Pancakes, bacon and good friends

A dear friend arrived last night to stay for the weekend, which always heralds the start of a great weekend.

We stayed up chatting until 3am (probably much to our upstairs neighbors' consternation) and this morning (just) we got up and I made pancakes. It seems to have become a 'thing' each time this friend comes over, but this time the delight was added to with bacon. I also altered the recipe slightly and discovered that apart from a slight over-carbonisation on the outside and the need to disconnect the smoke alarm, I can make wonderfully fluffy pancakes (add a teaspoon or so of baking powder to your normal batter recipe, and a little honey to counteract the flavour). And that when you drizzle them with runny honey and then fold the bacon into the middle like a sandwich, They. Are. Awesome.

Stolen photo of how they should look, unburned

 Husby was cold so went back to the bedroom as I cooked, our friend and I stood in the kitchen chatting. Once served, we all went to the bedroom (we have very limited space here, and the chairs in the living room were taken up with stuff) and sat on the bed to eat. We chatted there til 3pm (Husby caught a few more Z's, causing much hilarity when he tried (in his sleepy state) to join in the conversation with enthusiastic, sleepy mumbles which bore little  relevance to the rest of the chat. His most hilarious contribution was *sleepy roll over, wide grin with eyes still closed and* "Oh, Mormons".).

Our friend and I get on well despite her being Husby's friend first; we quickly warmed to each other and have since discovered many commonalities and causes for those great, introspective, soul-baring chats where you feel some real ground has been covered. I find she's another person with whom time does the simultaneous slow-down/speed-up thing around, and the day feels enriched by having had those conversations. By 3pm though, we really did feel that it was worth making something of the day.

Our newly fixed boiler promised a gorgeous warm shower...until we discovered we'd run out of money on the gas meter. Fortunately the sweet man in the shop seemed completely unfazed by the appearance of a greasy-haired, unwashed, un-bra'd, jogging-bottomed, army-boots-with-no-socks-and-laces-undone woman at his counter, begging for a top-up on her gas card. He chatted nicely and told me about how people seemed to leave it til closing time to realise they needed gas (I confessed to occasionally being one of them) and as soon as the machine was done, off I went to test-drive the shower. It was so gloriously warm, I didn't know quite what to do with myself.

Clean and happy, shopping was done (ice-cream was yet again forgot) and our friend and I settled in to watch half of The Help before going out to a mercy dinner with a group of other friends (A highly convoluted endeavour  - A friend's wife and her mother were going to the theatre nearby. Said wife's mother had damaged her Achille's tendon and needed chauffeuring by her creepy other half. Because of the distance, our friend was going to be left in sole charge of said creep and so co-opted a group of us to keep him company in a public place with this chap until the theatre visit was over.)

We all had a great time sharing stories and ribbing one another. I discovered that after a mere two pints of snakebite and black, the road home is rather wibbly and that the second pint is a perfect substitution for pudding (and is cheaper). The creep situation was suitably diffused - no drinks needed to be hurled; no punches needed to be thrown; the evening was a success. Our friend and I watched the rest of The Help, chatted a little and turned in.

My only slight marring of the evening was the appearance of the ol' 'time of the month' unexpectedly early. I've never been early in my life, so panicked that it was the heralding of another miscarriage. Mr Google put my mind to rest - you begin your monthly a set time (14 days) after ovulation. Ovulation can occur early (or late) due to stress. Two weeks ago, I thought that it was the last time we'd ever be able to try to conceive naturally. I guess that counts as stressful then. The '*phew* it's not a miscarriage' and the 'damn, I'm not pregnant' cancel each other out for this month at least.