Weekend Lunch In Sunny Derbyshire

Can this be improved?


Oh yes.

Eight Tagged Blogs, Eventually. Notification To Follow, Eventually

It's taken me a week to get my act together and sort out the tagging incident. There are rules for this sort of thing, so click onto Mr Anthrope's blog if, like me, you are a BlogTageeNewbe. Here are 8 blogs selected from the 20 or so that I read regularly, and think that you'll enjoy reading. In no particular order, they are;

1. Laila El-Haddad's blog, Raising Yousef. Laila is a Palestinian journalist who divides her time between Gaza and the United States, where Yousuf's father, a Palestinian refugee denied his right of return to Palestine, resides. This blog is about the trials of raising her son between Gaza and the US, whilst working as a journalist, and everything that entails from potty training to border crossings.

2. The London Underground blog. Oh man, this is blogging at its best. The blog's webmeister Annie Cole and her sidekicks Neil n Chris have taken travelling in a cattle pen to a new level. I just love the disgusting nature of their photos of revolting behaviour of commuters; that creature cutting his nails should be slapped with an ASBO. I really like the pictures of commuters at their sartorial best, sort of a Heat magazine for slobrities, and the polar opposite of the following blog.

3. When Notorious F.A.G. announced last November that he was ceasing all blogging, the screams of panic around the world registered 3.4 on the Richter scale. Notorious may have been emulated, but nothing will replace this; the first, the last, the everythang.

4. Robot Guy convinced me to begin saving not for my teenagers' universities fees, but to buy a ton of nickel and tuck it away somewhere safe. Okey cokey, cowboy! But there is a serious point to this; how can families reduce the risks of exposure to nickel? Leave the shrapnel as a tip whenever you're eating out in Europe.

5. Corey Amaro may describe herself as just an American living and loving in France, but she takes a stunning photo and her blog eases my homesickness for my other home at the seaside.

6. Now this blog really is outrageous, and ought to be headlined by Wikipedia as a fine example of gastroporn. Jules Clancy's Stone Soup makes me hungry for the seasons to come, and the extensive nature of her culinary skills and cooking repertoire seems boundless. I've made her entire dukkah menu many times over the past year.

7. GastroPunk and MathsChick recount their adventures with a Riverford organic vegetable box in this blog, living the good life up in the big smoke, (that's London, for our colonial friends...). Read each entry on this blog; cook everything they make; follow the instructions for prepping artichokes, and you too may one day have a fridge as beautiful as theirs.

8. And your blog. You know who you are. And you certainly don't need any further encouragement from me! Feel free to accept the tagging, and you decide whether to continue with the 8 bits of info, or 8 tagged blogs. You could of course, simply place your favourite photo in lieu of any further effort. Because it's your photos and your words that entrance me! Thank you.

A Pair Of Standard Roses, In Beehive Terracotta Pots

Oh Earth, Wait For Me

Turn me oh sun
towards my native destiny,
rain from the ancient forest,
return to me the fragrance and the swords
that fall from the sky,
the solitary peace of field and rock,
the moisture at the margins of the river,
the scent of the larch,
the wind, alive like a heart
beating among the remote flock
of the great araucaria.

Earth, return to me your pure gifts
the towers of silence that rose
from the solemnity of their roots:
I want to return to being what I have not been,
learn to return from such depths
that amongst all the things of nature
I could live or not live: no matter
to be one more stone, the dark stone,
the pure stone that is carried by the river.

Pablo Neruda from: ‘Memorial de Isla Negra’

"It's hard to do this stuff with only one hand."

Don't you just love the world wide web?

And did you know that Richard Curtis not only wrote, co-wrote or directed Bridget Jones's Diary, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love Actually, (incidentally, one of my favourite films of all time, right up there with Mrs Miniver,) but also the Vicar of Dibley. And of course you know that the starring role in The Vicar is Dawn French; best friend of Joanna Lumley, gifted, gifted actress and star of Absolutely Fabulous, (and secretly whom my best friend and I tussle with each other, to be).

