Difference

A gift from a friend, who also dabbles in beekeeping. 'Coals to Newcastle' you might think, but no. First, this is actually honeycomb from the Coquet valley, well north of Newcastle, coming south. Secondly, this is unlike any honey we could make, here in balmy, lowland Oxfordshire. So different, in fact, that it feels like comparing fortified wine with a white Burgundy, or sorbet with Cornish ice cream; so different that they really need a different food category

This is heather honey, from the high country close to the Cheviot hills on the Scottish border. It is radically different from most other honeys in both consistency and taste. Our own honey starts life as a thick syrup, like treacle, and soon crystalises into a semi-solid, like fudge. This is neither; it does not flow, but it is not crystaline or solid; it is gelatinous, like a loose fruit jelly. You can see that honey is still clinging to the side of the comb, where the cells have been cut in two. Our honey would have flowed off the comb and pooled in its container

This distinctive consistency makes the honey difficult to harvest. The centrifugal process most of us use for removing honey from the comb does not work on its own. The beekeeper can take heather honey as cut comb, like this - which means spreading both honey and wax on yout toast, and removing the wax from your teeth! Alternatively the beekeeper can cut out the comb from the frames and then press it, to squueze out the honey - specialist presses exist for this purpose. The wax cannot be reused by the bees, of course

Finally there are tools and machines that insert spring-loaded pins into the cells of the honeycomb and agitate the honey, changing it from its gelatinous state to something more liquid; extraction with a conventional centrifugal extractor is then feasible. This process is laborious and expensive - mainly used by large commercial producers

The flavour of heather honey provokes reactions like Marmite - loved or hated, but seldom regarded as bland. Sweet, of course, with a strong floral flavour but underlain by a certain muskiness (or mustiness), which is certainly divisive. There is also a distinct bitter aftertaste, which not everyone will enjoy. I like it as something different, unusual and interesting, but wouldn't want it as a breakfast staple, in the way we use ours

I don't know if it also has strange optical properties, but I found it very difficult to get a good focus. This is the best I could do

We attended a photographers' delight: the 1953 film Tokyo Story, recently re-released in a digitally remastered version. Every frame is a perfectly-composed, meticulously arranged shot that would make an exhibition piece it its own right. Highly recommended. The story concerns the alienation between elderly parents and their adult children, as the latter build their lives on different values; also the disappointment of looking back on one's life from the perspective of old age. The contrast between the beauty of the images and the bleakness of the story is part of the point