The garden is littered in abundance with catkins from our birches. With a gust of wind they come down in a shower of what looks like miniature brown tickertape.
Feet must be rigorously wiped or we'll have lots of brown dust inside!
birch - bouleau - berk
Decades ago I made 1/6 scale military maps for use with action figures in that scale, based on originals from my collection and a few from friends. They sold reasonably well at swapmeets. I'm about to put some 1/6 figures and vehicles up for sale online, so I thought I'd also list one of each set. I'd run out of some sets so I sat down to make up the missing ones, folding up little maps from the batch I'd already trimmed to size years ago. Using the box full of examples to remind me how each map is folded again.
Tiny little saplings are emerging from the earth in a flowerpot. They're new purple shamrocks, this year's edition.
purple shamrock - oxalis pourpre - klaverzuring
Newest development in the garden is the ferns coming out. From dry brown cut-down clumps fresh green leaves are unrolling into the sky. It's a marvellous and somewhat prehistoric sight and happily we have plenty of them.
fern - fougère - varen
I took my French brother-in-law out for dinner and pinball as a birthday prezzy (he'd discreetly let it be known he'd like that). So after a good meal and very pleasant conversation we got to work on the collection of the Brussels Pinball Museum.
The Terminator 2 machine above is a good one I'm somewhat familiar with as it used to belong to my brother - after moving house he didn't have a suitable spot for it anymore and it kept needing work so he let the museum provide it with suitable lodgings.
Other than that there's plenty of other machines of various ages to try - recommended!
And showing its back when driving up. Out of hibernation it's up on its trailer again, ready for its mysterious activities.
This fluffy little feather escaped from a box of bio-certified eggs. And says more than any text on the box!
This richly-coloured little fellow was walking around on the missus's back. I got it onto a finger, took its picture and then settled it onto a leafy branch.
Close to my client's offices there's an Albert Heijn where I often nip in for groceries, including the Stilton for my omelettes. Awhile ago I couldn't find any and asked a woman there if they'd run out. She didn't know what Stilton is so I explained and she found me some hidden away behind other blue cheeses.
I mentioned my omelette while looking for the Stilton and she sounded interested so I explained how I make it and she then told me about her savoury pastries. Which sounded wonderful so I asked how to make them and asked her name so I could properly attribute the recipe.
And today I had a go. Absolutely delicious and dead easy so here's how to make them:
Empty a bag of spinach into a cooking pot and boil it until it's limp. Drain in a sieve.
Chop up two spring onions and two cloves of garlic. Heat up some olive oil and fry this lot until soft. Take the pan off the heat. Add the spinach and add pepper.
Chop up a block of Bleu d'Auvergne and add to the pan, together with a jar of creamy soft cheese.
Mix up the cheeses with the vegetables and the filling's done (and smells wonderful!).
Next cut a sheet of puff pastry into segments. I hadn't counted on the pastry being a circle so that's where things nearly went pearshaped. Next time around I'll get more pastry (and if at all possible a rectangular piece) so I can cut squares to make triangular pastries instead of the other way round as I had to do now.
Close up the pastry and press the edges with a small fork to keep them together. In my case that made for a tricky shape, where some of the pastries leaked while in the oven but what the heck, they tasted fine!.
Once closed, spread egg yolk over the top and sprinkle sesame seeds over the lot. I preheated the oven at 200°C and kept an eye on progress. I think it took some 15 minutes to get a crispy crust and a delicious result. Thank you to Fatiha!
spinach - épinard - spinazie
spring onions - oignons nouveaux - bosuitjes
cloves of garlic - gousses d'ail - teentjes knoflook
pepper - poivre - peper
creamy cheese - fromage frais - kwark
puff pastry - pâte feuilleté - bladerdeeg
egg yolk - jaune d'œuf - eidooier
sesame seed - graines de sésame - sesamzaad
There's some eager-looking plants next to the garden steps, craning their flowers towards the sun.
And at the top of the stairs there's now a full canopy of white blossoms. We always thought this is a silver lace vine but upon looking it up it turns out to be a pearlbush, native to China and Japan. In the photo above it forms an oriental trio with our purple Japanese maple and the pink cherry tree in the back.
silver lace vine - vrillée du Turkestan - bruidssluier
pearlbush - buisson de perles - parelstruik
chequered lily - fritillaire pintade - wilde kievitsbloem
I noticed some tiny wild violets sprouting from our driveway so I dug them up and planted them near some siblings at the rear of the house. My plant ID app thought they're the wonderfully named Early Dog Violets though they're probably simple Wood Violets instead. There's a number of varieties that are very close indeed.
wood violet - violette des bois - bosviooltje
The missus was clearly in a hurry when putting up the souvenir fridge magnet!
Later in the afternoon she was literally all over the garden again.
Last year's white Mount Tacoma tulips haven't flowered. This year's Mount Tacoma's turned out to be pink instead of the expected white (help Gromit, it's the wrong tulips!).
Our current favourites are these orange yellow puffballs, which look like erupting lava when the sun hits them.
tulip - tulipe - tulp
