Saturday evening at home in January

Bahir Dar shepherds, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

Not so much to write about today and not so much time as Eric is coming round for dinner. A Jamie dinner, Fred cooking roast lamb wih aubergine and me making 'dinner-ladies' carrots - sliced carrots laid down with garlic, orange peel, parsley, olive oil, cooked in orange juice, white wine and vegetable stock (from a cube - so handy always!)

For desserts we would have been eating apple crumble were it not for the fact that they were selling three pineapples for a euro (I managed to bargain for a fourth one as it happened) outside the Turkish grocery store on the Pretoriusstraat. Jamie tells us we can eat this with castor sugar and mint, so we will try this as well.

All washed down with some lovely (and cheap) Argento wine from Gall and Gall. I am bringing a box of six home whenever I can, as there is a 3 for 2 promotion this month and we want to take advantage, the question being whether or not one drinks more when one knows that the fridge downstairs is full of bottles of cooled Chardonnay.

In the meantime, listening to extended CD singles from East 17 and 2wo Third3 from the mid-nineties, having discovered 4thChild, the previous singer of 2wo Third3 on MySpace, through a link from Marc Almond. May I recommend a link to Marc's site as he has placed an excellent song there called Weakness for Roses, sung to the accompaniment of Martin Watkins' piano, a song written by Baby Dee. Just how wonderful is the internet?