Foxgloves and Gooseberries

Over the weekend I shall be composing a post about the Pictish Symbol Stones, as Kath over at Hillside pricked up her ears when I mentioned them the other day and would like to learn more.

Anyway, today I am up to the gunnels in ripe gooseberries and have come on line to track down some interesting recipes.  I used to make a lovely hot-water pastry raised gooseberry and orange pie once upon a year, but it is rather a special occasion beasty, so I want some more down to earth recipes which turn a huge amount of gooseberries into something useful - jam springs to mind, as I used last year's for wine-making and am still waiting to drink it!

I have also got some oatmeal steeping in milk for a nice oatmeal plait, and that will be my first job of the day.  Everyone in our house loves home-made bread (especially my son) and now I am on the last day of my anti-biotics (though still struggling a bit) I am feeling bright enough to bake again.

In fact, the little booklet of bread recipes which was purchased in the early 70s (Woman's Realm book of 101 ways with Bread) for 60p is still the one I reach for first, over and above all the more expensive and upmarket bread books I have.  Every time I open it, I am taken back to my early bread-making experiments and the feeling of having discovered myself.  Apple Yeastcake.  Granny's Cinnamon Cake.  Orange Buckwheat Bread.  Orange Sunbread.  Savoury Herb Bread.  Sunflower Loaf.  Crumpets and Chelsea Buns. 

Oh, and the Foxgloves?  You'll have to wait until I drive back up the valley again, camera in hand, but where they have cleared woodland a couple of years back and opened up the steep hillside to the sun, there are absolutely ACRES of Foxgloves.  I have never seen them in such quantity and they are stunning, especially beside the little waterfall.