playing gooseberry

I have just topped and tailed a big bowlful of gooseberries from daughter J`s allotment.  To my mind, there is nothing like a gooseberry pie.  I shall make several, freeze them and then bring them forth victoriously on special occasions.and serve them with lots of cream.
We have the Ditchling Fair coming up soon, a biennial event of great importance in the village . I am trying to think of ways to dress B.Wiggins up for the dog show and am toying with the idea of The Bradley Wiggins which would entail a yellow jersey, a helmet and a little bike to be borrowed from the playgroup.I am, not sure if he will co operate though.  Our village choir will be performing on the Green and we will be belting out hits from The Sound of Music, Grease and Mama Mia., with words not altogether appropriate for our age group.
I had a good afternoon with the Year 2`s yesterday. We are still doing our Poems and Thoughts anthology and topics ranged from My Rabbit (unfortunately long dead) Art. and  My Feelings.    I have to be careful not to let them choose an unsuitable topic as I have visions of these little books going home with the children and being kept in the family archive for generations to come or perhaps not!
I really do not need to watch Springwatch on the telly here as I have so much wildlife visible from my sitting room window: rabbits(lots) squirrels (ditto) ducks, a fox, numerous assorted birds, and there are cuckoos too but only heard not seen. 

Normandy Landing

Well, we made it, my brother P and I, with our combined ages of 171 years. We had a lovely week in Normandy without ending up in A and E, or losing vital objects, or even getting seriously lost, though my navigational skills are not good.  We drove around the quiet countryside with its sleepy creamy coloured cows and no people (where are all the dogwalkers?) and eventually found our way to our gite which was homely and comfortable.   We struggled to make things work like the oven, the heaters the telly and DVD player but P coped manfully.    We enjoyed the good French food in the markets (why does it look and taste so much better than in England?) and just the wonderful Frenchness of it all.   Of course it was a great help that P speaks French like a native.   
We read a poem to each other at breakfast (a habit I picked up from the Scotts in Kendal)  and I read a brilliant book,  The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. and we watched some good films too from the collection in the cottage: Life of Pi, Marigold Hotel, Salmon Fishing on the Yemen.
B Wiggins had a good time with daughter J and family. He went walking with them on the Dorset coast ,12 miles one day.  He seems  pleased to back in Ditchling with all the familiar smalls on every tree and lamp post on our slow walks round the lanes and village. I missed him and I am glad to have his warm shape on the sofa beside me as I write this.
It is good to be home too though I made the mistake of buying several types of cheese which is stinking the bungalow out in spite of its being wrapped up well and kept in the fridge.When will I ever learn?

French without Tears

I am off to France on Saturday with brother P, our first holiday together since childhood. We are staying in a gite in Normandy belonging to some English people so if we both collapse, there will be someone nearby to pick up the pieces.  B Wiggins is going to Brighton to daughter J and they are taking him along with their dog Jumble to Dorset to walk on the coastal path near Weymouth, as it is half term.
This morning on our pre breakfast walk B.W. jumped on an electric fence and cried most pitifully. We will not do that walk again. The countryside is full of hazards: a great gaggle of geese advanced towards him the day before,and he is scared of the the three horses in the field behind here and gives them a wide berth. It is a different kettle of fish when he sees the postman or the paper delivery man.   He becomes  a savage barking inferno.
I said that the film about the pig killing was Swedish but it was German.   It has put me off eating pig in any shape and form and hitherto  I have always fancied a bit of bacon for my breakfast. I notice that grand daughter M who was brought up a vegetarian as many of my family are, now eats hardly any dairy foods either, just soya milk and olive oil rather than butter. Many of her friends are the same.  Trends in food are a- changing. And everyone was shocked to hear on the news that most meat that we buy is halal.
I have got a good stash of books to take to France from our lovely mobile library\ including Donna Tartt`s Goldfinch, a biog of Tennyson by Peter Levi. I have just read This Boy by Alan Johnson and enjoyed it. Such a hard, poverty stricken childhood he had, and he turned out to be  a decent MP and Cabinet Minister, such a rarity.
I am doing the poems again with the Infants. We make a little anthology each year with the Year 2`s. I t is hard work getting them to write about anything other than football, cats or spaghetti. I had one little girl who has recently come to the school from the Ivory Coast. She insists there are tigers there (no, there aren`t) also that she went for a ride on a giraffe. I suppose it is what you call poetic licence..
I have become addicted to a quiz on the telly every afternoon called Pointless.  Grandson R and I have fantasies about appearing on it as you have to go in pairs. the questions are on such things as types of trousers or members of the Royal family, as well as books and films., and you have to find obscure answers. Many of the contestants are woefully ignorant when it comes to literature and classical music, but they are much better than I am on pop music and Formula One racing drivers.