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:
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:
The lemon tree was looking quite sad until recently. Since we managed to put it in the sun for the past few days, it has picked up and started showing new shoots and little flowers like this one:
So I think it’s going to be OK, come the summer.
Now M-kun is not allowed to post any comments on this one in case he compares his love to a dahlia or whatever.
Why does this honey cost £5.49?
This was a rather lovely, friendly restaurant that we discovered in Rue Mouffetard, Paris.
We had a starter of escargots (snails):
N-sama had a beef stew which tasted like a peposo:
I had a very pleasant cassoulet:
Altogether, a highly recommended restaurant, not particularly because the food was outstanding (although it was very good), but because the place was cosy and friendly.