And sometimes I think that the greatest gift the Creator gives to us mere mortals, its the gift of humour. And comic timing. Because without comic timing, humour is reduced to nothing more important that a shopping list. I know this, because I don't have comic timing, and can kill a joke stone dead. Joanna Lumley has shed loads of comic timing. See her in this clip at the bottom of the page, "Patsy's feeling ... peckish?"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/articles/a/absolutelyfabulo_7770095.shtml

...... And that's as far as I got last night, or rather at 1.30hrs this morning, when I fell asleep at my desk. I have absolutely no idea where I was going with this post, or how I was going to bring April into it. But I'd clearly got rolling! But starting work at 5am Thursday morning cutting out, clearing and relaying a gravel path onto the original Victorian clinker path, took its toll, and I fell asleep. How sad is that. I only woke up when my phone alarm went off to tell me Local Hero was starting on Channel4. So like a fool I lifted my head off the keys, and went across the hall to watch the film. You know that horrible bleary look you get when you've been up travelling halfway around the world for two days without sleep? When your eyes are open but there's no-one home? That's what I looked like when I fell asleep 15 minutes into the film.

Love Actually. Or Why Emma Thompson Is A Truly Gifted Actress

She realises she isn't loved. She realises that he doesn't love her. Not really. Not ever. And that realisation crashes though her carefully constructed unreality, leaving her life and her reality in tatters. And her horrified realisation, anxiety and grief, is distilled into the merest physical expression of wringing hands, shaking her hands; tears; and the rapid covering up of this grief with practical tasks such as smoothing down the bed linen... organising the family, the children, the rest of the story.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqQlfFuQFXo

http://www.loveactually.com/

Rice Or Pasta?

I personally could live the rest of my four score years and ten without ever permitting either of the above to pass my lips. Now potatoes, that's another matter. Old, New and Indifferent; I love them all. Mashed, creamed, boiled, fried, roast, whipped and even beaten into submission; I love potatoes every way they are offered to me. I'm digging my first potatoes this week, and my greedy little brain is obsessing.

I suppose gnocchi is potato, but really it's pasta. And I know you can buy rice that's really pasta, because I've bought bags of the stuff at Cora in the past, and brought it home to throw into minestone at the last minute. And so I find myself tossed on the horns of a furious dilemma. If someone wants to eat rice on a daily basis, but can't be bothered with all the rinsing and boiling, what do they do? Is there such a commodity as frozen ready cooked rice, microwaveable and in both white and brown varieties? Can you buy bags of non-frozen, longlife rice that you store in your pantry until you're ready to eat it? I keep packets of longlife ready cooked Chinese noodles in the pantry ready for merci beaucoup enfant deux's spur of the moment stir frys; is there a rice equivalent?

Colonials, this is your moment to shine. What is available on the north American markets? Extra points for pictures included in your replies. The winner gets to join me and April and Jan in the back of Kevin Costner's jet en route to Pioneer Woman and Marlboro Man's ranch. No really...

Orange Wednesday

I Love My Teenagers

It's 22.20hrs on Tuesday night, I've just finished watching CSI-Miami on C5, and nipped online to send an email to my best friend, whom I met in a meeting that although scheduled for 90 minutes eventually lasted 5 hours. We both knew at the end of the meeting that we would be friends for life. Whilst composing my email to said best friend, I clicked onto Sacred Space. Now I know you'll all find this unbelievable, but Sacred Space is even more famous than Pioneer Woman's blog. And what's the prayer for today concerned with?* Teenagers. Here is the opening paragraph, in case you can't be bothered to click onto the link.

"The adult Christ is hardly intelligible to children before adolescence. But for teenagers he incarnates the highest values of all: freedom and love. As he appears in the Gospel he is the freest of people: unpredictable, and alarming the respectable; a shocking, revolutionary figure whom society eventually found too dangerous and had to put away; a tender and compassionate figure, reacting warmly and spontaneously to all he met; a strong and frightening figure, contemptuous of petty regulations but open to everything living, ready to change the world. Above all, he was a man of supreme interior freedom, not driven by unconscious needs, pressures or anxieties, but doing what he wanted to do, his father’s business. He was the only person who realised fully all that a parent can mean to a child: not merely Law, but the model and the promise of an independent free existence."

My struggle and ambition as a parent must be to realise this final sentence: to be all that a parent can mean to a (teenage) child.

Good.

I can do this.

I'm on the right track.

Come and join me in this journey.

