Living in the UK again

Last night was a bad night for the island (Serifos) I called home for almost a year. A wildfire broke out and spread rapidly in the strong wind. Evacuations were ordered and several houses were destroyed. Several fire trucks were brought in from the nearby island of Syros, and a helicopter. No one was hurt or died. But although the blackened landscape will recover, unfortunately some farm animals died. I spoke to a friend this morning, she said it was scary to see the fire and smoke in the distance. But it’s been put out and hopefully will stay so.  I made two dishes for the summer party at the Cosy Nook, another Carrot cake, and a Salmon and Prawn quiche. But before then, a few other things to do and enjoy. I was looking after my favourite chocolate Labrador, for three days. The first day, we walked around Dinton on the big loop, after having lunch at the nearby pub. It was nice for the lab, as we normally do the walk with the pickle that is the Cocker Spaniel. I did some work in ...

So the last day doing a new dog sit for me, unfortunately a shortish distance away from home and with everything else going on, there seemed too much back and forth along the A4. I have enjoyed the sit, a new breed to learn about, a Border Terrier. It’s taken him a few days for him to get used to me, but it’s been fun. He sleeps in my bed and somehow manages to push me out, so I wake up finding myself on the edge of the bed, to see him lying next to me, all innocent looking. When you talk to him he rocks his head from side to side, as if he understands what you are saying. We go to Dinton pastures for a walk early because it’s been quite hot during the day, and as he is reactive, I have to be extra careful with him,  when he meets others dogs. You know the ones he knows, his tail wags like a helicopter and he goes all submissive. He loves his food, but he is under weight, they are trying to get some extra  on him. We did an extra walk around Dinton one day, with a friend of mi...

I use  green gloves when I am gardening and as they are a reinforced rubber, your hands sweat inside them. When they are new, I find the green colour seeps out of the gloves and into my skin. It must go deep, as washing my hands doesn’t eliminate the green hue, that my hands gain after several hours use. So am I turning into the Incredible Hulk? Several months ago, a friend gave me a lump of root ginger, to try and grow. There are all sorts of hints on how to do this. I planted the ginger as instructed in a big pot in the greenhouse and waited. And waited. Nothing happened, until I spotted shoots from the root at last… This week I have several what I call short sits. That is I look after a dog while the owners go out during the day and/or the evening. Two of these dogs are new, one is the chocolate Labrador I know so well. Yesterday was the turn of a St Bernard dog, who lives close to us. His owners were going out to the Cotswolds for the day. I must admit he is huge and very fluff...

I went to the allotment the other day and brought back a mountain of spinach leaves. I gave some to my neighbour, who shares the allotment with me, and grows some of the plants for it. I found  this  recipe for a Dahl, I made it and it tasted very good.  So onto the TRHA Summer show. I was to make a carrot cake to enter and a lemon drizzle for the teas. I also decided to make another Guinness cake for the teas also. Access to the kitchen was going to be difficult as it was going to be decorated during the last two days of the week. Anyway I decided I wanted to up my game in the decoration department and I went to a craft shop in Reading to buy some nozzles and a piping bag. I also took the time, to buy myself some replacement shorts, the ones I used when the cage was on, were getting tatty. So I bought a couple of new ones and some gym shoes.  Carrot cake baked, I cut it in its middle and iced together the two bits and iced the top of that. So far so good. I put a ci...

As my friend was still looking after the dog we did the Marlow walk with, I decided we could all go for a walk with him again, but with two dogs I often take out on Mondays. We decided to walk from the dogs house, three dogs and two humans in a car can be tricky, even with everyone wearing safety belts! First we introduced the second of my dogs to my friends charge, as they had not met before. As usual the Labrador played with my friends dog, they get on so well. We did the walk, and had a coffee at the pub, and walked back by way of the village. It all went very well. I had given my friend a slice of my own version of the Guinness cake that we had in Marlow, it came out very well, except in the early stage of baking it, lots of smoke came out of the oven, I thought the cake was burning, but it wasn’t. H ere  is the recipe. It does look a bit like a pint of Guinness.  I had a super time at my neighbours, Sunday evening, who have the Ukrainian family, it was my neighbours fifty...

 After a week looking after a dog I knew from a previous sit, it was nice to get out in the sunshine and do a real big proper walk. My friends up the road, asked me if I could look after their chocolate lab for the day, there is only one answer! Another friend was dog sitting one of those poodle crosses, I met him and he seemed a nice dog. So after another visit to the gym, I drove myself and the Labrador to meet the poodle cross and my friend. They got on fine, so we headed out to Hurley. There is a nice walk along the river, it goes to Marlow, we weren’t sure how far we would go. But when we got to the bridge at Temple, there had been a tree fall, the bridge was closed. Pity there weren’t signs warning us of this before! So we retraced our steps, and drove to Marlow. After parking we went to a coffee shop my friend knew. The dogs were well behaved, but then had a sort of boxing match, they were not in anyone’s way and it was funny to see! We both had Guinness and chocolate cake, ...