Tracy for Lunch - Delayed Birthday

On Thursday, with the Cup-Final imminent there was an important match at Burton Joyce. 'Granny' played 'Granddaughter' in a well-fought game. Another 'granddaughter' was the crowd, and unusually for the crowd, sat in the middle of the pitch. I'm not quite sure of the result but I do know that it didn't end with a penalty shoot-out. If you were wondering about Yvonne's 'neck-jewelry' it is in fact the whistle. I thought it unfair for the captain of one of the sides to have the whistle but I was shouted down.

Today Tracy came over for her birthday lunch, delayed by her trip to Barcelona which had been a success. Good hotel, good food and great architecture but Liz who she shared a room with, snored which caused Tracy some distress. She is so used to not sharing a room and wonders how Liz's husband copes. To cap all he didn't receive messages re flights etc., and wasn't at Gatwick at the appointed time. Tracy had parked her own car at Gatwick so she didn't have a problem. Poor Liz. I had promised to cook whatever Tracy wanted for her lunch and she picked leg-of-lamb or 'gigot' as we francophiles say, with all her favourite extras, - mashed potato as well as roast, onion sauce, carrots, asparagus, peas, mint sauce and, of course, yorkshire puddings and gallons of gravy. Bungus says that having yorkshires with lamb is against the rules but, as I have told him, in Clan Radiogandy, yorkshires go with everything except fish. And I know of one very junior clan member who would like them with fish too. In any case, I know that Bungus doesn't really like lamb (he doesn't care for the smell of it cooking) so I wouldn't offer it to him anyway; so the yorkshires point is purely academic. The butcher, who rears his own lamb, was unable to provide this year's spring-lamb and we had to settle for some of last year's which was still very good. But it made me think of a lady reader, in Wales, who I guess can already get spring-lamb but not so I'm afraid in the East Midlands. I happily spent most of the morning in the kitchen but I really enjoy it and the result was much appreciated. We finished off with a cheese-board and coffee. A fairly recent discovery has been that we prefer Shropshire Brie to French Brie - it seems to mature to the sought-after runniness much quicker.

This evening on TV was the final episode of the docu-drama "The Impressionists" and we enjoyed it even that has attracted bad reviews. It has been decribed as 'pappy' and 'suitable for children' - maybe we have simple minds! My own criticism would be that the absence of any mention at all of Camille Pisarro or Sisley, made the programme fall short of a decent coverage of the subject.

We discussed with Tracy details of bungalows for which we had particulars and she made some excellent points about them. I think it essential to have opinions from younger minds who we know have our best interests at heart. We intend to try to look at three more sometime during the next week and after that we shall have a better idea. Next weekend we go on our Mansfield National Trust jaunt to Morecombe (a seaview hotel) and trips to nearby NT places. We are really looking forward - even though I've been given fairly strict instructions that 'laptops' aren't allowed. Oh dear!