* It grieves me to end a sentence with a preposition

I Love My Head Gardener

My head gardener sent me the following email this morning;

That south facing border looks bloody shameful. If you didn't spend so much time standing about drinking tea it would look great now.

I love her. I want to be her in a future life. Remember the deep manuring episode in the spring? I asked her if we really needed to dig in all the compost. Couldn't we just make a deep layer and let the worms pull the compost down into the soil. Fag in hand she turned to me and said matter-of-factly, "No, that's bullshit."

I love her. I want to be her in a future life.

On A Neglected South Facing Plot

Summer gardening is essentially weeding and watering, and luckily the continuing rainfall* halves that list. There's a lovely part of my garden that's on my short list of "tasks outstanding for 2007." Redesigning sounds far too grand a task for what is essentially a couple of days work spent weeding and thinning out.It's a little bit overgrown, as I haven't really paid it much attention for a couple of summers. An ancient Merlot vine sits centre stage towards the warm south facing wall of the outbuildings, with roses either side.There's a real mixed bag of planting here, an enormous angelica, rose campions self seeding rampantly, irises, day lilies and sweet cicely; garlic and its wild cousin; and snaking nasturtiums adding pools of colour to the understory. Yet I love this part of the garden, I like its gradual return to a seemingly chaotic natural state.It was sparsely planted initially, then became the repository, rather grandly named in my mind "the nursery plot," for my impulse buys at shows and garden centres. In the days before I had a digital camera, I used to buy something to remind myself of a particularly beautiful garden; now I take ever-so-slightly out of focus pictures. I love these oil jars.

* An unwelcome comment if my witty, urbane and charming readership lives within the Rivers Severn, Avon and Thames floodplains... that'll be southern England then.

On Driving Lessons

And this is what happens when men take to the roads, drive on the right, and try to pretend that they are really learning to drive...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJupNDIKkEk

Blog Tagging? 8 Random Facts? Er...

I was tagged last night by Mr Anthrope. Unfortunately, he disclosed that he isn't Kevin Costner, so April and I will have to wait a while yet to fly low over Pioneer Woman and Marlboro Man's ranch, buzz the cattle and scream our helloes and wave like maniacs. Now, tagging means I have to provide 8 random facts about myself, and then leave comments on 8 other blogs to ask permission / inform the blog-owners that they have been tagged. This feels a bit too much effort on an unusually sunny afternoon in sunny Derbyshire, so, I shall compromise! Here are not just 8, but 100 random facts about me. And I shall spend the rest of the afternoon dozing sleepily in the sunshine on the terrace whilst pretending to mull over which blogs to tag.

I suppose I shouldn't list my real favourites - this might expose my witty, urbane and charming readership to the lowbrow, gutter mentality of the blogs I most enjoy reading. I especially like blogs that detail the damage done by the family dog to furniture, especially if the bloggers actually upload pictures of the carnage. There's nothing quite like a sofa ripped to shreds by an enthusiastic Jack Russell left too long alone. I make a point of showing Merci Beaucoup Enfant Deux each story, in the continuing effort to justify my "rehoming" of our two Jack Russells during her trip to Barcelona five years ago. And I really like ranty blogs that show rude photographs of slebrities falling out of their clothes when attempting to leave crack dens thinly disguised as exclusive nightclubs. "Oh just look at this slapper," I cry.

So I shall spend some time finding terribly marvellous blogs, and post 8 up later.

On Chanel And Flowers

Just look at this, one of my favourite blogs. This woman sees the world in a wonderful way. Don't you just love the world wide web?

http://rubycrownedkinglette.typepad.com/rubycrownedkinglette/2007/07/yes-i-am-still-.html

