Sunday, after nine o'clock. A winter's night.

A semi-productive day here.  Am reclining with a mug of mulled wine (well, according to the book. gluhwein, but is there a difference?).  Pretty delicious once you get into it.  A bottle of red wine (a cab sav merlot cleanskin), a cinnamon stick, four cloves, a sliced orange, 1.5 sliced lemons, and 1/4 of a cup of caster sugar. Cook for 20 min on a medium heat - do not boil.  Let it sit for 3 hours for the flavours to blend, then strain, warm in a saucepan, then drink.  I could get used to this.  A great flavour combination, though I'd be interested to try a few different recipes.  The alternative in the book I used required 250ml of Brandy.

On the cooking front, another batch of Andrew's chickpea and vegetable curry, and a heap of roasted root vegies with balsamic vinegar and kecap manis.  That takes the pressure off cooking for the first few lunches and dinners of the week, as well as saving money on lunches.  Not that there's much I want to eat around work now that I don't eat meat. There are only so many times I can stand tofu and rice, and sometimes (OK, lots of times) I'm too lazy, lazy, lazy to walk up to my favourite nearby vegan cafe.  As well, tonight I mopped the floors, did a load of washing and hung it out, washed the dishes.... quite the domestica when I wasn't sleeping half the day.  I had hoped to bake a chocolate pecan self-saucing pudding, but ran out of time and motivation.  Yes, it's an exciting blog, isn't it?!

My last chore is to go out and get a neighbour's cat's heat pad and reheat it for the night.  It's cold here at the moment, so I bought him a microwave heat pad. Not sure he's using it, but just in case.  Hopefully when my neighbour comes home, she'll keep using it if she doesn't let him in at night.  He's a stray she's taken on, which is great.

Well, here ends my prosaic "dear diary" for the day.  A final question:  what is the name for a bellringer?