July 1st

 Ever optimistic that we might have a warm evening and be able to sit in the garden enjoying a bottle or 2 of something red and the local wildlife, yesterday we fired up the barbecue.  Shoulder of lamb, rubbed with the spices from Jamie's Mad Moroccan recipe, cooked for circa 50 minutes with the lid on.  The ID has this down to a fine art now. (ID is not an abbreviation of idiot!).  With this we had chilli sausages, Ottolenghi's green couscous (parsley, mint, tarragon, rocket and chilli from the garden) and broad beans.  The food was great, just a shame about the drizzle.

Restarting the Blog!!!!!

Have made pastry twice in last fortnight for the same gooseberry pie recipe.  But regardless of how carefully I follow the recipe and however hard I try, my pastry always rolls out into a shape akin to Antartica, complete with the  ice sheets that are almost entirely separate from the land mass.

The good news is that  on both occasions I was able to patch it back over the splits and into the gaps.  Maybe everyone does this, they just don't show this step on telly.

However the result was so delicious, crisp and buttery, surrounding fresh gooseberries in syrup, that it was worth a) the morning at the pyo b) another morning making the pie and, even - maybe - c) a permanent increase in dress size!