Nuts

Here, as promised, the almonds.  Bit of a rubbish blurry shot, as the light was rather poor and the rain had just started to fall so I was in a hurry.  These ones at the front of shot are about a centimetre long.  To make it up to you, there's a colourful extra of some blossom.  The purple flowers are wisteria, growing up through a Judas tree (according to legend, this is the type of tree Judas hanged himself from and from then on the flowers were pink with shame).  Anyway, it makes a striking contrast at this time of year.

Earlier, a quick trip to the market for me for the basics of life: bread (including an organic rye baguette as a treat for Mr B), eggs and lemongrass for the garden.  Lunch included some unintentional soft-boiled eggs (I won't rely on the oven timer again) which went down so well with my family that I will need to boil more eggs tomorrow.  Later, while CarbBoy went off on a trip into town with a friend to the pinball event, TallGirl was a very willing garden helper.  So, the spring onions and normal onions are in the ground, a blackberry and two loganberries (or tayberries, I forget which) are in and the ground is prepared for the second lot of peas and some mangetout.  

I did the first round of making brioche, which regrettably seems to have broken my stand mixer.  Mr B poked and prodded it for a good long while, but it is still not locking down, meaning I have to stand there holding it down.  Not ideal.  And now the kids are coming through (after prodding) on their promise earlier this week to make dinner tonight.  TallGirl's reluctance to touch raw chicken means we may be slightly under-proteined, but I have great hopes for CarbBoy's mash.  

Later we will have our brand new Fluency Thursday (Fursday...) on a Saturday in honour of Shakespeare, and definitely not because we forgot to do it on Thursday.  Mr B and the kids managed last week (but I was out being the opposite of fluent while giving a speech in French), so this will be my first time.  The idea is to give the kids some reading-out-loud confidence.  You can read anything, providing you can justify it as good writing.  You don't have to memorise it, but must read it out well.  Tonight we will all do some Shakespeare.  

If we survive TallGirl's chicken dish...