After two days of grey sky and rain the sun has come out so we have been out in the garden.

The rain had weighed everything down, plants have buckled and collapsed under it and the branches which overhang the bed that runs down the left of the garden are bowed over covering the bed in shadow.

For the first time in a couple of weeks there has been time to get outside, to do some tidying up and plant a few more things for the veg patch.

As I walked over the lawn I saw some strange insect crawling across the grass. Looking closer I saw that it was a baby frog no more than half an inch long. Having spotted the one the grass was suddenly alive with them and we stood still, afraid to put down our feet, for fear of standing on one of them. Hopefully a few of them will make it back to the pond next year so we can have them come visit again.

In the greenhouse the one tomato plant I planted from seed is now all of two inches tall. By way of contrast the seedlings I bought from B & Q a few  weeks ago are four foot tall and already starting to bud with small green fruit.

The garlic I planted last year in September looks almost ready for pulling and in a few weeks time we are going to have more golden beetroot than we will know what to do with.

The weather is good enough for a barbeque but I haven’t planned for that. But their is a large piece of pork marinading in quince paste and pomegranate mollasses and a bowl of chickpeas getting ready to be made into falafel.

Saturday I made tomato soup and pork scratchings. The pork scratchings are very good. It was a fatty piece of pig skin that I cut up and mixed with paprika, salt, pepper, garlic and some olive oil and cooked in a low oven for a couple of hours. I am having to slap hands away from the box in which I am keeping them.

Still listening to Bobby Womack.