I now know why I have fallen in love with online grocery shopping! ( in London at least). Here we are in the French Alps, with the nearest grocery store 7 km away, down 7 hairpins and a detour through the next village. We never know if it is open all day or if it going to close for a three hour lunch break. The hours change on a regular basis. And on top of that is it not my favourite in the base case, ( ah! I said to the manager, Did you know you have Mice? Ah Madam, it is a grocery store, of course there are mice !)

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Consequently, I choose to drive down a couple of mountains to a larger store that is guaranteed to be open over lunch, the bonus being that the average French person in the neighbourhood goes home for lunch, hence not so many people shopping.

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But the effort, the schlepping of the groceries in general , the bottles of water, wine and beer. I had forgotten just how hard work it is. Drive, shop, pack, schlepp to car, drive, unload, schlepp once more into house. Unpack, sort, put away. Phew it is quiet exhausting! And as we are currently 7 that amounts to a lot of groceries!

This week, Himself decided that he and young Sam would make pasta, a lot of work for 7 people, but as the weather is not conducive to Barbecuing or eating outside, Pasta seems a good option.

Himself, has in the past made pasta though I have to admit I’m not a big fan of it, I would prefer to eat a salad, but when needs must. Many of the recipes call for a multitude of eggs but the one which I tend to use, uses just a couple of eggs to 200 grams of flour. In London I use pasta flour, but here the local supermarket did not have any, so plain flour had to suffice.

So Himself and young Sam made triple the quantity, which in fact was more than needed, so much so that we could recycle the next day. Day one consisted of pasta with a Bolognaise sauce or Pasta with a Garlic Mushroom cream sauce. Guess which one I chose!

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For the recycle dinner we had Fish Tempura and the leftover pasta, sautéed with broccoli florets and chopped chillies and garlic.

Dessert was homemade vanilla Ice Cream and hot fudge sauce.

It is very easy to make the sauce, quantities are a bit Hit and Miss so very simply more or less equal quantities of Sugar ( brown or light brown if you have it, I did not, so used white, golden syrup and butter, heat gently until almost and blended into one. Add more or less the same amount of cream and simmer gently. It will all amalgamate. Serve hot or cold, but if cold, it might be too thick, but it can be diluted with milk or some more cream. Pour over your ice cream, shop bought or home made. YUMMY!

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It is easy to say equal quantities when working in cups, but not so when using grams. I would recommend buying a set of measuring cups. Or use any standard teacup and use that for all of the ingredients listed.

• 1 cup golden syrup, or light corn syrip
• 1 cup of sugar preferably brown
• 3/4 cup double cream
• 4 Oz butter

Heat the syrup, sugar and butter, gently and stir from time to time. When all amalgamated, increase heat and boil. Careful, stir and do not let boil over. Reduce heat and let it simmer for about 5 minutes. Remove from heat, let cool a little, stir in the cream. Use at once or keep in a plastic box and refrigerate until needed.