Chicken soup for the soul. For Susan.

Yes, yes: we've all heard this one But chicken soup really does seem to work if you have a cold or flu and, reader, I am feeling dreadful. However, someone came to my door late this afternoon, having removed the children from my care, swung them around the house so as to wear them out for me and then prepared some soup. I will ask her what she put in it at some point, but let me just say that the right food offered by the kind (a good splash of Southern may I say?) soul made me feel very happy. 

And man: that soup was better than mine. It contained good rich chicken stock, chopped chicken --both the brown and white-- and, I noticed, it was cut into neat pieces (unlike mine) which was particularly soothing in the circumstances. Just a nod to what I'll call nursery food. There were peas, neatly cut carrots, just a little celery and linguine which had been snapped into pieces. Well seasoned. Just right. More to the point, she had made enough for two good helpings with seconds so that Nedved (that'll be the husband, if you're not a regular reader) could share it.

As My auntie Bettie in Pembrokeshire says: "I notices things."

Feet up by the fire, dear.