Home made pizza

It's been a long old day today which started with a visit from Nathan's father and step Mum. They've been having a somewhat dramatic time of it lately, with their back fence going up in a fireball as a result of a neighbours' barbecue. Said neighbours had actually dumped the remnants of their barbecue under a tree in the back garden some 24 hours before the inferno. I had no idea that a fire could smoulder inadequately for that long. It's a lesson to us all to make sure we pour water onto charcoal, however dead it looks.

It seemed to take forever to get down to Tooting where we were due to spend the afternoon and evening in the delightful company of Abbie and Ian. We decided to stop for a late lunch on the way and got as far as Wandsworth before deciding the best option was to grab a few sandwiches from the obscenely large Sainsbury's there. It's so large, in fact, that it has its own cafe, so we legged it up there and ordered hot food, before seemingly waiting forever as the staff pottered about in tempi which Mahler would have found most agreeable. In the end, they brought my food out first, and because I'm one of those people who gets food envy when they've finished their own meal and someone else is still going, I sat, waiting, like a tragic modern day Madam Butterfly, as my food went cold and Nathan's never arrived.

Obviously it eventually arrived. And we were only about an hour late to Abbie's.

We ate way too many chocolates.

Then we watched a version of Bake Off... for Tattoo artists. (It's very exciting, and VERY Channel 4 with the voice over man swearing like a trouper!)

Then we ate home made pizza, for which Abbie even made and proved the dough.

Then we ate home made raspberry profiteroles...

And then we played Uno and watched the news, somewhat horrified by the fact that Turkey has taken another step towards dictatorship and North Korea is threatening pre-emptive nuclear attacks against the US. It's amazing how Trump has managed but a few months in office and we're already on the brink of world war. In the midst of all this hideous news came the story that Prince Harry has finally admitted how sad he feels about the death of his mother twenty years ago, so much that he's gone into therapy about it. It must be awful for him, and I'm sure grieving in the public eye is not a great deal of fun, but it's not headline news. I'm glad he's getting the help he needs and am pleased if his acknowledging his own grief has led to other grieving people finding the strength to have counselling, but it's not headline news. In my experience, it's not really that people need to pluck up the courage to go into therapy, it's that they need to save up enough money to do so. That stuff can be really expensive. I think it can also get a little indulgent as well, but that's another story.