I still haven’t made that rhubarb chutney, but I have made banana and walnut loaf today and a sausage casserole. And Tim made Rogan Josh. I was going to make a soufflé for lunch, but ran out of time. That is, Tim ran out of gin, so I volunteered to venture out to the local supermarket, which I hadn’t visited for nearly six weeks. I feel more confident about it now that they are strictly limiting the people going in. There is also a one-way system in there, but this is a bit of a challenge to the good people of Yagnub and a certain amount of dodging is required. Anyway, I bought all I wanted (and no more) except the spray LT uses to clean the shower, and I’ve ordered that from Amazon instead.

But the extra queueing, which I knew about but hadn’t taken into account, meant that it was nearly 1 o’clock by the time I got home and I wasn’t particularly inclined to start on a soufflé then, so we had scrambled eggs instead.

Tomorrow, I really will cook that chutney. Have I ever mentioned the excellent courgette chutney that I discovered a couple of years ago? If not, I’ll let you have the recipe. Which has been adapted from the rather vague one given in the cookbook and mine is better anyway.

What I’m wondering is, whether there’s any goodness left in the vegetables or fruit once they’ve been preserved in vinegar or sugar? Does anyone know? Jam, chutney, pickles and so on – we had cheese and oatcakes yesterday, with an array of pickles which we liked to think of as vegetables, but we don’t know if they are, really, once they’re boiled in vinegar. They do taste good, though, and it means the home grown veggies are never wasted, so there has to be a positive side to it.

I didn’t let the chickens out today because it was cold and raining hard. Then I went down to feed the barn cats at about 7 o’clock and dropped in on the chooks to give them a treat of mealworms. But, turning round from talking to the cats, i found a bantam, who must have sneaked out when I sidled out of their greenhouse. When I opened the door to let her in, of course half a dozen others nipped out and started to frolic on the compost heap. I gave up and went indoors to have a gin and tonic, since I’d valiantly braved the g&t shop. I didn’t actually need food, only boring household stuff and booze. I did get a few extra onions and some orange juice, though.