Out of sequence

The general idea is that substantial posts appear in their proper order, with that at reference 1 counting as one such. Which can mean, that posting is as much as a fortnight after the event. Whereas odd and ends, such as that at reference 2, usually get posted much closer to their time. I suppose the relevant difference is that the latter can be knocked out in some spare moment, without any serious preparation, while the former require quality time. Some of them are even prepared in Word, rather than being typed straight in, the Blogger draft capability notwithstanding.

So according to the foregoing, the present post should have appeared before that at reference 1, actually occurring three or four days previously, just about a fortnight ago. Hopefully, a rare lapse.

The now usual drill: garlic, onions, tomatoes (I don't approve of tinned tomatoes for culinary purposes. They taste of tin to my mind), celery. Small potatoes, sausage. Served with tubular pasta and salad. With the salad in a large bowl with North African pretensions. There is a tall lid to go with it, a lid which does not usually appear on the table, although it does get cupboard space in the kitchen.

Oven gloves probably from Lakeland, the Epsom branch of which closed some time ago. A useful shop, although with a lot of floor space for the trade that they were doing. Now vacant, with Côte wondering whether to take up their option after all. Tricky time for them - along with many others. We hope they will, as we have had some good meals with them, on the first occasion, as I recall, in Canterbury.

Stew taken with a spot of what the man at Majestic thought was a superior offering from Villa Maria people, an outfit first introduced to me by the staff at the Tooting Broadway branch of Wetherspoons. Seaspray. It was fine, and it was certainly a lot cheaper than the bottle that I had at first thought to buy. Enough cheaper that I bought two rather than one.

On closer inspection, it appears that there were some mushrooms after all. I must have buried them when I added them to the pan, to speed things up.

I usually take my salad after the stew and pasta, either after the first or the second go at it. Miniature water melon for dessert visible top right. Not quite as good as the real thing, but a good deal more convenient.

Of late, I have taken to using an entire sausage in one of these stews, all 300 grams of it. One consequence of which is that there is often enough for us to get a proper second meal from it, rather than snacking on the leftovers, saving BH a job on the day following.

The scene looking south east in our back garden in the middle of the afternoon. I may have been taking a little something on the garden bench - a garden bench which has served well, being well over 50 years old now, having survived my mother's painting the endangered tropical hardwood with white gloss paint in the course of one of her manic phases. Now pretty much all scraped off.

From the left, the leylandii, then something with fierce thorns and then the hole left by the oleander. Reminding one how mature shrubs are very hollow; all front. This one still home to various birds and bats, all the local cats notwithstanding. Then the firethorn, then the yellow buddleia looking rather unhappy. Much better now, having been treated to both washing up water and rain. The product of a cutting taken maybe twenty years ago from a bush in a holiday cottage in mid Wales, quite near the source of the Severn and with a small tributary of the Severn running through the back garden. A cottage which I remember as being full of all kinds of stuff and with a rather damp feeling about it. Plus more or less derelict farm yard outside. Nut tree right, a tree which delivers plenty of nuts, but nuts which we very rarely get to eat as the grey squirrels strip them unripe. I suppose they must get something out of them or they would not bother, but not then fit for our consumption.

PS: it so happens that Bastides is set to ride again today (that is to say Sunday, what is says at the top notwithstanding), to be knocked out in the margins of bread batch No.661.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/08/an-evening-out.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/08/learning-french.html.

Reference 3: https://www.cote.co.uk/.

Reference 4: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/02/canterbury-cooking.html. Memory serves on this occasion, even if the notice is very brief. Could hardly be less so. Canterbury being a place we should go back to. Our nearest proper cathedral, now I believe, out of scaffolding.