Trips

Walked down to meet DH at the Portrait Gallery and since I arrived early I had a peep into the main hall with its beautiful golden frieze, all decorated for Christmas.
We had a good chat although I probably moaned a bit too much about lack of reporting and progress. By the time I was walking back up home it was definitely getting colder. I had a quick leftovers lunch then set to making the gingerbread cuneiform biscuits (extra) mentioned at the end of our book group book (There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak) as having been developed by Penn Museum. The suggested decorations didn’t look quite like the cuneiform symbols I found on other websites, but they were easier to do! I packaged them up for each of our group and by the time I’d done that it was pretty much time to get ready to go. Arclight, Hazelh and E arrived and, after a last minute dash from mrhazelh to deliver their newsletter for us, we plunged into the traffic to head west. It was busy but our chat meant the time went fairly quickly and we arrived to meet Laura and Winsford already sipping sherry!
Dinner was delicious….a clever fusion of English and Persian food as befitted the book’s two settings. We all enjoyed the book (fabulous writing) and the food was delicious….such delicate spicing! Herb and aubergine soup with flatbreads, shepherd’s pie (a lamb and a mushroom version) with vegetables, rice and lentils and spiced poached fruit with cream and sumac spiced custard….fabulous!
The journey home had much less traffic but we were diverted off the motorway at one point by the satnav (not sure we needed to be). Dropped them each off at home and then was very pleased to find a parking pace on my street when I got home. Straight to bed.