As my family and friends know, I am a big fan of charity shops ( and used to be a devotee of jumbles sales in the days when wonderful pre war dresses could be found and bought for less than a shilling and a bit of prodigious elbow digging).  I usually take bags of discarded objects to the charity shops and return with clothes and toys and anything else that takes my fancy.  The cats protection league in St Neots is a favourite haunt especially as they found Mack and Mabel for us.  The vase shown was 99p and ditto the wooden decorations.  I found the small branches in the garden this morning.

The spinach soup recipe ( from daughter) was adapted to used Swiss chard which grows abundantly here all year round.  Friend Joy’s roasted butternut squash is a favourite but I leave out some of the ingredients and if I don’t have feta cheese I use whatever is in the fridge.  The cabbage with peanuts and cheese sauce makes use of the huge brassicas that might soon come to an end to be replaced by winter Brussels sprouts.  I don’t know where I found that recipe years ago but ( as with everything I cook) I pare down the ingredients, cut corners and make cooking as easy as possible.