Breaking Barbie's legs

We had a little party yesterday for the girls, partly a leaving party and partly a birthday party for Georgia.  So I made a birthday cake for Georgia; she likes pink, so I made a pink doll cake like the yellow one I made for Isabella a couple of years ago (on here somewhere).  Last time I made it, as I recall, I managed to use one of those 'fake' Barbie dolls, whose legs come off easily, however, this time, I only had real barbies left as I had been sorting things out to pack and the fake ones didn't quite make it.  I tried to put Barbie in the cake whole, but she was too tall, so I had no choice but to pull her legs off.  I managed to get one off alright, but the other broke (the hip joint, to be precise).  Anyway, she managed to get through the whole 'cake-display' event, poor thing, always smiling through the pain.  But now I can't fix her.  I've packed the superglue and can only find uhu, but it hasn't worked.  Adrian says to tell the girls that it's a 'Limited Edition Heather Mills Barbie'.  Either that or 'Limited Edition Hip Replacement this is what happens if you don't drink your milk Barbie'.

Hopefully, here is a picture of the cake.  But I have problems with the photos on here so it could come out above the text.

Oh it worked!  Fancy that!

Blackcurrant Fool and haircuts

For those of you, who, like me have a bit of trouble getting around to cleaning the kitchen floor on a regular basis, here is my recipe for Blackcurrant Fool and Haircuts what I did today:

Ingredients:

1 husband in dire need of haircut
broom, dustpan and brush
500g blackcurrants
175g sugar
20cl double cream
1 pot natural yogurt
mop, floor cleaner and bucket

Method:

1. Take one not super-clean kitchen floor.  (Actually, on this occasion, I cleaned it only about a week ago, so it really wasn't in desperate need of re-doing).
2. Finally get around to cutting husbands hair in kitchen.
3.  Due to length of husband's hair there is now lots all over the kitchen floor.  This unfortunately necessitates use of broom, dustpan and brush.  After sweeping decide that floor is ok-ish and can go without another mopping so soon after last occasion.
4. Decide to make Blackcurrant Fool.  Put blackcurrants in a pan with a little water and cook until mushy (potato masher useful here).  When mushed up, add the sugar and stir until dissolved.
5. Push blackcurrant mix through a seive with a wooden spoon (into a bowl of course).
6. As you are tipping the remaining contents of the sieve that won't go through it into the bin, drop the wooden spoon that you were holding in the other hand onto the kitchen floor, thus spraying blackcurrant mix all over floor, fridge, cupboards and jeans.
7. Carry on with recipe, will clean up mess in a bit.
8. As it is below frezeing outside, put bowl outside to cool blackcurrant mix.
9. Pour the cream into another bowl.
10. As you go to put the carton of cream into the bin, ensure that you completely miss the bin, thus carton lands on floor and sprays cream all over floor, fridge, cupboards and jeans.
11. Carry on with recipe, will clean later.
12. Whisk cream and then stir in yogurt.
13. Stir in cooled blackcurrant mix.  Transfer to a pretty glass bowl and put in fridge for a bit.
14. Finally face up to reality re: kitchen floor and admit defeat.  Fetch mop and bucket, fill with floor cleaner and hot water and clean kitchen floor.
15. Eat blackcurrant fool.  Bloody gorgeous!

peaches!

Went to a 'sale' of sorts in someones house on Sunday.  They've set up a little business selling other people's homemade stuff.  Good idea and some of the things were very nice and quite professionally made and presented.  (And some of the English sellers really ought to have learnt a bit of French first if they want to sell to the local folk, or at least learnt how to use 'google translate'.)  I bought a second hand jigsaw for us all to do (Where's Wally?!).  Well, nice though everything was, there wasn't really anything that I either needed or couldn't do myself.  My mother bought a nice pottery cheesboard though, so we did contribute. 

However, that is not why I'm telling you about it.  The bargain of the day for me was a large load of free home-grown peaches!  They were sitting by the door when we arrived, two buckets full, with a 'help-yourself' notice on, although for some reason I didn't really like to, but the woman running it was quite insistant that they must go, so I took a whole bucket-full in the end!  Well, I wasn't sure how much I'd need for jam, although you'd think I could tell having made so bloody much this year. 

