Wet.

A grey morning was brightened up by the sound of the bell ringers calling the faithful to worship. The bells were silent last week, a shortage of ringers perhaps? The rain crept in during the afternoon, a light drizzle at first which soon turned into heavy rain.

Today I gave myself a metaphorical kick up the rear end so to speak over my dissatisfaction with my lack of 'getting things done'. I should be grateful that the house and garden are now done to our requirements and there are no more outstanding jobs, apart from a couple that we're waiting for the handyman to do. No need to feel cold or to race outside to prevent flooding, what a relief and no bosses to torment us. The hunt for the next house goes slowly but we expected that. The only thing I need to get to grips with is loosing the weight I gained from a few too many 'rewards' which I awarded myself after all the manual work of moving and then decorating.

This afternoon I decided to make a lemon drizzle cake. It's been a long time since I made one and although I've written down Mary Berry's drizzle I couldn't remember which cake recipe I used. Nothing in my recipe books so I turned to my file of recipes. There I was tempted by this recipe for a magic lemon cake. I had all the ingredients so I thought I'd give it a go. Undaunted by not having a 20x20 cake tin (mine are all silicone) I compromised by using a loaf tin for half the mixture and cup cake cases for the rest. I wasn't sure how much the mixture would rise so I left more room than I needed though already I could see it was going to be more like a soufflé with custard. It turned out to be very tasty but more of a pudding than a cake. It was a bit like a lemony egg custard tart with a light sponge on top instead of pastry underneath and Peter said it was delicious.

Although I've been learning the guitar for well over a year and can quite confidently read and play simple tunes it was only yesterday that I suddenly realised that the guitar plays an octave lower than the written notes. Up till now the tunes have either been very familiar or simple enough for me to sing straight from the page but yesterday I had moved on a page and played the tune on the piano to give me an idea of what I should be playing on the guitar. I wondered if I had made some monumental mistake but a quick glance on line showed that it was the accepted way to read the music. I messaged Romas wondering what would happen if a different instrument was playing along with the guitar and he's told me that it almost never happens. It's going to be a long time before I need to think about playing with another musician anyway.