Birds, Goats and Tarts

While there are many serious issues that I could talk about, today I want to talk about Tarts.

If I were to talk about some of the issues that have been in the news lately or even some of the environmental threats that are emerging locally, this would be a depressing place to visit. While I am not afraid to cover serious matters topics, I would rather celebrate the natural world here and ignore the bad news for a while. Not least because every time I hear the news I am left feeling depressed. Even what starts out sounding like good news, when I have looked behind the headlines to the details, all I see is the same old politico games being played.

So for a while I am just going to ignore the rest of the world for a while. I would rather talk of the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker that was drumming on the metal ring of a telegraph pole. I have seen this sort of behaviour on film before, but seeing it as I went to the bus stop here in the village was remarkable. Or the delight at realising while awaiting another bus I am seeing Sparrowhawks fledging from a nest that I did not realise was there. I had seen a Sparrowhawk about, but he or she never went directly to the nest, therefore it was all but impossible to discover. Or my early morning stroll down past the river, to look at the now vacated hawks nest and seeing a Kingfisher sitting perched by the river. It may have been hunting for fish previously, but after being able to watch tor twenty seconds or so, it flew downstream. Even though I have seen them before, I always think they should look larger. A real jewel of the river, that is always a delight to see.

These are a few of the delights that I have seen that helps make life worth all the effort, over the past few days. There are very few days that I do not see something natural that adds to my day. These are not always anything rare, in fact they are often common creatures that give the most pleasure. As people see them all the time, they barely notice the subtleties of behaviour that they exhibit. Like a newly fledged jackdaw begging for food from one of its parents.

While all of these things I would like to have filmed, often these sighting were brief or at to greater distance or when I just did not have a camera ready and to hand. Even so they are filmed by my soul.

However, today when going down to get the bus today I spotted the goats in what I call the Goat field doing what goats do, eating.






I was heading into town to get some ingredients to do some more cooking done and to film this for the cooking videos. Over the next week or so I will be concentrating on doing these. And I hope that I will have the next one ready to post soon. But as I had some gooseberries that I wanted to bake into a tart, I needed to get that done. Even if I say it myself I am good at making pastry, but I was really nervous about doing this on film. As trying to film any cooking, any error that are made really stand out. Therefore, I was convinced that it was going to go wrong, so I was extra careful and it really worked well. But, as I was trying to roll out the pastry and line the flan tin the tape ran out. So I repeated part of the process, I hope that folks will not be able to see the join.

I was very pleased with the tart, and I had a slice with Ice cream for desert tonight. One of the benefits of doing these films is that I am eating quite well, and my menu is expanding too. I am looking at the foods that are in season much more than I would normally, and this is also helping me save money too.



The only difficulty I have is my fridge and freezer are now full. Either I need to eat more, that will add to my middle age spread. Invite friends around, tried that and folks think my cooking is to exotic. Or get a larger fridge, I need a larger house for that. Well at least I will not starve, not for a while anyway.