Great Initiative From Sainsbury's

I spotted an ad in this morning's Guardian (I say "spotted" but, being a two page colour spread, you could hardly miss it ). They've created a full weekly menu comprising three meals each day and the meals are wholesome, easy to prepare and, above all, cost just under £50 for four people. The recipes are very similar to those we ate when we were dieting last year so the food should be enjoyable. But if their initiative is taken up in big numbers we are going to see a heck of a lot of slimmer Sainsbury's customers as a typical day's calories is about 1800 which may be OK for women but is not a huge amount for growing and active teenagers and men over around twelve stone. My diet calorie allowance was about 1600-1700  per day and the weight fell off me. Maybe they've assumed (probably correctly) that the average family is overweight and could do with losing a bit. If so, it's quite a brilliant ploy as in a few months they'll be able to create a similar offer for all the subscribers to the menus to fit themselves out with a new wardrobe as none of their clothes will fit.

Sad news from son Paul and his wife Josephine. They recently became proud owners of two cats which they got from Battersea Cats And Dogs Home. One of them (Wednesday) went missing on Monday and there's been no trace of her since. In the unlikely event that you are reading this in the Limehouse area of  East London, please keep an eye open. She is chipped so, if her collar is missing, a vet can identify her. I know that Paul and Josephine will be very upset at the loss as the cats had really settled in.

On a happier note, we spent an enjoyable hour browsing our library of unread books to find some to take on holiday with us. I knew that we've got hundreds of books (they're two deep on most shelves) but I didn't realise that there were so many of them that I hadn't read yet. A couple of months ago we bought a Kindle to take with us on holiday to save on packing but we've decided to leave it at home until we get through this lot. It's a good job we're traveling by car or Ryan Air would have a field day with our luggage fees.

Rain at last. Pretty much to be expected with us about to go on holiday. Having said that, there's been less than a cup full so far. It's going to have to pour to give the garden the soaking that it needs.

Yesterday I had a tidy out of all the junk I've found with the metal detector over the past few years. Most detectors discriminate against iron to save users digging up old nails and rusty rubbish but from time to time detectorists are not sure and do dig up some iron. These are the iron bits from my junk box. It seems that at least three of these are Roman and all are certainly at least a couple of hundred years old. So maybe there's some mileage in digging every signal.