Well, when we got home I weighed them and it was 10lbs!!!!  Blimey, I'd been a bit greedy I think!  Looking up recipes I found one for peaches in Brandy and having found half a bottle of brandy in the back of the cupboard I made up two jars of that.  The rest of them I've chopped up and are currently sitting in sugar and lemon juice and ginger waiting to be made into jam tomorrow (ran out of time today).  And in the end I didn't take too many as I've used about 4lbs for the jam, but the rest of it has unfortunately been ditched because they were too bruised for eating.  Which is why I ran out of time to cook the jam - took ages to chop up the peaches and chop off the bad bits and re-weigh and replace and all that faff.

Harvest

Been busy in the kitchen lately, cooking up all the fruit and veg that's ready.  So far:

One batch of plum and cinnamon jam (tastes nice, but didn't set properly, even though I tested it.  I call it 'soft set, also ideal for using as a sauce on ice-cream').
One batch of greengage jam (going to make batch two today).
One batch of blackcurrant jelly (a new recipe which I will be doing again, much better than the blackcurrant jam).
One batch of blackberry jelly (from our local hedgerows, although Adrian fell in the ditch when we were collecting them and I had to pull him out.  Was going to make jelly, crumble and alcohol from our hoard but managed to collect exactly 1kg so only made jelly).
Two batches of blackcurrant vodka (well a fair bit seems to have disappeared of late....).
One batch of blackberry vodka (an excuse to go out collecting again).
Several portions of stewed apples (in freezer).
Several batches of tomato sauce/tomato and veg sauce/other variants (in portions in freezer).
Two courgette cakes (first one the expensive version with home-made lime curd filling and cream cheese topping; second one cheap version in loaf tin, no icings/fillings).
Lots of veggie dishes.

Can't think of anything else at the mo, but things are still maturing, so I'll be back.

My sweet girls

This evening the girls said to me 'put your feet up mummy, we'll get your dinner for you'.  So I let them.  Off they went into the kitchen, lots of crashing about duly ensued, and then, one broken glass later, they proudly presented me with - a grated carrot and lemon juice sandwich.  Which they watched me eat and, of course, enjoy.  Fortunately, they had also thoughtfully provided me with a very large glass of lemonade to go with it.  Followed by a cereal bar.  They were so sweet though and so proud of themselves, it makes my heart melt, even if my tastebuds weren't entirely in agreement.

Busy, busy, busy. Snake!

Very busy of late.  The blackcurrants have all ripened on cue, and there's loads of them again.  They seem top thrive on neglect as they didn't get pruned last year.  Given quite a bit away and some of our guests have had some.  Well, quite a few actually.  I said 'help yourselves' so they did.  Everyday.  I wasn't going to get any for us as I still have plenty in the freezer from last year, plus several pots of blackcurrant jam, plus two and a half bottles of blackcurrant vodka, but in the end I relented - can't bear to see them go to waste.  Anyway, I found a recipe for blackcurrant jelly, which although it requires two lots of cooking, does at least avoid the need to prick each currant first or even the worry of the jam ending up like a jar of little bullets.  Finished it today, it's all potted up - here's hoping it tastes alright.  I did an apple and blackcurrant crumble the other day, that was nice, and I bought a cheap bottle of vodka in Lidls this week, so I'll do another blackcurrant liqueur with that.  Better drink the rest up.

Had a snake in the garden today. Adrian was watering the bamboos and it slithered out in front of him. Then it started climbing up inside one of the bamboos, then a bit later it got brave and came out across the grass, onto the terrace and hid itself amongst the tomato pots. Looked it up and it appears to be a 'Coulevre d'Esculape'. The longest snake in France I think and mostly harmless (depending on what creature you are). Well, it has no venom, but a fondness for killing it's prey by constriction. Here are some pics:

