We have had a lovely Valentine’s day.
We did not plan for it to be lovely, it just turned out that way.
Mark bought me some flowers this morning. The florist gave him lots of lilies because they had opened a bit early. They are my favourites, and they have filled the kitchen with their glorious scent.
The sun was shining. More than shining. It wasn’t shining in the crystal ice wilderness way that it has shone up until now. There was a gentleness in the air, and this morning the sting of winter had faded away.
It was warm.
In the garden a dozen crocuses burst excitedly into life, although they might have been a bit disappointed when they were confronted with their uninspiring view of the world. We don’t really have a garden at the moment. It is absolutely the worst mess that it has ever been.
Mark has been hauling firewood into the back yard and sorting it into short bits that he wants to burn, and lengths that will go over to the field to be sheeted up and saved, eventually to be used in some construction effort. He has got to do this because we have been struggling for firewood for months now, and suddenly we have got tons and unexpected tons of it of it, courtesy of the Air Cadets.
There is so much that we have got nowhere to store it. The places where firewood would normally live have either been dug up to insert foundations for a conservatory, or are filled to bursting with bits of the conservatory itself.
Mark has got piles of wood in every corner where he can find room, which is making the place a bit crowded. It is piled on top of things and underneath things and in little spaces beside things. It is everywhere.
Fortunately sooner or later we will have burned it anyway, so the problem will solve itself.
We opened the windows. After a while we opened the back door as well, and the first clean spring air drifted into the house, wafting away the dust and the mould spores of the winter and filling the house with the scents of soil, and fresh growth, and springtime.
It smelled a bit of firewood as well, but that was all right.
The glorious sunshine meant that Mark spent most of the day organising the firewood, pottering happily in and out of the yard and the house. This is my best way to spend a day. We might not talk to one another very much whilst we are busy, but it is nice to be doing things together.
I didn’t help him. The yard is so cluttered that there is not room for two people to be in there at the moment.
I stayed in the house and tried out my new mixer.
I can’t tell you how wonderful this moment was.
The very first thing I made with it was some almond butter. This is almost exactly like peanut butter, I am sure you will be able to work out which ingredient is different. Actually it was almond and hazelnut butter anyway, because I didn’t have enough almonds.
I would not have tried this in the old mixer, because all of the nuts have to be chopped to pulp, which takes an awfully long time. I would not have wanted to risk burning the poor motor out.
In the magnificent Kenwood, however, it was a different story.
I roasted the nuts and chucked them in.
It ground them right down to a thick, smooth paste, which I enlivened with a touch of maple syrup and some salt.
We had this on buttery slices of fresh bread for breakfast.
It was splendid.
After that I made mayonnaise, which turned out utterly perfect, thick and creamy and pale.
The last thing I made in it was a brazil nut and chicken pate. I have not made this since we lived in France. It keeps for quite a while if you put brandy and olive oil in it. The only brandy we had had already been flavoured with grapes, but I didn’t think this would matter, and indeed it didn’t. We will eat it on toast with white cheese.
I made bread as well, and felt very pleased indeed with my day.
I even went to the gym before work. This is sensible when there are so many nice things to eat, otherwise I will just become portly.
Happy Valentines.
