Bought by my niece last Friday and opening to reveal more and more colour

It’s muddy and damp outside but unseasonably mild. We have enough leeks and root vegetables to make endless soups and stews until the spring.

There was a last butternut squash waiting to be picked and turned into soup

Salad leaves and a few tomatoes from the poly tunnel will remind us of sunny days

A leek bake is ready to go into the oven later

Ripping open a cat proof(?) pouch of cat food last night (evidence on the cat barn floor this morning) and, after his breakfast, (which was NOT withheld) he followed me into the paddock chicken run. I was giving the four chooks a crumbled up slice of bread so …..

Sitting in front of the fire eating ribollita and soda bread and watching daughter on a webinar. They are talking about the film Brave Girls dealing with arranged marriage and female education in a rural Muslim Indian community.

Too wet for anything but baking and making sloe gin (but NOT drinking it for several months).

Even tastier because I wasn’t the cook.

Haricot beans, runner beans, onions, garlic, leeks, potatoes, carrots, parsnips,Swiss chard, tromboncino, tomatoes and chilli pepper. The only ingredients from a packet are some rice noodles. And, even better, there’s plenty more for tomorrow.

Tai chi outdoors got scuppered by the rain before we finished 108 moves.