Monday or Friday?

Actually it's Thursday. Very confusing. When I were a lad, Monday was washing day, and the kitchen turned into a production line – dirty stuff in, clean stuff out. Ah, how things changed when the spin dryer replaced the mangle, only to be replaced itself by a twin tub. The smell of Daz as we came from school for lunch – typically the remains of Sunday's roast and baked potatoes. And rice pudding for pudding (there was always pudding, as younger brother reminds us), because that could cook at the same time as the potatoes.

Friday, on the other hand, was baking day. If we were lucky (and we nearly always were) there would be a new batch of ginger biscuits when we came home in the afternoon, still a bit gooey from the oven. Wartime recipe, said Mum. Like her chocolate cake. They've set the standard ever since.

So today was very confusing. A day to kill at Hopwood, just north of Alvechurch. Sunshine. Two great-nieces expected on Saturday. It's a recipe for cleaning Erin Mae inside and out, because it will dry; running a load in the washing machine, because it will dry on the whirligig on the towpath; and baking a cake and some other goodies, and hoping we can resist scoffing the lot before Saturday. Just doesn't seem right for a Thursday. Don't know what Mum would think.

But then I don't remember what she did on Thursdays.