Let's do lunch

I had invited Grandad Jack over for lunch today.

I hadn't seen the old bugger for a few months and felt it was time to catch up on his latest news.  30% is also very fond of the curmudgeonly old sod, and hadn't seen him in an age, so she too was keen to catch up.

Now Jack has fairly recently been given the all clear after surgery and chemo/radio therapy following the discovery of a tumour in his neck. He has made a fantastic recovery, but still has difficulty with eating solids.

Under normal circumstances I would have prescribed a home cured bacon sandwich, which will heal anything, but I was aware that Jack is not yet ready for anything that substantial.

I therefore got busy in the kitchen this morning and cooked up a pan of cream of tomato soup. It was well seasoned with plenty of garlic and black pepper, and a heavy handed glug of double cream added a richness to the tasty soup.

Jack turned up at lunch time and we had a splendid few hours chatting and catching up on each others' news. The soup was a big hit, and he even went for a second helping.

We made sure he went home well provisioned, sending him off with another portion of soup, eggs, honey and a jar of crabapple jelly.

When he sent a WhatsApp thank you message, he advised that he had scrambled a couple of our eggs and had them with a slice of hot buttered toast for his supper. He actually managed to eat the toast, which was the first time he had eaten bread since his operation.  We were both quite touched that he attributed this dietary milestone to the quality of our eggs ... Bless him!

So that was my Friday.

I also found time to wander up to the orchard and remove the obsolete brood box from hive #2.  There were still a few bees clustering in the brood box, so my use of a clearer board was, at best, only partially successful.  I shook the remaining bees in to the brood box and reassembled the hive with a feeder positioned above the crown board.  I made up about four litres of syrup and poured this into the feeder towards the end of the day.