We've had some lovely guests in lately, so that's cheered me up no end.  The sun is shining, the guests are nice and life is so much better.  Although nearly had some issues with the french folk that are leaving tomorrow.  They arrived last week, first of all they wanted the heating on, although it's the end of June.  Then they wanted a torch, which I do loan out from time to time if guests staying in the gites at the far end of the garden are going out for the evening and getting back late after dark.  But these guys are in the cottage nearest to the parking area, there's an outside light and it doesn't start getting dark until nearly 11pm at the mo.  So I wasked them why they wanted it and for how long.  'The whole week please.  We need it incase we want to get up to go to the toilet at night'.  'In that case, 'No'.  We do have lights in the cottage you know.  The switches are located near the doors'.  There was something else, but I can't remember what it was now, something trivial.  Anway, two days after they arrived, I was cleaning in one of the other gites, it was about 9.30am and Adrian came to get me, said one of the women wanted to talk to me.  Well, I arrived at the house, she was standing outside, still in her dressing gown and pj's and I thought, 'oh, what now, what can be so bad that she hasn't even been able to get dressed yet?'  So I took a deep breath, smiled my very nicest smiled and asked her how I could help.  'Have you got any documentation?' she said.  Well, at this point I am nearly having a breakdown, what the hell does that mean?  Insurance, registration, what?  We've got it all, it's all above board, I was just stressed that she was asking for it.  'No, no' she says, 'Publicity, business cards, that kind of thing.  We thing your place is wonderful and I want to tell all my friends and relatives about you, they must come and have a holiday here, it's so lovely.'  And since then they've been nice as pie, every time I see them, they tell me how wonderful it all is and of course, they've also enjoyed plenty of blackcurrants.  You never can tell.

It's the girl's school fete on Sunday.  It's good, but it always drags on, there's lots of hanging around and it's always hot.  They all dress up to a different theme for each class and parade through the village first of all.  Georgia's class are going to be cowboys and cowgirls and Isabella's class are going to be trees.  Due to set off 2.30pm.  Probable start 2.45pm.  Then they get on stage, class by class, and put on a little performance.  Due to start 3pm.  Probable start 3.45pm.  This year they are doing extra performances for various reasons, so I expect it will finish sometime around Tuesday.  There's a bar and a crepe stall and other stalls with games and prizes and what-have-you, so plenty of opportunity to spend money in the name of supporting the school, I just wish they'd get organised a bit better. 

Getting a few crops in the garden now.  The carrots are failing, so that's a shame as they were so good last year, definately one of my favourite crops.  On the other hand, we're getting some peas, raspberries, strawbs, a little mangetout and the broccoli, leeks and sweetcorn are still alive (nothing short of a miracle).  The courgettes are still alive as well, but not in the best spot this year, so not sure if we'll get any courgettes themselves as there are no flowers yet.  The melons are still waiting to be planted out.  Oh yes, we've also got quite a few tomatoes growing, although they're still green.  And so far a success - I've finally manged to get a sunflower seed to grow.  There are other thing to tell, but it's late now and I can't be bothered.  But here's a couple of pics of the girls and their peas:

Bloody hell!  Sometimes I am such an eejit.  Cooked some chook for lunch and boiled up a bit extra to have cold in a salad the following day.  Had a few scrappy bits of chook left over that we wouldn't eat, so I also boiled them up as a treat for the cat.  Drained chook, but too hot to put into fridge, so I covered it with a bit of kitchen paper to keep off flies whilst it cooled.  Returned to kitchen later to find peice of kitchen roll on the floor, one entire piece of chicken breast missing, the other two nibbled at and the little bits I cooked for the cat - entirely untouched.  So she's had some expensive meals of late finishing it up.  My own fault.  But now she wants more and keeps pestering me whenever I go in the kitchen. 

The estate agents are coming in tomorrow and Friday so I have been trying to tidy up the house.  Just got the kitchen and the lounge left to do.  I can barely even get into the garage at the mo, so I'm not even going to bother with that.  One of them (estate agents) rang and cancelled today because they have gone bust.  (Didn't really know what to say to the obviously emotional young guy who called who had presumably just been informed that he had lost his job.  Don't think I'd have bloody called if it was me!!!).  They were due to come tomorrow morning so at least that gives me a bit more time to finish cleaning.  Not sure what they'll make of the beehive currently perched precariously above our front door.  Someone is trying to collect the bees that have set up home under the eaves above our kitchen window.  All it seems to be doing is providing a free meal for the bees who land on the edge of it, eat the honey and then bugger off.  Also the honey is dripping onto the ground in front of the door so we'll probably have an ant infestation by the morning.  But hey, that's living in the countryside for you!

