A sociable walk!

After a leisurely start to the day, Keith and I took Sophie to the gym and while she was there we popped to Tesco to buy ingredients for tonight's dinner. We have decided to cook Gino D'Acampo's pasta with sausages so after trekking around trying to find authentic Italian sausage (salami?) we settled on two packs of sausage meat! It was also a good job that we'd gone to Homesense yesterday and had bought the orecchiette pasta there, as there was none in Tesco!

Our little haul (including beer) came to about £30, expensive for just one evening's shopping! We collected Sophie and came home to have an early lunch and then I decided to make the most of the dry and sunny weather and washed my car, which was filthy.

We were supposed to have been going out with Mum to Weedon this afternoon but she called to say she had a bad headache so we postponed the trip until next week. I washed Sophie's car which was also filthy and then went inside to relax for a while.

Sophie started with a cold today, poor thing - she has probably caught it off me. Mine is a lot better, thank goodness and although she was reluctant, I dragged her out for a walk around the estate as it was getting dark. Sue and Paul were standing on the green and talking to Lynn who is obviously the new slasher on the block. The bushes and small trees had been pruned to within an inch of their lives even though the council employ a local gardening firm to do it!

We had a very sociable and hilarious chat with Sue and Paul who are bemused about our plans to go vegan in February and the effects we may suffer! Monty refused to walk with us, probably because of the amount of dogs about, but he did come with us on the second circuit, albeit reluctantly!

Back home we relaxed with a drink and watched the relevant episode of Gino D'Acampo's travels around Italy, before making a start on dinner. We prepared the vegetables - tenderstem broccoli, green beans and asparagus and then cooked the sausage meat in our big casserole dish. After cooking the broccoli and green beans we mixed it in with the sausagemeat and cooked the pasta. We let the asparagus seep in hot water and at the end mixed it all together before sprinkling pecorino cheese over the top.

Sophie and I enjoyed the Italian Pinot Grigio and it was a delicious meal. Luckily there's enough left over for Sophie's lunch on Tuesday!