Rosa Scepter'd Isle and a Rainy Saturday in July

Scepter'd Isle is one of my favourite roses, and I've planted it at the top of the steps leading from the top terrace to the rest of the kitchen garden, so that I see when I walk through the garden, and from the kitchen windows too. The flowers are a delicious shell pink, the sort of pink you want your lover's gift of drawers to be; shell pinks, oyster, ivory, palest pistachio; light and airy and gorgeous and wildly expensive and fabulous.I'm between scents at the moment, my favourite since its launch a few years ago is Coco Mademoiselle. I wear it all day, everyday. But increasingly I'm drawn to Soir de Lune especially since the salesgirl at House of Fraser gave me a little goodie bag with samples a month ago. I spray the perfume onto those gorgeous little fragrance cards, and tuck them in my underwear drawers; each time I open them, the scent wafts out to greet me. Oh how can I be so unfaithful to Coco Mademoiselle... all too easily, it seems.
This is how David Austin describes Scepter'd Isle: "This is a charming rose which bears numerous, cupped flowers, with yellow stamens visible within. The colour is a soft pink shading to a paler pink on the outer petals. Its growth is rather upright, with its flowers held above the foliage. It flowers freely and continuously. There is a powerful fragrance - an outstanding example of the English Rose fragrance, based on the myrrh note introduced with ‘Constance Spry’." And just look at the raindrop, captured at the base of this rose before it falls into my waiting hands. Roses, rainfall and joys in my heart.

It's Raining In Sunny Derbyshire

Standing at the french windows holding a cup of tea and watching the rainfall, and singing April Showers. The marketing gurus as Vodafone have a lot to answer for.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux6cZQOMg2E

Drip Drip Drop Little April Showers

We've just lived through two whole days without a drop of rainfall in our Derbyshire valley. This feels miraculous. Every towel and tea towel in the house has been washed and line dried, every stitch of bed linen stripped and laundered. My life has been lived in a Persil advert; lines and lines of rectangular laundry. And since only the mad, bad and the reckless iron towels and bed linens, no ironing! This sunshine will come to an end tomorrow, when severe weather warnings predict heavy rainfall all day; just what you want on the day every school in the nation breaks up for summer, causing the usual Friday night rush hour chaos to become lethal. So in honour of Merci Beaucoup Enfant Deux finishing the LVI, here's something beautiful from Walt Disney, the advertising guys at Vodaphone and YouTube;

http://www.duncans.tv/2007/vodafone-raining-watches-time

From: Bambi; Music: Frank Churchill; Lyrics: Larry Morey
Drip, drip drop

Little April shower
Beating a tune
As you fall all around

Drip, drip drop

Little April shower
What can compare
To your beautiful sound

Drip, drip drop

When the sky is cloudy
Your pretty music
Can brighten the day

Drip, drip drop
When the sky is cloudy
You come along
With a song right away

Drip, drip drop

Little April shower
Beating a tune
Everywhere that you fall

Drip, drip drop
Little April shower
I'm getting wet
And I don't care at all

Drip, drop, drip, drop

I'll never be afraid
Of a good little
Gay little April serenade

Soft Fruit Harvest, Sunny Derbyshire Style

These two pictures capture the total harvest from my three blackcurrant and one redcurrant bushes. At times like this I wonder why I don't grub the damned things up and lay the area to lawn. No doubt the resident bird population would starve. The raspberry canes didn't perform wildly either, a combination of warm, dry spring and then prolonged rainfall. Not to worry, as I'm not wildly keen on blackcurrants; I think they have a rank, sweaty smell and are best used in a limited fashion in summer puddings. Now the redcurrants are something else. Made into jelly, these little angels are a blast of summer sunshine dolloped onto a bit of roast game in the autumn, or washed and sprung carefully off the vines between the tines of a fork into muffin batter for breakfast. Yum yum.

As for the raspberries, I took us off to a local pick your own farm, where we spent the morning wandering up and down the canes picking and eating the fattest, most delicious berries and chatting together about nothing in particular.

These farms used to be so popular when I was a child. Gradually the neighbourhood's children would be bundled into cars together and taken off in turn by families to spend the afternoon picking soft fruit in vast acres of English midlands farmland. The next day we were shooed outside to play as the matriarch spent the day preparing the fruit; bottling, saucing, jamming, jellying, pie-making. No hardship there, as we were bundled into cars by another family to pick their soft fruit needs, then the next day another family's, then anothers. Imagine our joy; different car, same friends. And always the same messing around once we got to the fruit farms, playing hide-and-seek between the canes and bushes with hordes of other children, similarly taken hostage. And always ice creams and sweets at the end of the day.

These days mothers are out at work, children spend their summers in play-schemes and soft fruit picking seems confined to picking up a miserable packet of supermarket raspberries or tasteless Israeli strawberries flown in at obscene environmental expense.

