Last week, Andrew had bought 2 kg of stewing beef for me when I had requested only 200 g. Now, as I said at the time, he is the one with two degrees in Physics from the University of Cambridge, surely that should have meant that he would be good at numbers?

We put 1.6 kg of the beef in the freezer in 200 g parcels and then made a casserôle with the remaining 400 g. Earlier in the week, we took out another 2 parcels and put them in the refrigerator to defrost. Unfortunately, the refrigerator is set to quite a low temperature so the meat took rather a long time to defrost. It is so low a temperature that when I took out the vegetables they were practically frozen.

Still, the beef casserôle this evening is now in the final hour of its cooking. Later on, with the benefit of a warm oven, I hope to bake some scones to my mother’s recipe. I have never done this away from Mum, so hopefully it will go ok.