Racing the rain

I should have known it was impossible - to go out early enough to beat the rain, promised for 11am and completely predictable. We did try, but I had to put a loaf in the machine for lunch before I could leave, and it was 10.30am when we set off to walk round the shore road at Toward. By the time we turned round to return, the fronts of my trousers were soaked; by the time we clambered into the car the backs were clinging to me and when I sat down the water began dripping down the front of my leg. Inside the trousers. Chilly. 

That done, however, I was free to indulge in whatever slobbish activity met my mood. Home, clothes changed, dry, with a coffee in my hand, everything felt better. I had a FaceTime chat with my pal and then it was lunchtime. Garlic mushrooms and new bread - not exactly sustaining, but extremely tasty. I spent the afternoon reading, doing my Italian, fielding a fed up phone call from another friend, making the Keynote slides for the last of the poetry workshops on Tuesday - and making Castle Puddings. 

I must explain. I had a sudden, inexplicable craving the other week for the hot, slightly chewy top of a small sponge pudding, such as my mother used to make when I was a child. As I think of them solely in connection with the first house I lived in, she may not have made them after I was 10. She was back teaching by then; maybe that scuppered the puddings. Be that as it may, I clearly regarded them as a staple when I got married, for I bought a set of dariole moulds. I think I used them perhaps once. They stayed with me, however, in their box, which over the years became grubbier, more stained, more inclined to stick to the floor of the cupboard - until today.

Today I took out the little stack of them, six in number, and pulled them apart. The top one was no longer silver in appearance, but dark and slightly ... rusty? Surely not. I washed them all carefully; greased their little interiors with butter. The rest is history. My little puddings turned out a treat, and there are more for tomorrow - and maybe Monday as well. I feel fat, full and ...housewifely. So blooming (see what I'm doing here?) housewifely that I forgot to make the white loaf we like to toast at breakfast - it's once more taking its chances with the bread maker timer.

My photo is of the shore at Toward Sailing Club. Two people are, inexplicably, taking several dogs for a paddle. I think the people are wearing wellies; the dogs not. It's already raining quite hard, and the promised winds are picking up. It is 10ºc. We shall walk some of the way along the road behind that beach and then call it a day.

As I am now. Goodnight!