Feeling a bit better.

Having had my little rant earlier, I betook myself off to the kitchen for some therapy.

several pounds of strawberries rapidly became 1 litre of strawberry ripple ice cream and three large jars of strawberry jam.
Closely followed by these;

pretty darned perfect aren't they? can anyone say 'FEET!' ?
I plucked up all my courage after the last disastrous attempt which all cracked and sank like mini-soufflé's on a wet afternoon, and tackled the Italian syrup meringue method. Pretty brave of me as I have an aversion to anything that can burn a gaping whole in my clumsy flesh, but having already done jam I thought why the hell not and presto! perfect macaronage and only the slightest hint of a cap. These are plain almond flavour with the ubiquitous chocolate and coffee ganache, I am still experimenting with oven temp so colours are still a problem with browning, but as you can see, I am getting near perfection. (160° double trays, and pray for ten minutes)
From the allotment today I harvested;

•  2 marrow
• 12 white onions
• 12 red onions
• 4 lettuce
• 3 million giant radishes ( again)
• 200g peas shelled
• 6 Kohl Rabi
• 6 beetroot
• 50 shallots
• a handful of Maris Peer new potatoes
• 1lb of redcurrants
• 3.5 lb strawberries

not a bad haul.
some pics of stuff growing.

Beetroot, squash, marrows, lettuce, sweetcorn.

 Lettuce ( and we don't even eat the stuff!) Onions, peas more broad beans , more sweetcorn.

 Cabbage, Broccoli, and Romanesco, oh and more sweetcorn.

Sweetcorn, Kohl Rabi, potatoes and pears.

you can see why more room would be nice?

Mr Angry....

You never really think that government corruption is going to effect you personally do you ?

As a voter , you kinda think you just have to put up with it, after all its the way governments work, and we are hardly a third world country involved in a civil war etc.
Then you try and do something the RIGHT way and are penalised for it!!! and that makes me REALLY angry, I try to be as honest in my dealings as possible, I was brought up that way, I brought my children up that way, and try to set an example, and it is hard to be complacent when they get to see that being honest just basically doesn't pay.

It all started with the allotment, we are glad to have one and are enjoying it a lot, as is the family next to us, and between us we could do with more room, to grow more fruit for both families, so we talked about taking on another one between us, as usual there are several not being worked, despite there being a small waiting list.
There are 18 new plots due in September, and the guy in charge told me there are not enough people on the list to fill them, so we thought we had a chance of taking on one opposite us that's just been given up half way through the season.........more fool us. we both rang up and explained what we wanted to do, and were told that as we already have plots, we can't have a second one whilst there is a waiting list, and even if we put our names down again we still wont get one if there is a waiting list because...we already have one.

Fair enough I hear you say, people who haven't got one should get first crack, and I agree, totally! we have put our names down in the hope that once the small waiting list has been dealt with there will be one left we can have.
And then I find out, that a person that got an allotment at the same time as me, now has a second one, right next door to his first one!!! how you ask yourself, well I didn't ask myself, I asked him, and the answer?

He used his daughters name , put it on the list, then rang and asked if she could have the one next to him when it became vacant during the season, on the grounds that as she is family and doesn't drive it would be more convenient to have that one, than one of the new ones in the next field!!!
so not only did she jump the queue, but..wait for it.... she has no intention of even coming over to work it, its just in her name so that he can have two!!!!!
then he tells me, that 4 other people down his end have done the same thing!

And I am supposed to teach my children that cheating doesn't pay.........how?