Too much going on

So much going on of late I don't know where to start, so this could be more waffly and disjointed than usual.  But the football is on and talk about being on every channel.  I put on the english tv - Italy v Paraguay.  I put on the french tv - Italy v Paraguay.   

Firstly though, going back to last year's end-of-season theme of 'crap food guests leave', some recent french guests left a fair bit of food in the fridge, mostly yogs, a bit of butter, some oil.  All fine and am happy to consume it.  However, they also left loads of little 'fromage blancs' which I refuse to eat these days having been force-fed them three times a day when I was in Alcatraz, sorry hospital, after Georgia was born.  Isabella eats them though, so long as she can have half a jar of sugar sprinkled on each one, so they didn't go to waste.  They also left an interesting item called 'Bouillie de l'avoine' which I have never seen or heard of before.  It was made from oat flour, water, salt and may have had milk in it too, but I can't remember.  As you will see from the pics below it looked like insipid brown blancmange and had the same texture too.  In a word 'unpleasant'.   However, I'm all for trying new things, especially local produce and the packet did say that it was a 'traditional Breton product'.  So I insisted that we all try it.  I duly followed the instructions and sliced it and fried it for five mins on each side in some butter.  Well I can report that it did indeed taste as disgusting as it looked.  Vile. Gros.  Horrid.  You get the picture.  In fact have three pics - before, during and after:

Tempted?  I bet you're not!

So, what next.  Georgia has Chicken Pox.  Poor thing, she's actually quite well during the day.  A bit off her food and a bit pale, but otherwise fine.  She's covered in spots now, they're all over, not a body part untouched I think, and they do bother her at night.  At 3am this morning I had a brainwave (quite miraculous really considering the time, but we were both desperate) and remembered I had some kiddies anti-histamine syrup in the cupboard.  Unfortunately, she didn't like it and spat most of it out.  Adrian and I did a good double act involving distraction techniques and pouring it down the back of her throat before she realised tonight, so hopefully she'll have a better night tonight.  I tried bathing her in bicarb (with water as well of course) but the water seemed to iritate her more than the bicarb soothed her.  I've also tried applying calamine lotion, but she doesn't like that because its cold.  The worst thing for her though is that she was due to go to a friend's birthday party on Saturday.  Her first one and she's been talking about it for a few weeks now, she was so looking forward to it, but couldn't go - she was very upset.  I thought about covering her up and sending her for a bit anyway (naughty I know, but she'll have picked it up from school where all the other kids will have been anyway),  but she seemed to be gaining spots by the minute and by lunchtime I had to either admit defeat or send her in tights, a long-sleeved poloneck jumper and a woolly hat with ear flaps.  I know when to give up.

Cheeky buggers no.3:  If you've been reading of late, you will know about the cheeky guests we've had of late.  Had some more last week, not the best start to the season.  The day after they arrived, they invited their friends around.  Now, we don't mind people having friends around, but it is in our terms and conditions and also in the info file in the properties that we would like to know about it in advance.  Several reasons - firstly, this is our home and we'd like to know who's here, I don't think many people would allow complete strangers to be wandering about on their property, secondly, insurance reasons - we cannot allow them to use the equipment, pool etc, thirdly, to be fair to our other guests who have come here for a quiet holiday and lastly just because it is polite!  Well, needless to say, these people did not feel the need to mention that they would like their friends to visit.  The first time we didn't realise until they were leaving (we'd been out) so we just let it go.  But then they came back at 10pm, with two small children, parked under the hangar and made themselves at home.  Well, this time we were more than a little unhappy, especaially at that time of night (we've had guests sneak people into to stay overnight before), so I went down to have a polite word.  Well, they were all half-cut so I didn't get very far, but they assured me they wouldn't be staying the night and would be leaving soon.  The next morning, one of them came over to apologise and said that they 'weren't expecting them, they just turned up'.  Although how people just turn up somewhere where their friends are without first having directions and an idea of when they will be there is beyond me.

