A Book and a Bag of Fruit and Nuts

 All my library books have now been finished although I still have the huge book about the Great Bardfield Artists to look through. 

What to choose off my shelves?

I picked A Lost Lady by Willa Cather , which is one of the books I found at the big Colchester Charity Book Sale in October.

I've read O Pioneers and My Antonia by her previously. This is the note about the book from Wiki

A Lost Lady is a 1923 novel by American writer Willa Cather. It tells the story of Marian Forrester and her husband, Captain Daniel Forrester, who live in the Western town of Sweet Water along the Transcontinental Railroad. Throughout the story, Marian—a wealthy married socialite—is pursued by a variety of suitors and her social decline mirrors the end of the American frontier.^[1] The work had a significant influence on F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby.^[2]

It's very well written and I enjoyed it, it will be added to my very small collection of Virago Modern Classics to keep, rather than pass on. 

I was listening to Radio 5 Live while writing this post and heard about how well England did in the first of the cricket test matches in India. Colin would have so enjoyed it. The first time India have lost  at home while having a 100 run lead, I think they said, and England hardly ever win much abroad.

 But I was really listening to the final of the Australian Open Tennis which was incredibly exciting even on radio. I'm thinking I need a subscription to a sports TV channel now that so little is on terrestrial TV. If I bought fewer books I could easily afford it!

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This is my way of using a 200g, 59p bag of Essential Range mixed fruit and nuts from Aldi. "ideal for snacking" it says on the packet and they wouldn't take long to eat as a snack, but I use them a different way.

Separated into peanuts, raisons and almonds. The peanuts are enough for two batches of home-made peanut biscuits. The raisons will be chopped and used in the next loaf of spiced fruit loaf made in the bread-machine and the almonds will be blanched, chopped and used for almond biscuits with some drops of almond essence. Although last time I added them to the bag of mixed nuts when I made spiced roast nuts as one of my January treats - mustn't make them again until next January - they are far too more-ish!

It seems a good way to make use of them - better than snacking - (the recipe for the Basic Biscuits is on the separate recipe page - scroll down to almost at the end)

Back Tomorrow

Sue