Barely daylight: a cold, windy, rain-swept morning, and I'm out of kindling for the woodstove, but at least the coffee is excellent. I had a lovely weekend with my parents and my sister, in which we did wacky things like drink prosecco at 10 a.m. and plan extravagant vacations. It was all very amusing, and the lemon cake went over well.

And now I am back home again, with much bread baking ahead of me, and work to attend to, and the dog's nerves to assuage.

I admit that I left Moby-Dick on top of the piano for the entire weekend. I promise to return to him today.