The Secret Garden

...was looking very enticing this morning. Debbie and I got up and walked around the ponds at Lodgemore and Fromehall Mills this morning, looking for cygnets. Angela's lodger had told us there were eight, but they were on the far side of the pond with their parents, so I could not get a good shot.

No matter, the weather was glorious, the sky cerulean, the ripples and shadows on the pond spectacular. After D and I had done a circular walk of the estate lands (green baize for snooker tables is still made here in the mills) we parted company, and I took the footpath over the Long Ground to Tesco's, passing this doorway on the way up to the main road nearest Angela's house.

Back home this afternoon, I made a jewel- coloured salad for lunch, fried some fresh sardines in rice flour for supper, and then threw together a bunch of Anzac cookies, as the gluten-free biscuits in the shops are so uninspiring that I'd prefer to chew cardboard. I also rearranged the kitchen shelves to make way for some of the new ingredients I've bought lately. In so doing, I disposed of the items that should have been used by 2007.... I used to think my mother was bad for keeping out of date cans and jars, but I now see that she was merely showing me the way.