

It has some special ventilation fan that keeps the outside much cooler than the inside and, so, won’t ruin everything next to it.  However, it is still gas, which I love and, for me, is the only way to cook both on the hob and in the oven.

It is beautiful.  It makes me want to do things.  But that is for tomorrow.

It also happens to be a Smeg – which, of course, is the last name in kitchen appliances.

Now, all I need is a decent fridge and a proper fitted kitchen and I will be done.  But those things can wait and are not so important as the oven.

I am a very, very happy person.

I expect to have fun with this object.

The Ferrari Potato Masher

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Fuschia.

Pronounced ‘fuskia’, here, apparently.

My kitchen has a white floor, an orange wall, white cupboards and an old wooden table which, in the past, was covered with blue formica.

But, I am very excited for now I will add fuschia to it.

At least I will never lose it.

Last weekend, making Shepherd’s Pie, after making the meat bit, I boiled up some potatoes.  I needed to mash them.  I realised, digging around in the drawer, that I had not taken the potato masher but had left it for V.  I’m not sure why, really.  Sometimes I kick myself for leaving too much stuff with him and not putting up a better fight.  Ah well.  What’s done is done.

But, here I am, needing to mash potatoes and no potato masher.  I used a fork.  I suppose I could have used the food processor but it always ends up much more like purée, here.  Too sloppy and not enough solidity and I like my mash to be well done but firm.  It was OK.  the fork did the job and I was pleased with the result whilst being annoyed that I hadn’t bought one before now.

So, the next trip to the supermarket and I looked for one.  But they don’t have it.  They had things that you squeeze but they just aren’t right.  I need to mash my potatoes in the pan, with a bit of butter and a little milk and, if I’m doing roast beef, a little horseradish sauce.

So, A (a colleague at work) and I were talking and she mentioned that she and another colleague were going to some shop to look for stuff for another colleague’s birthday.  And I remembered my need for a potato masher.  I asked if she could look for one, explaining very carefully how it looked and saying that nothing else would do (I can be a little hard-headed about certain things, I suppose).

And today she brought it in.  It cost €16 Euro, which is a lot but it is definitely a Ferarri of Potato Mashing implements and not a Vespa!.

It has the ‘mashing plate’ – the one with the holes in but this is on a spring.  Below that is what looks like the element in a kettle.  I guess the ‘element’ is to keep it flat to the base of the pan.  The spring is held within the very sturdy fuschi-pink handle.  A was very apologetic about the colour, explaining that it was the only one they had.  I said it would go great in the kitchen, explaining that I would never lose it being so bright and clashing so perfectly with all the other colours in the kitchen.

So, this weekend, to go with the Tiramisù, I have decided to do Swiss Steak with mashed potatoes and leeks.  This is a bit of a risk since it is meat in the form of, well, meat!  However, the meat is well hidden by the sauce which is thick and very tasty and because it is cooked so long, the meat just falls apart.  I’m hoping that I can get away with this (with F) and I think I might be able to.  I’ve got to try.

But I am very excited with the prospect of being able to use my super new Potato Masher.  It’s the little things that please me.

p.s. I’m a bit worried this blog is turning into a ‘food blog’, for which I am certainly NOT qualified!

Saturday, we’re having Tiramisù!

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I am, of course, expecting something different.

A few days ago, in the hunt for eggs for F, I had, following instructions from the Internet and then from some people who quite obviously lived in that area and told me with a lot of certainty where I should go, veered off track from my normal way home and, in the process, found myself on a real ‘track’, across fields, eventually leading to a farm with a no-entry sign, which I promptly ignored, to park my car and get out and, because I could see no other living being – human or otherwise, traipsed all over the farm and then onto another road where, after some time I found some people who had just driven up who told me that I should go somewhere else.

I gave up at that point and went back to the car and headed home.

Since we are talking Italians and directions and, given that there is so little in the way of sign posts (well, that’s not actually true – there are a million and one sign posts, normally pointing to things you really don’t want or, where there are ones pointing the way to somewhere you want to go, they are lost amongst the irrelevant sign posts or, worse, pointing ambiguously – so you never know you are on the right road until you see another sign post that you want (and since sometimes the sign posting just disappears for a bit, you can never be sure either way)), I asked Pietro (see his blog link at the side) if he would kindly phone this place that I couldn’t find and get the directions from them.

I was bloody determined.

