I’m making use of the kitchen tonight with a celebration/commiseration meal. It’s celebration because we’ve now got our stuff from Pickfords. There are plates and cutlery and all sorts of stuff. Cool! Celebration too because we’ve again made good progress in the house and there are remarkably few boxes with stuff in. All those trips to the dump before leaving Sandhurst have paid off for us now.

There will be NO unopened boxes here by this time next month, I’m determined!

There is another reason for celebration in as much as I’ve now met my next-door neighbour, who seems extremely nice and very friendly. I popped to the local shop and there she was – she knew who I was but I’d not seen her before. I’ve never in my life felt part of a community until I came to Cornwall. I so want this to be MY community. It’s starting to feel as though it might be – I bumped into one of my neighbours from the cottage in town and had a long chat with him about all sorts of stuff. I doubt that I ever bumped into anyone I knew in Tesco in Sandhurst.

We’re just getting ourselves sorted out and now I have to go. It’s heart-breaking but I have to cross the Tamar tomorrow to go up-country to work. I have a sneaking feeling that it’s going to be a very difficult week too. We have a two-day board meeting Thursday/Friday and I’ve already been told it’s going to be a tough one.

So, tonight I’m making dragon pie for supper – a good, hearty meal that will leave a generous portion for DMs supper tomorrow night so he’s only got to fend for himself once. It’s not that he’s not capable, it’s that he’s not interested enough to sort out a proper meal for himself. There are times when I’m away that he lives on ketchup and bread. (I don’t know how he’ll feel about me revealing that little secret.)

This dish has garlic in it and I looked at the fat cloves, their strange hair-dos and decided to photograph them before cutting them up. The background is the brass pan from my scales – I couldn’t bring myself to have the lovely ‘tiles on a roll’ for my backdrop!

Last year, I was already away from home and feeling miserable.