I totally cheated this year with growing Celery, because I'd never grown it before, and I saw a thingy of seedlings growing in our local Homebase, and, taking 'a punt on it', I got tempted into trying to grow it for the first time.  A challenge, and I cannot begin to tell you how 'chuffed' I am at the results. Don't be fooled though.....you need to keep this crop WELL watered.  But given that our water comes straight out of a spring in the ground, and I'd planted it in the vicinity of my Celeriac, I was doubly up for it.   I now have 10 or 12 top banana Heads to cook and preserve with, particularly because I protected them by growing the seedlings through big empty fizzy water bottle casings, so that soil didn't get into their hearts. And, whilst I'd mused on whether they were 'self-blanching' or not, I needn't have worried, because they've indeedy done themselves proud.

Because when you've just got fruit falling from the trees onto the floor, it makes your heart ache to not pick them up...  I am very out there at least twice a day on The Orchard Floor, and what I can't process or freeze, is a crying shame to me, and no mistake.....  In this bowl, are endless supplies of small Greengages, that I've found a Sarah Raven Greengage Sorbet Recipe for today.

 I did also today phone Monmouthshire Council about that Food Hygiene Course that I'm desperately wanting to do, and they've sent me a list of courses available starting up in the next kind of Now, so I'm really excited about taking part.

Being an intelligent being, my icecream-scoop means more to me than scooping icecream?  I use it every time I preserve fruit and vegetables into my jars, because you can scoop up what you need to 'dollop' into the preserving jars, but at the press of it's lever, it also 'cuts off', and 'finalises' what you want into that jar/tub, or whatever it deploys , and if you have one, you need to experiment..... it's an amazingly underestimated piece of culinary equipment Children......