You may wonder why I was travelling all over the Italian countryside for eggs.  After all, I can buy eggs from the supermarket that is about two seconds walk from my house.  Ah yes but, in line with some of the weird and wonderful things to do with F, it seems that not all eggs are, in fact, quite good enough.  It seems that unless you know the hens lineage, one never really knows what one is getting.  OK so I exaggerate just a little.  However, he never eats eggs unless he is at his parent’s home.  This is because, apparently, supermarket eggs are simply not fresh enough and he doesn’t trust them.  So, being the good boyfriend that I am (and, secretly, between you and I, because he has promised me a home-made Tiramisù – but only when he can get fresh, almost plopped-in-your-hand-from-the-hen’s-bottom eggs) I am trying to find somewhere I can buy them directly.  As I work outside the city and, so, travel everyday through kind of green bits (with things like farms and trees and stuff), I thought that I must be able to find somewhere on my way home.

I had visions.  I would find some little farm which had chickens walking about the farmyard with some farmer’s wife responsible for collecting said eggs.  She would be short and round with rosy cheeks and always be wearing an apron over her rather old-fashioned small-flowery dress, with slightly unkempt hair but kindly and I would ask for eggs and she would go the some outhouse where she had some eggs that were still dirty, since they don’t wash them and she would pick some for me and they would still be warm.

I explain to Pietro, jokingly, that, ideally, the eggs would still have hen’s feathers stuck to them.

He asked me why I hadn’t spoken to him before.  He usually does this.  He phones.  They tell him that they stopped selling fresh eggs some time ago.  Hmmm.  But then he explained that there was this place, just outside the town I work and, sort of, on my way home.

I go.

I drive up the lane but, as I approach, instead of a farm yard I see a car park.  The car park is full of cars.  And there are supermarket trolleys abandoned over the car park.  And there are lots of people.

In fact it was, what we would describe as a farm shop.  One of the large farm shops that you also get in the UK.  They sell everything and, were it not for the slightly less salubrious surroundings are, in fact, like a supermarket!

However, F is not with me.  I won’t tell him.  If he thinks, like I did, of a rosy-cheeked, slightly scruffy and old-fashioned farmer’s wife, selling freshly collected eggs from her kitchen, then why would I spoil that image?  Actually, he probably doesn’t have that image.  It was my image.  I still, sometimes, think of Italy as if it was the UK when I was a kid.  And when it isn’t, I feel slightly let-down, wanting it to be true to reinforce my idea that Italy has not pandered to this desire to be modern (except with it’s furniture and fashion and cars, of course).  I want everywhere to be a bit like rural Herefordshire – 20 years ago!

I enter.  The first place is full of veg.  I see signs on the wall for the different sorts of fruit.  I see one for eggs.  I wander over, looking at all the boxes of veg of various types on the way.  I get under the sign and look around.  I don’t see eggs.  What I do see, of course, are grapes.  I had mistaken ‘uva’ for ‘uova’.  It’s a bloody ‘o’ is all.  I feel stupid but, at least, I didn’t speak to anyone and, so, have ‘got away with it’ (or I would have if I hadn’t mentioned it here).

There’re no eggs in this section of the warehouse.  I go, past the tills, to the next section.  Here there is wine, cakes, biscuits, etc.  I see no eggs.  I wander down to the end where there are jams and stuff.  I see an assistant who is loading shelves.  I ask for uova.  She tells me they are held at the till.  I see the tills for this section of the warehouse.  They are on a semi-circular desk next to the door.  I go over.  I stand there, proffering my wallet until the slightly-harassed-looking assistant asks what I want.  I say I would like a dozen eggs.  She gives me two egg-boxes of eggs.  They look, well, much like eggs you could find in a supermarket.  Will he believe that I didn’t buy them at a supermarket, I wonder?

When I get home, I look at them.  On one of the eggs there is, indeed, one of those small wispy hen’s feathers stuck to it.  I am beside myself with joy.

When F gets back to my house, I show him the eggs and point out the hen’s feather.

Saturday, we are having Tiramisù :-D

Rude comments …. but, maybe, a hidden agenda?

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Why have you taken out my post? It was very useful information and i promise atleast one person found it helpful unlike the rest of the comments on this web site. I’ll post it again.

Whoops, it seems like someone isn’t happy with me treating their comment as spam.  But, really, there’s no need to be rude about my other commentators, is there?

However, the clue, I think comes in the next bit:

Fed up with getting low amounts of useless visitors to your website? Well i wish to tell you about a new underground tactic which makes me personally $900 each day on 100% AUTOPILOT. I really could be here all day and going into detail but why dont you just check their site out? There is really a excellent video that explains everything. So if your serious about making effortless cash this is the website for you.

I have removed the link, obviously.

