Making, eating and painting pizza

Began to cough during the night and woke at six with heavy catarrh but managed to sleep on until eight. It is a cloudy morning, but for the moment at least, it's dry. Used up the last of the previous weeks bacon, sausage and black pudding to make breakfast and washed it down with really strong tea. I don't feel too good today and take some lanzoprazole and an anti-inflammatory tablet as that sometimes helps if I have a wheezy chest. The only real solution is to cut out the wheat and glucose products as I did last year, but it's a tough regime to stick to on a permanent basis. After breakfast, I shower and dress and then make my way to Cherry for ten fifteen. The dogs and I make our way round the Westwood, but today I sit on a bench at Black Mill, surrounded by cows, and wait for Dolly to come back to the lead. It is too dangerous to risk them chasing rabbits onto the Newbald Road, as they did last week. After I drop the dogs back with Pip, I call at Morrisons to buy Basil and some new house plants as a lot of the old ones are on their last legs. When I get back to Tickton I make a pot of tea and eat some oaties whilst marinating the peppers I roasted on Saturday in olive oil and basil. When this is done I decide to make some pizza dough for this evening and discover that I am out of yeast and strong white flour. I jump in the car to buy some from the village shop, but they don't stock yeast and so end up driving to Asda in Beverley to fetch some. When I get back it only takes ten minutes to mix the dough , and I leave it to rise whilst I pot my new plants in the garden. After I am done I run the vac over the house and clean the kitchen up before collecting Laura and Rebecca from Copandale Road. When I get there, their other Grandad, Mike, is baby sitting as Sam has already set off for Goole. We arrive back in Tickton for five thirty and Rebecca who is eleven and autistic wants to play on my iPad, whilst her little sister, Laura wants to help me cook. Rebecca is very particular about what she will eat and Mike gave me some chicken nuggets and potato waffles to bring home for her, however I know she likes garlic bread, so Laura and I roll out two pizza bases and paint them with olive oil and garlic, whilst the cooker heats up. Once the oven light goes out we place the first pizza on the baking stone and put Rebecca's nuggets and waffles on a lower shelf. Fifteen minutes later Rebecca's dinner is ready and we serve her on a tray in the lounge and put the other pizza base in to cook. We then roll out two more and I make Laura a happy face pizza, with chorizo slices for eyes, olives for pupils asparagus for a nose and a half slice of chorizo for a mouth. The second garlic bread is soon ready and we take it out and slice it and put Laura's pizza in the oven. Rebecca has eaten her bread and takes another slice, Laura and I share the rest whilst I build my pizza, which has roast peppers, chorizo and olives. As soon as it is finished, Laura's pizza is ready, the dough has worked really well and the bases are golden brown, crisp and have risen nicely. Frozen pizza's don't come near! My pizza is soon ready and we eat ours in the kitchen, Rebecca is deep into u-tube and is much more adept with my iPad than I am. I pour the girls some orangeade and cream soda whilst I drink the last of yesterday's Rioja whilst enjoying my pizza. I am inculcating good cooking habits into Laura, a good cook cleans as he/she goes, and consequently by the time we have finished our desert, peaches and yogurt, there are only our plates left to wash up. After dinner I get my water colours out, Rebecca won't surrender the iPad so Laura and I paint the "happy face pizza", and then I send Laura into the garden to photograph a beautiful rose. When she comes back, she paints it for her mum. By now it is half past eight and time to take them home. I have enjoyed their company and they mine. I look forward to them coming again.