Mud Cakes and Wine

I am a couple of days late with the meal plan, it has been one of those weeks with school work, school meetings, we have to choose a secondary school for our eldest in September, then the heatwave and my brain decided it had had enough. Friday - Greek Traybake we were meant to have this last week but we had a BBQ so the meals got changed around a little Saturday - Peri Peri Chicken with chips and a salad Sunday - Sausages in a giant Yorkshire pudding Monday - Chicken Kiev, new potatoes and salad. The boys will have crispy chicken, mash and salad. Tuesday - Melt in the middle fishcakes with salad tor peas this is from pinch of nom  Wednesday - Jambalaya again this is pinch of nom. The boys will have this just not as spicy. Thursday - Fajita pie another pinch of nom. The boys will have pizza quesadillas.

I am hoping the weather forecast is correct and we will have some more summery weather for the week ahead. We are pottering along at the moment, homeschool is not going well but we are trying our best. Last weeks meal plan went really well, for the first time ever I got the vegetarian ragu spot on and the chicken sliders were just brilliant definitely having both of those meals again. Meal plan friday 12th June 2020 Friday - Pinch of Nom Cheeseburger Pizza for us the boys will have a make your own odd selection they go for.  Saturday - Butter Chicken Curry, this is from a jar but never had it before. Sunday - Father's Day he wanted Steak and Chips followed by cheese and the boys asked for Quorn nuggets and chips. Monday - Chicken (Quorn) mozzarella parcels with pesto, I use puff pastry and make it an open tart then the boys will have tuna slices. Chicken mozzarella pesto filo parcels Tuesday - Coated fish (thanks Birds eye) with new potatoes and green veggies Wednesday - Tortellini...

Right so who has stolen our summer? We are back to wanting comfort food it is very confusing. We have the MIL over this weekend as we can be her bubble and it is her birthday. Luckily the farm shop came to my rescue and delivered a whole box of goodies. Friday - Ready Meal Curry for Mr MC&W and myself. The Boys will have Chinese curry as they love that. Chinese chicken curry Saturday - Spag Bol Sunday - Roast Chicken with lots of roast potatoes and carrots and veggies Monday - Thai Prawn and Pineapple Rice Thai fried prawn pineapple rice Tuesday - Gnocchi with mushrooms and broccoli - this is a Jo Pratt Madhouse cookbook. Wednesday - Mango Chutney Chicken Sliders Mango chutney chicken sliders Thursday- Veggie Ragu this is the basic idea but will as always add extra bits. I am not sure the boys will like this, may have to slightly change for them. Vegan ragu

We have gone from so hot I did not know what to do with myself, then it changed and we were indoors with the heating clicking on as it is so cold. May involved a lot of watering with the crazy temperatures we were having, but as you can see the GYO did pretty well. I have planted everything out in the middle of May. Looking back here everything looked so small. As you can see the sweetcorn is looking very happy and growing well. The courgettes have started to flower. I am hoping I have more success with them this year. I have done better with my succession planting. I planted the second batch of carrots, beetroot and onions just over a month after the original ones. You can see the carrots are doing much better in terms of germination. The cucumbers are looking good and still growing but no sign of any flowers or fruits. The aubergine is still very tiny but they are growing so we shall keep watching and waiting. The first year I have had any success with peas and runner beans. Both aft...

So June has arrived and summer has disappeared. The weather has gone cold and windy. None of the children has gone back to schools as they are not in the years going back, so we are still homeschooling. Friday - Florentine Pizza - for Mr MC&W and myself as we have never had this pizza before. The boys will have a make your own pizza. I have cheated as found some just roll pizza base. Florentine pizza Saturday - Sweet and Sour chicken for us all.  Sunday - Pork, Pears and Blue Cheese. Boys will have a simpler version of this meal. Pork with pears and blue cheese Monday - Greek salad with nachos. The boys will have this but a little simpler Greek salad nachos Tuesday - Higgidy Pie with new potatoes and salad the boys will have tortellini. Easy meal for me. Wednesday - Pineapple and ham fried rice Ham pineapple fried rice Thursday - Smoked mackerel salad with couscous. The boys will have fish chips and peas. 'smoked mackerel with herbs and beetcouscous

I have been wanting to prune this clematis for years. I kept putting it off as I was convinced I would kill it. As you can see around 90% is old dead wood and it looks a total mess. I took a deep breath and decided to go for it. Let be totally upfront this is not a post how to prune this Clematis but what I decided to do to mine as it was mainly dead. It was not an easy job, I was having to trace dead wood back and make sure what I cut did not have new growth on it. New growth can come from what looks like dead wood so tracing backing carefully is important. A lot of the wood just fell away. Slowly and carefully I made my way through the jungle of crossing branches and stems.  I did have a few casualties which I knew would happen. It occurred near the end when I must have lost concentration for a moment. This is what we are left with. My husband is going to help me with creating a better system of wire for it to grow around but not yet as we want to see how it does after such a har...