Of frogs and scones

After a mild and sunny day yesterday, the rain returned this morning and created a huge puddle by the garden wall. The frogs seem to look at this as a perfect pond extension and are happily going about their froggy business in both.

More and more are arriving every day now - a couple had just been sitting on the edge of the pond but I was too slow with my camera and just saw them jump in. :-) The sun is coming out a bit now and several frog faces are visible.


Our afternoon treat is likely to involve homemade scones :-) It's the first time I have attempted making these and we are very happy with the result (having sampled a couple already).

Scones...

The recipe is from the brilliant Paul Hollywood, found on the BBC food website and I can definitely recommend it! I have included the link above if anyone is interested. We didn't have clotted cream to recreate a "proper" cream tea but butter & strawberry jam did nicely instead. I guess that these should be good to freeze as well, although none of this batch will make it to the freezer...

Romance is in the air...

Pear & Ginger loaf cake...

Yes, it is a day after Valentine's Day but never too late to write about romance of some kind. The frogs in our pond have been enjoying the sunshine and it looks like they are getting romantically involved. Last year we had over 30 of them meeting in our pond, so we are hoping a lot of them will be back again this year. You could hear their frog choir from the upstairs window! And I am sure a lot of baby frogs were the result. :-)

To be honest, I don't like Valentine's Day at all - it is just so commercial and feels as if it just fills the "shopping gap" between Christmas and Easter. Luckily, husband and I feel the same way about it! Should it take a special day in the year to be nice to your loved one?

On the baking front, I have been trying a new recipe - Pear & Ginger Loaf cake. Very nice, although you can't taste the pear that much.