Last week was quite eventful with two birthdays to celebrate, Ruby was two years old on Saturday and Martyn was a lot older than that on Friday. Normally we would go out for a meal for Martyn’s birthday but we don’t yet feel up to venturing to restaurants. The last time we ate out was when we went to pick up Ruby from the breeder. She came from Bristol so we booked into a hotel the night before we were due to collect her.

We did all have our hair cut which in current circumstances is a cause for celebration. The hairdresser comes to our house and cuts, Martyn’s, my sister’s and my hair on the same afternoon.

The only gardening that we did last week was to pot up some new raspberry canes. They were a gift from Thompson and Morgan as a thank you for linking to a page I wrote on growing raspberries.

The conditions on the plot are not suitable for planting the canes out at the moment, so Martyn planted them in a large pot. It’s a technique that we have used successfully in the past. They will be planted out when the conditions improve, probably in early spring. Until then they will be kept in the greenhouse. We could choose the variety we would like and chose Sugana as this was a variety that we hadn’t grown before. It’s a vigorous grower and according to the description will produce fruit twice in a season.

I also ordered a couple of houseplants which arrived last week. One is a maidenhair fern, to join a collection of ferns in our bathroom, and the other is a calathea that will live in the hall.

Last week we paid a morning visit to Nostell as the forecast for the afternoon was for rain or indeed snow. Fortunately, the snow didn’t materialise. Martyn posted a video here.

It was very cold and frosty but we wrapped up warmly. The winter pond that forms each winter in one of the meadows was frozen over.

Parts of the main lake were also frozen and the waterbirds were congregating in areas of icy water.

A huge flock of geese flew over in a typical V shaped formation. Apparently, this formation helps provide lift for each bird from the swirling air created by the bird in front. After a while the lead is taken by a different bird.

The cold didn’t bother Ruby who enjoyed investigating the strange white stuff that  covered the grass, 

The frozen ground meant that we didn’t have muddy paws to deal with when we arrived home.

We had another go at making ravioli. This time I made a mushroom filling. I combined dried porcini mushrooms, chestnut mushrooms, cream cheese and our onion and garlic. The worst bit is cutting out the individual ravioli now that the cutters bought for this purpose don’t work!

I also made vegetable bolognese which used some of our carrots, onion and garlic.

Another meal was a chicken tagine that incorporated some of our Crown Prince squash, onion, garlic and some coriander from the freezer. It was loosely based on this recipe. I used the same ingredients except I substituted the spices with a ras el hanout mix and used my own cooking method. I prefer to ‘brown’ the chicken rather than adding raw.

The final meal of the week was a vegetable ‘pie’ based on this recipe. Into this went some of our parsnips, carrots and leeks. It was topped with my own scone mix. I also used sweet chilli sauce in place of hot pepper sauce.

As always stay safe and healthy.