Muscovy Duck

Muscovy Duck
Roosting on the gate

2011 - My second year of blogging in Brittany

I felt I would like to share some of the photographs I have taken so far this year and some from other years. I live in a beautiful part of Brittany and just love being here. It's a lovely place to photograph and enjoy being in through all the seasons and hopefully this blog will show you where I live my life.



Saturday, July 2, 2011

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.

2 comments:

  1. Sounds as though you had a fine, full day. I like your list. Can't wait for or little hens to start laying eggs.

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  2. Hello Ann They usually start laying around 20-22 weeks and the first eggs are often a funny shape, but fine to eat. I'm off out this morning for coffee and then on to lunch, so I need to get going. Sandra

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