Today I made three loaves of bread using wholegrain spelt flour. The bread turned out quite well, with the look of regular wholemeal, and a good smell while it was baking. This is the first time I’ve baked with spelt flour. I would love to comment on how the taste of the bread varied from my usual bread, but the two slices I ate tasted mostly of butter, ketchup, and fried eggs. Maybe I’ll have another slice for tasting purposes later this evening.

Midsomer Murders! One of the few things worth watching on ITV. Doesn’t feel right having new episodes on a Wednesday evening, though: Sundays are more fitting for pretty villages, country houses, Joyce Barnaby, and shocking murders.

Made bread yesterday. White bread this week; makes a change from the wholemeal I’ve been making recently.

I thought this week’s Dr Who was a little disappointing. The cast and setting were good, but the story was trite, the characters were weakly drawn, and it really shouldn’t have been a two-parter.

Swimming this morning: no fire alarm this week, and there was hot water in the showers, so we’ll count it as a success.

We had Turkish-style food for lunch today, to go along with the Turkish F1. (Well, Turkish food in as much as it matched our idea of what Turkish food might be like, without us doing anything like research.) My homemade houmous was amusingly garlicky. Maybe it will be mellower tomorrow. Kate made some vegetable kebabs and some falafal. The race was pretty exciting too, with some good overtaking.

Andrew made pies for our tea tonight. He found some pastie-makers that he’d never used, so we folded fillings into puff pastry: cheesy vegetables in half of them, and potato and pea curry in the others. It worked rather well. Pies are good.

Then back home to watch Lewis and to eat chelsea buns, hot from the oven. For a change I sprinkled sugar crystals on top, rather than the sugar syrup that I’ve used previously. It worked pretty well, and was a bit more like the chelsea buns I remember from bakers as I grew up in Nottingham.

A busy Saturday. I made four 1lb loaves of wholemeal bread this morning (as usual, one is in the bread bin for eating and the other three are in the freezer for later in the week). With Polly and Will staying with us during Stanza, they headed off to a panel discussion after breakfast, and then we met up with them for lunch at the Victoria Café. The food appears to have poshed up a bit in terms of presentation since the last time I was in there, but I was amused that they gave us one of the messiest, stickiest ketchup bottles that I’ve seen in a long time.

Polly and Beth went to a Stanza show at the Byre Theatre after lunch, while the rest of us wandered around town in the sunshine, before meeting at Jannetta’s Café for sundaes. Mmm.

A walk by the beach brought us home, and now I’m waiting for some white bread dough to rise. We’ll be eating some of the fresh bread for dinner tonight.

I made some wholemeal bread yesterday. I’m trying to get into the habit of making bread every Saturday. Four 1lb loaves; one is on the go in the bread bin, the other three are in the freezer for later this week. Kate thought the bread was a little salty; I followed the recipe in the Kenwood cookbook, but I’ll try halving the salt next week.

It was bright and sunny first thing this morning. Beth helped me to dig over the vegetable patch, ready to plant some seeds later this week. It feels like we’re out of the frost season.

Now we’re settled down in front of the F1, with potatoes baking in the oven, and veggie haggis to go with them. Not long till lunch.

Looking forward to Polly coming to visit later this week; her annual trip to St Andrews for Stanza.

I intended that Beth and I would make hot cross buns today, while Kate was off visiting Andrea in Edinburgh. Unfortunately Kate’s cold got the better of her, so she has remained at home for the weekend.

When I started assembling ingredients I found that we’d run out of eggs, so I’ve put the hot cross buns off until tomorrow, giving us a a chance to do some shopping. As I’d started getting baking things out, Beth and I made a bread dough, and we’re currently waiting for it to rise.