Warming

I am very lucky because one of Australia's best spice importers lives right here in Adelaide.  That vanilla is so strong that, although it's expensive, you need far less than most recipes say. 

And the cinnamon is sustainable wild organic, collected in the Philippines, with the most amazing flavour.  The bark is way too thick to put directly into the spice grinder, so I have to bash it with the mortar and pestle first.  Most cinnamon you buy is in the form of papery wisps of nothingness.

They are just the sort of warming flavours you enjoy in the most miserable of winters.  We will be getting another gale through in a couple of hours. 

Wild winds again - and next door's roof still isn't secured.  Poor things, I think they are really suffering, because their workmen didn't come back today to secure the sheets that came adrift yesterday.