Monday morning and Peter was out of the house by eight thirty to start another week in school. He was on dinner duty this week so I would be alone until about five o'clock.

Following the Girl Guides rule, I washed the dishes then made the bed. I had no dusters but flicked around the room with a scrap of tissue paper, which I'd found inside a vase, one of our wedding presents. (I recalled some advice I'd had from a relative: don't buy any ornaments because you will be given plenty. She should have added: Though in all probability you will not like them.) 

Half an hour later, I had a list ready and made my way to the few shops in the town. Tall Georgian buildings, Victorian terraces with tiny gardens and privet hedges  lined the streets, bounded by a spectacular blue bay.  The sun  brought a bounce to the morning and I decided  there was no prettier place on earth. (Though I had not travelled extensively, I was still correct in my judgement. It was a beautiful town.)

 I bought vacuum sealed bacon, very new at the time and slightly more expensive than the loose slices the grocer sold but better, being less fatty. (My mother thought I was wildly extravagant, but it lasted us the week.  I also preferred washed potatoes, in preference to those covered in mud).

I needed sugar for baking, margarine, lots of flour. Going against Good Housekeeping and what I'd learnt in school, I used self-raising flour for cakes and pastry, deciding not to fuss if the pastry rose a little. 

A stroke of inspiration was deciding on mixed spice instead of jars of nutmeg, ginger and cinnamon, which would probably go stale, anyway, because I would use them in small quantities only. 

Before going back to the apartment I visited the little shop advertising sharks' fins, but I was to be disappointed. The owner had long given up stocking the items listed on the board but kept it in the window because it attracted tourists into the shop.

Then I showed him a recipe I had copied from one of  Good Housekeeping's publications, called Gobi Aloo Saag.

Frowning, he said I might have to send to London for ingredients like that.  Soho, perhaps. Curry powder was off the menu, too. Jam, tea, biscuits were   were popular in these parts.  'Where do you come from?' he wanted to know.   

That evening the most exotic meal I could produce for our tea was fried  mushrooms (a favourite of Peter's) and bacon, followed by crumpets (bought) spread with butter, sugar and cinnamon and toasted under the grill.

The previous week, Peter had left money with Ladyfach to pay for a sack of coal and I was looking forward to sitting by the fire. I'd seen nothing of Ladyfach during the day, only the occasional muffled noise as she moved around her kitchen. Now, when we were in the garden getting the coal, she appeared at the open window, offering us  newspapers for the fire. (This saved us  tearing up the cardboard box containing the porridge oats.)

It wasn't long before we had a bright fire going. Tomorrow I decided I'd light the fire myself. Little did I know the bother that fire would cause me.