Thursday 2nd January 2025

Woke around 0945. Hauled ourselves out of bed and descended for tea, and porridge. Jim and Emma surfaced, having spent the night in their van on the driveway. They abluted, then departed for Killingworth. Aki prepared a small Japanese New Year lunch. I managed to cut a finger whilst trying to chop the lobster up! Couldn't play guitar...had planned to record my version of "Now Westlin' Winds"...it'll have to wait. Kath back in time to join us for lunch. Prepped tonight's dessert...a chocolate orange pannetone bread pudding! Dad took mum down to the GP for a check up. Came back reporting that she had passed her blood test with flying colours, but had failed utterly with the cognitive tests the doctor put to her. Dad came back shaking his head, though they were able to laugh it all off! 

The doctor is calling mum in for further tests at some point in the not too distant future. Really need to get that LPA sorted out! Warmed up the lamb stew for dinner, adding some vegetables, and some dumplings. Sadly, I could only find plain flour...what I thought would be self-raising turned out to be granulated sugar! I added some baking powder, but I guess it's old enough to have lost it's potency! The pudding made up for it though. Watched an entertaining documentary about Roger Moore, narrated by Steve Coogan doing a passable impersonation of the great man. Read some Dickens when everyone had retired for the night...though not before catching Kate Layden's memorable turn in one of the opening scenes of "The Full Monty"...the film came out shortly before we worked together on "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at Stoke.