A mammoth day!

I was woken at 3am by bright flashes of light - it was like cameras going off outside the window! I then heard the rumblings of thunder and saw that there was a light on downstairs. It was Sophie, who'd brought Monty in. The rain then started and we were treated to an almighty thunderstorm with almost constant lightning and nearby claps of thunder. It rivalled anything Florida had to offer!

We stayed downstairs for a while and watched the spectacle from the front window before going back to bed. It took me a while to go back to sleep as the storm moved off elsewhere.

I was up again at 7am and planning the day as we had a lot to get done! When Sophie woke up we listed all the jobs we needed to do and first thing, Keith and I went to get some diesel for my car and picked up the Sunday papers. We dropped one into Mum and Dad's and checked they were OK after the storm. My Mum had slept through it but Dad had woken up and agreed it was a good one!

Back home Sophie and I made breakfast of poached eggs on English muffins and then it was time to tackle her room once more. She put a second coat of emulsion on the walls while I painted the very tops and then helped put a second coat on the patchy bits. Keith started to assemble her new headboard which looked very complicated! While Sophie and I painted we listened to the Florida playlist on her phone and it certainly made things a lot easier. Outside it was gorgeous, with blue skies, fluffy white clouds and a cooling breeze. Perfect for painting!

Keith brought the headboard up and had almost assembled it. I'd removed her old one and we moved the bed out so he could fix it to the wall. We then stripped her bed of her old bedding and made it up again with all her new pillows, quilt and sheet. It looked fantastic! I even found a replacement valance in my bedding drawer and ironed that for her so it all looked lovely! She was very pleased!

Keith finished the headboard and Sophie arranged all her books and trinkets on it as it has great storage shelves on either side. He then put up two pictures and a shelf for her so it's all starting to come together. We had achieved far more than we thought today!

By now it was almost 3pm so we had a break, although I was still sorting washing out. We're going to put the black curtains from Sophie's room into Mike's bedroom and I had washed them and hung them on the line to dry. Mike had cleaned his room and hoovered it. Wonders will never cease!

We did re-consider dinner today of homemade beef burgers and baps but we decided to go ahead. The recipe for the baps called for an egg but we'd used them all at breakfast so we had to go without! We assembled all the ingredients and I kneaded the dough for ten minutes before adding softened butter. It was a bit icky! I then had to knead it for another ten minutes! Hard work! We then put the dough into a bowl and put it in the airing cupboard to prove while we made the burgers. We used a Mary Berry recipe and mixed the ground beef with salt, parsley, grated onions and a hot sauce. After shaping them into burger-like rounds we put them in the fridge to chill.

By now I was a bit weary so I went and had a bath and peered at the dough which had doubled in size. I took it downstairs and we divided it into eight baps and left them to rise again for an hour. Sophie had cut up potatoes to make wedges so these went into the oven followed by the baps. We'd brushed them with milk and scattered sesame seeds over the top. They looked OK, but not very round!

We took the baps out and left them to cool and then grilled the burgers. Towards the end of the cooking the grill suddenly went off and we think some of the foil had touched the heating element. Keith was not very happy but the burgers were done so we all sat down to eat.

We agreed that the baps tasted lovely but they weren't soft like the ones we buy in the supermarket! However, the burgers were delicious and we'll definitely make them again! After dinner we collapsed on the sofa and did very little. Outside, the thunder and lightning rumbled away again and we'd heard there'd been flash floods in Northampton and that several homes were under water!