Chicken Broth and Baked Custard
One of the advantages of being off work is that I can cook good old-fashioned things for my husband. It's Mrs Beeton-style invalid food. Today, for example, one fat fowl (organic) simmered with every vegetable I can lay my hands on, followed by a baked custard, delicately flavoured with a vanilla pod. Tomorrow? Probably more chicken broth .... Ideas, Mrs Beeton? As well as the cooking, I can take on walking the dogs. And, joy, I can do some of the other chores which have always been 'his' chores. Last week, for example, I helped him unblock the drains to the septic tank. This was a very nasty revelation - in every sense. And it was a disaster - the middle concrete block split and dropped into the tank. The splattering was the least of the problems; the real difficulty was how to get the replacement onto the tank. How has he managed to heave those huge blocks of concrete around before? It took both of us, and the (now wrecked) wheelbarrow, to move the thing from the garage.
All you husbands out there who live in the country, you are much undervalued. Forgive us, your wives.
Then there are the gutters to clean, defrosting the car, checking the oil ... Oh, that reminds me, the wheely bin has to go down tonight.
But here is the thing, the real reason I am here, writing this: the evenings are so long and empty. I miss my greatest friend to chat to.
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