Cora seems to be very interested in something in the distance - probably a cat!
There have been one or two Robins hopping around while I have been working today (Saturday), so I am hoping one of them is the one rescued from the greenhouse a week or two ago.

Things are looking rather barren now. 

Here is the 'usual' view from last Saturday. 

I have made a start on the tidying up but there is still a lot to do. 

This is Hugh F-W's favourite one-pot recipe from The River Cottage Cookbook. I made it a couple of weeks back and it went down very well. I had a bit of a panic as the vegetables didn't seem to be cooking properly so whacked the heat up from gas 5 to gas 8 for twenty minutes or so to get things going. It was fine in the end but I used more stock than Hugh suggests and made sure I pushed different veg down into it on a regular basis. The chicken was from Lanigans (see below). (Sorry to mention this but Hugh suggests this recipe with lower heat and longer cooking time for chickens no longer required for laying.....)

...and here it is before cooking. As you can see the veg shrank quite a lot during the cooking time. 

I couldn't resist taking this picture of Lanigans in Lytham with a seasonal selection of game on display. One of my favourite photographers is Walker Evans who took a series of shop fronts in the depression in the States. He also photographed destitute farmers with their families and in their homes. The idea was to publicise their plight and make more aid available. As it happens, one of my favourite musicians, Neil Young, plays at the annual 'Farm Aid' concerts in America. Anyway..... hopefully I'll get down to the allotment soon after a friendly reminder of its existence from the Allotment Lady!