Tufted Duck

When I have stale bread left over, I usually bring it in to work and feed it to the gulls; better that than landfill, and there are only so many breadcrumbs I can use. Usually all it takes is throwing a couple of bits into the water and a whole flock of gulls appear, seemingly out of nowhere. But there are occasions when this doesn't happen - and this morning was one of those days. So I walked down as far as Heuston Station, and when I looked further up-river I could see some ducks. So I kept walking a bit further - and was delighted to see a tufted duck in among the mallards. Alas, his tuft wasn't really showing, but his beautiful beak was.

A Recipe, Rain, and a Wet Bird.

I was cooking for my mother-in-law on Saturday, and when offered a choice of desserts, C opted for panacotta. I think he was hoping for the rum and raisin one I usually make. But, while tidying and purging old magazine cuttings recently, I had come across a Gordon Ramsay recipe for lime panacotta which I really wanted to try. Well - no tequila here, and I was going to be back from the shops long before licensing hours would have let me buy any. So I decided to try a coffee-flavoured one with either Tia Maria or Kahlua, of which I had plenty. 

So I took the basics of Paul Flynn's rum and raisin recipe, which was:

450ml cream

two-and-a-half leaves of gelatine, soaked until soft in cold water

55g caster sugar

Bring half the cream to the boil, take off the heat and add the sugar and the gelatine. Whisk in thoroughly. When they are dissolved, add the rest of the cream and pour into dishes. Chill overnight

I lightly crushed one ounce of coffee beans and let them infuse in the heated half of the cream, let it cool down, strained it and then reheated it and went on as usual, though I reduced the sugar a bit as I didn't want them too sweet. I made some hazelnut tuiles to serve with them. 

We have had some very wet weather this week. I tried taking a few photos of the raindrops in a kerbside puddle while I was waiting for the bus on Tuesday. It was hard to focus, even with manual focus, so only a couple of photos are worth sharing.

Today I was just preparing dinner when I saw a bird pecking at something on the grass. Curious as to what it was, I got the spotting scope and took a closer look. It's either a very wet hen greenfinch or a juvenile (probably still too early for that, though), who was making a very tasty snack from a dandelion head. I've never seen that before! The windows are dirty from the rain, which didn't make for a great photo, but here she is, anyway.

April Favourites

Favourite cards from April...most of them seem to be from the Mixed Media challenges on Splitcoast, and the sunflower was made to use up a leftover failed background from one of them.

To Work by the Back Door

I walked along the back of Christchurch today, which I don't normally do.
And I really liked the contrast of the graffiti compared with the old church door.

And while I'm at it, I may as well add some photos I took on the same walk to work out of town last week, on a much brighter and sunnier day. It was much warmer last week too - back to hats, mittens and scarves this week!

 I've always loved the glass porch over the Olympia theatre - it makes me think of gingerbread houses somehow. I'd have to look at a map to figure out what building the dome is part of. And the cherry tree is at the front of Christchurch.

Des res in bird-land

One day last week I forgot my work ID. Thankfully (because it is a HUGE hassle not to have it), I remembered while I was only a couple of stops away from home, and with light Easter holiday traffic, I knew I could get off, walk home, get my card, get maybe even the next bus and still be in on time. Two quick snaps - des res nest in a lovely leafy tree, and one more bleak "high-rise" one. Both, I think, magpie nests.

From the files...

I was privileged to be on the Splitcoast "Dirty Dozen" design team from last August thru' January. Projects created for that have to be kept exclusive for 6 months, so I was always having to be careful not to include any in my recap of monthly favourites. Here, then, are my favourites from the first three months! There was also a Christmas project in that time frame - a Jacob's Ladder min-album, but I don't usually add any Christmas stuff this early in the year.

St. Catherine's Park part two

This catkin looked so like a caterpillar! There was a lot of diseased, but very photogenic, ivy (photo #4), and the last one is young, fresh nettles.

And then as we got to the watermeadow, we saw these delightful Highland cattle. They've been there for a couple of years now, it seems - but they certainly weren't the last time we were there. Isn't it funny how they have different horns? They looked quite small, too, compared with "regular" cattle.

St. Catherine's Park part one

I love this view over the river from the upper path through the woodlands...

This weeping tree was at the end of the wood, as far as we could walk.

We came across this plant I had never seen before. I looked it up when we got home, it's called Toothwort, and it's a parasite that grows on the roots of trees. I know you can see leaves around it - they're actually wild garlic. The Toothwort has no leaves of its own, so it can't carry out photosynthesis.

And some weird and wonderful fungi. In the second picture, it made me think a little of Audrey 2 in Little Shop of Horrors, it'as almost as if it was alive with tentacles, reaching up over the log.

In the frame: canoeists. I hoped they were going to down the (small) rapids, and having seen them walk along the bank parallel to us, on the opposite side, we waited to see them launch their canoes - but then they all started paddling up-stream.