Brief update for you from France if you care. I think it’s fair to say Hen has been slightly twiddling her fingers this last month or so, faced with a bit of a conundrum. Not that she hasn’t kept herself reasonably busy. She knows the hillsides surrounding Rennes-les-Bain like the back of her hands scouring them daily for mushrooms which she tries to sell in the local markets. And then there’s always the wildlife to look out for. I was talking to her yesterday as it happens when suddenly she broke off with an exclamation of shock. “Blinking heck, there’s an otter crossing the river. Or maybe it’s a beaver? Or a squirrel perhaps.” I asked her what size it was. “Hmmmm….its about the length of a ruler.” Really?? We concluded it was most likely a weasel or possibly a stoat, which many mistake for a weasel even though, wait for it, it’s totally different.
The conundrum is that she wants to head south for the winter, but before that she needs the weather to break and the leaves fall for the opportunity of a job working in the vineyards pruning vines which will help pay for the petrol to drive 1,000 miles to the south west of Portugal! Well the weather has broken. Here’s a photo she sent last weekend…
Meanwhile developments concerning animals in another woodland area provided one of the great BBC headlines….more than 150 homes have been destroyed and 50,000 people evacuated but the good news…….
It’s not all a bed of roses in my world either I might tell you. I went home earlier this week having decided, on the way back, to bake a cake that evening. I had glimpsed a recipe for a delicious looking flourless orange almond cake in the Polpo cook book. I don’t know about you, but I find it ever so irritating when someone looks over your shoulder when you’re working in the kitchen. But she just couldn’t help it. “Have you checked the measurements properly” Sophie said “I really don’t think you have”. Pah I thought to myself ploughing on regardless and perhaps even more cavalierly chucking ingredients into a mixing bowl. The consequence of chucking the additional 400 grams of sugar which was meant to make a sticky syrup to pour over the cake into the mix combined with the fact I used three large tablespoons of baking powder instead one teaspoonful was an explosion in the Aga and a sticky burnt mess which we ( I mean Sophie ) is still trying to clear up three days later. You pay for these unlucky little slips ups you really do.
On a happier note I got this message yesterday from a lovely person in our corporate access team in HK who I had been able supply with timely and comprehensive feedback from the various meetings we had organised for some clients at our recent Japan Forum.
Thanks David! Please visit Asia soon!!
I might just do that if Sophie doesn’t stop banging on about my cake.
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