Cheese scones

My routine of gardening first thing after I get up is being sustained - if I leave it till later, my tendency for procrastination will kick in ...

And yesterday I managed 40 minutes and my back seemed to cope quite well. I think it works best when I bend rather than kneel to weed. I always knew that kneeling was bad and that women shouldn't do it!

Standard cos and baby cos lettuces are in - it rained overnight so no watering required today!

Second wheelbarrowful of mulch awaits. In the background are the 4 trunks of a formerly HUGE rhododendron so huge it overhung our roof and Jillian's garage roof. Luke took all of the branches off and it is on probation - either it'll sprout and regrow, but not to its former lofty height or it'll be chopped out at ground level - its probation period is up by the end of this summer, so best it gets itself into gear ...

Later in the day I filled the wheelbarrow with 2 loads of mulch from the front drive's pile, and emptied one load on to the garden at the back outside the bedroom window - the second barrowful is still waiting to be decanted by bucket, as I cannot get the barrow over the box hedge to empty it.

I decided David and I needed a reward for the hard work we are both undertaking, me in the garden and David in the office trawling through our 44,000 digital photos (there is a project underway) and his Weaving Memory assignments. His work now is split between digitally publishing people's old video and old film. And he does a fabulous job with it - cleaning, correcting colour, editing and chapterising. He is always busy!    Here's his website 

So I made cheese scones. While we were on the boat, I made them quite often - they taste great (except twice when I used cream instead of milk [too heavy by several hundredweight] and the time I used baking soda instead of baking powder [tasted strange, looked stranger]).

Yesterday they were magnificent. I am not sure what makes the difference - could be the tasty cheese here is sharper - I think the electric stove may be the change factor - a drier heat, and a bigger oven. Also NZ butter is saltier than any UK brand I've tried, and the combination of cheese scone and cold well flavoured butter is a wonderful taste sensation!

Yummmmm!!!

They rose more and took less time to cook

Anyway, they were yummy; so yummy that I hid the last three in plain sight on top of the fridge (our fridge is about 6 foot high so it's out of our sight line, and as any student of child development knows, Piaget says that if a baby cannot see something it no longer exists - not saying David is a baby, mind you 😜😘), and texted Luke that they were his for the picking up. There was a bit of a scuffle at the front door this morning when David realised:
a) that the scones did still exist, and
b) that I was giving them to Luke.

I was on the phone at the time to 2 fifths of the convoy who are home in Desborough, so Mick witnessed aurally the disputed handover. Needless to say, given he is younger and significantly taller, Luke went away with the spoils of that particular battle.

I'd make more for David today but he is off to Brisbane to stay with his sister Ginny and her husband Graham for a long weekend and I am heading to Carterton to stay with Pete and Warren tomorrow. Before I head off in the morning, I'll make a loaf of ciabatta and see if that works better than in England - I have a feeling that the flour I get in the UK is pretty damn good for bread. I'll keep you posted on the result. Of course, my taste testers are probably more critical here than the convoy team of John, Julia and Mick are. It's not that the latter are easier to please, it's that they are kinder!