Scamp was out in the morning, going to the dentist to see if the new crown would pass muster with the dentist.
Thankfully it passed with flying colours and although it won’t be seen in her pearly shine because it’s a back tooth, it will make eating much more pleasurable, I’m sure. We had to wait a while for the anaesthetic to wear off before we made plans for the day.
It was quite windy and there was the threat of heavy rain overnight and Scamp was desperate to get the back garden grass cut. I was going shopping instead. Grass cutting doesn’t enthral me, but eating does and I was making dinner tonight. Another traybake, this time a Chicken, Red Onion and Tomato one. We needed a lot of stuff for it and as I wanted to visit the phone shop in the town centre Tesco, I thought I could combine both expeditions in the one place. The food shopping was not a problem, but the tiny wee booth they have for the phone shop was busy when I went, so I dumped the dinner ingredients in the car and went back where, thankfully it was quiet. Got myself a trial 30 days sim to test the ability of the Samsung to work with the O2 masts that Tesco runs on.
Instead of going straight home I drove up to Fannyside and found my usual space. Luckily I’d brought an old rainproof jacket with me because it was blowing a hoolie up there on the moor. The wind was from the east and there was nothing to stop in for miles. I took a couple of photos of buttercups blowing at the side of the single track road, but they didn’t appeal to me, besides, with the sun behind me I was casting a shadow over my subjects. I tried the other side and found that was where the bright yellow Hawkbit grew. A much more interesting shot and my shadow was slightly left of centre, so if I moved further left to wouldn’t be in the shot at all! Success!
Further on I took a few shots of the old ruined farm about half a mile away across the fields. It looked good with the lens at 35mm, but the dramatic sky above just looked ordinary. But if I set the lens to its ultra wide setting of 16mm the sky looked great, but the farm was a tiny wee dot in the distance. Then I decided to take two photos, one of the farm and one of the sky and blend them together on the computer.
That wind was really strengthening now and drawing all the heat out of the sun, so I turned around and headed for the car. Another car, a nice shiny one, was heading up the road towards me and I stepped to the side to let him pass, me being used to single track roads, but he wasn’t. He drove past me and on for a few metres and met a farmer coming the other way in what an old friend of mine in Australia called a ‘Ute’. A four wheel drive utility vehicle. Two won’t go into one on this road, so Mr Shiny Car had to reverse right back to where I was parked and the farmer passed glaring at both of us. Mr Shiny Car decided he’d had enough of Country Roads and did a 7 point turn and headed back the way he’d come. So did I.
Back home, I started the prep for the dinner. I think it was seven different spices, herbs and liquids went into a big resealable bag and then the chicken legs went in. The bag was sealed and it went into the fridge to marinade. I had a look at today’s photos and only rejected one out of the dozen or so I’d taken, and despite the time I took to get the clouds and the landscape just right, it was the five minute job on the Hawkbit ( a bit like a thin dandelion) that got PoD.
After the chicken had been soaking in it’s manky brown but interestingly smelling marinade for about an hour, everything went into baking tray and that slid into a pre-heated oven @ gas 6 for 15mins which seemed an awfully short time. As it happened, it was indeed far too short. In all, the roasting took just over half an hour, and it was fine. The chicken was fine, but the onions, oh the red onions!! They were the stars of the show. Deliciously crunchy and soaking up most of the flavour from the marinade. We’ll make it again, but give it twice the time the recipe says.
It appears that Storm Betty will be visiting us overnight. Heavy rain and high winds with the chance of thunder too. Oh what fun. I think we may be going to a dance class too.