Blackberry foraging

Cloudy and warm today 23C. After a slow start we drove to Penarth at Jasmine's request for a snack lunch on the pier followed by an ice cream on the promenade. Jas took her Canon AE1 SLR 35mm film camera with her, which used to belong to her dad and took black and white photos in our favourite retro location. 

When we got home, I had to park in Llanfair Road as there was no legal parking space left in our street. Later Jasmine was determined to visit to Thompson's Park to find out if there were any ripe figs on the two trees overhanging the boundary wall of the adjacent houses. There were indeed many, but none fit to eat. Our attention was drawn instead to and abundance of fat blackberries on a neighbouring bush, so we went home to get a container and then return to forage. By then there was a parking space, so I moved the car back into the street before joining her in filling the container. 

Jasmine was taken with Clare's blackberry jelly making method and wanted to replicate it here and now. Already he had set aside and filled a 100ml former spice jar with jelly for taking back to America, and had this idea of making more jelly and to fill more 100ml jars to take with her for her friends, and tell them the unique story of its making. According to Jas, as long as the jars are less than 100ml they can go through security. But will they survive customs regulations? That remains to be seen.

As I was cooking a prawn risotto for supper Jasmine took herself off to the Hobby Craft store in Leckwith, a half hour's walk from here, and returned triumphantly with the pack of 100ml jars she needed. Amazing enterprise! All of this was researched and routed from her smartphone: a true digital native in action!

Later I watched this week's live episode on 'The Sommerdahl Murders' on More Four. Although billed as 89 minutes long, it ran to 120 minutes, possibly due to the amount of prime-time advertisements shown. It meant going to bed later than expected.

Mackerel with raspberries

Mostly cloudy again, but warm 22C. Despite a decent night's sleep, I woke up with tense shoulders and neck which I couldn't unwind for much of the day. After breakfast when Clare went out I decided to record and edit the audio for Morning Prayer the week after next. It wasn't quiet enough in my usual recording spot as scaffolders were working down the street, as they did yesterday. Their activity obstructed the street entrance, so the recycling lorry couldn't get in. The full bags sit out on the street neatly arrayed, waiting for the collection to resume. I wonder if anyone has told the Council about the omission?

Anyway, I made the recordings in the middle room instead, and was pleased to find that they weren't too resonant, and easy to clean up a tiny amount of background noise. I stopped to cook lunch, and continued editing afterwards. We had mackerel fillets with broad beans, spuds, carrots and chard stems. Jasmine collected a handful of raspberries from our garden bush to cook with the fish in the steamer, a surprise for her, and a pleasure for me. Some years ago we had lunch in a Brecknockshire pub serving trout with raspberries, which tasted good. Remembering this inspired to try this with mackerel.

Jasmine and Louie went to the castle, and Clare went out again. I made a brief excursion to Tesco's for cooking oil and a few other things. I exchanged emails with Kate Williams our personal travel agent, and found out that she'll be checking in our flights to Portugal and producing tickets for us. She asked if I'd send her copies of our passports and travel insurance policies for the benefit of Riviera Travel. This took me a while to produce, it was gone six by the time I went out to walk in the park for an hour and a half. 

I returned and had supper late, then watched another episode of 'The Sommerdahl Murders', the last of series two. Apparently there are five series altogether, forty episodes, one crime each double episode, with a soap opera style story line about the love lives and relationships of characters in the crime solving team. I suppose I've got used to this by now. At first it seemed rather ponderous, and I kept wondering when and how it was going to end. Well, now I know. There's another two dozen episodes to come, one series at a time. I don't know how long it will be until series 3 is screened