A successful pudding

After not settling down till 11 the jolly pair were up at 7.45. They amused themselves with complicated Pokémon games while I prepared a Rachel Roddy pasta dish for tonight and made an apple cake.

I assembled a picnic before we all set out for Cragside. It was so busy all the car parks were full and people were parking on the side of the single track road causing congestion.


Ella and Nathaniel played a while in the adventure playground but they are out-growing it and soon had their picnic then made for the trim trail. Ella tried to do the monkey bars missing out 2 bars to make it harder. They kept setting themselves challenges then played for ages on the rock Nathaniel says was a meteorite. He climbs well - he helps Ella.

They played on a lot on the big slabs of rocks creating a river system from rock pools which is what they were doing when their dad appeared to relieve us. (Their restful night away was anything but - there was a wedding disco going on downstairs. I do think hotels should warn people about stuff like that when they are booking).

Luke went home after dropping off the children. #3 daughter was marking at our house it being half term. Dinner was a success, especially the pudding, one I’d frozen earlier. I had lined a pudding basin with panettone, drizzling Marsala on it then spreading with some Ligonberry jam bought in Scandinavia. I pushed in spoonfuls of ice cream and mixed in tinned cherries, pistachios, chopped dried apricots and sliced clementines and then more ice cream, topped with more panettone. To serve I poured on melted chocolate and some grated clementine rind. It really was yummy though I should have let it melt a bit more before serving.