A blue wintry sky
Soft white clouds go scudding by
The tall fir tree sings
We love this tree, although it is getting very tall… (The crows love sitting at the top in the early morning and serenade me at breakfast!) You can see the hazel catkins below it, already fully out despite the snow. I have even seen some pollen flying. Winter meets spring…
Requires plenty of damp grey weather, loves rain or snow, is frost hardy, tolerates shade, does not need pruning, nor feeding…
Soon after moving here we removed the ugly evergreens threatening to take over the rockery. This tree stump is one of the last to decompose – it’s taken seven years! Perhaps I will finally be able to dig it out this spring…
Soft brown and lush green
Thriving on decaying wood
In the winter sun
~~~
My Japanese Maple inspires me again and again!
(Sadly the leaves have almost all fallen, so this is a photo from about two weeks ago.)
~
Tinged with shy blushes
Open up your golden heart
Darling Dahlia
~
I am slightly obsessed with raspberries and vanilla at the moment, as you can see…
Raspberry ripples
Melding with vanilla dreams
Icy pink summer
~~~
(Really easy, and no machine required!)
Scrape the seeds of the vanilla beans into the cream, and add the empty bean pods too, and the vanilla extract. Then warm the cream gently. After a few minutes remove from the heat and allow to steep for an hour. Then chill. Once completely cold you can remove the vanilla pods and whisk in the milk and condensed milk.
Puree the raspberries with the kirsch/vodka and strain. You now have approximately 6 or 7 tbsps puree (about 100ml). Swirl this through the vanilla ice cream mix, pour into a freezer container and freeze for at least 8 hours.
The puree tends to rise to the top of the container, but this doesn’t matter. Just make sure your scoops catch a bit of the ripple!
Enjoy!
(Tip: tastes even better with fresh raspberries on top! 
)
Link for conversion tables:
