Chinese cock-up!

After dropping Sophie at work this morning, we returned home to a breakfast of bacon and tomatoes, mopped up with bread...my favourite!

The weather has been dull today but stayed dry so after writing some of my novel, I went out into the garden to get some fresh air and a bit of exercise. I had a plant in a wheelbarrow that I had sadly neglected over the summer and as the wheelbarrow didn't have any holes for drainage, the water had become stagnated and the plant had died. I really have not looked after my garden this year...

I removed the plant and then tried to get the soil out but it was really heavy so I managed to transfer the dirt into different pots. Perhaps, once they've dried out a bit I can plant some winter pansies in them.

I saw a little fluttering on the ground and realised our resident robin was watching me intently! He was a beautiful little thing with a flaming red breast and dark, very alert eyes. He stayed with me the whole time I was emptying the wheelbarrow and hopped about finding little worms in the soil. After this chore, I raked up all the leaves that were on the lawn and half-filled our wheelie bin with them. It felt great to be outside after my week of being confined indoors!

Mike and Keith went out in the afternoon so I had a lovely bath and binge-watched Motherland which I'm really enjoying. At 6pm we drove into the village to order a take-away from the van and I met Lisa who was also queuing up to order. We had a chat while we waited...and waited. We had to go and pick Mike up at 6.15pm so in the end we had to go and I said I would call from the car. We sped off and I managed to swap places with Keith in Brixworth and I phoned our order through (eventually...the phone was engaged a lot!).

Sophie had already called to say she was finished so we rushed to get her and then drove back to the village to collect our order. There was another queue of people and our food wasn't ready but I said to Keith that we needed to check it when we picked it up as I had a feeling it would be wrong...

Eventually our name was called and we collected our food. I asked the children to have a look at the boxes in the car but Keith just wanted to get home as by now it was well past 7pm. When I took the food out of the bags and put it in the oven for a little while to keep warm we noticed that our sweet and sour sauce had morphed into a curry sauce and we were a rice short.

We had a drink and watched some of Strictly and then had our dinner, but I discovered that we were two rices short which was extremely annoying. Sophie and I shared a chilli salt chicken which was really salty tonight so I think we'll go elsewhere the next time we decide to have a take-away. It's a real shame as normally the food is very good, but we've noticed a place in Brixworth that might do instead.

After our meal we settled down to watch Cast Away, the whole way through, something I've never done before!