Wet.

It's been a grey, wet day. Up until the late afternoon the sea was relatively quiet but then the wind began to pick up and right now (5.00) three surfers are out there trying to catch the increasingly large waves.

After yesterday's failure to rest my back really, really needed resting so today I've refrained from being too active. It looks like things will be moving ahead (hope I'm not jinxing it by saying that) with the porch as it's going to be the window company and their builder doing it. So my first job of the day was to find the best match in my file of ideas and add notes. That way we can hand a copy to the window people and hopefully end up with a lovely porch which will protect us from fierce winds and rain.

That done I had a bit of fun in the kitchen. First I got a pot of lentil soup simmering away on the hob. No recipe, just my favourite ingredients; onions, bacon, tomatoes, lentils, garlic, paprika and pepper followed later by potatoes and white cabbage. It's looking a bit thin so I'll keep it cooking until the potatoes disintegrate. Then I made a batch of biscuits for Peter. I didn't have any peanut butter which is why I added cocoa to the mix. It was so nice to be able to spread out everything I needed over the worktops. If only I could do the same with my paperwork. I'm getting fed up with having to search through piles of papers because my folders are in various boxes and my storage systems for 'stuff'' are inaccessible so everything gets dumped in the same drawer. 

I had planned to write Christmas cards today but instead spent time sourcing and deciding on stuff that's needed for the utility room. The builder will be starting on the utility room on Monday, with the door to the house bolted closed he'll come in through the back door and use the garage for working in. We do have to clear everything we can from the room and Peter began moving tools into our bedroom. He then had another conversation with the builder and the new plan is that we removed the tiles from the two fully tiled walls as well. Ho, hum.

One last kitchen job was to put up some of my favourite pictures. While I try to aim at calm tidiness on the outside of the kitchen I like to have some special pictures on the insides of cupboard doors. The farmhouse kitchen, which was originally a card, has been with me since before we moved to Devon and epitomised my dream of a country life. I was about to say that the horse had never materialised but then there were a few occasions when wandering ponies or horses had to be retrieved from the front yard and taken back to the stables next door. The rest did happen; Granny (for a while), children around a big table, dogs and even a stable door. A couple of other doors are on a LOTR theme for a bit of fantasy dreaming.