Some of this years pears

We bought the pear tree as a small sapling from Woolworths about twenty years ago. It’s grown since then and every year it has had a bigger crop of pears on it. This year there must have been fifty. The tree has tipped over because of their weight and possibly the wind, so we’ve had to prop it up. The bark is cracked and coming off in places, and it suffers from black spot, but the pears are delicious. Some of them rotted on the tree, possibly from being pecked by birds. We’ve got most of them off the tree now and are sharing some with friends.

Blog now, pay later…

Photo of milk chocolates that I was given today. Manipulated in Instagram and Photodirector. I shouldn’t eat them, I’ve had a couple ‘to sooth my throat’, hubby’s had some too…

Then, we’ll you know what I’m like…

Elaborated the photo by duplicating it in Layout. I like the way the strawberry chocolates somehow turned into mouth 👄 shapes. I rotated the images a few times before I came up with this set. I chose the title, by the way, because I’m not meant to have sugar!

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Fresh blackberries with chocolate icecream

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Ice cold from the fridge, picked half an hour before and rinsed under the cold tap. Fresh from the garden fence (growing through from the neighbours garden), we had a bit of chocolate icecream in the freezer so we added that to the berries. Lots of our fruit plants have been profligate this year. Except for the plum trees? I think the blossom might have got blown off because they are not in a sheltered part of the garden.

The pear tree is almost horizontal, held up with a piece of wood. There are lots of pears set. Maybe I could make a Perry? I could do with a recipe. Mmm getting ideas…

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Chilled cat

My cat has taken to sleeping in this cardboard box, and I just saw the sign on the side ‘Chill 2/4°C’.

I had to get my camera and take a couple of photos on him. He might not be the cutest cat in the world, but he certainly is the sweetest to me.

He half closes his eyes, and I’m sure he smiles! He finds various places to sleep. This is his favourite place at the moment.

Trifle dipping?

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Oh dear! My blancmange was too warm when I put it on top of the jelly. And I got extra thick cream which I over whipped.  The whole thing is a delicious mess!

Now, trifle dipping, what is that? The act of knicking an extra spoonful of trifle after you’ve had your fair share! I’ve been known to slice a thin sliver off our Christmas trifle late at night. It is my favourite dessert.

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Trifle with cherries and blueberries

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Sunday tea. Trifle. Raspberry jelly with cherries and blueberries, raspberry blancmange, whipped double cream.

I made up a pack of sugar free raspberry jelly with half a pint of boiling water. Then I added almost half a pint of cold water (you can substitute a small amount of sherry) and mixed it up. I washed and pitted the cherries and put about a mug full of them into the jelly liquid so they covered the base of an ornate glass bowl I use to make trifles. I added about the same amount of washed blueberries, spreading them out with a spoon to give an even coverage. I put the bowl in the fridge to let the jelly set fully. (there are alternatives that don’t contain gelatin). This afternoon I made up a pint of raspberry blancmange (you could use custard instead). I left it to cool in the pan rather than putting it directly onto the jelly as it’s heat would melt the set jelly. Once the blancmange cooled I spooned it onto the jelly. After a couple of hours in the fridge I whipped up a tub of double cream. I added a bit of sweetener before I whipped it. That goes on top

Serve in a glass bowl if you want to be posh. I just got the breakfast bowls out. In this case the cream slid off the blancmange and the jelly broke up because I’d put too much fruit in. So beware spooning it!

The result was delicious. Yum

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More cherries…

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Used a hoe to pull the branches down and caught all these cherries in a brolly today. It was sunny for a couple of hours and the wind had dropped so we took the chance and dodged the rain showers. Picked loads, but there are loads left on the tree.

Now I’ve got to decide what to do with them. I might add them to some gin. Or I could make cherry pancakes.

This is a glut of cherries. If we were not in lockdown I would be sharing them with friends. It’s the biggest crop we have ever had from the cherry tree. If I could freeze them I would but I think they would spoil.

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