17th April - Good Friday

It is Good Friday here on the island - a week later than in the UK this year.  It will be a much more quiet Easter than normal and in some ways I am not sorry because I hate the home-made banger/fire cracker fireworks which they fling about with little regard to people's safety.

It being Easter John and I decided that we should try and make some Hot Cross Buns or rather Not Cross Buns as I don't like the floury stuff they use to make them.

I did all the prep and mixing and John did the kneading because it required at least 10 minutes before the dough could be wrapped up and allowed to sit outside in the sunshine to rise before being turned into bun shapes and then left to rise for a second time.

I had chosen the Mary Berry recipe because I had read somewhere that it was foolproof and the buns super tasty and as well as sorting out my buns I was doing something with some back bacon pieces which John had picked up from Paps and which were going to be for our tea - these were being super slow cooked for six hours in a Chinese 'soup' and then would be finished off under the grill and swathed in a sticky sauce.

Once again it was a glorious day and I wanted to spend time in the garden.  All sorts of things are getting attention including the sign for John's shed which is, in reality only the gap between the kitchen wall and the gazebo but provides some storage for odds and sods!!!

John is planning the next stage of the potting bench outside the kitchen door and that seems to have been penciled in for tomorrow so I will need to brush up on my Part IV subservience skills!!

As a child we spent many an Easter down in Cornwall at my Grans in East Portholland and Good Friday was always the day when we went into the sea for a swim, often with my Gran accompanying us.  I don't have many memories of the sea being warm or the sun shining!!!

To keep the tradition going I decided that I would go into our pool today.  No reason not to as the temperature was a heady 20 degrees and it was so beautiful outside.

I cannot work out why, whatever the weather and whatever the water temperature it always seems bloody freezing!!

I did a few circuits and then got out.  I cannot tell you how much I love John for having sorted out our solar hot water system and now the water is absolutely bouncing - we clearly have had a problem going on for some time and now that John has seen what happened it is something we can keep an eye on in the future.  The bit he bought from Polis will need to be returned and ultimately the fix cost us nothing - he is a super star!!!

Here are my buns - my oven is a bit on the hot side unfortunately so the tops got a bit over cooked for fine my liking and I found the texture a bit heavy but they tasted lovely and will be with a bit of butter or toasted and then in the end they can become a bread and butter type pudding!!!

The sticky pork was a triumph - I would say that the bacon pieces were probably not fatty enough and I want to make it again with proper belly pork.

We watched a great film this evening - John's choice - Dark Water - about the Du Pont company pumping chemical shit into the water sources where their factories were located in the USA.

The Ration Book says...
Wild rabbit has an unmistakably gamey flavour, but the domesticated variety tasted much milder.  This enabled parents to pass it off as chicken, although if it was one of their own rabbits they would have to make up a convincing story about its disappearance from the hutch.