Today, I will mostly be cooking baked beans

St. Thibault
Yesterday's weather: Glorious, but read on.....
Today's message: Happy Birthday, Bernd. Have a great day

We spent most of yesterday in the garden, having decided that since there was this alien thing in the sky we would check that it didn't fall out!

The bank didn't phone about the transfer I want to make to pay for the garden stuff and shower. Hopefully they will call on Monday.

It was one of the rare evenings we've had so far when we were able to sit outside until after dark. The valley is usually very quiet in the evenings but our peace was shattered by a passing combine harvester (ooh arr, ooh arr) which trundled past and then took off up the hill opposite where he continued to drone on working until after dark. He obviously knew what was in store as just after 3am we were woken by flashing lightning and heavy thunder which went on for quite a while. We didn't get out of bed to investigate. Although the storms here can be really spectacular we didn't really need to watch every flash of this one.

Having got back to sleep we woke to that funny ball of fire in the sky again which was spoiled but a huge clap of thunder and another storm suddenly hit. Jazz has been out all night and only just returned, full of burrs and goose grass and slightly damp!

Having told you all that we don't miss English foodstuffs much (apart from tea - BTW Jim, that tea bag hasn't arrived yet!), today I will mostly be cooking baked beans. We like to try cooking something a bit different when the weather is iffy, last weekend it was the plum jam and some chutney, this weekend it will be Heston Blumenthal's baked beans. I was pleased to see that the recipe doesn't call on any blow torch, vacuum cleaner or industrial paint stripping machines, so I don't think it will be beyond our capabilities. Another recipe I have tried from time to time is Gary Rhodes' salad cream (this one isn't published on the Internet so I can't share it with you due to copyright). The salad cream is lovely with a potato salad which is what we dined on last night together with some of my home made sausages cooked on the barbecue. Life isn't all DIY round here, you know.

Have a great Sunday chaps, and don't forget to let me know where you are reading this from; I still haven't found out who lives in Gloucester!