Dogs and Children at the Show

We spent yesterday at our local agricultural show, the North Somerset Show. It was a very hot day so we had a fairly leisurely walk around with plenty of drink stops and rests. While we were having one of coffee stops the Avon Vale Hunt were in the main ring.

Once the horses were safely out the way the children in the audience were invited into the ring to meet the dogs.

The dogs and children loved it. Soon there were more children than dogs.

It was then fascinating to watch the beagles following 'at heel' even in a large group.

I also enjoy watching a little of the judging which is really a bit of a family affair.

This young couple were calmly showing their sheep with their babies on board.

A Bluebell Walk

We have a walker called Sue Gearing who writes a lot of the walks around here. She has published several books but her walks are also frequently in local magazines and papers. Yesterday the Student Daughter and I tried one of these out as a possible walk for my walking group.

We started out after Sunday lunch on a blistering hot day. Fortunately some of the walk was under the shade of trees as we climbed up gradually out of the village of Blagdon through bluebell woods. Blagdon is a village on the very edge of the Chew Valley on the slopes below the Mendips.

There were places where there were beautiful views back down the hill.

There were plenty of good places to stop for a photo.

We eventually emerged onto high open land known as Burrington Ham. This area is  quite exposed and was very hot. We only had one sun hat between us so it was only fair to share it!

We passed through grazing cattle and through cleared areas which have bluebells just emerging. Soon we arrived at Ham Rocks. I let Poppy and Student Daughter climb up to see the view while I checked out the route instructions.

 We then started back down the hill through Silver Birch trees.

Time for a rest and a selfie. 

We then descended into the small village of Rickford where our walk took us along past a stream and ford. Poppy made the most of this for a quick dip and cool off.

She had to stay on the lead for the whole walk because she is currently in season and we don't want any sneaky puppies! 

It was then back across the fields to Blagdon.

Hopefully I shall be rewalking this route with my walking group.

Another Dish from the Cook Book

My friend Allyson who came to see Mary Berry told me she had tried a couple of recipes from her cook book bought on the night. One of these was One Tray Sausage Supper. This is basically a combination of roasted vegetables cooked with the sausages on top. She told me that she had a lot of trouble finding uncooked beetroot. I decided to omit this ingredient as all from the garden finished a while ago. I substituted it with butternut squash and parsnip.

I also have a surplus of cauliflower so I popped some of that in. Most of the vegetables apart from the onion, garlic and beetroot are parboiled for a few minutes before being coated in the hot oil in the roasting dish.

We are lucky to be able to get a good supply of chunky sausages made for us from lean pork belly. A friend makes them for us.

Once the sausages are well browned they are removed to another dish. Then some grated Parmesan cheese is sprinkled over the vegetables before they are finished off in the oven.

It was delicious!

5 in 5 on the 5th of the 5th.

I am actually managing to post my 5 in 5 photos on the correct day! This is the idea of Sandie at Itchifingers. The remit is that you take your camera and your watch and off you go. Take as many pictures as you can in 5 minutes and then choose 5 to show us all.

Mine are taken in Bath Botanical Gardens in Victoria Park.

So here goes:-

1. This little chap (chapess ??) is obviously regularly fed. I'm not really a fan of grey squirrels because of the the damage they do to trees, their tendency to steal bird eggs and of course their damage to our population of red squirrels. This one really has the charm tactics off to a tee.

2. A lot of the cherry trees have been looking fabulous. I have some more blossom photos to show you another day.

3. So many leaves are bursting out as the temperature rises.

4. The edge of the Chinese Garden.

5. Both the cultivated and wild bluebells are beginning to flower. These are not technically blue!

Acers in the Park

Yesterday I had to take Student Daughter's car into the garage to have a minor fault fixed. I decided to walk on into Bath via Victoria Park. This included a wander around the Botanical Gardens. It was still only about 9.30 so the sun was still fairly low giving a beautiful light through the trees. Needless to say I took quite a few photos. Today I will show a few of some Acer trees which have recently come into leaf.

This first one is called Acer Palmatum. It is one of the few trees to have a label!

Then through the rockery area there are several small and miniature trees in a variety of shades.

There will be more photos another day of the blossoms and magnolias.

Take Three Thursday: Clementine Cake

I am joining Mary Lou with her Take Three Thursday today. Last Thursday as you may recall I went to a talk by Mary Berry and bought a signed copy of her new book Classic. This week I tried out my first recipe from it. The Clementine cake was my choice as I wanted to make a birthday cake to share at Book club. One of our members has recently reached her 80th birthday. You can find this recipe online here.

This particular recipe require a couple of clementines to be soften by simmering in water so that you have some clementine pulp.

The majority is stirred into the cake mixture and then a tablespoon is reserved to go into the icing. The final result was delicious even if the icing wasn't quite as smooth as I could have hoped.

Reprieved Again

You may recall that Farmer Husband has in the past threatened to cut down the greengage tree in our garden due to lack of production. It had a last minute reprieve last year when it had some blossom and even produced a few fruit. Fortunately this year it has quite a lot of blossom.

Hopefully the blossom will develop into a healthy crop of greengages.

I should take the warning seriously greengage tree!