You'll gather from the general tone of this week's input that not a lot has been going on of any real note. Even my baking has been curtailed by activity in the kitchen - all the lights on one side weren't working and there were a few other problems so the guys who installed it came to fix it.

There was one short moment of frenzied activity. I'd got a new set of silicone cupcake cases with my groceries order and decided to give them a whirl, turning out a batch of rather successful Blueberry Muffins. They're so easy:

Dry Wet

280g plain flour 90ml sunflower oil

2 1/2 teaspns baking powder 250ml milk

175g caster sugar 1 teaspn vanilla extract

150g fresh blueberries 1 large egg

Preheat oven to 200C. Place cupcake cases in a muffin tin.

Mix dry ingredients together in one bowl and wet ingredients in another.

Quickly fold dry into wet - don't over mix, lumps are good!!

Two thirds fill each cupcake case and bake for 20 minutes. Ta-daaa!!!

Leo was a holy terror yesterday and trashed what could have been quite a nice day - we'd been planning to take him to the annual Charter Fair, just walking distance down the road, but his maHOOsive tantrum at the blood donating session, resulting in me wrestling him to the ground (thank goodness I wasn't still attached to the blood bag) and then dragging him kicking and screaming (snot, tears, the WHOLE ball of wax) in a headlock out of the Town Hall (with all the nursing staff looking on) certainly put paid to that!!!

My culinary offerings have been pants - not literally - apart from a rather nice risotto last night made with a large glass of white bordeaux. Jerry's boss does a shoot for a wine company every so often and we get the opened bottles - so they have to be used up rather quickly!! White bordeaux in the pot, red in my tummy - YUMMY!!!

At least the house it tidier and a lot cleaner too. It took three days to dry out the tent and various bits of kit and some of it's still drying in the conservatory. Leo DID help me sort out his toys (TV was banned too!!!) and now he's got nice tidy boxes full of rediscovered old friends and plenty of space to play with them. Because he was sent to bed early last night (as opposed to living up at the merry-go-round) Jerry and I got to watch "The Boat That Rocked" on DVD. Emma lent it to us. AWESOME film!!!

This morning I got my hair cut so I suppose it's not been too bad a week, though it could have been better! Leo chose a birthday present for Jerry - I hope he likes it!!! Can't tell you what it is yet - you'll have to wait 'til after Monday!!