Thursday
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At lunchtime, wife made scrambled egg --- so I sliced the remains of Frank's bacon and fried it to accompany the egg. Not a drop of water! Free-range eggs were very good too. We ate sourdough rye bread and drank coffee.

For dinner, mushroom risotto. I had made chicken stock yesterday; today I removed the carcass, put the bones in the bin and gave the flesh, skin etc to the dogs, who were delighted. I heated the stock while softening some onions in butter in a second saucepan.

Then I chopped two large chestnut mushrooms and, once the onions were soft, threw them in and let them cook for about five minutes. I sprinkled in the remains of a bag of Teresa's Italian herb mix, then added 11ox arborio rice with a little extra butter. After a few minutes, I added a glass of wine and, when it had been absorbed, started adding hot stock, ladle by ladle, stirring the while. At the end, I took it off the heat, added and stirred in some more butter and some grated parmesan, served the risotto in bowls and put some chopped parsley on top.

Damsons and plums for dessert.