Sicilian siesta

Sicily turned out to be full of good food,
sunshine and mountains.
There was also a totally different pace of life
with everything stopping for several hours
in the middle of the day.
Saturday saw us arriving in this little
mountain village right in the middle of the
day. The streets were deserted, pretty,
as you can see but deserted nonetheless.
After a walk to enjoy the view and take
some photos we were hungrily returning
to the car to push on in search of food
elsewhere when we found an open bar
which made us tasty sandwiches to go
with our bright green apple juice.

Signs of Spring

Recently I've been wondering whether Brighton had
mysteriously turned into Narnia one night while I
was sleeping. Truthfully we haven't had much snow -
in fact all our snowfall was before Christmas but
nonetheless it has been relentlessly cold for the last
five months.
Many of my bulbs failed to flower this year - probably
sharing my view that Spring had been cancelled.
These beautiful blue hyacinths are notable exceptions
reassuring me that Spring is on its way albeit slowly.
Beginning to think that my eldest daughter currently
living in Italy having vowed never to spend the winter
in the UK again has the right idea.

Back to Basics

Vegetable stock. We eat lots of soup especially in the
seemingly never-ending British winter and as I don't
eat meat good vegetable stock is always in demand.
This week's vegetable box provided all the right
ingredients so made a double batch - one to use fresh
and one to freeze.

Tea for two?

This must be the biggest sharing pudding platter I have
ever been presented with! There were four of us but
imagine if you had ordered it between two of you!
In the interests of wholeheartedly abandonning any
attempts at healthy eating I had preceded this with
fish & chips- good job we walked up that steep hill
the day before.

Torquay Travels

After our trip to the USA we had one weekend
at home and then it was time to head off again
this time west to Torquay to visit K.
Saturday was unexpectedly mild with Torquay
living up to its reputation as the English Riviera
so we headed to the beach via this slightly unusual
form of transport. We walked back up the
extremely steep hill realising why most people opt
for return tickets!

A little bit of what you fancy does you good

We are not great pudding eaters in this house - not because
we don't like pudding more because we don't like the extra
effort in the gym required when too much pudding is consumed!
These, however were perfect, quick and easy to make and
small enough to cause no guilt trips (and to eat two days in a row)
I used very dark chocolate because it is my favourite - in
summer these would be good with freshly picked raspberries.

Sunset

One last glorious sunset as our trip came to an end. This one
in Tucson, Arizona in the Saguarro National Park.
After this we turned back north towards Phoenix, Kingman
and eventually Vegas and our flight home.

Back to winter weather and indoor pursuits as we wait for
Spring to reach the UK.