Warmth at the Zedary

The youngest members of the family came over to day; or rather, the youngest family within the family.  Young Rufus is 10 months old today and, it was discovered, he loves his Granny’s cooking.

The forecast was for the hottest day of the year so far – in the 20s, which is pretty good for the first half of April.  It was already very warm when I set off for church at 9.15.  LT and I had talked about lunch yesterday and decided to make a soufflé and salad, it not being the day for a big roast dinner.  And then we thought we might as well eat it outside, too.

When I got home from church, I went out to check the early potatoes, which are under fleece and they are up!  It’s been a dry few weeks, so I pulled back the fleece and put the sprinkler ready, then remembered the radishes, further on in the same bed.  So I pulled sixteen radishes, first of the year, to go with the salad and put on the sprinkler – later, I earthed up the potatoes, if just covering the first shoots with soil in case of frost can be described as such, and covered them over again.

Rufus’s lunch was cucumber, cut into fingers, and ham and cheese soufflé without the ham and he loved it.  Frankly, he filled his face and had to be given extra helpings.  I was duly flattered, the more so when Ro praised my cooking in general, a realisation that had come to him gradually.  One thing I managed to get right in my generally haphazard parenting career was to instil in all my children an appreciation of good food and very good cooking skills.  When he was at university, he used to phone to ask advice on cooking once in a while – “I’ve bought a tuna steak, can you suggest a recipe?” Or once, “I usually just use the pan juices for gravy for a chicken but I need more than that, how do I stretch it while keeping the flavour?”  He lost me slightly when he assured me that raw broccoli makes a surprisingly good sandwich filling, mind you.

Rufus now has two teeth and is pretty quick when getting across the floor.  His crawling technique is to use his hands to go forward and then bring up his knees together to catch up – it hasn’t yet occurred to him to use each leg separately.  And he hasn’t quite managed a deliberate word yet, though the general dadada sort of sound could be interpreted as such.  It won’t be long, though.  There’s endless fascination when you’ve a baby in the family.

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