After all that hassle and stress about my car's tyre, all it took was a visit to our neighbours next door and it was sorted. Our neighbour had the necessary expertise and equiptment to pump my tyre up which allowed me to get to a local garage that he recommended and within 10 minutes it was all fine and dandy. Mended. That was a huge weight off my mind!

But seeing as my darling husband had rented a car just in case I couldn't get to work, we decided to make use of it, and the place we chose was one of our favourites ~ Alnwick. I was wearing my new clothes (and feeling a million dollars rolling up in new clothes and a new car, albeit a rented one!), hubby on my arm we slunk into a coffee shop to warm up from the gales we've been having recently. For the last 2 weeks or so, on and off since New Years, it has just blown and blown. I found 3 very old-looking rooftiles in our front garden, panicked, and was told by our neighbour (who knows this house and every other on the whole road better than anyone) that they weren't from our roof, and on inspection, it was true. We do have a loose aerial on the roof that has finally dislodged in the 70mph gusts and is hanging perilously close to the edge.



We walked around the town, I bought some wool for my very first knitted piece of clothing ~ a very pretty tank-top type jumper. And we also stopped in our favourite organic and fairtrade shop where I bought the yellow-split peas above, to make a variation of Nigella's Yellow Split Pea and Frankfurter Soup, using up some of the 80-odd meatballs I made on Friday and froze (a very economical recipe) in place of the Frankfurters.

We wandered some more, picked up warm brie and crispy bacon sandwiches which we ate in the car, along with a little tub of heather-honey icecream, before driving home. On the drive the wind was gusting, the sky at one side of us blue, the other was studded with deep grey clouds.