No real substitute

I gave this to A this year, before heading off to India, when she needed a hug one day. Its job was to keep her going while I was away. It's had to work for a much longer period than either of us could have expected. She gave it to me this week and I can see it going backwards and forwards between us on a regular basis until we can enjoy the real thing again.
Today the weather was not just dreich it was miserable. When I opened the front door this morning there was a heavy mist and I couldn't even see the houses across the road. The back garden view wasn't quite so bad but it was wet, misty and cloudy. It remained that way for most of the day. It was so bad that I defrosted some chicken and leek soup for lunch to warm us up! Having decided to stay in I set to, this afternoon, and tidied out a couple of drawers. My method is always to pile everything on the bed so that I have to finish the job or have nowhere to sleep, it took a good couple of hours but it's done, for the moment!
I made duck breasts in orange sauce for dinner tonight for a treat, it was very good if I do say so myself, a James Martin recipe from the BBC site. We are doing much better at using the contents of our freezer over the last few months. This once a week shopping is a good discipline. Mind you I do love a good long browse in a supermarket. Haven't been since lockdown started.
This evening I dropped a jar of strawberry jam off at the house of a lady who is a member of our local residents fb page. She had answered a request for something for us last week and I wanted to say thank you.

Keep well and safe everybody. At least with today's weather there was nobody on the beaches.