The tomatoes are in the oven

St Petersburg New Year's Eve

So on Friday at lunchtime Eric completed the deck floor and just as he did this a young lady from the Code Enforcement section of the County arrived to tape a ‘stop work’ order on to the deck.

As she had actually run out of tape I offered to do this for her after she had left – so she took a photo of me holding the notice against the deck.

I had not obtained the appropriate approval from the Indianapolis Historic Preservation Commission – and they were miffed about this.

Silly me – I thought that as I was replacing an existing deck I would not need this – but no – apparently you cannot do anything to a house like ours without approval.

So I spent sometime on the weekend doing a proposal – with elevations which I did on Excel – and yesterday went cap in hand to the IHPC.

They were very kind and set a hearing date for 27 May which I will attend. The architect I saw said that they were not likely to be any problems unless anyone objected.

In the meantime Cate got a message from a work colleague offering her two tickets to the Indy 500 on 25 May. She actually wants to go – for the experience – but I imagine it will be a one off – but who knows – perhaps she will develop a taste for speed – she certainly had that on the autobahns in Europe – to which her numerous speeding tickets will attest.

I regret to report that the cauliflower and chickpea curry was a failure. I think it is just a flawed recipe – and can’t see any way to fix it.

It is the dinner for Cate’s European colleagues tomorrow night.

I am making

Roasted tomato soup with coconut sambal

Honey chicken with Australian bush spices

Patates Brava

Bourbon glazed carrots

Parmesan asparagus

Key lime pie

The tomatoes are in the oven now and the smell of roasting garlic is wafting up from the kitchen.