Remember these cardboard trugs? Remember the feel of cool damp grass between your toes, and the greedy handfuls of berries picked and eaten warm from the cane? Sometimes the best things I do with my family are the simplest. Bill Granger's peach and raspberry slice recipe here.

On Buying Courgettes From Sainsbury's

I don't actually like courgettes, so quite why I grew squillions of them last summer is anyone's guess. But occasionally I do cook with them; usually roasted off in a pan with peppers, tomatoes, sweet potatoes and quartered red onions, drizzled with Carapelli olive oil, Maldon and a grind or two of mixed peppercorns. I like this warm rather than hot from the oven; or "tepid," as in Elizabeth David's superb crack about the Greeks, in Mediterranean Food.

" Lamb on the Bone:

In the country districts of Greece, and the islands, the household cooking arrangements are fairly primitive and dishes such as this one are prepared early and sent to the village oven; they emerge deliciously cooked, better than they could ever be in a gas oven, but this method by no means ensures that the food will be served hot. The Greeks in fact prefer their food tepid, and it is useless to argue with them."

So off I went to Sainsbury's, to buy a kilo of their basics range, 49p courgettes - all manner of shapes and sizes, not best quality, hence the basics tag and cheaper price tag. So imagine my surprise when I opened up the netting and out tumbled courgettes with Waitrose organic stickers. Uh oh. One woman's basics range is another woman's overpriced, top of the range organic courgette, £3.39 a kilo. Naughty, naughty Waitrose.

Bill Granger's Peach And Raspberry Slice

Saturday was beautiful, beginning quietly sometime near 6am, and involved a cup of tea in bed. Delightful. I spent some time the day before baking; rye bread, sultana cake and another peach and raspberry slice. Except last Saturday I made it with peaches and the first tayberries from my kitchen garden; yesterday I made it with nectarines and raspberries. Both are just delicious. I watched Bill Granger last Sunday making it as part of his Bill's Food programme, filmed in Sydney. It's simplicity itself, and if Bill's two tiny daughters can make it with him, then we can too!

Take 6.5oz plain flour, and add 1.5 teaspoons baking powder, then rub in 4.5oz butter. When you arrive at the breadcrumb stage, add 4oz brown sugar and 4oz caster sugar. Press about half into the base of a lasagna dish, or baking tray. You'll know what size pan to use by the amount of mixture and volume of fruit set out on your kitchen table. I've made this a few times now, and if I add a bit too much butter, the dry base mix bakes into a soft, cakey texture. If I keep the butter on the short side, the base bakes into a crispy, biscuity texture; both are just delicious and on balance I prefer the latter.

Peel three peaches or nectarines if you can be bothered, otherwise use it skin and all. Slice each fruit into about 8 slices, and if the fruit is a bit ripe, do the cutting over the base mixture so that the peach juice dribbles through your fingers into the dish. Arrange the slices over the top of the mixture anyway you want, then scatter the raspberries between the slices.

Now add an extra half teaspoon of baking powder, and egg and 6fl.oz milk to the remaining base mixture, and mix it together until most of the lumps are sorted. Then pour over the fruit and berries and bake at 180c for an hour until brown and ravishingly beautiful. The middle will come out either cooked through or a bit runny. Who cares. Eat warm. Eat cold that afternoon. Eat for a midnight feast. Eat for breakfast the next day. Eat with a cup of coffee. Eat it with a dollop of creme fraiche. Eat it with vanilla ice cream. Eat it any way you want. Because making this peach and raspberry slice once is not an option; now you are hooked. Bill Granger, my dealer.

Why Mothers Should Earn Medals

You think you've had a tough day? Click on this to read about April's morning yesterday. It really made me laugh, because God knows, we've all been there. I love the way it all builds into a crescendo; the "cup in the back" is just brilliant! Move over Jo Frost.

http://saltforthespirit.blogspot.com/2007/07/kind-of-morning-that-should-earn-mother.html

Friday Five: Sound Track To My Day

1. Brian Eno: An Ending (Ascent)

I woke before six this morning, padded downstairs to make tea, and while the kettle was boiling put this on the speakers. It's from "28 Days Later." Both Beloved Firstborn and Merci Beaucoup Enfant Deux saw the sequel last week. My nerves are still in tatters from the 2002 version, so I didn't go. This track eased me into my morning beautifully. Find it at radioblogclub.com. Like the very best of (chilled) Euphoria, sound track for my nineties/noughties.