But it seems it must be a very powerful person after all! The comment being made by one Shawna Ellenbogen. Not a name you instantly recognise? Me neither. However, their own blog is given as yahoo.com! So, Shawna owns Yahoo! Wow! Don’t know why she would be needing to make $900 dollars a day as I’m sure, as the owner of Yahoo, she should be making that in a single minute!

Ah, well, I wouldn’t care if she was the Queen of England (sorry Your Majesty *doffs cap and bows*), there’s simply no need to be rude to my other commentators – so into spam it goes ………..

It’s better to like handsome men than be a 74-year-old blithering idiot

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There.

My response to the only leader within Europe who features regularly in British newspapers – but not for much except his dalliances with under-age females; insults to other religions, people, countries, etc.; clowny behaviour at important international events and other such things.

He’s very rich; owns half the press and television here, in Italy and, what he doesn’t own, controls by being Prime Minister; wants to change the law to make it illegal to eavesdrop on conversations (because that’s how he was ‘found out’ over all the recent stuff); wants the Internet controlled (because people on the Internet don’t always agree with him) and is trying to curtail the powers of the Magistrates because they are, unfortunately, not ‘aligned’ with his wishes (they would like to put him in the clink, probably).

Buzz Lightyear (aka Silvio Berlusconi) has been at it again. Rescuing some illegal immigrant from prison (although she was very pretty ……. and young …….. ) because he thought the whole thing was ‘wrong’. Not because he had given her 7K for, apparently, no real reason.

Of course, his comment “It is better to like beautiful girls than be gay.” is the type of comment one could expect from him.

He is old enough to be a Grandfather (I’m not actually sure if he isn’t!) and should have been pensioned off before now. I can only be grateful that I’m not like him (although I would like some of his money, of course)!

Noble souls and function challenging

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I don’t really understand why it is that a lot of spam comments are posted against the post Ristorante Leon D’Oro but here is one that came this morning and made me smile:

Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.

And another one, for a different post. I’m not entirely sure what it’s supposed to mean but I like it anyway:

Formula for achievement: Rise early, function challenging, strike oil.

How old are you?; Inside a Lava Lamp; Cooking and DIY; Rufus; Oh, yes, and I win the lottery

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Miserable bloody weather that it was ….. and still is.

We get the day off on the 1st November. Some catholic thing about the day of the dead. To me, it’s a holiday. And, at a really stupid time of year! I mean, October/November? I ask you, why?

And so, from Saturday night, it rained. And rained. And rained. And rained. Well, you get the idea. It was grim with a capital ‘G’. After today it will be fine …….. until Saturday, when it’s forecast to …..piss down with rain!

Still, it meant, more or less, a weekend at home. We had been offered a trip to the Turin area and lunch at some restaurant. F didn’t really want to go. He doesn’t like the bad weather either, really. Anyway, the trip was to be Sunday when the forecast said it would rain all day (which it did, more or less), so F cancelled our ‘booking’. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Friday.

A (his Milanese friend who lives in London) called. We were going to go for for an aperitivo at Polpetta (see link at side). He was just waiting for her to call when she was on her way. He phones/texts me about 9 to say they are on their way and would pick me up (since I live 2 seconds from Polpetta). On our walk there it is decided that we shall skip the aperitivo and go straight for the Pizza at Liù, which is just across the road from Polpetta.

Whilst we are eating, I get a call from M. M is F’s colleague and the second one I ever met. She speaks English at about the same level as I did before I moved here – if not worse. She is sweet and loveable and we get on really well, in spite of the language which, after a few beers, is not a barrier. She drinks like a fish (or like a cow, as F would say). Before I answer, I say to F that it is strange, her calling me (they are almost best friends, after all). I answer.

“How old are you?”, she asks in a clearly drunken stupor. There is someone (I guess L, their other friend) in the background shouting stuff at her. I know what she means. “I’m very well, thanks”, I reply. She talks some more. I understand nothing. I pass the phone to F.

It seems they are at some bar and want us to join them. The husbands/partners are watching football. M rang me rather than F because she knows F too well and knew he might not answer the phone :-). C is there too as her husband, Ma, who is English, is with the men watching the football.

After our meal we walk up to the Atomic Bar. They are waiting outside. F had told me, on the way there, that when he and S got together, they used to go there a lot. There are a lot of English people that go there. I cannot beat the description on the link – ‘Like hanging out inside a lava lamp”! We have a couple of beers. Ma joins us after the football. The music is too loud and I cannot hear people well, who, in any event, are all talking in Italian. I stand no chance. Plus, I am tired. We leave sometime after midnight, just after it starts to liven up a bit. Rather than English, I would say it is frequented by a lot of students. I am old enough to be their grandfather – not that I care but the loud music and stuff, although good, doesn’t fit well with how tired I am. I am glad to go.

