The Lonely Goldfish
Years ago I bought a plastic heron for our pond. It’s pretty hideous and didn’t seem to keep the real herons at bay. Suddenly, this afternoon, I discovered how to use it properly when I went to buy some new goldfish. “Do those plastic herons actually do any good?” “Yes they do but there’s a trick to it. You have to keep on moving them around the pond. A heron is an intelligent bird,” the girl that is in charge of fish responded. “We have a problem here with all these tanks of fish. One evening we saw a heron arrive near closing...
read moreRecipe for Fiona’s scrummy bread and butter pudding
“Why this is wonderful!” My mother quickly took another mouthful. “I wasn’t sure that it would be OK. I couldn’t be bothered to look up Delia’s recipe.” “Well never look it up again, Darling. Just note down how you made this.” I was thrilled. Some of my best recipes have been created out of laziness or by mistake. This recipe is one of those. I usually follow Delia’s recipe for luxury bread and butter pudding – replacing the currants and crystallised fruit with sultans and raisins. It always goes down well and is a...
read moreHappy Easter
When Easter is early, it’s rare that we have good weather. But what is good weather? We need rain so badly in the east of England that four days of rain were good for me. I just feel a bit sorry for those who took an Easter trip somewhere in the UK, hoping for sunshine. Twenty years ago I moved into the cottage and my mother and I spent the holiday here. Easter was early that year too but the weather was sunny. We worked in the garden and guzzled hot cross buns at tea time. Back then we had to share my meagre selection of gardening tools so...
read moreThe bumble bee that wanted to sleep with me
I know that bumble bee numbers are down in the UK but we have plenty of them here in the cottage garden. In fact over the years their numbers have been increasing gradually as there are more spring flowering bulbs and shrubs for them to enjoy. A week or so we found that a very large bee – possibly a queen – kept on coming into the cottage. So was clearly searching for a place to make a nest. I always worry when bees come into the cottage as they are not the brightest of sparks and it’s hard for them to find their way out. There is also...
read moreRecipe for quick chicken, broccoli and yacon stir fry
One of the highlights of the veg growing year is the harvest of purple or white sprouting broccoli. OK they take a long time to mature – the plantlets go into the soil in early July and they are harvested from March the following year. But the flavour is wonderfully sweet – totally unlike the PSB available at great expense in the shops, which can be a bit bitter. This stir fry took advantage of the sprouting broccoli from our allotment. It also uses chicken left over from the Sunday roast and of course yacon from last year’s harvest. If...
read moreThe Man Who Never Buys Drinks
It’s the last day of March and it feels chilly and blustery in this corner of East Anglia. The Min Pins and I have lit the stove in the kitchen. I would like to share a story with you. So pull up a chair, pour yourself a cup of tea (if you’d like something a bit stronger be my guest) and I will begin. When I worked in London’s Wardour Street in the Soho area, pubs (bars) were an important part of daily working life. That’s not to say that we were in pubs for eight hours a day – although a few desperados took advantage of the...
read moreRecipe for pork tenderloin in a tomato and pepper sauce
Every year we bottle/can loads of tomatoes for use over the winter. These are sweet and the flavour is delicate. But however many jars I make we find that they always run out by Christmas. Luckily we love good quality tinned plum tomatoes. They have to be whole tomatoes rather than the chopped ones. These tinned toms are more expensive than the value brands but they taste so much better. Over the last few months there have been loads of half price offers in the supermarkets and I cashed in big time. A few days before I invented this recipe, I...
read moreYahoo Pipes and a general update on us all
“Gosh I’ve never seen so many windows opened on anyone’s computer before.” Danny said. It was an air through the teeth moment. I’m learning how to use Yahoo Pipes. It’s a tight learning curve but I’m enjoying that, as long as the frustration is matched with an occasional triumph. In the olden days (2-3 years ago) people used Yahoo Pipes to increase backlinks to their sites and climb up the Google rankings. I’m not sure whether Yahoo Pipes are relevant to that particular task anymore. I will do some tests and report...
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