Little Boxes...

...makes me think of the Pete Seeger song, but these are not at all ticky tacky, just very rich and chocolatey. I made an easy dinner for my sister, and put more effort into a prepare-ahead dessert. These used to be my dessert of choice on my birthday when I was growing up, although Mum used to make them with After Eights. In hindsight I wonder how on earth we managed to eat them - they would have been bigger, and these days I couldn't eat more than two After Eights in a sitting, never mind the cake and chocolate cream. And as my sister pointed out, she's sure we didn't used to have chopped pistachio either, just birthday candles.
The recipe comes from an old Family Circle Christmas magazine dating back, I think, to the early sixties. At least, we presume that Mum brought it with her when she moved here from Canada - she'd certainly never have got it here back then. I can remember doing some of the crafts from it, too. There are lovely string balls made by dipping coloured yarns in starch and wrapping them round balloons. Then when the starch is set, you burst the balloon and are left with a lovely lacy balloon shape. I remember we made those one Easter...

Saint-Honoré Chocolate Creams (Saint Honoré is the French patron saint of bakers and pastry chefs)
12 servings

Boxes:  4 squares unsweetened chocolate, 1 6 0z package semi-sweet chocolate pieces and 2 tblsp butter. (Given that we STILL can't get unsweetened (as in Bakers) chocolate here in the year 2010, no wonder my mother opted for After Eights back in the seventies!!)
Combine these ingredients and heat gently over hot water till melted. Line a cookie sheet with tin foil and spread the chocolate into a 13"x10" rectangle. When cool but not totally set, mark into 1 1/2" squares and then leave for several hours till set firm.

Filling: 1/2 cup butter, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 square unsweetened chocolate melted and cooled, 1 tsp vanilla, 2 eggs.
3 slices pound cake cut 3/4" thick.
Finely chopped pistachios.

For the filling, cream the butter till soft, and then add the sugar very slowly (take about 10 minutes) beating continuously. Mix in the cooled chocolate and vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time, beating for 4 or 5 minutes after each addition. Chill till firm. Although it starts out slightly granular because of the sugar, in the end it is ultra-smooth and rich and creamy. And I suppose not to be made if you think your local eggs might be contaminated with salmonella.

To assemble: cut 12 strips of double-thickness tin foil 1" high by about 7" long. Make a cardboard form 1 1/2" square and using paper clips to hold it, form the foil into square collars. Put on a board.
Cut the cake into squares a bit smaller than 1 3/4 inch, so that when you fit the chocolate around them, it will fit. Put a square of cake into each foil collar, and then carefully slip in the chocolate squares. Fill generously with the chocolate cream and sprinkle with nuts. Chill till serving time. To serve, unclip the paper-fasteners and remove the collars.

I went the whole hog and tried making a pound cake as I didn't think I'd ever made one before (well, I made a half-pound cake, as I didn't want too much left over), but I think if I make these again I'd make something lighter like a Genoese sponge.
We ate six on the night, my sister took a couple home in a doggy bag and we'll finish them off tomorrow.

Birr - Hornbeam Cloisters

If I had to choose a favourite part of Birr, which would be an almost impossible task, this part of the garden might  just be it. For years I had a couple of enlarged photos hanging on the wall. There are old weathered statues at the ends of two of the alleys, with rambling old roses growing around them. Since it was far too late for the roses, I've opted for a photo looking in the opposite direction with a ladder at the end. This time round the cloisters weren't the usual haven of peace, as they were being trimmed for the winter. So when I went around in the morning, the gardeners were on their break and they had the radio on, and when I went back in the afternoon there was a duet of hedge-trimmers. But it's still a place that always fascinates me, even with that noise going on! It was grey in the morning, lovely and sunny in the afternoon. I'd love to see it in the winter when it's more bare and skeletal. But then, I am just assuming that hornbeam is deciduous.
p.s. - that big dragonfly was a Brown Hawker -

I have a sudden horrendous attack of hay-fever caused by I don't know what; I am itchy and scratchy, my eyes are itchy and scratchy, my throat is itchy and scratchy. I brought in the last of my Stargazer lilies, but I didn't react like this to any of the others. Off to bed, hoping that it's better tomorrow as we are expecting my sister and her husband round.

Feeding Frenzy

We take an unscheduled break from Birr to bring you these action photos of the sparrows. I derive a lot of entertainment from watching them, they're such an unruly, scruffy little gang. You'd think they might come to the feeder in smaller groups, but they often arrive in a whole flock of around a dozen or so, and they're not all the same age so I think they might be two or three different broods. One or two fly in, and then a couple more, and then it's a case of the gang's all here. And goodness, do they fight - and make so much noise. There's only room for two on the feeder,  because I don't fill it above the first two hoppers, and then a couple can also go on the peanut feeder - which is why you'd think they'd make solo forays, but they must be a very gregarious bunch. With all the fighting and squabbling it's no wonder I am forever picking up a few feathers each morning when I go out to put some seed. I had to take these through the back door, so they are slightly less sharp than I would like, but it always amazes me what I see in a frozen fraction of a second that I don't see when I am watching with the naked eye.