2. Sugarbabes: Push The Button

School run with Merci Beaucoup Enfant Deux, then back to drop Beloved Firstborn to work, then back home to my deliciously empty and very tidy house; early rising always feels so good. I love to listen to music whilst driving, my shoulders keeping pace with the racket threatening to blow up the speakers. Sometimes we do the actions to YMCA when it's on, especially if we're on the long, empty stretches over the mountains. If we have Motown on, Merci Beacoup Enfant Deux and I mimic holding mics as we sing along. Find it here.

3. Paul Potts, Britain's Got Talent winner: Nessun Dorma

Mid-morning and ploughing through emails and finalising commissions, and listening to my favs on YouTube.com. I like this one, especially for the reaction of Simon Cowell when the guy begins to sing; derision then amazement then kerching-kerching, right there moving across his face. His eyes tell you he's hooked. Brilliant. And Paul Potts went on to win, of course!

4. Ronan Keating: When You Say Nothing At All

Mid-afternoon and the rain has settled in for the duration. I'm on the pc and sifting through CDs and DVDs. Whilst Kevin Costner will always be number 1, I'd still like to have Gibbs on the side. There's something about a military man...

5. Bruce Springsteen: Born In The USA

The Boss needs no introduction, except to say this was playing on Planet Rock as the parental taxi service delivered Beloved Firstborn into ChesVegas for an evening out with the lads and collected Merci Beaucoup Enfant Deux and best friend Jodie the Waif from the cinema for an evening in with the girls. As it should be.

The sound track to my day. Shared with you.

Summer Gardening Thus Far

May and June passed by in a blur juggling exam timetables, households, parental taxi services, interviews for summer vac jobs; even the odd bit of gardening tucked in amongst that lot. Normandy was Normandy; shopping at Cora, walking on beaches looking at the waves, searching for shells and other beach treasures, "Eating cheese and drinking wine." Then the persistent rains through June and into July really delayed horticultural progress. Consulting my gardening diaries, I think I'm about six weeks out of kilter. Mind you, I can't expect to incorporate hugely disruptive public and uni exams and work schedules into my gardening year and not let something drift. So rather than look back at the end of the season and say, this was the season I didn't finish this, that and the other, I shall look back and say that was this was the season I moved mountains! Here are some beach shots;

Bread And Circuses

A duck walks into a pub and orders a glass of beer and a ham sandwich. The barman looks at him and says, "But you're a duck."

"I see your eyes are working," replies the duck.

"And you talk!" exclaims the barman.

"I see your ears are working," says the duck. "Now can I have my beer and my sandwich please?"

"Certainly," says the barman, "sorry about that, it's just we don't get many ducks in this pub. What are you doing round this way?"

"I'm working on the building site across the road," explains the duck. Then the duck drinks his beer, eats his sandwich and leaves. This continues for 2 weeks. Then one day the circus comes to town. The Ringleader of the circus comes into the pub and the barman says to him, "You're with the circus aren't you? I know this duck that would be just brilliant in your circus; he talks, drinks beer and everything!".

"Sounds marvellous," says the Ringleader. "Get him to give me a call".

So the next day when the duck comes into the pub the barman says,

"Hey Mr. Duck, I reckon I can line you up with a top job, paying really good money!"

"Yeah?" says the duck. "Sounds great, where is it?"

"At the circus," says the barman.

"The circus?" the duck enquires.

"That's right," replies the barman.

"The circus?" the duck asks again.

"Yes," says the barman.

"That place with the big tent?"

"Yeah," the barman replies.

"With all the animals?" the duck questioned.

"Of course," the barman replies.

"With the big canvas roof with the hole in the middle?" asks the duck.

"That's right!" says the barman.

The duck looks confused. "What the f**k would they want with a plasterer?"

Why Are These Socks Paying Homage At The Foothills Of The Washing Machine?

...was my exasperated cry this morning whilst moving through the kitchen like a whirlwind. Merci beaucoup enfant deux only stopped laughing long enough to comment on my poetic imagery at such an early hour. I don't know why SOME PEOPLE do this; why throw socks and other bits of laundry on the floor in front of the washing machine? Put the damned things IN the washing machine. It's the same thing with the dishwasher; why stack plates, glasses etc, ON the work surface above the dishwasher? Put the damned things IN the dishwasher.