Anyway, they were Jehovah's and they very kindly left us some of their literature behind, which I read - strong stuff I have to say and this month's edition was all about not being deceitful and not steeling.  And there in lies my problem.  Firstly, the deceitfulness (forgetting to mention their friends).  And then steeling.  They'd asked if they could have some wood for a bbq but told them that our wood supply was green and not suitable for burning so no, they couldn't have any, but I could let them have some charcoal and firelighters and they said 'no thanks' to the charcoal)....).  Unfortunately, there was a small pile of our wood  left by the bbq after they'd gone....  Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with folk having religious beliefs, providing a) they don't try to recruit me, b) they don't wage war in the name of their God and c) they are not hippocritcal about it.  I mean, leaving three leaflets pointedly on the table for us, all about what sin is and that steeling (of any sort - it was very specific) and deceifulness are the sins of the week having commited both of those sins themselves!!!!!

I think that's enough for tonight, I'm trying to watch Gavin and Stacey anyway.  Cracking.

A day at the beach

After far too much rain of late, we finally had a day of sunshine an little while back (although the wind blew), so we took the girls to the coast for the day. We had a lovely lunch of galettes (savoury pancakes) and crepes at Le Croisic, a lovely little harbour town, and then went to the beach for the afternoon. Managed to find a fairly sheltered little beach and off we went rock pooling and collecting shells. It was great to get away for the day, have a change of scene and spend some time with the girls. Then Adrian, who just happened to have brought a large bucket with him, went off collecting mussels (and I found a clam). We took them home in our new and spacious estate car (what a joy to have a car with room to move inside and space in the boot to put loads of unecessary stuff in). Then the following evening Adrian cooked them up and we ate them with a bit of french bread. Am pleased to report that they were very nice, very sweet and I think all better for having been free!

At last!

Yes! Yes! Yes! Oh my God! At last!

The other day Adrian very kindly told me he was going to spend some of the money that his mum very kindly gave him and buy me something. Some girls get jewellery, some girls get perfume, some girls get a nice new dress, and some girls get wined and dined (and then some). Me, I got an oven.

Actually, it's very nice and I'm very pleased, but what I'm really pleased about is that I am now able to cook things properly in it. Purely for research purposes today I baked a cake with Georgia. It's the best cake I've made since we've been here. Proof that I can still cook, it was definately the crappy previous oven not working properly and it wasn't me ruining everything!

Today I am ill. A bad cold and I feel really crap. So bad that I had to lounge around on the sofa most of the day (after I finally dragged myself out of bed late morning) and I even had to put the tv on this afternoon, I'd tried reading but it was just too much. But then I discovered that there's nothing to watch in the afternoon. It's so utterly dire, all these channels and nothing that I could even mildly cope with. At one point I left the picture on, but turned the sound off it got so bad. Yes, I could have turned off the tv of course, but I needed a distraction from my ailments and I mistakenly thought it would help. I even tried qvc at one point in the hope that I could have a battle with myself not to get the credit card out and be tempted into buying stuff I don't need, but they were having a crap day too and try as I might, I just couldn't be tempted by easy-yo yogurt or flowery bedding for the spare room I don't have or genuine real fake diamonds set in genuine real sterling silver with almost realistic gold effect overlay. I'm only sitting here typing because I can't face getting up and persuading the girls to get ready for bed. And what a load of crap they've eaten today - I had to revert to the morning sickness diet for them - ie get up, drag arse into kitchen, grab a couple of items from freezer (usually involving some kind of processed potato product (ie chips) and processed meat product ('wahey, chicken nuggets, thanks mum, you're the best')) and bung in oven, crawl back to sofa, get back up again, drag arse back into kichen and switch oven on this time, crawl back to sofa for 15 mins, go back into kitchen, tip everything onto plates and serve up to grateful children with lashings (there's that word again) of mayonnaise and 'no there isn't any more ketchup, I've told you several times now we've run out and you'll have to wait until summer when some kind family leaves a bottle behind for us, I'm not spending money on that stuff if I don't have to'. So there you go, that's me being ill, wish you were here?!