The little one at the bottom is the youngest, and a smart cookie. He perches there till there's a free space on the perch and then hops in - no fighting and flapping for him!

Side-steppin'

Birr - Wildlife

I have never seen so many of these butterflies all in one place - Brimstones, I think.
On the agapanthus they had to thrust themselves right up into the flowers to get at the nectar, whereas on the more open flowers they could just land - if you look, you should be able to see the proboscis of the one on the pink flowers. Even in flight when they were coming in to land on those flowers, the proboscis was out and ready - but the photo is blurred.

No dainty butterfly this - that body and legs are positively chunky!

One super-size dragonfly - haven't had time to check out my wildlife book yet. The first time I saw one flit across the lake I thought it was a small bird, and when I finally got to see one at rest after a long time stalking them and waiting, I'd say the body could have been 3 inches long.

He's pretty well camouflaged, but in one part where there was a little swampy stream with reeds and grasses, there were a whole flock of blue tits flitting around. Delightful to watch. (And with any luck, soon C is going to decide to get me a tele-converter for my lens!). I just wish I was better at remembering bird calls - while I was watching them there was something in a bush behind me making a funny almost hissing sound. But while I am good on music and can generally pick out the right chords for a song after hearing it a few times, I just can't get to grips with bird calls.


Swallows on the wire in the car park. When we arrived the lines were full of birds, which C thought were swallows but I thought were swifts or martens. As we were a bit later than we would have liked, he didn't have time to check through his spotting scope, he had to head straight to his meeting. But on comparing the photos I took then with the ones I took when we were leaving, I still maintain the ones in the morning didn't have those long forked tails.

Birr - quick snaps

I am glad I pushed myself a bit to go for the trip to Birr today, it was such a lovely day weatherwise, and lovely to see the gardens coming into their autumn colour.
Top memories with no photos -  the yellow flash of a grey wagtail flying down the river, two ducks swimming through the weeds and snapping at flies, the most ginormous dragonflies I have ever seen - still working on identifying them, the swallows flying over the lake...
Just a couple of photos till I get more sorted out. I gave myself another push and took almost all my photos on manual, and was pleased with how they turned out.

Caught a Fish

Fabulous sunshine, crisp cold mornings...
Hard to believe these are taken within a few minutes of each other - moving angles changed the water from blue to brown.

What was interesting was that it's very obviously a flatfish of some sort that the heron caught, while all the fish I could see were the mullet, which were out in full force again today.  Obviously the Liffey supports a lot more life than I ever thought! I lost the stone from my engagement ring somewhere this morning. I don't even know where, but in the forlorn hope that it might have been when I pulled my camera out this morning, I walked back along the same side of the river. But the only glint of red I saw was a scrap of plastic from a car light.
Off now to pack my camera bag in the hope that tomorrow will be a nice day and I will feel a bit less under the weather, as C has to go to Birr again on business, and I'd like to go back again.

Liffey Swans

Recently I've been seeing a lot more than just the usual pair of swans on the Liffey - anything up to half a dozen. And I don't think that they are cygnets, I don't think they'd be in their adult plumage yet.

I had time after work to stop and take a few photos of these ones gently drifting downstream as they groomed themselves. It amazes me the difference high tide makes - how much nearer it brings them.

I am getting so fed up with Vodafone's broadband service - we're experiencing outages more and more often. This week I decided to start logging them, as I really don't know if we want to persevere till our contract was up. C was pretty fed up this evening when he was trying to listen to something on the radio and all of a sudden it went off air. Maybe if it happens a couple more times he'll be motivated to complain. I noticed that when I emailed about another issue and also asked about opting out because of the bad service, they dealt with the primary issue and studiously ignored the bad service question. Hmmm

Bird Watch

I went out to do something in the garden and this little ball of fluff rocketed up from under the garden bench, where he must have been picking around in all the bits and pieces. I am not sure which of us got the bigger fright. It's just a little sparrow fledgling, but he was so puffed out and fluffy that he looked bigger than the adults.

And look, look - a juvenile robin. You can still see that his red breast hasn't developed totally, it still looks sort of "scaly" under his chin. Now to woo him with mealworms!

Got to look smart for this lady with the camera

I still feel a little bit scruffy

All groomed and looking good

 And help - it's not just the mahonia showing red, we saw quite a few leaves turning already when we were coming through the park today.

Sharing...

I posted a photo the other day of the little blue tit and coal tit happily sharing the nut feeder.
Some sharing insects here...the magnolia was in the Botanic Gardens - I was surprised to see it in bloom at this time of year.

 
The sunflowers are in the garden. The ones growing in a tub are needing a lot of watering in this dry weather, you can see that the petals look a bit wilted!

King - or at least prince, since it's a juvenile gull - of all he surveys.

Sculptures in the Arboretum

I totally forgot about these till I was weeding some dud photos out of my August folder. These were in the Botanic Gardens - only last weekend! There were a few more, but these were my favourites. From a distance the deer looked like wood to me, but C said it was steel, I think. Being under the trees on a sunny day made for somewhat contrasty light, this is the best I could do...It was such a lovely surprise to come across them.