Picking the day up

BIT OF a mishmash of a day, with a lot of hanging around waiting for workmen.

We manage to sneak out at lunchtime to the local farmers' market, and get some provisions for today's and tomorrow's dinners.

Apart from that it really is a bit of a drudge of a day.

The electrician does finally turn up and fastens the switch that's been dangling by its wires for a week or so to the wall.

He also checks the wiring and pronounces it healthy - even though it has a tendency to fuse whenever we switch on the oven and the extractor at the same time.

"It's just a little sensitive," he tells us. "It'll settle down."

We hope he's right.

He also agrees to return next week and hang our new kitchen lights.

We finally manage to escape to our local for an hour before dinner - just to get away from the stress of hours of waiting.

For dinner, I do us a risotto with mushrooms and peppers and a miscellany of other veg. We have it with the excellent Lancashire burgers we bought at the market.

Not too bad at all.

My Good Lady is feeling a bit down in the dumps after the strain of the day, not to mention the tensions of the week as we try to pull our lives back to some kind of normality.

So, to cheer her up, I crack open a celebratory bottle of champagne - and after all, we do have much to be grateful for.

I put on a CD - Charles Trenet, a chipper chappie of a French crooner, and to his cheery chansons we sip our fizz - a rather splendid Perrier-Jouet with a rich, biscuity finish.

Picks up the evening a treat, does that.