The weather has been doing its best to look wild and woolley and rainy, but seems to be failing in that respect. Dark clouds, gusts of wild wind, but only minor speckles of rain to be seen so far.

I unloaded the Hebel blocks i found at the tip yesterday. They are quite enormous and look ridiculously heavy so it is fun to hoist them around one-handed. Not sure what i can use them for, but they seemed to be too good to leave there (am thinking of lining a root cellar with a liftup lid or something similar. If it is up near the house the bottom can be bedrock and the blocks to line the sides. Their permeability could be beneficial in that use since it will enhance evaporation and cooling (I hope - will check before i act).

Apart from that I have been cooking up soups and casseroles, stewing the last of the tomatoes that finally ripened and the long, oval ones have been semidried and packed i olive oil for salad use. The cooked ones I am still thinking about - do I make a soup or do I freeze them as passata for future casserole applications?

Dinner is slow-cooking at present, and lunch was some of the scotch broth. Glad i tasted it before freezing as the lack of salt was painfully evident and so I bunged some in and threw in some worcestershire sauce for good luck. And it now tastes a lot nicer.

Also tea-dyed some calico to make up the sashing for the quilt. I am thinking an inch and half of that, plus a strip from the jellyroll for around the centre which will add some dimension to it. Then another strip of the calico inside the border which is in a nice rose colour. The binding i bought is thin red diagonal stripes on a pale brown background so that should tie it all together fairly well.

Here it is four thirty and i am famished, so I suspect dinner will be early today ...