The New Year

The new year has brought very mild temperatures, the snow drops are about to open and some of the primroses are out. I love sarcococca, Christmas box, it has small green leaves and at this time of year small white flowers along side black shiny berries, nothing special you might think, but the perfume is amazing and wafts all-round the garden and a few stems in a vase perfumes any room.

Two egrets have become regular visitors to the lake, so beautiful. The moorhen has been with us since last summer and can regularly be seen having a swim and a potter around the garden. Whenever we sit down and have coffee on the terrace the robin flies to the lilac tree and serenades us, although it is still early in January, we had coffee on the terrace this morning, and yes it was warm enough, on cue the robin arrived and sang his heart out. 

The potato fairs happen this month, our nearest is at Pimperne, we buy seed potatoes of varieties it is not easy to buy, pink fir apple for example which is a delicious salad potato, I also like to grow purple potatoes for fun. They also sell seeds and sometimes fruit trees, we bought a Somerset Russet one year which began fruiting last year, they are delicious. 

This time of year, is the Seville orange season, a very short one. Ottolenghi has a recipe for duck breast and Seville oranges which sounds delicious and John made a Seville orange tart last night which was divine. I need to get some more and freeze them to use through the year, what would I do without a freezer, I really can’t imagine. I took a bag of runner beans out this morning to have with our pheasant casserole, again from the freezer. It makes it totally unnecessary to ever throw food away. Cook it, make soups or just freeze leftovers for another day which are always useful when one is in a hurry which seems to me to be always. Which reminds me I need to get on, until next time.