I'd forgotten this IRRITATING behaviour existed in the 21st century, until Beloved firstborn arrived back for the summer and the novelty had time to wear off. No shit, Sherlock!

Good Grief. This Blog's Open For Comments

There are some people who need a jolly good slapping. Now I shall have to get my act together and actually join the 21st century, otherwise known as learn how to manage comments on my blog. I thought, I know, I'll activate the comments facility when it's the last Saturday of the month, and then if any of my dedicated readership fancied leaving something witty, urbane and charming whilst I'm in Bakewell buying ostrich burgers, they can!

Then I thought, oh no, I'd have to reply to all the witty, urbane and charming comments as they are left, and who knows, I'd probably only reply to Kevin Costner's witty, urbane and utterly, utterly charming proposal of marriage, and then all my dedicated readership would say, hmm, that Amalee's a right old miserable trout; I've left her comments every last-Saturday-of-the-month and she's not bothered to acknowledge one of them! And my dedicated readership would all drift away to read other blogs that featured photographs that were properly focused.

Not that I'd be that bothered, as I'd be Mrs Kevin Costner and probably never get out of bed long enough to blog. So I think I'll activate the comments facility at the weekends, and click it off during the week, otherwise Kevin and I will get not an ounce of peace...

So here are five things, and my goodness I'd better get a comment from YOU madam!

Five Favorite Toys

1. My Felcos number 11

2. The remote control

3. My new invisible ink pen

4.

5.

Five People I'm Tagging, but written in invisible ink...

psst. I've edited this down now that madam has read it and left her comment. And yes the floods have been sudden and dire, but as the Brits are talking of nothing else, we are a happy nation once more...

The June Floods, Or Correctly Described As A Significant Weather Event

Picking up the keys from our neighbours turned into an opportunity for us all to indulge in that very British obsession, talking about the weather. Whilst we had a bit of drizzle in Normandy, and picked up on the likelihood of rains across southern England from the French weather reports, the full horror of what actually occurred whilst we were away awaited us. Quite literally, it hasn't stopped raining for nearly two weeks. Nothing new there then. But what is new is the volume of rain falling in such a short period, and the ferocity of the deluge. Yorkshire seems to have borne the brunt of it, with Sheffield and Doncaster hit particularly hard.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_6250000/newsid_6253800/6253862.stm?bw=bb&mp=wm

It all began with tracking of satellite images two weeks ago, when the Met Office in Exeter issued its first warning of a significant weather event. An area of low pressure sitting right over the top of the British Isles is very unusual for this time of year, and should be a lot closer to Iceland. The steering mechanism is a core of very strong winds that normally moves these features all the way across the Atlantic, but are much more northerly tracked at this time of year. This feature is a good deal further south and the British Isles is sitting right in the firing line. Cold, Arctic air streams down along the isobars, mixes with warm, moist air coming up from the Atlantic, and where these two meet becomes the focus of persistent and heavy downpour of rains across the British Isles.

And here in our village, at the top of a hill overlooking the surrounding valleys, we escaped most of the flooding but the gardens are devastated. The branches of fruit trees are bowing down and at risk of splitting from their trunks; the climbing roses are torn from their wires, their blooms scattered across the gardens; emerging autumn perennials are looking already tattered; and the paths are heavily puddled and the pond overflows constantly. Only the window panes sparkle under the persistent scouring, and cars, paths and terraces have never looked cleaner. Mind you, I can't complain, as the deluge meant my pots didn't dry out whilst we were away. As it's too wet to get out and photograph anything just yet, here's some hortiporn from the archives.

"Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh." The Song of Songs.

No S***t Sherlock!

I love this blog. And I love the inate ability of the British to use our language to express muted surprise and humour as sarcasm with a rich undertone of derision in the face of peril.

http://london-underground.blogspot.com/2007/06/northern-line-trains-avoid-crash.html

On Arriving Home To Sunny Derbyshire

There is a moment in Ang Lee's "The Ice Storm" when a father stands, suitcase in hand, in the doorway of his son's bedroom.
"I'm back!" he announces cheerfully.
His son stares at him as if he's never seen him before.
"You... you were gone?" he stutters.