Ponytails

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There was so much snow and ice around on Friday 2nd March, that we were unable to leave the house. It was, however, fifty years since Jackie and I first married. In our circumstances we are uncertain whether this date or that of our second wedding last year takes precedence. We couldn’t really let it pass unnoticed as we chomped our sandwiches in the evening, and I decided to buy a token present today. Jackie therefore drove me into New Milton where I bought some Givenchy Organza perfume which made her even more fragrant.

This afternoon we drove into the forest. Although the snow had largely disappeared there were a few pockets in the more sheltered spots.

More trees, like those on Boldrewood Drive, had been shattered by the winds of Storm Emma, requiring their limbs to be cut up, and left to join the relics of previous arboreal casualties, retained for ecological purposes.

The two small ponies seen foraging by the roadside were perhaps last year’s later foals. One, in particular, decorated its mane at tail with crisp bracken and leaves.

We stopped for a drink at The Royal Oak, North Gorley. Jackie, reflected in a pool on the road outside the pub, sports her own ponytail.

We then returned home just in time to receive a call from Richard of Kitchen Makers who came to fit the front of one of the drawers that had not been delivered to him before; and to change an existing power point so that it would match the new ones he had installed. Such is his attention to detail.

Pasta arrabbiata

Having mastered the hobs, this evening Jackie fed us on her spicy pasta arrabbiata. She had stocked up on her frozen delicacies. The bulk of this meal was heated up and more pasta cooked on the induction hobs. The Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon.