Today began extremely badly, but ended very well.  More on both of those another time.  I have to speak to someone about one and have another confirmed before I talk about them here.

Weeza and the children came over and the condition report is done, which was a marathon.  LT brought a trayful of china, I photographed each piece, Weeza examined it very carefully and noted any damage or restoration and then it was removed again.  The whole thing took about three and a half hours, plus time for lunch.  The children were angelic, both in keeping out of the way a majority of the time and in showing interest and helping – Zerlina has a keen eye for restoration and will be wanted next year, for sure.  They are counted as sale labour and have been paid.

We harvested our single productive eating apple tree – I can’t remember the variety but it’s an early one – we also have a couple of young trees and one of those has a few fruits, plus a Bramley which has a goodly crop but isn’t ready to pick yet.  Anyway, these are very good apples but they aren’t keepers, so we must eat, give away or freeze them soon.

We tried the tomato pickle that we made the other day – a chutney needs to be kept for several weeks, but a pickle doesn’t, and this turns out to be jolly good.  If the weather is good next week, a barbecue is called for: as Weeza pointed out, it would be brilliant with a good home-made burger.

We also picked quite a number of figs.  More had ripened while we were away, chiz chiz, but never mind.  We fortuitously had some Parma ham, so dinner tonight was a relaxed and ‘picky’ affair.  Though the bean salad, with a surprisingly zingy jalapeño pepper in it, was more pokey than picky, to be frank.

LT must have been prescient, because he put the champagne in the fridge before the good news came in.  It’s a most sensible policy, never to lose an opportunity to celebrate.