Tresspassers will be shot!

We had a tresspasser in the garden this afternoon so Adrian shot him:







































My hubby the pheasant plucker.












Look away now if you're squimish....



That'll be a good meal for us all. I'll let you know what it's like.

Halloween and Georgia's birthday

Our home-made Halloween!!!

I forgot to put this one in the other day, so they're a bit out of order now, but I couldn't leave out Georgie!

The witches!

We made broomsticks in the garden (from the garden), outfits out of clothes we had already (luckily Georgia was given a black top and tights for her birthday just a few days beforehand), green makeup on our faces and homemade hats. The only thing I bought was a packet of black crepe paper for the skirts, 75 centimes. Bargain!






Green Monster drink










For dinner:

Witches fingers, gone-off green worms and blood sauce. Made it all myself too - a rare domestic goddess moment.

Georgia's pink birthday - new duvet cover, new lamp, new rug.

My Peppa Pig cake and number '3' biscuits for Georgia's birthday.

Tales from the French kitchen

Doesn't that sound like a nice title? I bet you're thinking of me in my pinny, reeling off little anecdotes as I'm cooking up delights from home-grown produce and locally shot fluffy little bunnies, in my 'authentic' french kitchen (the kind you see in glossy magazines, not like our neighbours actual real french kitchens) with a herbs drying over the aga and a lovely old aged dresser full of preserves etc etc etc.

Well no. This is more of a sorry tale of culinary mishaps. I shall first expain about my cooker, (electric and left by previous owners). Ever since we've been here (nearly four years now), I've unable to make one decent cake or decent pie, none of them cook right through properly and tend to burn on top, they are edible, but only just and I was not proud of them. I thought I had lost all my baking skills since moving to these foreign parts. When I cooked muffins I put it down to the little silicone muffin moulds that I had bought (can't get paper cases over here). I always thought that it took a long time to heat up, but just accepted that that was because it was a bit old.

Then recently I realised that nothing was cooking underneath, not even thin pizzas, and also realised that in order to cook anything, I was putting it right up at the top shelf. Eventually my brain cogs strated to whirr into life and I had a thought - 'why not test the cooker to see if it's working properly?'. I switched on the cooker and waited, then I bravely put my hand in, touched the bottom, it was not hot. Room temp at most. Appears therefore that the bottom element is not working and so, for the past four years, I have not been cooking anything, I have in fact been grilling everything. Grilled roasts, grilled pies, grilled pizzas, grilled cake and so on.

I've since baked a couple of batches of muffins in my mother's oven and they were perfick! Just need to find someone to fix the oven now.... My dad has said that he will do it, but then he made a built-in in wardrobe in my bedroom when I was young and it took him 9 months so am not holding my breath.

Anyway, onto this weeks cooking fest. We have a quince tree in our garden, which produced fruit in 2006 and I duly made quince jam from it, which quite frankly was so bland it was not really edible. After a couple of years of nothing from it, this year we had another crop. I have been watching them ripen on the tree (not constantly, just check on them from time to time), wondering what to do with them. Didn't want to make more jam as we have enough of the stuff in the cupboard now and of course memories of the tasteless batch. Anyway, happened to have a minute to switch on the tele the other day and came across Phil (Vickery) on This Morning cooking quinces. Oh joy! It was meant to be I decided, I must do as Phil says. I chose 'Delicous baked quince pie'.

So I went and picked first batch of quinces. Put them in pot to simmer away, at least 45 mins to an hour and a half said Phil. 'However', he said, 'It is important not to allow them to explode'. So I left them and took Isabella to school (Adrian was in house, I'm not entirely irresponsible), came back, remembered to check them, still rock hard. Go into study to faff about ordering wood for fire for winter (nothing like being organised, it was 1 October). Forget all about quinces. Eventually remember, run into kitchen. Too late, am greeted by quince mush, they have exploded. Fortunately, I had left the lid on. Then have to peel and core quinces, which for me now involves searching for bits of peel and core in amongst the debris. Having done this, I am then set to to make the 'buttery caramel sauce'. I follow instructions to a 't' and end up with a hard lump of toffee in middle of puddle of melted butter. Adrian beats it up a bit and rescues it.

