Today I have been mainly Vol. 6

Glad to hear you`re home and happy Soop, please continue to get fit and well xx

Hope you are feeling much better soop Here is a bunch of wild flowers for you, all the way from Cheshire, Pink Campion, Dog Eyed Daisies, Queen Ann's Lace and some Buttercups

Welcome home soop
I have spent a long day at the Highland Show. Had a wonderful time and the sun shone all day so no need for the wellies

Welcome home Soop - glad all has gone well. And Gally - I loved the Highland Show when I was "young"!!!
We have had a very pleasant day - excellent whitebait in a local pub which has a fabulous chef, then a further mile down the hill to the weekly market. Bought trout and also some undyed smoked haddock as well as a huge box of cherries for £5 which DH wants me to stew (?) Thence to the deli to my friend Dee for some nice ham and some locally produced cheese. A further 2 miles to the asparagus farm to get the last of the crop, a loaf of asparagus bread, a dozen of the biggest "large" eggs you have ever seen and 6 gorgeous cherry scones. Then home for tea and watching Ascot on Channel 4. What's not to like about retirement?!!

Glad to hear you are home soop..hope you are back to top form very soon.

Pleased to hear soop has had her op and is on the mend.
Best wishes for a speedy recovery

Just getting ready to meet my childhood friend for a meal before we go to see The Rocky Horror Show later this afternoon. Let's do the Time Warp agaaaaain......!!

I have been wasting time, surfing the net - Gransnet - and thinking about vacuuming the inside of the car which is full of tiny petals from my big rowan tree. I am not a morning person!

Been outside for another dose of midge bites.Even with long trousers and a long-sleeved shirt, I got one bite above and behind me knee. Awesome critters those blasted midges! I also got some strimming done, sweeping over primrose leaves and skimming past orchids not too close.

After a cool shower, I've just had three thick slices of ham, some strawberries and melon sprinkled with sugar and drowned in double cream [contented sigh].

time now.

Well...Iv'e seen it all now!!!!!! Whilst doing weekly shop at S........s I saw a man remove a knife from his pocket and trim the stalks off the broccoli which he had in his basket and them put the trimmings back!!!! Is this the same man who takes the stalks out of the mushrooms and puts them in the trays on the shelf!!!! What next, peel bananas, remove the pips from apples !!!!

Actually, if the broccoli is sold by weight, I don't blame him. Not that I would dare do it!

We always snap the stalks from broccoli , also when we buy corn on the cob we take off the outer shell .

Why pay for what you cannot eat ?

Given that the supermarket has done and wants to maintain its profits, you probably do pay, in the long run.

You can eat broccoli stalks, Nonu. I often trim the crowns off to be cooked and crunch the stems raw. Eccentric, what, me?

My guinea pigs love broccoli stalks above anything else.

#justsaying

What's wring with the stocks from mushrooms? I chop them up and cook them too...have I been inadvertently doing something gastronomically unacceptable all these years?

I do that as well , same as when we have cauli , which just love so much ,I chop up all the stems , stalks , you name it , I will chop it.
But still do not like tooooooooo much broc. stalks . Anno.

Aka , I do too , surely folk don"t take off the stalks ?

Must be crackers !!!

Oh dear! Guilty! I break the stalks off the broccoli! Don't like them and I object that there's often so much more stalk than top nowadays. Soon they be selling them complete with root.

(I do eat all the mushroom though.)

Weeding in the herbaceous border again - attacking the creeping buttercup - I hate thse insidious plants and they way they, well, just "creep"!

You could also use the broccoli stalks whizzed up in your stilton and broccoli soup - or any veg soup.

I love buttercups. The roadside verges are full of them at the moment and they look lovely. My garden is full of them too. And daisies. And speedwell. And clover (red and white). And, and, and....

I recently visited a local child-friendly farm with three of my GC, aged 2, 2 and 3. One field was given over to a wild flower meadow but the buttercups predominated so it appeared yellow and the flowers were waist high to the children. A goodly path had been cut through the field that swigged and zagged and curled and curved. They spent a delightful half hour following this path through the 'custard field' as they christened it. Buttercups can be beautiful indeed.

Sadly the creeping buttercup (Ranunculus repens ) with its coarser foliage is not the same flower as the more attractive and less invasive meadow buttercup (Ranunculus acris) which we all played with as children, remember "Do you like butter?". In mown grass it has the added disadvantge that flowering is often absent which was also the case in my border.

It's been wet all day. Went off and bought food from a new Aldi that's opened up. Had a great skype with a friend. The other important part of the day was doing the finances, and have decided that I can afford a trip to America to see my family and grandchildren in Oct/November this year. I've been saving hard, so my parsimonious behaviour has paid off! It's great that action brings results.