Our first barbecue of the year

Lucus cooks the barbecue

On Friday, we got to the tip after making an appointment two weeks ago. We had a 10 minute slot, and only I was permitted to get out wearing gloves and a mask. But we finally got rid of the old dishwasher, and our old barbecue which had rusted up. The stores are now very low on barbecues (it is well into the season), but we managed to find a good one in the sale at HomeBase with a double grill to segregate the meat from our vegetarian dishes,  and we finally had our big barbecue yesterday.

Andre takes a turn with the barbecue

I am not permitted to cook them, as I've previously mentioned, since on my only two attempts I poisoned everyone badly, so we can only hold them if we can persuade a visitor to do the cooking. This time, we were fortunate that our visitors were Edwin and Andre, plus two of their friends, Brenda and her husband Lucas, also from Brazil. Lucas used to work with Andre but now works for ARM and is the barbecue expert. He and Brenda moved here in January and rented a house in Cambridge, but were immediately faced with our cold wet winters and lockdown, so they couldn't go out and meet anyone. Even worse, all their furniture was in a container ship unable to dock in the UK, so for over three months they had only a mattress on the floor, two chairs and a small table they'd bought from a local shop. They are quite gregarious, so were glad when they could finally escape the confines of their rooms. 

Brenda holds a degree in law, but is here wanting to learn English, and  hopes to apply to Anglia Ruskin to take a further degree in psychology. In the meantime, she is working as a volunteer in Cambridge, helping it to raise money to protect unwanted animals. They have a dog in Brazil, but have been unable to bring it over yet, and it will have to be quarantined when it arrives, so she was delighted to meet our two animals. After the barbeque, but before desert, they took them for an ultra long walk of one and a half hours. Bronte was exhausted on her return and retired to the bedroom; she wouldn't even come down for a treat!

Edwin, Brenda, Ann, Andre and Lucus