A Miscellany

The photo challenge on SCS this week is buds. Well my goodness, it feels as if the spring budding season is almost over here. My wildflower seeds to sow in the borders arrived this morning, and I'll be planting them this week. All I could find in the garden was dandelions, daisies and a last couple of chive buds. I took two photos of those - one with a wide aperture to try to focus on a single bud, and one with a narrow aperture to get as much depth of field as possible.

C is always complaining that he never sees chaffinches in our garden. I don't know why - they're definitely there. Well, I do know why, he's too fast and impatient to walk out slowly, or just stand and watch. You can just see the green at the top of the tail between the wings in this photo.
When I was hanging the wash out this morning I saw the pair of robins, with one of them displaying his red breast to his mate.

The what...

...and the wherefore:

We had friends round for dinner yesterday - chicken pie, baked potatoes, salads and a baked Alaska. R. wasn't able to make it because he'd had to go in to work. but the kids tucked into the Baked Alaska with a will and we managed to finish every last bit off between us. This time I made a lighter sponge than the last time I made one - definitely the way to go. I also used frozen raspberries steeped for a couple of hours in some homemade orange liqueur. They're definitely the way to go in the future too. Because I know for sure I made Baked Alaska for this family before, when R was there with them, and that time between the heavier sponge and whatever fruit I used that wasn't raspberries, we didn't finish it all.