Saturday

A beautiful morning, down at the beach.  A good cup of tea (with milk and sweetener) to start the day, and a lazy morning waiting for the plumber to arrive and fix a tiny leak in the fireplace gas lighter (we had noticed the smell after leaving the cottage closed for a week.

Meantime, around 9, I cooked up a bowl of porridge for each of us, with the usual addition of some raisins and dried cranberries, a sprinkling of brown sugar and a splash of half-and-half (it's still there, half empty now, in the refrigerator.

A not-so-good choice at lunch time.  We were passing through Corona del Mar and stopped at the Zinc Cafe, where I ordered a quesadilla, served with a small bowl of vegetarian chili and a dollop of guacamole.  A surfeit of beans, since both the quesadilla and the chili were made with a base of beans.  A cup of coffee--with milk and sweetener.  And I chose to watch Ellie eat her biscotto rather than indulge in one myself.  

A late-ish dinner over "No Country For Old Men"--a borrowed Academy DVD.  (We were breaking a copyright law?  Offending the Writers' Union?)  A bowl of homemade soup, with that inevitable splash of half-and-half (I'll have finished it soon, then I won't have to bore you with it any more) and a handful of pita chips with a spread of Boursin goat's cheese with fines herbes.

And I chose, again, to avoid the sweet stuff for dessert.