Pi and Pies

Norman and I sleep in until eight, its Saturday so we don't have to collect Dolly and Teddy today. Outside its a mild morning and clear but for some low autumn mist that is clinging to the hollows in the ground. I make a full English breakfast for us both and then settle down to read the Guardian, but as Its Saturday and the kids are off school, the broadband is jammed and it hasn't downloaded this morning. I put on a wash load of whites, take a pork chop out of the freezer, to defrost for lunch and then make some savoury mince for the slow cooker. This will form the filling for a meat pie I intend to bake tomorrow. Then shower and shave and head off to town with Norman for coffee at the Poppy Seed. We park, as usual, down Norwood and walk the half mile or so into town, giving Normy time for his toilet duties. I carry some kitchen roll in my pocket, in order to capture and secure his treasure, before depositing it in a bin. We are first to the Poppy seed, but the others arrive over the next half hour and we have a full house. Barbara English is disposing of tickets for the telecast of the Met's Otello at Cineworld for next Saturday and I end up buying one. Norman sits on my knee enjoying the conversation and the company, Felicity and her daughter, Melissa, arrive late, she has taken her mum for her flu jab. Melissa asks me for Sarah's number, as she has a painful ganglion on her foot and needs help fairly quickly. The coffee party is just breaking up, when Pip phones to ask if I have booked her Micra into the garage yet. Her brake light has gone and another motorist mentioned it to her at the supermarket yesterday. I promise to go to Cherry and check it out, after I have gone back to Tickton, dropped Norman off and hung out my washing. When I get home I discover that I hadn't actually switched the washing machine on, so I rectify this and then drive to Cherry. I recruit Andrew to help me check out the lights whilst I operate the controls and we soon confirm that it is only the rear brake light that has gone. I have brought a collection of screwdrivers to dismantle the light cover, but Sod's law says that it is secured by two bolts, so I drive the Micra back to Tickton and use my spanners to retrieve the faulty bulb. There is a car and bike repair shop down Norwood a few yards from where I parked earlier and £3 procures a couple of spare bulbs, one of which I fit immediately, before driving back to Cherry. Rebecca and Laura are staying with Andrew for the weekend and of course, I get a big hug from Laura, Rebecca is lost in Nintendo DS land. My good deed for the day done, I return to Tickton and make lunch, frying up some onions and a pork chop and then adding some Maggi and an oxo cube to make a sauce. While the chop is braising, I peel and boil some potatoes and microwave some more of the red cabbage. When it is ready, I cut out the bone and fat and serve this with spuds, rot kohl and gravy to Norman, once it has cooled down. We eat in synchrony, but he always finishes first. There is still some red cabbage left in the fridge, it is a good job that we both enjoy it, it must have been a large specimen that I bought last week. After lunch, I knock up some oaties, and while the oven is hot, construct a really deep dish Dutch apple pie, with the earthenware dish I bought last week. In between the baking, I hang out my whites, put on a load of coloured washing and listen to Hull v Ipswich on the radio. It is a cracking match, Hull are passing their opponents off the pitch but can't seem to score, despite creating endless chances. Before half time, the inevitable happens and Ipswich score against the run of play. In the second half the same pattern emerges, except Ipswich don't score again and then Nick Proschwitz, a £2.5m pound signing from Paderborn in Germany, comes on as a substitute and scores twice, to win the game for the Tigers. Even Normy celebrates! I give him some of the savoury mince I have made in the slow cooker, with some more rot kohl, (he has to eat his share of the mountain I made,) and biscuits for his tea. I used some of this savoury mince mixture with the excess pastry trimmed from the apple pie, to make a mini test meat pie in a small ramekin. The apple pie and the little sampler come out of the oven just as Norman finishes his dinner. They both look and smell OK. It is half past five, so I put on my fleece and take Norman for his evening walk. We go beyond the bridge and round the fields, it is a lovely evening, the sun has just set, the sky is clear and a crescent moon is rising to our south. Whisps of mist are starting to reappear here and there, and the birds are singing their evening chorus. On our way back, we meet two people, an Australian woman who has just moved to the village, her husband is working at the University and five minutes later, a South African with an online sports business who has been in Tickton for 14 years. It is almost dark when we get back and I manage to get my white underwear off the line before it is completely black outside. Because of my late start, it is still damp, so I dry it off on hangers on the radiators. Within a few weeks I will be forced to dry my washing in the garage,,as we lose the sun from the back garden until mid February. Contrary to working people, I use the weekends to catch up, not doing much during the week, so after eating my little pie and confirming that the recipe works, and works really well, I get out the ironing board and knock off half a dozen shirts. I finish around nine, have a glass of wine, some Camembert on oatmeal biscuits and then listen to a podcast of "Melvyn Bragg's in our time", the subject is random and pseudo random numbers, which sounds boring, but isn't. During my army service in the signals, I was involved in cryptography and later on at Plessey, worked on high speed data transmission systems, all of which used aspects of these theories. To bed at ten thirty.