I've written before about our broadband problems.  It's painfully slow, intermittent and gets noticeably worse when it rains (yes, really).  We've had some recent problems with it involving lots of phone calls to BT, and then on Tuesday night it went off completely.  Andrew rang BT and after the usual faff, they arranged to send out an engineer on Friday (yesterday).  He came around 10 and stayed until 1.30 - he liked Booty and Boola who were particularly keen to have someone new to tickle them.  I kept Andy well away from him since he is so nervous around men he does not know.  

With having to wait in and not being able to do any work, I decided to start with the beautiful fabric that Leila sent me last week.  I did some cutting out, and some of the initial stitching before leaving for work in the afternoon.  

The engineer mentioned that we will be having fibre optic cabling laid in the next couple of months which should help enormously in the speed of the service we get.  I can still remember Mr. Gruffydd teaching us about fibre optics in Physics O Level class and him getting very excited about what he saw as a groundbreaking technology.  He was right of course, but it's frustrating when we live in a a suburb of the capital city of Wales not to be getting decent speeds (we can't even stream video).  Hopefully this will change soon.  

Today's been a lovely day.  We walked the dogs this morning, while the rugby match was still on.  It was eerily quiet - the last time I can remember like this was for the Royal Wedding and for Princess Diana's funeral when simply everyone was glued to a TV.  Oddly there was a mobile speed camera van on the main road to Tredegar House - I can't imagine him getting a good haul of motorists this morning.  We had a lovely walk with Andy chasing squirrels and Booty running around too - so nice to see her enjoying the benefits of her hydrotherapy.  Thursday was her last weekly session - we are going to continue with fortnightly sessions and see how she gets on with that.  

We came home to a leisurely breakfast of scrambled eggs and toasted muffins and read the paper then we got busy in the kitchen. Andrew was making marmalade while I was in charge of chutney.  Andrew used an Ina Garten marmalade recipe which involved slicing the fruit and giving it a quick boil before leaving it overnight to continue cooking it tomorrow.  We've not tried this method of marmalade before and will be interested to see how it works.  Andrew hates following recipes, and has made two batches of the quantities suggested, with one being a variation using limes instead of lemons.  The smell from the bubbling marmalade and the chutney together was amazing. 

The chutney I made was apple and cranberry using some dried cranberries and a selection of the apples Rita and Roger brought last weekend.  We keep a selection of used jars in the utility room so always have plenty for preserving.  After cooking the chutney turned a lovely rich, plummy brown colour, but quite different in appearance from the illustration in the recipe book where it looked bright yellow with very discrete blobs of scarlet cranberry visible.  I think this is the curse of Nigella at work again- over the years we have had so much trouble with her recipes being badly written and poorly illustrated, so much so that I will simply not use her baking recipes any more as I've been caught out too many times.  This is a pity since her ideas are good, but I think there is no excuse for poor editing in a cook book - stages missing in recipes for instance or photos that don't help the person making the dish.  This is in contrast to Delia, Mary Berry or Good Housekeeping - for all of these you can relax knowing the recipe will be crystal clear, fool proof and tested so you can make it with confidence.  My Mary Berry cake book, for instance predates our wedding, it is covered in flour and smudges (always a good sign in a cook book) and I have never yet failed with one of her recipes.  Also, where illustrations are used, they are recognisably what the home baker makes - usually with slightly neater icing etc but clearly what you should be aiming for.  

Once the chutney was made and bottled I returned to my sewing and finished making a lovely tote bag with Leila's fabric.  I am absolutely thrilled with it.  I used a plain cotton from my stash in a crushed raspberry colour for the lining and the back of the bag.  I still had a little of the umbrella fabric left at the end so used it to make two tissue holders - one which I will keep in the bag and one which I will send to Leila as a Thank you.  Some pics attached of the finished items after pressing.  I'm delighted with the way they've turned out.   

We were listening to PM on Radio 4 last week when they did an obituary piece on Steve Jobs.  Not being an Apple-head I listened with interest, but was really impressed by an extract of a speech he did to  Stamford students back in 2005.  I found it very moving, very powerful and very impressive.  Click here to see the text and a video.   

Rita and Roger came for the weekend and it was good to see them. They came bearing gifts, some erigeron for the garden (a plant I love) and lots and lots of apples from their trees.  These will be turned into apple and rosemary jelly, though I'm also thinking apple and sage might be a good combination. 

On Saturday we went for a wonderful guided walk, with a guide called Jim (see his website here).  We did the Parkland and Palaces walk and it was fascinating.  I knew bits of it, but Jim really wove the whole thing together to make a coherent narrative.  We started at the Hayes, and as we walked Jim pointed out the Roman, medieval and Victorian elements of the city before we hit the Edwardian developments round City Hall.  We were lucky with the weather, as it stayed dry and sunny and it passed very quickly.  Jim also does ghost walks over at Llandaff - these look great and perfect for a blustery autumn evening.  Rita and Roger really enjoyed it too, so all in all a great day.  

On Sunday I was working so Andrew took the dogs with R&R over to the greyhound field.  They had a great time and when I came home I was faced by three greyhounds in a state of contented collapse after running round happily.  Had a lovely beef casserole on Sunday night (cooked with Old Speckled Hen ale) and a mixed berry crumble - perfect for what had turned into windy, wet weather.  The sloe gin is coming along nicely - bottles are being turned regularly and the liquid is a magnificent purple colour.  

Last night we went out to the National Museum of Wales (ironically, one of the buildings Jim had been telling us about) for a science cabaret, entitled Pythagoras' Trousers (website here).  It was a real mix of scientists, doctors, engineers and educators doing a kind of variety show of science - a bit of a mixed bag but very good in parts, and an idea I really like.  I especially liked the systems engineer who demonstrated safety critical system thinking by wriggling out of a straitjacket and a short piece on the Hershel telescope and radio wave astronomy.  As a result of the evening, we've also discovered that Cardiff has a Science Cafe with monthly talks/discussions on scientific subjects so will be going along to these.