Food for the soul...

I thought a lot about my mum as I made this soup today.  Twelve years ago today since she passed away.  

In some ways it seems like hardly any time has passed since she was a central figure in our lives, always there with her guidance, support and good humour, and yet her presence is so missed it feels like forever since she was here.

We must have had roast chicken fairly regularly for dinner in my childhood as we certainly had chicken and rice soup often and it was always made using left overs from the roast.   We would have what my gran called a soup and pudding dinner, which consisted of a large bowl of homemade soup with some delicious crusty bread (always buttered) followed by a proper home made pudding such as steamed pudding (with molten raspberry jam or golden syrup cascading over it) and custard, homemade rice pudding (cooked in the oven to form a golden skin) or homemade clootie dumpling served warm, sprinkled with sugar and served with cream or custard.  Food to put hairs on your chest as both my mum and gran would say!  I was always a bit worried about that, but not enough to say no thanks!  lol

My kidney stone has been a bit niggly today.  Some sharp pains.  Took Ibuprofen, which helped, and took my mind of it by enjoying the ritual of making the soup.  The aroma from the slow simmering soup was commented upon by the postman, the wheelchair engineer (who popped in to fix Alan's footplate) Alan's support worker Penny and Andrew.

D met up with Andrew and his mum in Dundee and brought Andrew back.  He, Alan, Penny and Jordan got well wrapped up and headed to The Enchanted Forest in Pitlochry.  They have been so lucky with the weather, dry and bright.  It the tickets had been for last night or Saturday there's no way they could have gone.

D and I enjoyed the soup with some warmed French baguette for dinner.  No pudding but about to have a cuppa and toast :-) 

Alan and Andrew returned having had a great time at The Enchanted Forest.  Alan hasn't stopped laughing since they got back.  A wonderful sound :-)

Received some beautiful flowers today from our friends Natalie and Jim.  They've both had kidney stones and have quite the stories to tell.  D tried to convince me the flowers were from him!  lol