Another Dreich Day, Hooray....

Start the day with a smile they say, and get it over with.  Well I did that this morning.  Rising before the sun by seven thirty I had dumped the rubbish, eaten what is laughingly called breakfast, began to make soup, planned the 'wartime shortbread,', and made a list for a Tesco visit. 
Naturally it all went wrong
Too early to thump around the kitchen without waking neighbours (why are they not at work today I ask?), I noticed rain beginning which by eight was teeming down and remained so for hours, and I became immersed in some rubbish in the online papers and then facebook.  
The soup.  This was simple, add black lentils (I canny spell 'lentilles vertes'), rinse, boil for ten minutes, simmer for thirty five, then add stuff.  The mistake was to put all the lentils in the pot. As they were small I dumped in the whole packet, I did not realise they would swell up so much! I expected some degree but it meant there was insufficient space for the rest of the veg.  Onions and sauces only!  Tasting it much, much, later brought to mind a cartoon from forty years ago, a couple stand by the cooker on which a large pot bubbles, he holds a spoon to his mouth while she intones, "You can add salt if you like, but it won't get your socks any cleaner."  That is what this tasted like.
As I spoiled my lunch I made use of the recipe, using rough, wholemeal bread plain flour as it gives a better result in my opinion, and slid the hastily created biscuit into the oven.  As I toiled at the laptop, the rain hammering on the window drowning out the sound of my chattering teeth, (why is winter always cold?) i noticed a burning smell.  I ran to the soup, which simmered nicely, I opened the oven and stood back from the smoking black object therein.  Still, it will fill a gap I suppose.  Probably the cracks in the walls.
The cold rain kept me indoors, although if it's cold inside it is usually warmer out, and with the use of those woolen gloves with the fingers cut off I listened into Radio four's Agatha Christie tale.  Not a story but a chap following her adventure as she took the train to Baghdad!  A repeat maybe but very interesting.  
Late in the day I managed to spend far too much in Tesco's, and still forgot several things.  The picture above fits well.

The Scottish Independence Referendum is less than a year away.  All the media is London based, even the TV and Radio have a London bias among the staff.  Almost everyday there is a scare story informing Scots of the end of the world if Scotland becomes an independent state.  All arise in Westminster, all are indubitably nonsense.  One even had Rowan Williams the ex-Archbishop of Canterbury talking of the disaster if the union breaks apart.  Tsk!  The real truth is that Westminster NEEDS Scotland.  It needs the money that flows into Osbornes exchequer, England cannot survive without Scotland, that is why in 1707 Scotland was forced needlessly into the union in the first place!  While treating Scotland as a second class citizen who is expected to doff the cap to the mighty at Westminster the powers that be lie in their teeth to pretend they care, some not even being sure where Scotland actually is, it's somewhere beyond Watford is all they know!  The banner was, I am informed, placed on the headquarters of the people demanding a 'NO!' vote in the referendum, and was an excellent way to represent the peoples opinion.
Vote 'Yes!'