Oh the toilets of Lorraine…

Anyway so after Dean’s young men came round on Monday to fix the leak, the whole thing blocked up, more or less, and Dean himself was unable to make it before seven this evening, when we’re going out. I have already mentioned how much I hate the toilet and its stupid sordidness not to mention its propensity for snails, but in this case it’s the pipes and probably roots in it. Probably. Anyway talking to next door a few weeks ago they revealed it was an endemic problem in Lorraine largely because of the beautiful gum trees in the street which I love, and perhaps because of the particularly perfect gum we have in the front garden which if it had to be got rid of it would take pretty much the rest of my life to grow a new one and even then I’d miss the old one (well, there you go, I’m sentimental about plants as well as animals and shed a little tear, usually internally, when any one of them dies, which is always).

Today I made two loaves of zucchini and potato bread (as yet an untested commodity but as we are going to Nicole and Julian’s for dinner tonight I thought I would act on this impulse) and both rose really nicely, well, the first one less so because it rose so high it was flattened on the roof of the oven, but it’s still an impressive one. The other looks almost as good as a bought one. Why zucchini and potato? Well firstly through a frank exchange of views last week Mia told me my bread often dried out after a couple of days and was no longer pleasant (no man likes to hear that). I generally put a little olive oil in it to keep it soft but obviously not enough anyway I know that some kind of vegetable fibre aids the moistness factor no end so that seemed to be the smart way to go. And we had a zucchini left over from the lasagne of two days ago but not enough really to make much difference to two loaves, so I thought I’d add some potato as well as it’s always good. Just frazzled them in the microwave for a short time and they were fine for the purpose. Well, as far as I know. The breads might suck.

Sorry to talk about the toilet and food in the same posting, doesn’t seem very hygienic but there was gum trees in between, you may recall.