gooseberry fool

Tonight I'm going out for dinner with a group of friends that all met when our children were babies, and we went to baby groups, toddlers, gym classes, coffee mornings.... with each other. The original babies grew, more were born, (one of us had 4!) and now most of the children are at school. And you suddenly find yourself not seeing a group of friends who have been your support, your inspiration, your source of information about everything, who won't judge you when there are dishes to be washed in the sink, when the children are driving you up the wall, and you really need someone to just give you a cup of tea.

So we now try really hard to keep in touch, organise evenings of food, or wine, or book swaps, or just to chat, and catch up, and sometimes we even manage not to talk about the children!

Tonight is a contribution evening, everyone takes something, usually there's some kind of theme, tonight it's puddings! As the oven is sick (- well to be honest it's more than sick, it's deceased), I'm making gooseberry fool, and I hope it tastes ok because I looked at so many recipes on the internet that and I combined something from most of them, so I'm not sure if I've messed up somewhere along the way - (there are definitely disadvantages to google - if I'd just had one recipe I'd have followed it precisely). I'll let you know tomorrow.....