Thursday stuff

"ARE YOU GOING to take a puzzle book with you to London?" I ask My Good Lady.

"No," she replies, "why should I?"

"You usually do when you're travelling."

"I didn't take one on the Rocky Mountaineer," she says, referring to our two day rail journey through the Canadian Rockies a couple of years ago.

"Ah," I point out, "there we were on the lookout for bears and elks and such like. There aren't many bears between here and London."

She insists that she'll be content to sit and watch the world go by.

This is on account of the fact that we've got our train tickets booked, finally - no mean achievement in itself!

The number of different fares - depending on whether you want to buy online or at the station window, whether you book in advance or on the day, whether you catch this train or that and on which day you want to travel - it's all enough to make your head spin.

We now just need to let them know that MGL will require assistance to get herself and her wheelchair onto the train and we're all set.

For my culinary experiment this evening I do us a pasta dish with bacon, mushrooms and onions all mixed in a passata sauce. It's an old familiar, although not one I've done that often; it's quite tasty, but the pepper could have done with a extra minute or two's cooking. Also, I think a good pinch of chilli powder would have livened it up a bit.

As usual with Question Time (BBC 1) there's one member of the panel that sets me grinding my teeth.

This evening it's Carol Vorderman who has me steaming with futile annoyance - presumably it's because she's some sort of celebrity that makes the producers imagine she has something worthwhile to say.

I would have switched off but at least Shirley Williams could be trusted to speak with measured intelligence, and Boris Johnson is always good for a laugh. (I had to smile when, in disagreement with another panellist, he could be heard muttering, "rhubarb, rhubarb...".)