Witch finder general

We've been at my parents' house for much of the day, and are currently driving along the North Essex country lanes on our way back to London. It is these very roads where you occasionally witness a peculiar semi-paranormal phenomenon, which involves little spumes of white mist dancing about above the white lines in the centre of the road. On several occasions I've swerved to avoid them, thinking they were rabbits or white cats. It's a little unnerving, but then again, this area will always be associated with witchcraft, having been the stamping ground of Matthew Hopkins, the Witch finder general, who was responsible for the deaths of over 300 innocent women in the mid 17th Century.

The day started at Philippa's house in Columbia Road, an area of London which literally buzzes on a Sunday. There are street markets all over the place, stretching from the famous Petticoat Lane, via Spitalfields and Brick Lane, up to Columbia Road itself, with its extraordinary Sunday morning flower market.

We had tea with Philippa, her two daughters and her mother, Kate. Deia showed me some of her writing from school. It turns out she's left-handed, but that her writing is really rather neat. She's obviously a very clever little girl. #proudgodfather

We drove from East London to Thaxted, where my Mum had thrown together a delicious roast dinner complete with a cherry and plum crumble, which we had with both cream and custard. Why go for 'or' when 'and' will do?

After dinner, Nathan and I took advantage of the fact that a vacuum cleaner could be attached to a extension lead and dragged out to the front drive. Our car has been a shocking mess for months now, and we spent a good hour filling two bin bags with detritus, some of which was absolutely disgusting. Half sucked sweets, a whole packet of mince pies and a Tupperware box in the boot filled with something indescribable which had turned liquid and gone rancid. There were five slate tiles from Sanquhar in Scotland in the boot, four umbrellas, three mugs, a couple of quid under the front seat and a roll of Christmas wrapping paper (not from this year...) If we hadn't been so disgusted with ourselves, we would probably have found the whole thing quite amusing!

We did a FaceTime chat with Brother Edward and Sascha, who were making their customary Sunday night wraps. I love the fact that they make wraps every Sunday evening. In fact I love anything which involves routine. I was taking about that to Fiona the other day. Neither of us has any stability or regularity in our lives so we both tend to cling like glue to anything which even resembles routine. I have my day of writing in cafés after attending the osteopath, and the monthly craft and cake, and my yearly birthday and Eurovision celebrations... Seeing Sascha making the wraps made me want to be there about to eat them! They're always delicious.