We usually host summer parties at The Gables but this year……

As an experiment, this evening, we’ve invited a few friends to sit in the front garden. Each will have their own table, their own tray of food and biodegradable, disposable cups. If it rains the evening is cancelled. If it works we’ll do it again and again so that we can meet up with friends near and far and try to adjust to the “new normal”.

There are apples, pears, greengages and more everywhere I turn. Not complaining but we will need to give plenty away or we will be overwhelmed with autumn fruits. Bring your baskets at the end of the summer.

High hollyhocks, yellow mullein trying to grow as tall as the hollyhocks, wild musk mallow flowers, common yarrow, a few struggling lupins, overblown alliums, black knapweed and oxeye daisies.

Nigel is missing grandson, who went home on Sunday after more than 14 weeks. He must make do with my company and that of Mabel (who isn’t very playful).

When lockdown started I lost my love of cooking. My main (and selfish) concern was getting in flour, rice and lentils and, yes, pasta in case we were unable to get to the shops. I just wanted to hunker down and close the gate and shut out the invisible enemy. This was crazy and impossible – as was finding pasta, flour and yeast on the supermarket shelves. Our refugees brought their food stores with them and it looked as though we had enough dry goods for a six month siege! Crazy – but who knew what might happen. Anxiety about the flour situation discouraged me from baking. The garden, at that time, was in the grip of the short season called “the hungry gap” – April and May, when the winter crops have ended but the spring crops have not yet begun to come through. A month into lockdown the purple sprouting was ready to cut and then the first shoots of rhubarb and I began to look forward to salads and think about new potatoes. Gradually I started to bake biscuits, taking care with the flour supplies and, unable to find my favourite golden caster sugar, using basic white sugar. By the time the refugees left last weekend we had been eating more soft fruit than was healthy, there were lettuces and radishes, cabbage and peas and sugar snaps, spring onions and rocket and the purple sprouting plants had come to their productive end and been pulled up and fed to the goats. Every day, now, the garden is full of fresh delights, whilst other crops are coming to an end. I can’t bear to waste any of this bounty and, as well as giving eggs,fruit and vegetables to visiting friends and family, we have sold soft fruits and globe artichokes to the local farm shop. The broad beans selfseeded last year and we have eaten our fill. Jeremy picked some this morning

I podded them, cooked them for a couple of minutes and then slipped off their tough skins. Then I added lemon juice,garlic, cumin, olive oil, salt and pepper and paprika and used a stick blender to turn the mixture into a bright green pate.

There are windfall Bramley apples in the orchard as well as the apples that Jeremy is removing to allow the remaining fruits to grow large. I’ve stewed some and we’ve given some to the cows as a treat. This morning I used some of the apples to make a cake. Based on a recipe I’ve used before I mixed oil and eggs, sugar and chopped apple with some black currant jam leftover from making some jam tarts

I had better do some serious exercise outside now, before I start eating all the “experiments”.