And the winners are.........

Each year our neighbours have a family sunflower growing competition.  This year this sunflower came to them as a wedding favour and has grown out of all expectation!   So young Charlie and Ruby have had to agree that, this year, mum and dad are the winners!  It has been covered in bees all day and you can see several if you look closely.

It's been another day spent mainly in the kitchen.  We took Jen and Pete's wedding flowerpots over to their house now that they are back from their honeymoon in the Dolomites.  Now I have a flower shaped area at the back of the house empty of colour and bees, so Tony has promised to populate it with my own pots next year.  Once home it was on with the harvest.  Tony picked the last blackcurrants from the allotment and a trug full of gorgeous coloured tomatoes so I set about making more coulis which I froze in ice cube trays (shaped like the Matterhorn and penguins!)  I will put Green & Black's organic Vanilla ice cream on the shopping list this week and, when I am in need of a treat, I'll top it with one of my blackcurrant ice cubes!  The tomatoes have transformed into soup which has also gone in the freezer and I made room by taking out a bag of gooseberries which have gone in a pie.  In between all the washing and sieving and boiling and baking, Tony made a Victoria sandwich then returned to the allotment to gather potatoes, beans and carrots for sunday dinner.  It's great having all this produce but it is labour intensive!