Summer time, and the living is easy! It really is easy since I’ve practically moved outside permanently now! It offends me to be stuck indoors when the weather’s nice. Drifting outside with a cup of tea turns into taking meals outside, which turn into endless hours spent pottering in the garden, drifting around pulling the odd weed, dead-heading roses and fuschias, monitoring bees .... The responsibilities are endless!
My windows are permanently flung wide open, ditto the front
and back doors to maximise airflow in an attempt to cool my house. July can often be unbearably hot and humid,
which makes sleeping a near impossibility since it only really cools down in
the early hours of the morning. Poor
Holly struggles so badly in this weather and is a very droopy companion. Our walks are severely truncated affairs now,
a 10 minute sniff, meet and greet twice a day is about all we manage, unless we
can hit the beach or find a nice river to cool her off in. |
| Tapenade Stuffed Chicken |
Another old favourite is barely classed as cooking – you simply
need to boil a pan of pasta
for 10 minutes while you prepare the rest of the
ingredients! Linguini with parma ham,
rocket and chilli. This is absolutely
delicious enjoyed in a sunny garden after an unbearably long day
deskbound! Sometimes gratification is
pretty much instant.
 |
Linguini with parma ham, rocket & chilli
|
As July progresses my thoughts start to turn to preserving –
jams and chutneys. I start scouring the
hedgerows on walks for signs of the early blackberries ready to swoop as soon
as they ripen. I’m often found gazing up
at threes on walks too, watching for the cobnuts so that I can start gathering
them as soon as they ripen at the end of August/beginning of September –
assuming that I can get to them before the squirrels do!
