Hurrah! Hedgehog is back!

I had an appointment at 9am to see a nurse about my clogged ears and sinus issue which have been on-going since February. She did all the examinations and decided she’d need to discuss it with the GP. Crazy system - if I’d seen him in the first place it would have saved their time. Anyway I’ve now got nose drops for 8 weeks.

It started to rain quite early so we offered various options to our guests. They chose a drive up the valley - K can see landscapes quite well so Mr C took them out for a couple of hours which they enjoyed, while I did a lot of chopping for tonight’s meal.

I invited old neighbours of T and K, Andrea and Pete who we are also friendly with. Also Colin - Linda was away on an art course. We had beetroot and walnut hummus, then a spinach, egg, cream cheese and pine nut pie, kale, grapefruit, madjoul date, spring onion, pumpkin seed and pistachio salad, roast smashed potatoes with melted blue cheese, and tomato, red onion, walnut green pepper salad with pomegranate molasses and sumac. Pudding was last year’s gooseberries made into a fool. It all went down well as they say.

T and K are great talkers. K remembers a lot of facts and dates relating to topics that interest him, and T embellishes her stories with the complex background of people we don’t know. They all seemed to enjoy themselves but my listening ears are exhausted. It’s almost midnight and A, P and C have just gone.

Mr C spotted hedgehog trundling along outside the window during dinner. We’ve not seen him/her since Thomas and James found him a few years ago in a flowerbed and we were worried it was too soon and cold for him to be out.