One of those days that just......works

"We must have a dead body" announced Mr M, liberally spraying Febreze all around his chair in the breakfast room. I sniffed the air but all I could smell was the aforementioned Febreze. I said this to Mr M who gave me a look - I hate it when he does that - and pointed downwards. "Obviously your sense of smell has not fully recovered then" he said, with a final flourish of the spray can. I thought that any living thing at carpet level would be lying on its back coughing its last breath but decided not to say this.
"Is there a smell?" I asked. This, it seems was an understatement and it was a very good job that my nose had taken the day off. That was yesterday and in the way of things the Karma Pixies decided that Mr M should not have it all to himself so today my nose is working properly and when I came downstairs this morning the smell was waiting for me - we definitely have a dead body.
Mr M spent a while in the cellar, searching for the source of this amazing odour but without luck. He thinks it - the rat - has crawled up into the space between the floor joists and expired so we just have to wait for it to dry out and mummify. The alternative is to rip the ceiling down in the cellar and that is never going to happen.
The rest of the day was just fabulous.

The strawberries on the label were drawn by Miss Em

I made sugarfree Blueberry Muffins and sugarfree Chocolate and Cranberry Muffins and then four pounds of strawberry jam. Proper, old-fashioned strawberry jam. My recipe comes from the 1957 edition of the Ministry of Foods book on preserving fruit and vegetables.
As well as doing this I was helping Miss Em to do a plaster cast hand print. She was fine until she put her hand into the plaster and then had to ease it out. Her face was a picture but as I had plaster of paris on my fingers I couldn't get the camera.  She quickly wiped her hands with kitchen paper and then scrubbed them at the sink.
Em then drew the strawberries for the jam labels and watch with great interest as I scanned the drawing and then added the picture to the labels and printed them. Nothing like seeing your work in print to give you a bit of a boost. Some of these will go out as Christmas presents this year along with an assortment of chutneys. I think I might just ring up the pick your own farm and see what is available in the next couple of weeks. I am in a definite preserving mood lately, and of course the strong smell of jam and chutney cooking covers the stink of decaying rat.