One long party

Martyn harvesting the last of his Bramley apples

...or so it seems this August.  Unusually for a Bank Holiday weekend, the weather has been warm and sunny, and we have made full use of it.  We had a branch of Martyn's family here for the afternoon on Saturday, and we catered excessively as usual, even though there were twelve of us on parade.  Not wishing to be shackled to the barbecue (which is out of gas anyway) I made four pizzas and a pasta salad.  Martyn did a big plate of crudités and dips, a green salad and a potato salad.  He also made an apple pie, a lemon drizzle cake and a bowl of apple and raspberry compôte.  (Apples from this year's copious crop).  His other brainwave was to order up a badminton set, which kept numerous generations entertained for a couple of hours while the rest of us lurked in the shade of the willow.

Next day it was off to Faversham for Christine and Steve's annual bank holiday bash, where we got to meet old and new friends, including one of Martyn's classmates whom he hadn't met in the meantime.  Traffic was somewhat Bank-holidayish, but the queue for the coast started only a mile short of where we'd to turn off for Faversham, so didn't trouble us unduly - but we came home across country, avoiding motorways and trunk roads.

Monday's agenda was undemanding, so we got the laundry dry and the bread baked, and knocked out a chicken casserole later (using up the leftover crudités, of course).  But in the hot weather, we opted to hold over the resulting dish for a day or two, from which casseroles always benefit, and finish off some of the cold stuff instead.

Today has seen a happy and sad occasion: Celia's last day at our shared hobby.  Fulsome praise from all concerned, and rightly so, remarking on her firm, fair and humane chairmanship.  The first time I observed her from the gallery, I decided that hers was the approach I should try to adopt when the time came, and I hope I approach her standards now and then.  We took her a little bunch of appropriately named roses from the garden.  We're taking her and Andy to Gatwick on Thursday for their week away in Tuscany - her birthday treat - so will learn then how the rest of the day went.

Back at the ranch, more leftovers scoffed: sausage, potato and mushroom omelette.  I shed a tear at slinging out other leftovers - you can take the boy out of Scotland, but...