Saturday.

The man came to put the cupboards up in the bathroom. These were the cupboards I bought from IKEA a few weeks ago. I assembled the cupboards but wasn’t quite confident to put them up – although, before I had assembled them I was so confident in my head. I mean, how difficult could it possibly be?

Well, apparently, quite difficult. As I watched him heave them up and there being a lot of cazzoing, I thought that, actually, I had been somewhat crazy to even imagine that I could have done this myself …… on my own! And he even had all the right tools! He looked at my light but couldn’t fix it (so I called the electrician – who may be there on Friday) and looked at my shutters in the bedroom (one of them wouldn’t close) and did fix that, sort of. But the important thing is that it now closes and (almost) opens.

Then, as I had arranged with F, we went to buy my new cooker. I had gone two weeks previously and found the one that I quite liked. It’s all gas, which is my preference but wider and slightly deeper than the current one but, more importantly than anything else, does not just have High, Low and Off but rather gas marks! I can’t wait. I shall be able to cook things properly with much less guessing. Anyway, Saturday was the last day for the offer for free delivery and free fitting which, with gas, is a must. Not really a DIY thing at all, especially for me! Also, the nice thing was that they will deliver on Friday! So I can plan a meal.

Saturday night we went to A’s place. F2 was there too although they are still not really ‘together’. F talks so much. Afterwards I said that he didn’t have to do so much talking. He replied that if he didn’t there would be nobody talking. I think this is not true but I think it is also when he is a bit nervous. The food was great, as usual. It started to rain just after we got there. And almost hasn’t stopped since. We left quite early as I was still tired.

Sunday.

The clocks went back. It means an extra hour in bed. Well, it would mean an extra hour – unless you have small children or dogs. I have dogs. The dogs didn’t put their clocks back. Plus Rufus is ill. I know this will mean a diarrhea mess in the kitchen, even if we do get up quite early. He can’t help it, of course. It does mean exactly that. We take them for a walk after I clean up. It is only spitting but, even so, we bypass the dog walking area – it is too wet and muddy for that. F didn’t have a good night. I did – it just wasn’t long enough.

He wants me to do Crumble again. This time I will do apple and blackberry. He also wants Shepherd’s Pie (as he calls it for, really, it should be Cottage Pie). He also wants carrots the way that A did them last night. I also want to try the Roasted Tomato Soup that I made a few weeks ago.

He goes home and I go shopping. They don’t have fresh Thyme, so I get dried. I forget to get bread (which I realise when it is too late). I get everything else I need. The supermarket (Carrefour in Via Modena) closes just as I am getting the last couple of things – which explains why it is so quiet in there – but this makes it a million times better than going to Esselunga, where I would have had to fight to get round and then queue up for about half an hour at the tills. I even manage to get a bus as I get to Via Castel Morrone! I am very happy.

I start the cooking when I get back. I think the tomato soup will be too much, so one tomato is omitted. I put too much black pepper on them (as I find out later). The Apple And Blackberry Crumble is both easy and will be fine, even if I don’t know how to get cooking apples, so it may be a little too sweet. The Shepherd’s Pie will be huge. I have just the perfect glass dish for it.

I am doing the Blackberry and Apple Crumble, the soup has been done and the Shepherd’s Pie is in the oven when there is the sound of a small explosion and steam comes from the cooker! Shit, I think to myself. I open the door of the oven. There is a lot of steam and hissing and the flames of the gas fire are yellow and bigger than they should be. It takes me a moment or two to realise that the glass was obviously not oven-proof as I had thought and has split. Shepherd’s Pie filling is all over the bottom of the oven. I turn the oven off and carefully lift out the remains of the glass dish. I put it on the side and the gravy starts dribbling nicely down the ‘curtain’ and onto the floor. Hmmmph! I think about it for a moment. Luckily, the glass has cracked (and come off) only on two of the corners. I can rescue most of it. Of course, to be certain I don’t have any glass in the part I am going to rescue, I need to leave quite a lot behind. However, there will be enough for the two of us for a couple of days, even now. I try to clean a very hot oven. Not very well but enough (I hope) to allow me to continue. Ah, well, the cooker goes away on Friday so who cares?

I have moved my computer into the kitchen, on to the kitchen table, since I need the internet to see the recipes. It works much better than me having to traipse from the kitchen to the lounge and trying to remember the next couple of steps. Also, I can listen to music or watch a film or something whilst I am cooking.

