Baby it's cold outside!

We've had such a mild winter.  All of Europe and westward to Russia and China have had major snow and cold weather.  So I'm aware I shouldn't complain about the cold.  We've only had a few days of cold.  Saturday I don't think it got over 17 degrees.  Hat weather, windy or not!  Time to eat oranges.  I've piled up our oranges in a compote like Hyacinth does on "Keeping Up Appearances".  We love that show.  Also "Downton Abby". We are  reading "Victorian Home" by Judith Flanders as background material as well as any number of Charles Todd mysteries.
We are warm and cozy by the fire, indeed, the wood stove heats the house much better than the heat pump ever did!

Bill uses an old shot glass to soak pen parts, when he's restoring vintage pens and he left it in the kitchen sink.  It was like "Funniest Home Videos" when I turned the water on and a fountain shot up into the air.  Eliyah was fascinated, in fact I played with it too.

Eliyah and I made a dinner for us  and his Mother.  We made burritos with all the trimmings, you know, cheese, sour cream and salsa, rice on the side and tossed salad.  We were all very merry eating.  That boy purely loves to cook.

I had to go to the laundromat because the dasher in the washer broke.  See my home-made laundry soap, a gift from my Daughter and her Partner.  I don't really mind going because all your washing gets done at one time.  I brought them home to dry the whites on the clothes line and the darks in our dryer.  I do love laundry dried outdoors.  It gets so white and smells so good. 

While I was at the laundry I observed the other people, as I always do.  There was a family doing a very lot of laundry.  They had two children, a little girl about 7 or 8 and a boy a little older.  The Mother was very fussy about how the laundry was done and had the little boy hurrying around getting things out of the car and putting them in various machines.  They were using about 10 machines.  And she kept criticising him, and raising her voice to tell him he was no-account and useless though he seemed to me to be trying very hard to please her.  He didn't cry or complain but I was getting pretty upset.  She must have said a dozen times "That's not how I want it"!  Finally the Father took the little boy on an errand.  The little girl wanted to go too but the Mother called her back.  And then she began to treat the little girl the same way, yelling and scowling.  I am sorry for people who don't enjoy their own children.  And it can't be pleasant being mad all the time though I have known the temptation.  I don't recommend giving in to it though!

After the burrito dinner on Thursday, we had baked fresh salmon on Friday, with baked potatoes and blackened baby green beans with garlic, now a new favorite.  Saturday I made a Tatie pot such as mentioned in Susan Albert Wittig's "The Tale of Castle Cottage".  I found plenty of recipes on-line.  I substituted some dry summer sausage for the Black pudding though.  It was pretty good if a little overdone.  We had a salad with it, perfumed with grated lemon peel.  Today we'll have fresh ham, hot biscuits, creamy mashed potatoes and salad as well as some fruit compote.  Rose is coming for dinner.  Tomorrow we'll have some chili made from the leftovers of the burritos and on Valentines Day I'll make a ham and potato and cheese casserole and we'll have chocolate for dessert.  After that I don't know but you can bet some frozen pizza will show up because it was on sale last week when we did our monthly grocery shopping!