Pizza in the garden with Laura and an attack of homophobia.

The improvement in the weather continues and I have a pleasant breakfast in the garden, boiled eggs and rye toast soldiers, Norman has to make do with Baker's dry dog food. After a shower we walk round the fields again with Nellie and Betty, risking "almost straight wood", after the rain on Tuesday but cutting in further down, in order to avoid the boggy bits. Norman and Nellie are firm friends now and Betty has found the way to the old guy's heart, through his belly. Each day is getting warmer now and the tabloids are forecasting a mini heat wave from tomorrow. Once the temperature gets over 25 degrees Celsius, it is too hot for me and I tend to avoid the hotter parts of the day. Today, however, the weather is perfect, about twenty degrees, so when we get back from our walk, around half past eleven, I run the extension lead into the garden and set up the ironing board and iron all of my clean washing, whilst listening to radio four. Once the ironing is finished and cleared away, I ring Sam to check what time I am due to collect Laura from school and she tells me half past three. It is already two fifteen, so I take the remaining pizza dough out of the refrigerator and leave it to warm through and rise again by the time we get back. Jackie has emailed back from holiday in Sardinia to say that Gino is happy with the synopsis, so I ring the solicitors and leave a message with a secretary for someone to ring me, before driving to Molescroft Primary School to collect Laura. I call at the doctor's surgery on my way there, to book a blood test for next week, to see how the prostate cancer is developing, hopefully not much! The only time they can fit me in, is next Wednesday morning at ten, the day before my holiday. The arrival of summer, at last, has improved everyone's mood and relaxed the dress code, all the mum's are wearing summer dresses or shorts and tee shirts, but a few of the dads are fashion disasters, the long, long, shorts not flattering for the older, fuller figure. Laura runs to me when she emerges from class, her cold has cleared up completely from last week and she looks the picture of health. We call at the supermarket on our way home in order to buy more salad, and pick up a bottle of tropical lilt for Laura and cream soda for me, (grandad pop). I ask Laura if she would like an ice cream, but she chooses Moo frozen yogurt instead. They are quite expensive, about £1.75p each but there is a special offer, two for £2.50p, so we have one each and then discover that there are no little spoons in the lid. So we take our yogurts to the supermarket cafe, borrow two spoons and eat them there. The fact that we are not supposed to eat our own food in the cafe, simply makes them taste better, and they are extraordinarily good. Whilst we eat them, Laura and I discuss the possibility of making our own. The idea tickles Laura, so we save the cartons and lids and as soon as we return to Tickton, we wash them out and then prepare our own recipe. First we chop up half a tin of peaches and mix this with some plain yogurt, then we add vanilla essence, some artificial sweetener and stir it all together, before spooning it into our Moo cartons, replacing the lids and putting them in the freezer to set. Laura wants to see if our recipe can fool her mum. This done, we set the oven to to 220 degrees Celsius, and while it is warming up, roll out our pizzas and then coat them with tomato purée, before adding slices of Mozarella and salami. Our next job is to make a tossed salad, which Laura particularly enjoys, so we take a chopping board and bowl into the garden, where she proceeds to prepare the lettuce, tomato, celery, spring onions and cucumber. No sooner have we started, than Sam and Rebecca arrive and when I check my watch, I find it is already five o'clock. We all sit in the garden, with Laura and I popping in and out of the kitchen, as we load the pizzas onto a baking stone and then fish them out of the oven fifteen minutes later, when they are done. We eat a sort of rolling pizza and salad dinner and almost forget the frozen yogurts, until Sam and the girls have to leave, around half past six, but recover them from the freezer before they go. The yogurts are not quite set, so it is decided to take them home and complete the process there. When everyone has gone, I clear all the pots away from the garden, Norman helping out by hoovering up any pieces of remaining pizza and then pile them all in the sink to soak. I flop in the armchair in the garden room and read a few chapters of Patrick Gale's "The Facts of Life", it is a very good book, but for some reason I am quite shocked by explicit descriptions of gay sex, when equally explicit sections on straight intercourse don't bother me at all. As a straight guy, can I be worried that they may turn me gay? I don't think so, but unconscious prejudice sometimes catches one out. Before turning in I wash up the pots, dry them and then stow them away in the cupboard. I treasure these visits from my grandchildren and easy days spent outdoors in the summer. To bed around ten thirty. Perhaps I will find time to swim tomorrow.