There was a time when hearing the pounding rain would have had me worrying about our drive being washed away or the stream at the back of the house rising and flooding the ground floor. But today we were warm and cosy in our home and could simply enjoy watching the wild waves.
(Photos from FB.) With the full moon causing a 5.4m high tide adding to the storm powered waves the waves came over the sea defences sending water and stones down towards the railway station. No point in waiting for the council to come and clear the stones so instead local residents went out and spent the morning clearing the road making it safe for cars to get through.
Meanwhile I was at home having a domestic day in the kitchen doing some Christmas prep. The pestle and mortar made a rare appearance as I ground up cloves to add to the spiced red cabbage. (I know I could use ready ground or allspice but I had neither.) Some of the cabbage will be part of our Christmas dinner and the rest will do for later. 
Then came the truffles. It was good that I'd made and frozen the centres a while back as all I had to do today was dip them in melted chocolate and add decorations. I did try and temper the chocolate but once again that didn't work. I don't know why I bother.
I should have thought to put the truffles on baking parchment to set rather than on plates as that would have saved more washing up. To make things easier the next time I make truffles I've written myself a reminder on the recipe.
And now to the mystery and subsequent problems.
In the afternoon I looked through the front door and saw a parcel on the shelf in the porch. Great! my replacement boots had arrived.
But how had they got inside the porch? There was no way the box would have fitted through our standard sized letter box. I tried the door but the handle was up and the door locked. Maybe Pete had opened the door for the postman and somehow I'd failed to notice? But no, that wasn't the case. We tried the door again in case I had been mistaken but nope. Only then did it dawn on us that the lever which locks the sliding door has a counterpart on the outside. How could neither of us have noticed that before? While there is very little crime around here we would like to be able to have the sliding door locked to keep our post secure especially if we were to go away for any length of time.
The door also has a key but I have no memory of the builder giving me one. I had a look at the keys hanging on hooks in the utility room and hooray! there was a key with a label saying 'porch' and some details on how to lift the sliding door off the track. So the builder had given me the key. But when we tried that key it obviously wasn't the right key. In fact it looked more like our front door key. We tried to take the front door key (which we use to lock the door as I knew that having a door that locked automatically would be asking for trouble) out of the lock to compare it but there was no way either of us could get the key out. So fine if we just want to use the key to lock the door from the inside but a major problem if we ever wanted to leave by the front door and lock it from the outside. (We use the other house doors normally.) As to the porch, I've tried all the keys I can find but so far no luck in locating the correct key. So another problem to be solved.
And as to the boots? Far too big, I obviously could have done with the half size between which of course they don't make. A refund it will have to be.
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