Mustard, Wimbledon and Books

It’s been another beautifully sunny day here.  The laundry has been washed, dried, brought in and folded.  Before and after watching the tennis, I finished “Choral Society” and started another book, which I’m really enjoying.  It's by Tony Parsons and is called The Family Way.

I got another request from readitswapit.com, a book swapping website to which I belong.  Last weekend I sent off four books and on Monday I’ll send the book I finished a few weeks ago, The Jewel Garden.  I’m swapping it for The Bookseller of Kabul.  The books are sent to my oldest son in Cornwall and I collect them when I go back to visit.  

I defrosted a gammon joint overnight, which came back with me from England in April, and have cooked that today.  I shall have it for supper with broad beans from the veggie plot and parsley sauce.  I picked so many beans that I cooked some and had them in a bowl with black pepper and butter – scrummy!  I really like the boiled gammon best when it’s cold, on hot buttered toast with Colman’s bright yellow English mustard.  I don’t like the jars with the product ready made, but prefer to mix the powder with water myself to the consistency I like.  One joint seems to last for ages and I love opening the fridge and just slicing off a couple of pieces to snack on.

These tins seem to be just the same as I remember them all my life, if they have changed the packaging it must have been a small change.  I don’t know of any other product packed in these rounded off rectangular tins.  I found this on the Unilever site: 

In 1903, Colman's purchased a rival mustard manufacturer that was originally known as Keen & Son. The manufacturer had made their mustard a household name and spawned the well-known saying 'keen as mustard'. In 1995, the company was bought by Unilever.   

I’ve had a really lazy day, sitting in the sun reading and watching the Wimbledon Ladies Tennis Match, which was won by a 21 year old Czech girl, Petra Kvitova quite brilliantly. 

I took this photograph from The Guardian newspaper on-line.  Doesn't she look happy?  Maria Sharapova didn’t stand a chance against this strong and versatile player. 

I took just two photographs in the garden this afternoon, one of some yellow fennel blossom with a visiting ladybird

and the other of the clematis on my house wall which is into its second flowering.

Two of my children telephoned me this morning.   They are both a little hungover today after hosting a party last night for a friend who is moving out of the area.  I think it was quite late finishing too, so sleep deprivation is figuring quite highly.  I can’t remember when I was last hungover, but am glad it never happens nowadays!  

Three things I like:  

1.        Scrambled eggs with my hens’ dark yellow yolked eggs.

2.        Sitting in the garden with only birdsong to hear.

3.        Starting a new book and not knowing what it will be like.