a country mouse takes a shortcut

It pains me to look at this project. These are little bootees, knitted with silk wool, which I started just after my sister had her second son, a year ago. The pain is from the RSI which I get every time I pick up the 2mm bamboo needles. It's like knitting with cocktail sticks. If I ever get these finished I will sew some satin ribbons or buttons on them and put them in one of the Ikea shadow frames for his bedroom wall. The baby whose tiny feet would have fitted these bootees is now walking and wearing big boy shoes, and at the rate I'm going the picture will be up for about a week before being replaced with pop star posters and lists of football fixtures.

And now for the shortcut. After an anguished phone call yesterday, when I moaned that I can never get everything done, the mess is never ending and no one appreciates anything I do in this house, my organised mother (with remarkably little schadenfreude) gave me some advice: GO TO MARKS AND SPENCERS. And so I did, and I found this:

Yes, one pot sausage casserole. All you need is one sharp knife (to puncture the plastic), one casserole dish and one oven. Result:

And best of all, when DH ate it, thinking I'd made it, he said, "That was nice but not as good as the one you did the other night."

With no mess to clear up and with Little R sound asleep at a reasonable hour, I poured a glass of good red and settled down to read Quartered Safe Out Here by George MacDonald Fraser. Country mice love a good military memoir.