Well, that may be stretching things a little but this is a good esercise for us to see what we are capable of!  We had a request from Ann, one of the leaders of our local Rainbows, to see if they could use our WIFI for all the gairls to talk to her daughter who is in Boston, USA.

I’ve set up the speakers and the big screen with the data projector so all the girls can see what is going on while they take it in turns to ask a few questions.

While this may be a bit flippant calling it international  conference calling it does show how flexible we can be.  With skype you can hold a conference call of up to nine people and if they all have web cams then they can all see and speak to each other.  The only cost is the wifi usage and we are giving this to the Rainbows (along with a drink!).

Wet autumn evenings are soup times and tonight is no exception so I thought it would be good to try our two soups tonight - a spinach and potato and then celeriac which we are serving with a little drizzle of truffle oil.  I had a small cup of the spinach soup which was just what Jon wanted it to be, thick and warming and full of flavour.  Before I tried the celeriac soup I ran my teaspoon under the hot water.  Unfortunately i didn’t wait long enough before trying this soup and burnt my lips on the spoon!  Serves me right for not waiting.  Still, it was another good soup and worth the pain.

I know that the phrase really is “Stir up Sunday” but that first one just flashed across my slightly cross-wired mind yesterday as Matt was mixing up our Christmas puddings!  Last year we made all our own puddings for the parties as well as Christmas Day and it was so successful we’ve decided to do the same thing again this year.

It was quite an occasion watching Matt mix everything up in a very large bucket -  well, a storage trolley / bin really.  This is very handy as it is on wheels so handy for putting it in the fridge and then taking out agian for more mixing.  I’m certainly looking forward to trying one of the sample puddings when they’re cooked!