All the pancakes

Anyone else sitting around on the grass idly making daisy chains to hang round their dog? No? Just us then.

Four weeks of lockdown and I have been appreciating the chilled moments of everyone sitting around chatting and playing games and generally spending a whole lot more time together than they normally would. I am less appreciating the constant eating and how the fridge goes from stuffed full to half empty in the blink of an eye. A normal supermarket shop for me looks like I am stockpiling for the apocalypse, so I'm finding the amount of stuff in my trolley a bit embarrassing. I may make a sign saying 'Teenage boys at home' to ward of the judgy looks. A conversation over tea the other day - Littlest Boy: [Biggest Boy], if you had to, who would you eat, dad or mum?' So you can see, I cannot afford to let the fridge fall empty, already they are sizing us up for digestibility.

I made pancakes for breakfast yesterday and today, which is a new thing. The littlest boy always approaches the idea of breakfast as a thrilling adventure to discover some exciting new tasty dish, whereas I'm fundamentally opposed to cooking first thing in the morning as well as at ALL THE OTHER TIMES. But Lucy had a simple-looking oat pancake recipe on her blog this week and then I happened upon Smitten Kitchen's carrot cake pancakes, so we gave it all a go. Lucy's are brilliant, the littlest boy will be able to make these by himself (in theory). The carrot cake ones were excellent too, but a bit more involved.

My favourite pancakes are the vegan coconut pancakes I made on Shrove Tuesday this year. I didn't have any 'coconut drink' so I used a tin of coconut milk and they were utterly delicious. I can't see myself making pancakes regularly for breakfast though, I'm not a huge fan of starting the day by washing up frying pans and jugs and goodness knows what else. Although of course now I've done it once I will no doubt be expected to do it all the time.

The dog has had a bit of a rubbish week, although I suspect he may just be a big drama queen. The little lump on his tail has been annoying him mightily and we had to switch to a bigger (labrador-sized) cone to prevent him licking it. He decided he no longer cared to go for a walk, and even if we managed to tempt him out, he sat down after a hundred yards and had to be carried home, lolling upside down in my arms, legs and paws flopping up and down, head hanging down to the ground, in the manner of roadkill.

The neighbours asked me what was wrong, imagining him to be at death's door. In fact, having had the results back from the vet, the lump is something that can be itchy, but that's all. I had of course built it all up in my mind to be some huge ghastly thing, causing absolute agony, when in fact he is just being dramatic. He has had people waiting on him hand, paw and finger, feeding in his kibble piece by piece, bringing his water dish over to him in case getting up was too much of a trial and tempting him with tiny tasty morsels. He has done it before, and I fear he may turn out to be the dog that cried wolf and next time we will just ignore him. Oh, who am I kidding, of course we won't, we live to serve him.

I hope all is well lovelies, look after yourselves and your beasts. CJ xx