I took advantage of a delay with a customer quilt and threw the blue Anvil top onto the frame. It was quilted with a double clamshell panto, and it turned out just the way I wanted it to look. The texture is wonderful, and with the cotton batting I just expect it to get softer and more cuddly every time it's washed. Now to find a binding for it!The heat is worse than it's been all summer, which seems cruel. The sun is tracking directly over the long axis of the house now though, and it's amazing how much cooler the rooms are with the roof insulating more efficiently. But it's oven temperatures outside, from sun-up till well past midnight. You can all remind me of this time when I start whinging about the cold, in a few months time...

I braved the kitchen last night to do some baking; in between mixing and measuring and oven-checking I retreated to the air-conditioned computer room, so it wasn't too bad. I try to eat lo-carb, and these are cheese muffins make with an Atkins baking mix. They are mighty good, especially with the addition of jalopenos and cayenne pepper and sunflower seeds. That's all my snacking taken care of for a week or so.I'm not particularly keen on fruit, but these pears are appealing to me lately. They look like Delicious apples with an identity crisis, and sort of taste like that too. Very nice with a sharp cheese and a glass of wine. The colander they're in came from the op-shop; I was admiring it when the elderly lady running the shop told me that it had belonged to her mother, and she could remember it from when she was a tiny girl. Something in the way she said it made me think she was sad at having to part with it, so I brought it home. Whenever I use it I'll think of her as a little girl, and the mother who scrubbed it so clean repeatedly. What a lot of work it's seen over the years.

And because we were a little claustrophobic the other evening, we set out in the car to go for a drive. We only went along the road for 20 minutes, then came back again, but it was a lovely outing. On the way home the sun decided to set in spectacular fashion, with the whole sky a blaze of molten gold. I love living in the country!