Next month the family is making its way down to Essex for the weekend on account of Cora having won the regional final of a speaking competition which is due to culminate in a national final sometime in May in Brentford. I am looking forward to the weekend in Essex but feel honour-bound to keep reminding the daughter that there is no carer in the law.

With the triumph half in mind I set about cooking for Sunday lunch something that would appeal.The obvious thing to have done would be to have made a vast plate of noodles with … with… no.. there would have been no need for anything else…noodles by themselves would have done.

So we had stuffed pitta bread instead. A favourite meal!

Cora would probably have been happy if she could have stuffed the pitta with a couple of pieces of fried chicken and some yogurt and cheese, but we did better than that.

In the International Store yesterday I had picked up a half leg of lamb off the bone. This was slathered in garlic, paprika and olive oil, left for an hour or so and then roasted for about the same time.

A mass of salad type ingredients was then chopped up fine including radish, red onion, rocket, garlic, cucumber and tomato. This was left to cool for an hour whilst the lamb was cooking.

I then made the falafels.