Cooking With Richard

At a pet shop near Hemel Hamster:

おいしそう:

だいげーびる:

M-kun:

Red Hat Summit in Boston:

Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox:

Bagels for breakfast:

Da boyz:

This is an old From Our Own Correspondent article about the sounds of hot summers in Japan. I wish I could find the original broadcast programme.

• Shuru shuru shuru doon patchi patchi
• Hyuu doro doro
• Goku goku
• Goro goro pika
• Kara koro kara koro

I was a bit confused by this one, he keeps on saying “shika shika“?

And for the main finale:

Our crazy driving holiday around Scotland is now over. I drove 1,104 miles. Here are some photos:

Troooon

Booooat

♫♬listen to the song ♪♫♬

Arran and Lamlash

Home of the worst pub on Arran …

Lunch

Castles and shika

Shikatetsu …

The Lamb and Whisky

The Array Whisky distillery, home of some rather pleasant spirits.

Loch

Maggie the moggie

It’s my bro’s moggie:

Snails:

.. and pants:

I think this is a brilliant concept. This artist called “SLINKACHU” paints snails and then photographs them in urban environments. Previously he was famous for doing these little people on ordinary city streets.

I really hope that the artist lets the snails “go free”, perhaps to be discovered by a bemused commuter, or a snail connoisseur…

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While I was looking at this snail art, I saw that the artist had painted a sadly familiar “tag” on a snail, “TOX.08“. If you regularly travel through London, you will be familiar with the depressing vandalism of this teenager. I found this 10 minute documentary on the internet about the culprit of this eyesore, it’s worth watching because it shows the people who have to clear this spam off tubes, and where tube trains go in the night …

The garden is full of stinging nettles at the moment, vicious little bastards. What better way to show them who’s boss than to make nettle soup. I collected a large pot full of the shoots and heads, which turned out to be about enough for two people:

This is the soup, with a sprig of mint leaves (also from the garden). Very delicious — we should eat nettle soup more often.

I photographed a sparrowhawk catching, killing and eating a starling in the garden today. Well, the killing and the eating kind of overlapped. As you can imagine the starling was not too happy about this situation and made a lot of noise.

Click photos for larger versions.

ガーコ is still sitting on her nest. We’re expecting ducklings towards the end of this week. Here’s the latest photo of (an) egg, she covers them up before she goes out each time.

While you’re waiting, here’s a photo of our lovely long-tailed tits:

Here is M-kun playing Mario Kart Wii, which is bloody good fun:

Dorchester:

Little Wittenham and the Wittenham Clumps, Northmoor Trust:

Bravery:

Lambs!

Push!

Looking at the duck’s arse:

The meat is from a great little butchers called JTB Butchers out in the back of beyond:

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Our duck (N-sama is calling her “ガー子”) has now laid a full clutch of at least 10 eggs, see the photo below. N-sama bravely took this photo.

Here she is sitting on the fence and flying off:

Easter weekend was a wash-out because of the high winds, rain and snow:

We went to the Rose and Crown in Kings Langley for beer and greasy pub fish and chips and ale pie:

N-sama was very brave yesterday and today and went out and took photos of the eggs, while mama-Duck-san was off flying around and eating seaweed and whatever else they do:

Mother duck, taking off:

Sorry, terrible photo but I can’t get too close … There’s a duck nesting in our back garden!

A special treat for the tinybirds: