A healthy picnic

Thanks for your comments, the monster butternut squash will ripen over the next couple of weeks on the sunny windowsill.  We always grow these squashes every year, and towards the end of the season each year we have several which clearly won't ripen on the plants, due to the lack of prolonged sunshine and shortening days.  So we pick them all and put them in the utility room, leaving a couple of inches of stem otherwise they start to rot, they ripen up in due course.  Husband brought a smaller unripe one in 2 or 3 weeks ago, another one he'd accidentally knocked off (he's very clumsy, unfortunately), that's now ripened and we'll be eating it this week.

We need some time out so will be going to our favourite beach for a walk and a picnic lunch today, to make the most of a lovely day before the forecast not so good weather later in the week.  A couple of weeks ago I made some cheese & bacon topped bruschetta, using a ciabatta loaf that I bought reduced to pennies, I froze all the slices.  I'll take some of those (I'll have just 1 or 2) along with a tub of carrot, cucumber and sweet pepper sticks, some cooked chicken and a little pot of mayo for dipping.  We'll have one of our homegrown apples for dessert, and a flask of coffee.  Hopefully, most of the holidaymakers will have gone home, so the beach should be back to the usual calm and peaceful state.