Next - 'slice quinces and arrange attractively in dish where the caramel sauce is waiting'. I tip quince mush into dish and mix in sauce. I top with puff pastry and put into oven for a good grilling. It was ok, Adrian liked it, Isabella ate it, Georgia refused to even try it, even though it was pink and normally she cannot resist anything pink. (must have been swapped at birth, not my child) and I fed the leftovers to the lions, sorry my parents.

So having strained the mush before putting it into the dish I was left with a fair bit of quince syrup. Not wanting it to go to waste, I decide to turn it into quince jelly (like jam, but smooth). Not knowing how much sugar was in the syrup, I have to guess quantities and just bung a bit more in, boil it up and managed to get a set upon testing. Have decanted it into jars and it looks nice enough - all pink and firm, with just a little wobble to it. Haven't tried it yet, but hopefully something good will have come out of all this. Just have to decide what to do with remaining quinces that are ripening on tree and waiting to be picked.....

Don't they realise how hungry we are?

Quite often when our guests go home, they leave yummy and useful foodstuffs behind that they can't be bothered to take home with them, or are unable to. Such as jars of pasta sauce, pasta, tins of toms, rice, sugar, oil, ice creams, chocolaty cereals, fresh fruit and veg, plus enough foil and cling film to last me to next year and plenty of toilet roll too.

Well this year we've had a right bunch of tight wotsits in and so far most of them have left nothing, and what slim pickings have been left include: 2 rolls of recycled toilet roll (defintately NOT soft, not strong, but unfortunately extremely long), half a small packet of whole wheat pasta, half a box of ready brek, half a box of bran flakes, a jar of sweetcorn, a tin of chickpeas, a tin of lentils and a marrow not far off half a metre in length. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for anything, and we'll eat what there is, but it's not exactly a christmas hamper of goodies is it? And what's a girl supposed to do with 19 inches of fat marrow I ask you?

Post script, a week or so later: Some more guests have just left, and I found in their fridge, oh joy of joys, half a bar of chocolate! (Although I'm having trouble with the concept of leaving half a bar of chocolate behind. Why?). And then I went upstairs - oh horror of horrors - more recycled toilet paper. Some kind of cruel joke I think.

Home grown produce

Today I have mostly been feeling a bit delicate. Well, just this morning really and most definately due to tiredness because of not having a good nights sleep in the past two weeks and nothing at all to do with the home brew that was being consumed last night.

Yes, it is annual blackcurrant harvesting time and I've been busy making jam; we've got two blackcurrant bushes and we get loads of fruit every year. Anyway, we've got relatives here at the mo and last night we had a barbie with them. The meal included home-shot pigeon and home-grown mangetout so I thought I'd add a dessert of blackcurrant sorbet. I also decided it might be nice to try the blackcurrant liqueur that I'd brewed with some of last year's currants, it's popular over here to pour spirits on to sorbets, so we did. Then I realised we should try it as a Kir (drink made with cassis (blackcurrant liqueur) and white wine). We also had some fizz on the table, so naturally we had to try Kir Royales too (cassis and fizz). Then it was decided that we should also try it neat (to check its potential as a digestif, of course). I only had one bottle of the stuff - one year to brew it, one night to drink it... This year I will be brewing two bottles. If you want to try it, may I suggest booking a holiday with us end June, beg July 2010?

The mangetout previously mentioned has done very well this year and Isabella has enjoyed picking it, although she prefers it when they get left a while and goes to peas, she pods them and eats them straight away - saves me having to cook them! The peppers are coming along well so far and so are the carrots and onions, have pulled up half of the garlic as it started to go over, somthing to do with rot, can't remember the technical term, but we thought better small bulbs than no bulbs. (Not my fault on this occasion I don't think, but I'm not going to name and shame here) I think some of the potatoes might be ready, so might start digging them up as and when we need some. Not many raspberries this year, hoping the plums will do ok, they are starting to grow, but some have started dropping already before they are fully ripe. That's enough of this section, starting to turn into a bit of a snoozefest....