A day of wind and rain

The weather turned today and we had the forecast rain and wind, which was unpleasant. It does give us an excuse to stay indoors and keep warm, though!

I had volunteered to make dinner tonight - a beef casserole topped with cheesy potatoes. Sophie helped me prepare the vegetables and I cut up a joint of beef. There was too much for the three of us so I reserved half for a meal later in the week. I browned the meat, added onions and mushrooms and poured in beef stock and Worcestershire sauce - it smelt delicious!

It was lovely to pootle about, and in the afternoon, I caught up with transferring my 2015 blog to a Word document, ready to be made into another book. I transferred July and August, right when we were about to sell the business, and I can't say it brought back happy memories. It's strange to think I now work for the company that bought our business! I am still very proud of the legacy and how the name has carried on.

Sophie spent the afternoon upstairs with Gomez and sorted my nails for me, tidying them up so they were all one length and varnishing them. She suspects that she is allergic to the nail polish applied to her own nails yesterday, which is a real shame as it means she doesn't have to keep painting them every couple of days. One of her fingers was itchy and red, so it didn't bode well.

With the dinner prepared, it was nice to soak in the bath and have a little snooze on the bed. Keith watched Newcastle play Nottingham Forest and we heard a lot of shouting downstairs, despite Newcastle winning 4-3!

At about 5pm, I started to cook the casserole on a low heat on the hob. Sophie sat at the kitchen island and read her book while I found a fascinating page on Facebook with old photographs that had been colourised. Some of them dated back to the late 19th century and were a fantastic glimpse of life in a different age. I couldn't stop looking at them!

Dinner was delicious, but I have to say some of the potato slices were a little underdone! It was a balance of not cooking them too much so they fell apart, but making sure they were still intact to cover the top of the beef!