shewhomust | Five things make a week in autumn

Is it really only a week ago that J. came to dinner? We had a lot of catching up to do: we'd been to Kendal, and to Hartlepool, and she'd been to Madeira which is even more impressive. Her home improvements rumble on, but we seem to have missed the drama surrounding the replacement of the conservatory roof. And replacement of her kitchen is about to start...

There were roast sweet potatoes for dinner. There were other things, too, but the remains of the sweet potato went into the next loaf of bread. I decided not to worry about the smoky paprika with which I had Seasoned them, even though it is quite hot, and that was a good decision, because you couldn't taste it in the finished loaf. You couldn't taste the sweet potato, either, but it does affect the texture of the crumb, making it looser and more open. Of course, this is partly because, although I tried to adjust proportions of flour and liquid to allow for the potato, the dough was still quite wet and sticky. Not worth roasting a sweet potato specially, but certainly worth erring on the side of generosity if you are roasting some. As if that weren't always the case.

I spent the afternoon of Hallowe'en at a conference on antisocial behaviour organised by the Parish Council: this seemed appropriate. The police were keen to tell us what they are doing to tackle drunken and aggressive behaviour in the streets, especially around the Bus Station, and it sounds as if there is a genuine problem, and they are doing their best to deal with it. But what all the local residents attending wanted to know was, what could they do about late nhight nise in the streets, and why had they discontinued their clampdown on noise from house parties? A certain amount of light was shed on this, which was helpful. The University had been invited to send a speaker, and declined: the Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Colleges and Student Experience) was present in the audience.

We did not leave the European Union on October 31st: that's something to celebrate. I opened a bottle of wine: "European wine!" specified durham_rambler. Of course. We had a Greek white, from the Wine Society.

The household at the top of the seize any excuse for fireworks, so naturally we were under fire last night. Were fireworks always this noisy? My childhood memories of firework parties have almost no soundtrack: there were bangers, I suppose, but we weren't allowed them, and maybe some of the fountain things made a sort of whooshing sound... Anyway, at least I could watch last night's fireworks taking off (I may have missed their more spectacular effects, because of the angle of my viewpoint), which made the noises less alarming.

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