Snowdrops without the snow..

.. Our snow has mostly disappeared now (apart from a few patches).
This was the only image I managed in sunlight today, and I was cheered by it, although it's not the sharpest. 

I've been playing with the (literally) old food mixer. 
(Nut roast. Verdict: interestingly useful enough to persevere).

I do love a kitchen gadget, and am not short of them (mainly because I'm gullible enough to buy anything I see demonstrated by clever salesfolk). Most gadgets (for me) fall by the wayside because either they have too big a footprint for a small kitchen (space is premium) or they are too much faff to clean. In recent times (Lockdown) I have found myself doing most things by hand (mixing cakes/dough, grating and shredding etc). In a nerdy way I have timed these tasks (what else is there to do?) and found (as I suspected) that the cabbage (for instance) might whizz through a shredder in a few seconds (lovely), but the time I spend cleaning the gadget (bleurgh) and removing all the pesky shards of cabbage, renders using the machine use hardly worthwhile. Cooking acres (of cabbage? Because obviously cabbage is the very thing your family will be clamouring for?) for a family or a crowd is where the machinery comes into its own. (Is this what we'll say about AI in the future? 'They're alright if what you're wanting is cabbage for a crowd'). 
Anyway, for my (Cranks) nut roast recipe, old machine? Definitely worth it, with minimal washing up. 

(I'm thinking about writing a paper on 'kitchen gadgets worth keeping').

The weird dreams continue. 
I woke in a terror last night. (I was in a doorless room that was on fire. Let's not analyse that one). 

Oh... Won't it be nice when Lockdown is over?