Cooling off.

digby

I'm not ready for Summer to end.

Vallee Des Vaux woods

Vallee Des Vaux

Photos taken one day last week. Its weird sometimes I can't be bothered to go, yet when I get there I love it.

This day, it started to thunder and rain as we were about to leave. Usually, I call Digby to the car then he looks at me, as if to say can we go round once more. The minute he heard the crack of thunder he was in sheer panic and was in the car quicker than a bullet.

The rain came down sudden and heavy I tried to shelter under the trees and protect my camera under my t.shirt. I had no bag on me. All I kept thinking was if Chris could see me now he would be going nuts, telling me how unorganized I am don't I realise how expensive things are, thats not a cheap camera you know. I should have had a bag blah blah blah blah blah.

Then annoying thing is, He is so bloody right.

Paul on his Birthday

Paul celebrating his birthday.

For the observant of you, Yes they are 50th birthday chimes. Probably left over from someones birthday



Pauls fish.

Digby

Digby
I just love this little fella. I am gonna have to check now as I think I may have previously posted this collage.

And all that Jazz.

Jerry and Bernie.

And dont they look smart. They were on the way out to a jazz night and I was chuffed I had the camera and managed to take a few photos.

Clodagh Irish dancing.

Clodagh Irish dancing.

A few photos from the garden.

Acer Palmatum


Apples
The above apples are one variety on the duo apple tree. This is the 2 nd year where only the one variety has fruited. The non fruiting side of the tree the graft and leaves looks healthy, sadly no apple . I guess what ever variety it is possibly takes a bit longer to establish. Maybe next year.

My pear tree and plum tree have no fruit :( although both look strong and healthy.

Pancakes.

Pancakes.

I Have not had time to update this blog regularly and now find myself posting a few blogs in as many days.

I seem to be going through a bit of a cooking phase. I am not quite sure what to attribute this too.

Last week I made some chocolate cupcakes which Chris's work mates said were lovely. (Or was Chris being nice) I thought they tasted pretty good.

I should be careful Chris will start to believe I enjoyed myself and expect a little more input on the cooking front.

I then had a cooking disaster when trying to make some cheese stuffed courgettes using my home grown veg.

Honestly they were awful the stuffing was tasteless . I could not taste cheese garlic or basil or any of the ingredients I used. I don't know what I did wrong.?

Tonight I found myself looking for a recipe to make honeycomb as I had some golden syrup left over from a project which I will quickly deviate and tell you about before getting back to this blog post....

I followed a recipe for a diy coddling moth trap to put on some fruit trees down at Dave and Lisa's place.

So far so good. We had some left over liquid from the diy recipe which I suggested to Lisa we keep to top up the traps with.

I placed the liquid in a thermos flask. A week or so later the traps worked caught the moths did the job. I removed the moths and went to top up the liquid with the remainder I had saved in the flask.

My home made bomb!

I tried to open the flask it was stuck solid, would not budge. Martin was around and Dave so I asked both of them big strong strapping guys and no they could not open the flask eventually Dave managed to loosen the lid slightly and the noise coming out made us aware something was not right. I then stated what was in the concoction vinegar bicarbonate of soda or maybe it was baking powder cant quite remember now treacle yeast and a few other thing. I could tell from the look on their faces that the lid wasn't just stuck.

Long story short there was yeast in the concoction fermenting away in a sealed vacuum. Chris called me all sorts couldn't believe I was so stupid. I never did like Science at School.

Well I mean how was I meant to know! It wasn't funny. No, it really wasn't.

Really it was not funnnnnnny. Just thinking about it now brings a tear to my eye. oh dear.

Back to my original post.

I fancied some chocolate, we had none I fancied a crunchy. Hence the honeycomb.

Honeycomb only took a few moments to make and is now bagged up and in the fridge. I am thinking to crush it and have with ice cream. Then I got to thinking pancakes, see where I am going with this.

I would of liked to photograph the pancake with ice cream honeycomb crumbled and a bit of currant sauce but hey its nearly 3 in the morning.

The pancakes are not your regular crepe thin type of pancake but more of an American fluffy type of pancake. I have layered in greaseproof paper and will freeze and surprise Chris tomorrow.

I will also post recipe.

Photos from the garden

Pink flowering wild strawberry.
click on f1 florian hybrid tab to see earlier post.

Fly on cape daisy / Fly on camelia leaf

Chive flower

The above photos were taken using a close up conversion lens which I recently purchased. I had wanted to buy a 100m Macro but it was too expensive for my current level.

For my current needs the close conversion seemed adequate.

It has an adaptor that fits on my 50mm 1.8 lens with the close up lens attached to the adaptor.

I should of used a tripod as recommended. It was windy and I was impatient to try it out. I did figure out that it was easier using the manual focus.