Rainy days

More than thirty years in Portugal and I don't remember a winter as wet as this one. Needless to say it's pouring again so I thought I'd try and take a pic of it falling on the sun room roof which is where I'm sitting.  My favourite place when it rains.

When two heads are not better than one

It's no good being smart-arse pleased with yourself about remembering to buy matches before you really need to if you can't remember where you put them.... relying on one's husband to remember as well, even though he saw you put them away in what he thought was rather an odd place at the time but thought twice before opening his mouth, is of no use either. However, he is of great use for popping out to buy more without so much as a grimace! Fire now blazing nicely.

Wand needed

The recipe I was just browsing through says I need 1 large carrot, turned into 1 inch pieces.
My weird brain's first thought was "do I need a wand for this?"
Sigh.
I need to get out more.

Great ideas

MJ1517 – Mahoney Joe

It happens at that precise moment you begin to drift into sleep...

A wet and sloshy kind of morning

This morning when I left home at 8.15 I had to don some wellies and open up one of our very large umbrellas. Almost two hours later, just as l was getting into the car, l looked towards the Sintra Hills and the sun poked it's nose out from behind the clouds, lighting up the raindrops and the wet road. The photo doesn't do true justice to the sparkling raindrops  against the mist shrouded hills of course but l think you get the idea:

Walking in the 'hood

A slow and misty kinda morning for taking a long walk - a perfect autumn day, the sun just peeping through with a mixture of bonfire smoke and mist shrouding the Sintra hills.

Wine, dog hairs and a freezer

This morning, I decided it was time to defrost the freezer (it's an upright and needs doing every six months apparently). It actually should have been done four months' ago when hub decided a bottle of white wine needed to be chilled quickly and promptly forgot all about it.  He found out when wine freezes, it doesn't fit in the bottle anymore which meant, in this case, the cork left the bottle and wine trickled all the way down the inside of the freezer- of course the bottle was on the top shelf.

I was determined it was going to be quick and easy to defrost and thought I'd have it done in no time at all. Mentally, I revved myself up and flew around clearing the fridge first and then flinging all the frozen food into it before I had any chance of getting freezer burn.

After putting warm bowls of water onto the shelves, I set to washing out the drawers until, finally, I could hear the clunks of ice falling into the bottom of the freezer. Bearing in mind I'd defrosted the freezer around six months' ago, you would assume I'd remember what to do this time, but it seems I left out one important step.  I'd forgotten to pull out the tube thingy and drain off the water so when I opened the freezer door, water promptly overflowed out onto my feet, the floor and under the freezer.

I think the cold water froze my brain momentarily, because I bent down and pulled out the tube... more water on my feet and an ever larger pool of water seeping under everything in sight. That was when I remembered a strategically placed bowl might have been a good idea

A quick trip to the laundry room and old towels were being thrown on to the floor and into the bottom of the freezer.  What I didn't know was that one of the dogs had obviously been sleeping on the towels at some time or another.  It's amazing how well black dog hairs can stick to the pristine white insides of a freezer - sigh!