A fairly quiet day, still harumphing to myself over the nonsense with the food waste. Interestingly, today is our bin day. Nobody from the Council has officially told us that our collection time has moved by 12 hours and today, not a single one of our neighbours had their green bins out. This is a "nice" area and should be a shoo-in for participation - if we can't get it right here, it doesn't look good.

We spent most of the day waiting in for a non-appearing BT person or courier who was supposed to be delivering a black box to us for our broadband at the new house. First, we were told morning delivery. By noon, no sign so another call. It'll be there by 2 - yeah, right....

Meanwhile the dogs are squeaking with frustration and I am too, as a number of things by default are done after we walk the dogs. BT still have some way to go to really polish their customer service. Anyway by 2, we gave up, went out and had a good walk over at Tredegar. Amazing coloured berries and still a few late campions in flower. Not too many squirrels though, much to Andy's disgust.

Tomorrow is a busy day, as on Saturday we're hosting a visit from Andrew's parents and aunt, who's flown down from Scotland for a short trip. Interestingly, she also has greyhounds but has galgos, the Spanish ones. They are sadly treated even more appallingly than a lot of British dogs, so a number of rescue and rehoming groups are active across Northern Europe. Anyway, her husband will be staying at home to manage the pack, and she is coming for a trip, via Bristol airport, so it made sense for her to come to us first. As she's a vegan, it's always interesting and enjoyable to cater for her. I've decided on the first two courses -doing a pumpkin and apple soup, with festive chestnut rolls, followed by golden vegetable casserole. For dessert, I'm dithering over a coconut icecream made purely with coconut milk/cream or a fruit compote. Watch this space. I love menu planning, especially at this time of year, when there are so many nice things around. The challenge when you are entertaining a vegan is to provide something that dedicated carnivores will also enjoy. Generally, I try to avoid what I call "pretend" veggie food - tofu or quorn that is pretending to be meat, or vegetable margarine that is pretending to be butter. I loathe soya milk to drink although it works quite well in recipes especially if there are other flavours to mask it. I have in the past made a successful chocolate pudding with soya milk that was delicious as the cocoa and melted chocolate provided good flavouring. Anyway, catering issues aside, it'll be great to see her and catch up with all the news.