Dry.

Last night Romas rang and we had a long chat which was lovely. As I guessed he's very busy but we might see him and Laura at or after Christmas.

It's been dry today with the occasional glimpse of the sun and nothing like as warm as yesterday. Peter had to go to work so I've kept myself busy all day. In the morning I was mixing sand and cement and in the afternoon I switched to mixing up the ingredients for a Christmas cake. The concrete work is looking better now that I can get all of the old mortar out. I've completed the area at the side of the house and have made a start on the paving around the conservatory. That included making a whole new edge for one slab on the step which had suffered from constant skateboarding. 

Hopefully my Christmas cake will be successful. The recipe calls for a long slow bake, 1 hour at a low temperature and 2 more hours at an even lower temperature. The rayburn doesn't do low temperatures and the warming oven is not hot enough so instead the door has been slightly open for the first hour and a little further open for the rest of the time. I'm also turning the cake every half an hour. I've departed from tradition and instead of using a round cake tin I'm using a ring mold. Being so rich people don't really want a big slice of cake and the ring shape gives easily cut smaller portions. I ran out of brandy some years ago so I soaked the dried fruit overnight in port. It was that or whiskey. 

This just came up on Facebook, I think it's great.