Wind-down day

Nice day yesterday with Sandra and Michael.  The catering worked well, we think: blinis with smoked salmon and fake caviar, open prawn and ham sandwiches, sausage rolls, Spanish fizz (with orange juice for them as likes).  A little later, my learned Branch Chairman's mince pies were much appreciated, specially when helped down with a nip of sloe gin!  I'd taken time the night before to work out what needed to happen when, and used the oven timer to remind me when the next step was due.  Time well spent, since it removed a lot of the stress from the day.  It turns out that the blinis, even when dressed with cream cheese and toppings, freeze well, so we'll do them again.  We'd some batter left over, so I'll fry the remaining batch later and open-freeze them for future reference.  The leg of lamb was delicious.  We'll buy from Higham Farm again, I think.  I cooked it a fraction too long, unfortunately, but it was still just dripping a bit of pink juice when it came out.  Martyn (who is the absolute champion when it comes to roast spuds and parsnips) had spotted a Nigel Slater tip about standing the joint on a trivet over water.  That worked very well: on top of the rack we put a leek, quartered lengthwise and some rosemary, and plonked the joint on top thereof.  It made the gravy-making a lot easier.  The good old 1950s pressure cooker pan did a good job on the carrots, beans and sprouts, and a separate steamer saw to the kale.  Today, apart from a bit of laundry, we're taking it easy.  At lunch time, Martyn introduced me to the joys of bubble and squeak, using up yesterday's left over veggies as an accompaniment to left over lamb.

I strolled down to the post box while Martyn was preparing lunch, and on the way back bumped into our resident virtuoso organ recitalist, Simon Preston, who was going to see if the village shops were open.  I introduced myself, and we chatted a little about a couple of his recent performances, and about some of his Hindemith recordings that I admired back in the 1970s - he thinks they have found their way on to CDs, together with a bit of Reger, but I haven't managed to track them down yet.  Needless to say, the 33 of his Hindemith interpretations was below the water line in the 1999 floods.  Perhaps I'll wash them off and transcribe them to CDs, clicks, plops, mud, sewage and all.