Busy weekend and the memory of rubbery beef in Moscow

My pork stew

Hello. How was your weekend? Ours passed quickly. I cooked pork stew for six servings and chicken soup for two servings, cabbage salad for six servings and pickled turnips. Mike baked his bread, and cooked my Pacific salmon and his breaded (unknown white!) fish for two servings each. You may think they are enough for whole week for us. Alas non! Mikes comes home at lunch time. So we often have proper meals twice a day. So it only lasts to Wednesday lunch time, I guess.

From right, Pearl's blizzard coat, Pearl's winter coat, Pearls raincoat and her teddy's jumper!  

We also did two laundry. One for dogs and one for humans.

Yesterday I trained dogs to walk together twice. Topaz had to wear a muzzle, as she has bitten Pearl when they found a cat and overexcited.

I also tidied up two drawers of my filing cabinet and found 7 expired credit/shop cards!! I also scanned my last year's planner. Mike contributed some vacuuming.  

We went a department store to collect an Iron ordered on Internet this afternoon. Delivery person seemed to have smashed previous order, which was a French skillet, (it looked like eclipsed moon!)  so we decided to collect it this time.

Mike also did grocery in Saturday morning. Well, I offered to do it in Friday afternoon, as I had spare time. But he insisted he would go. The reason? He said 'You would not buy things I like to buy!'. I said, 'Oh common, I usually grit teeth, and live with what you have bought.' But I had the second thought, and declared, 'As far as you buy, cook, and wash up, I will not complain.' Status quo was restored. It is a cheap price to pay, huh?

Topaz has new ears!

We also did several throwing. I like to make glazing sample with new clay, porcelain white stoneware. I bought 10KG bag, But, Geee, I found it difficult to throw. It is a bit like rubber. This clay reminds me of beef served in Moscow in 1980's. It was soooo tough that I could not chew it properly. How many times ever I chewed, my teethe never met. In the end, I gave up and classified as an 'inedible object'. There was also a small roundish green thing was served. I thought it was a kind of plum, but at close inspection, I recognised as an apple. Very tiny green one with no hint of redness. I often lament that apples in UK are so small, but no apples in UK are as small as that one. I felt depressed, and decided to skip this one too. I had a small chunk hard dry bread and tea. That was my dinner on that night, and thought about Russian people. It was years before The Wall fell.

So, getting back to the clay, I throw a thin tea cup, and waited until it became dry enough to turn it. But when I tried to turn, I crashed the lip of the cup... tears... I was dispirited. I invited Miked to try. He threw a small bowl that is going to be finally a glaze sample. Phew.

I am expecting this week will be less busy than last week. I guess I overdid this weekend. Now I need a day to recover from the weekend activities. See you!