Welcome to family, friends and visitors. Here you will find interesting (hopefully) pictures of my part of the world, news of our household and probably, long ramblings about anything that catches my interest.

Saturday 15 September 2012

Overcast.

It has been a grey but dry and fairly warm day today. A good day for getting on with some gardening. I spent my time sitting on the hillside continuing on with digging out the grass roots and the London Pride. 
I left it a bit late before wandering around the garden with my camera looking for something different to photograph.
These shield bugs were the only ones I could see on this cornus, it looked like they were having a little conference. They didn't quite resemble the green shield bugs in my wildlife book but a look at a site which showed the many different British shield bugs identified these as the nymphs of the green sheild bug, nothing more exciting. They suck the leaf sap but I don't think they count as serious pests.

Tidying up my herbs and spices yesterday got me thinking about the days when I cooked nearly everything from scratch. A jar of bolognaise or curry sauce was a bit of a luxury then and I never bought anything ready made. Have we become lazier or is it just the increased availability that has led to a greater use of ready made sauces and whole dishes? At the moment on this fat free diet I can't be too bothered and I do like cous-cous or boiled potatoes with tinned herrings (I can eat fish for some reason, maybe fish oils are different.) However I did have a go at making a spiced fruit loaf in the bread maker leaving out the butter and most of the oil. It came out all right (so I'll stick to those ingredients), but it would taste even better with some butter spread on it.
Talking about going back to old fashioned values - I followed this link 
-handmade-gifts-   to a site which shows you how to make 25 gifts for under $5. There are some brilliant ideas and I may well try some of them.

No comments: