Some decent weekend weather presented us with our first attempt at entertaining, in the garden of course, since lockdown was eased. Four of us gathered to share a barbecued shoulder of lamb. On most occasions when I used to travel…

Our pair of Great Tits appear to have finished nest building. Now, something different and, perhaps, more entertaining is going on. We have patio furniture beneath the nest box – away from the house wall but basically beneath the box.…

I’ve been foxed by British-bloody-Summer-Time. There’s often some timepiece that one forgets to adjust. Why must we change the clocks? Midday, 12:00, is when the sun is at its height, for Darwin’s sake. Making midday an hour past the zenith…

[Insert your very own schoolboy comment here – you know you’re thinking it.] Last year our trusty old wooden nest box was used, as usual, by a pair of Blue Tits (Cyanistes caeruleus). We could hear the chicks chattering away…

No, not gentle, gentile. I’d made a complete mess of both ovens roasting a loin of pork in one and attempting to cook the skin separately in the other to get crackling. Cooking the skin separately is a technique I’d…

From a sadly missed and prominent atheist, the late, great Douglas Adams … … nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for…

After much of the day spent painting the lounge ceiling in a fresh coat of brilliant white matt emulsion, Midsomer Murders proved boring [ 😀 ] so I retired early to read. On the way, I put out the remnants…

Well, OK, it’s not really a rooster, it’s really Ramsay’s Roast Chicken but that would ruin my alliteration. These days we perform the same transformation on the classic French dish, Coq au Vin. As those remaining few of my fellow…