China? Ni hao! And France, bienvenue! Join me for Dinner?

Welcome, my Chinese and French friends!
So nice to see you!
I look at my statistics and see quite a lot of you are visiting, and it pleases me no end. Hope you are fine!
Today I have been cooking and cooking and cooking...

I have made 10 pots of grape jam (cannot bear to see my grape harvest go to waste on the vine) and I have baked a vegetable baklava.

This is only halfway through...Later on I have added green and black olives, and a mixture of feta cheese, 3 eggs and old Dutch Gouda cheese to this mixture of courgettes, peppers, onions and garlic and have seasoned it with Greek herbs.

And no, it isn't my own recipe, I'm not that good. It is from 24 Kitchen.

It is now in the oven, covered with filo pastry and sesame seeds.

And I cannot wait! My mouth is watering!

Good food is better than sex, in my opinion (well, I am 56...that explains a lot I suppose).

It's a good thing my family doesn't bother to read my blog :P

Anyway...

Food.

We were talking about food.

I have been raised by a woman who has almost starved between 1943 and 1945. That explains a lot as well...

Food was a major thing in our house. And it is important in mine. 

Done!

Have a lovely evening!

Grape Harvest Tiny? Make Jam!

Good morning to you!
Four years ago we planted a blue grape. Not well-planned, so we planted it in our sunny corner near the pond, but also next to the prickly hedge...

This was in July.

And this was yesterday:

Cool, eh?

I have spent a very pleasurable hour picking them yesterday afternoon, trying to ignore the numerous spiders crawling up my sleeves and down my neck.

Unfortunately this vine has wound itself right into the prickly hedge, so I had to pick very carefully, giving the spiders ample time for their crawling business.

Watching the fish in our pond calmed me down after my fit that occurred when a huge spider had worked its way into my armpit.

They always flock when they see me, hoping for a nice little freeze dried shrimp or two.

Oh, do you know, when I was right into that hedge a brown frog leaped out of it, right over my head, into the pond. It must have been sitting at least 1.8 m high, snacking on all these spiders, no doubt.

And this was wound into that hedge as well. Don't you love them? I do!

Oost-Indische Kers is their name in Dutch. They have seeded themselves. I certainly didn't put them in that hedge! Shades of Middle Earth, eh?

Right. Now take a look at  my harvest:

Looking good! But definitely NOT enough for making wine (which is what I ultimately would like to do). So...I'll make jam. Plain jelly, plain jam and grape-and-apple compote.

Went to the local jam jar selling shop, and had to endure a jabbering shop assistant, who was so into her own story that she dropped my entire load of jars on the floor and broke half. She had to go to the back to get others, and I ended up with a different size as she had run out of the size I wanted in the first place. That was an exercise in patience, which I survived.

This morning I started out bright and early.

And this is the result, 6 hours later.

Will this get us through the winter? Hmmmmmm...

And....Counting!

Good evening, my blog friends and assorted dreamers!
This blog has been in existence since November 24th, 2013.  And it looks like I will have had more than 10,000 readers by this October. Not bad, eh?

Now I am perfectly aware that this blog means zilch in the scheme of things. 

Nothing, nada, niente.

The world is burning, and I am posting pretty pictures of cats and flowers (and the occasional dog or owl) and writing about bicycle trips and mindfulness. Absolutely insignificant.

Politics do interest me, but I tend to keep far away from blogging about them, except when I get so indignant that I cannot keep quiet. The reason for this is that I feel others are far better at the political angle than I am.

So. As a step up to my goal (10,000 people reading my blog and hopefully cracking a smile before Nov. 24th 2014), I'll go bananas and post something not in the least resembling a cat. 

Hope you like it! And do visit again; you are most welcome.