Abby's (& the dove's) Sunday morning

It may not look like the most comfortable place to laze around but Abby loves to lie on the drain hole at the bottom of my little back yard. It's her first port of call on sunny mornings. My block has a slope & the drain is, of course, at that lowest point to let gravity do its work when it rains. It's a good place to roll around scratching one's back & hoping I'll come out & give her a stroke & a cuddle. Actually that last photo isn't the most flattering one ever taken of Abby, she looks enormous. You can see her looking at me very dubiously in the second photo, wondering why I'm standing at the top of the stairs with the camera.

We have a pair of doves who visit each spring & they're back again this year. They return to the nest they built a few years ago on the back porch under the eaves. Sadly, I've never see any young ones so I don't know if there are eggs in the nest or not. It's in such an awkward spot that I can't see inside. It's lovely to hear the male dove running along the top of the porch & hear them both cooing.

Well, back to work tomorrow after a lovely, relaxing week off. I'm still coming to grips with baking in the gas stove & I've just taken a Coffee Crumble Cake out of the oven. If it turns out well, I'll post a photo later. It was a gorgeous mixture with sour cream & a soft, fluffy batter. All the crumble topping seems to have ended up in the centre but I'm a bit worried about getting it out of the tin. I didn't have a springform tin so used an ordinary one. Fingers crossed.

Later - well, it looks pretty good. I did lose a little of the topping turning it out but it was much better than I thought. There'll be some happy librarians at morning tea tomorrow!