Deep dish indestructible apple pie

Wake after a disturbed night and strange dreams, probably the Camembert and wine. It is just getting light outside, and by the time I have let Norman out into the garden and made breakfast, it is seven thirty. I am finishing off the smoked salmon and serve it with cream cheese on rye toast again, so Normy has to make do with a tin. I lose track of time reading the Observer after breakfast and have to put my skates on to shower, dress and drive to Saint John's for nine o'clock Mass. I have left the Garden Room door open for Norman, as I have promised to visit Leslie after church arriving in my usual pew with just two minutes to spare before the service starts. There is quite a good turnout this morning and the hymns are all old stalwarts, so the congregation makes a decent fist of them. Our trainee organist only losing the tune once during the whole service. After Mass I drive to Molescroft and find Leslie looking relaxed and well, he still hasn't ventured outdoors, but tells me he has been exercising in the house. I make Italian coffee for us and find that once again, I have forgotten to bring my plastic filter. This week an empty milk carton is reengineered for the task and soon we have fresh coffee and some oaties to eat, from the fresh batch I made yesterday. We chat for an hour and then I carry out a couple of small chores, put his waste in the bin and then pick up his outgoing mail to post on my way home. En route, I call at Tesco to buy some more coffee, bread and milk. While I am there I notice they have large bottles of Leffe brown, Belgian beer on offer and buy one, thinking it may go well with the meat pie that is planned for lunch. When I arrive home Norman does not come to greet me, which is unusual, and I check to make sure he is OK, but he is sleeping soundly in his basket. After unpacking the shopping, I roll out some pastry and make two meat pies in six inch stoneware dishes, using the filling I cooked in the slow cooker yesterday. I put them in the oven on a moderate heat, set the timer for 45 minutes and then take Norman for his delayed walk. We walk down to the fields beyond the bridge, the weather is fine but foggy, the pale sun not sufficiently strong to burn back the low lying mist. There is no wind to blow it away either, the air is dead still. Not good drying weather, my shirts and socks will have to hang in the garage sooner than expected! Norman walks home with considerably more enthusiasm than he set out, and he fairly sprints into the house, drawn on by the aroma of the baking pies. They are both beautifully browned, but the jacket potato, that I put in with them needs a few more minutes. The pies need ten minutes to cool anyway, if we are not to scold our mouths with them. This gives me time to put away my aired whites from the radiator and hang the coloured washing in the garage. We finally finish the last of the red cabbage, which is heated thoroughly in the microwave, and served with our pie and potato. The pie is OK, the crust perhaps a little thick, but it tastes fine. The Belgian beer takes a while to appreciate, but like Irish stout, it tastes better the more you drink. The bottle is three quarters of a litre and as it is 6 percent or more alcohol, the equivalent of half a bottle of wine. The effect is not long in coming, and soon the dog and I are enjoying a post lunch snooze. When we wake up, I check my email, it is mostly spam, but a reminder from Paypal lets me know that I have £25 in credit from the corduroy trousers I returned last week. I use this to buy a plain wool camel sweater, from a website called "wool overs", I also need to replace a maroon sweater that is nearing the end of its days, but will wait to see how the camel one turns out first. Surprisingly, Norman still has room for a tin at half past five and afterwards we walk to the village post office to despatch Leslie's letters, before making our way down to the bridge. The weather is starting to change, an easterly breeze is bringing down showers of willow leaves that spiral to the ground as we walk together down Carr Lane, a bonfire at the farm is blowing wood smoke across the path and the little bridge over the drain is barely visible in the distance. by the time we reach it and turn for home, it is almost dark. No pipistrelles this evening, perhaps the smoke is putting them off. When we get back indoors, I make a pot of tea and then cut a slice of my "really deep dish, Dutch apple pie". It is about twenty centimetres, top to bottom, the filling is perfect, but the crust, which needed to be robust to hold the whole thing up, might have come from a nuclear bunker. It tastes OK, but is much too thick. Perhaps there is a reason that the Dutch don't do over the top, deep dish pies? Tomorrow is going to be a pie free day, I bought some nice lambs liver this morning and some spinach, so that's on the menu for Monday Lunch. Listened to radio four for a while and then read an interesting article by Stuart Kauffman, a scientist at Calgary University, on the web, about complexity theory and the concept of God. To bed for ten thirty.