At the start of our summer in France I was rightly taken to task. Jeni, our house guest, chided me for failing to take care of a wrinkled potato. Against all odds, the potato, which was no bigger than a walnut, had survived the winter in a cupboard and later, in a search for daylight, had produced a spindly…
A New Home for Refugee Gooseberries
I am not fond of the taste of raw gooseberries. With their chewy skin covered by tickly hairs and their insides of hard seeds in a watery jelly, eating them fresh from the bush just doesn’t appeal. Cooking them with sugar helps greatly - even as a child I loved gooseberry fool - but they…
Through the Brain Barrier
During a week in June, my approach to birds changed radically. For years my interest in birdlife had been limited to garden visitors such as robins, wrens, chaffinches and blue tits. Rarely had I bothered about those further afield. Indeed, during walks in the countryside it is ‘disinterest’ that…
The Onion, the Beetroot and the Naïve Gaffe
While my wife, Rohan and I were spending a few weeks in the wintry antipodes (see Reconnecting Down Under), the plants in our Brittany garden were enjoying a summer heatwave. Friends regularly watered them, so the sun, which elsewhere was causing mayhem, simply helped our vegetables mature. On our return, the tomato plants were over…
Mother and Baby are doing well
Three of us sat in an annex near the delivery suite anxiously awaiting news. After an hour, a smiling midwife slipped quietly into the room holding a notepad. She checked who we were and read out her message - “Your grandson was born at 19h16. He and his mother are doing well. You are…
Mother Nature’s Unfinished Business
In the five years before she died, my elder sister Susan was plagued by shortness of breath. For Ann, the dominant last symptom was pain. For Mike, whose recent operation has made all the difference, it was ankle swelling. Odd as it may sound, all suffered unnecessarily because their bodies responded inappropriately to their…
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