The young and the old

Yesterday was Mum's 90th birthday. It's very hard to know what to get someone whose possessions, by and large, have just been disposed of. (She's kept quite a lot of figurines, which you can see in her bedroom.) But I think she had a nice day. Daughter 2 made her this long card, with us all holding up parts of the message "Happy 90th Birthday, Granny May" on it.

We put up a banner in the hall.

Grandson charmed us all as usual. He sits most of the time with his feet crossed like this, and just reaches out for things he wants. It's amazing how far he can stretch without actually going to the bother of crawling (and crawling would be difficult with crossed feet).

Here's Mum with her cake. I made it but didn't eat any of it - I don't think you'd get much rich fruit cake with marzipan and icing and still manage to keep your daily food spend down to £1.

In answer to some questions: no, you're not allowed to add things from your store cupboard to your £1 allowance, but you can use them as long as you count them in your £1. (You don't have to buy a whole pack of butter and eat nothing else all day if you want some on your toast.)

Someone asked what I'm eating. For breakfast, a slice of toast with a scrape of marmalade. For lunch, a tablespoonful of beans and some soup. (The soup is a bit hard to value since I make a huge pot every week or ten days using cauliflower leaves and stalks, broccoli stalks - both of which would otherwise go on the compost heap, so do they count? - lentils, onions and so on. But this makes lots and lots of soup. ) Dinner is a poached egg on toast and some vegetables. Tea and instant coffee throughout the day - I count them but drink both weak with little milk, so they don't add up to much.

I'm really missing fruit and salad. And some cake would be nice. But it's not all that hard, though at this moment (10.35 pm) I do feel a bit hungry. It's all very well for me, though. I can eat strawberries on Saturday.