Yes, summer

Yes, summer, the fledglings are at large. A family of great tits arrives as I sit on my favourite little bench under the below-mentioned tree. The babies push and shove on the branch and shout very loudly,

DI DI DEE DEE DI DI DI DEE DEE DEE DEE!





They are proclaiming to the local cat population:


FLYING SNACKS AVAILABLE HERE!





The neighbourhood cats materalise, turn their headlight eyes full beam on the babies, and jitter with unmet desire.


The parents, who are looking worn and grey, feathers at all angles, try to restore order and call out pointedly in their adult song,

TEA -CHING, TEA-CHING

They whirr to the bird table, snatch up a sunflower seed, whirr back up to the babies on the branch, tap open the seeds, eat the seed in front of their young, yum yum, and drop the husks on my head.

DI DI DI DEE DI DI DI DEE DEE DI DI shout the babies. They don't get it. They don't understand the seed thing. They want Mummy and Daddy to keep putting live worms in their open beaks, and who can blame them? The parents persist,

TEA-CHING, TEA-CHING-CHING

Ah, summer

Ah, summer, best taken lying down, under a tree, looking up...there's something in the air...


Strawberries and cream: choose a cream thick enough to coat the fruit, put one teaspoonful in each bowl, stir in small teaspoonful of sugar and some vanilla essence. Wash strawberries and cut in two, fill each bowl, stir up with the vanilla cream...and ENJOY.

The cherry season, short and intensly pleasurable, is upon us. We have cooking cherries in the garden so I made a cherry clafoutis, this recipe worked well:

150 g of plain flour

4 eggs

300mls milk

vanilla essence

Make this into a batter by whisking or in a machine, and set aside in fridge.

Heat oven 180C

Stone cherries.

Butter an oven proof dish, heat to bubbling in hot oven, fill with cherries and cover with 3 heaped dessertspoonfuls of sugar (more or less, depending on sweetness of cherries or according to taste). Put into oven until cherries lightly cooked and sugar in a syrup. While still as hot as possible pour in stirred batter and cook for 25 minutes, until risen and golden brown (do not open oven door whilst rising as will fall). Serve with dusting of icing sugar.

Easter Broadcast (late)

I can't move on with this blog without mentioning Easter, which I failed to tell you about.

Find an egg as large and strong and pale as possible.

Take a trinity of coriander leaves, and bind them with the leg of a pair of tights, tighter than a bank robber's head.

Fill a large pan with onion skins and top up with water. Bring to the boil.

Gently lower the egg into the pan, and simmer for ten minutes, or until egg has become a golden or rosy brown.

Remove carefully, leave to cool, unveil.

Wood Between the Worlds

The library at the top

...and the middle section of our house.