WhatADifferenceADayMakes

By Veronica

Yes!

See also: yesterday. Wall-to-wall sunshine today, barely a cloud in the sky, around 10 degrees hotter than yesterday. No wonder the weather forecast is consistently wrong.

So a great opportunity to get out in the garden, get the washing done, sit on the terrace to read. Yet again I left my camera in the house, so when the pair of goldfinches arrived they gave me time to go in, get the camera, and focus on them. Only to fly off just as I pressed the shutter. They came back later though, and I was more or less ready, although sadly I didn't catch the whirring wings of the other one as it hovered before they both flew off. This is heavily cropped. I have endless respect for blippers like gladders and Chamaeleo who can actually photograph birds.

I made a lemon and olive oil cake from a recipe I'd copied down from Libération. Unfortunately I copied it down wrongly, writing 40 cl of olive oil instead of 4. Centilitres always trip me up because I think in millilitres when cooking. I did baulk when I started pouring the oil into the measuring jug because there was so much, and decided to cut it down to 30 cl. But that's still, hmm, seven and a bit times what was required. It was a very oily cake, and tasted more of olive oil than of lemon. But it worked better than I expected, i.e. it was edible, so I might try again with the right quantities. More successfully, I made muffins with the last of the fresh yeast.

Lunch: on the terrace! S baked some fillets of sea bass, served with sauteed new potatoes and a lemony dressing. For afters we had the aforementioned cake with blueberries.

We had news from our friend G at home in France. I hadn't realised our post lady had actually had Covid-19. She's back at work now though, in a thoroughly disinfected post office. Last week, S learned that someone he's known for many years who used to be a member of his walking group had died of Covid. He's thought to have caught it on the plane back from New Zealand, where he was visiting family, but his wife was completely symptom free. It's like some kind of ghastly lottery. Brings it close to home too; he was about our age and in perfectly good health as far as we know. So, #QuedateEnCasa!

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