The plan is to eat early. I feel like I have been on my feet all day by the time F arrives at about 7.30. We sit down at 8. The meal is great apart from, slightly too much black pepper in the soup. The Shepherd’s Pie is the best I have ever done. The Apple and Blackberry Crumble is fantastic with whipped cream. I am very pleased. So is F. I decide I’m going to try Swiss Steak (a winter favourite of mine) and hope that he will eat the meat. I think I may try it at the weekend with my new cooker.

We play cards a bit, watch some TV, I take the dogs out (in the rain – did I mention that it rained almost ALL weekend?) and we go to sleep.

Monday (we are on holiday).

I am woken by, what seems to be, Rufus’ last breath. He has, what can best be described as, a very bad cold. It seems he is struggling to breathe. It wakes me up. It is 2.30 a.m. The long drawing of breath so loud as to wake me in the first place. I get up to check he’s OK. He’s OK but this is the second time in the last few days that this has happened. I worry that it’s not just a cold. I think that, just now, there seems to be something wrong nearly every week. He is very, very thin at his back end. When you rub his back you can feel every bone as if they are speed humps in the road. I decide to get up and have a drink. I go to the kitchen where, now, the computer is. I clean up the mess from Rufus. I have a drink and look at the computer. I chat with someone who is online through Facebook. They tell me to go back to bed. I do. I awake again just before 9. It is still raining.

F gets up to take the dogs out on a short walk. Short because it is still raining. Meanwhile, I clean up the mess from Rufus. I wonder when this will end. F has suggested that we won’t go to Austria for Christmas and New Year whilst Rufus is like this. I mean, whilst Rufus is alive. F says that he hopes he isn’t here when Rufus dies. I don’t tell him that, in all probability, it will be my choice and that I will take him to the vet, so he won’t see it anyway. I know that he won’t come. That’s OK. I worry that, just a little, I feel that I almost ‘want’ Rufus to go or get so bad that he has to go – just so I can go to Austria for Christmas. It makes me feel very guilty. But then, last night (well at 2.30 a.m.), I think that, anyway, it won’t be long.

However, I remember feeling just as guilty before, with Ben, while we were waiting for him to go before we came to Italy. That made me feel guilty too. In the end, I did it at the right time and I know I will do the same again. I won’t do it just to be away for Christmas – it doesn’t stop me feeling guilty though.

F goes home after breakfast. I sit in the kitchen, in front of the computer for a bit. Then I decide to clean the oven. It makes me feel much better. At least, when they take it away on Friday, it won’t be so bad and they won’t think me such a scumbag for having a dirty cooker! Then I sit at the computer a bit as some washing is doing. Then I decide to put up the new coat hanger I bought at the same time as I bought the table and which has been sitting in the hallway …… waiting for me to put it up. I drill the holes to the right length, put in the rawl plugs and put it up. I am very pleased although I know that I will be unable to open the front door fully. I think that, maybe, this will be a problem for the delivery of the cooker but then, I think, I can always take the coat hanger off, if I really need to. I write some posts but don’t finish them. As usual.

F comes over and we have a second round of soup, Shepherd’s Pie and Apple and Blackberry Crumble. then we watch Cinema Paradisio. I have seen it for about 15 years. The last time was when V & I were doing Italian at night school and the teacher lent it to us. I knew I loved it but couldn’t remember it at all. It’s lovely but we have to have a break at 10.30 so I can take the dogs out. We get to bed just before midnight. I will be tired tomorrow, I think. F says that I need to sleep. It’s true. I have two English lessons after work as well tomorrow night. I sleep.

Tuesday.

The clocks going back have made no difference to the fact that is is pitch black when the alarm goes off at 6.40! Or maybe it’s because it’s still bloody raining! OK, so not raining so much, but, obviously, it’s also dark because of the black clouds. Rufus has not made a mess. Well, that’s one good thing. I end up being late for work. I forgot to tell you that I did win the Superenalotto….everntually. I got three numbers on Saturday night. That’s €16.24. This morning, I go to the tobacconist below my house and play again (even if I promised that I would stop when the jackpot was won, which it was on Saturday – exactly when I won €16.24 instead of €177,000,000). Mau is there as usual. He’s promising to ring me about English lessons too. He needs it for the TOEFL test.

I get to work. I must leave home earlier than I do at the moment. I do the lesson log for M-T, my student for tonight. I am annoyed at myself for not having done it last week but it doesn’t really matter.

As I write this, it is still raining. It is supposed to stop in a couple of hours. I will not finish teaching before 8.30 tonight. Maybe, I think, I will take the whole day off on Friday, when the cooker is delivered. Why not?

I am tired.