It feels like the real freedom of summer has arrived. The socks are off, schools are all closed, exams over and done with and the good weather has cranked up the feel good factor.  We are so fortunate to be able to enjoy our heatwave, the mid-20s in Celsius is […]

Fideua – feed-ay-wah, is a Spanish dish similar to Paella, which is perfect for summer eating. It’s cooked in a same way but it’s made with vermicelli pasta instead of rice. It originates in Valencian region of Spain and seemingly was invented by a fisherman who headed out to sea […]

Berlin in early summer is full of Horse Chestnut trees in blossom. Some of the trees are immense – as tall as five storey buildings; and when the wind blows the pink blossoms come down like confetti, falling everywhere, sometimes landing into the glasses of the people drinking on the […]

The garden is producing at full speed. There are gazillions of green things – kale, spinach, salad leaves, rocket and chard and lots of potential with all the new seedlings. We have some experimental crops on-the-go this spring, spurred on by last month’s conversations about food security. We’ve sown quinoa, […]

Standing in the glasshouse in our garden it’s difficult to envisage the catastrophe in Ukraine. Just when we all thought the world might slip back into some kind of normality it has taken another turn and the poor people of Ukraine are being invaded. It’s impossible to imagine where this […]

Three storms in a week left our garden in tatters. Lettercollum, ‘Leitir Colm’ in Irish, doesn’t translate to windy hillside for nothing! We had to use the chainsaw to cut our way out the morning after Eunice rocked by and any previous complacency that we had about the imminent arrival […]