The Jab, A Tree, A Tart and a Prize!!

 Yesterday at 5 pm I had my Covid Jab at Clair Hall, yes I know I look to young etc, apparently with an excess of vaccine they are doing 36 year old hunks early, oh sorry misheard thats 56 year old chunks😁 very well organised, I arrived early because everyone told me the traffic was a nightmare, predictably sailed through anyway they let me in so was done and dusted by 5 o'clock, bravely resisting the urge to tell the little prick joke😲I figured they had heard it before😁!! As it was didn't feel a thing and at time of writing 10hrs later I have had no side-effects at all, my arm doesn't even hurt,(except for a weird dream involving Spiders and Mealworms???😱) though obviously could still click in, as I understand most likely time is 24-48hrs so fingers crossed! Also at time of writing I have had no instructions from Bill Gates ,so either my chip isn't working or he hasn't got round to me yet, unless he wanted me to plant a Tree or make a Lemon Tart????😏😏😏😏

Seriously though as someone who was completely floored for 2 weeks by Covid back in April,still not really back to my version of normal I would encourage everyone to get the Jab when offered, Covid is not pleasant and we got away quite lightly!!!

Anyway, fear of side-effects meant I decided not to go out birding today, "Wimp" I hear you cry!! And you would be right😀😂 However this meant I had time to plant our new tree "why do you need a new tree" I hear you cry. Well a couple of weeks ago we got home from work to find that our Garden had been trashed by the F'#?*~@ing  Ba?~@*&£$ds 😲😲😲😲😲 who work for BT open reach who had decided to "landscape" the grounds around the BT warehouse that backs on to our Garden this involved Cutting about 4 feet of our Ivy  and Honeysuckle  and chopping in half the small tree that overhung our garden all of which were covered in Bees and other insects in the summer and provided a multitude of Berries for many birds in the winter including Song Thrush, Blackbird, Woodies and Blackcaps as well as providing shelter for our local Sparrows and for the first time last spring  a nesting site for a pair of Blackbirds , it also provided a barrier to the multitude of cats that infest our neighbourhood!!Why they decided to do this after ignoring the site for the last 10 years I don't know I also don't know why they felt the need to lean over the fence and hack every thing down our side as well?? I sent them an ,admittedly quite hostile, email which resulted in being passed to about 6 different departments with very little result so decided to give up and repair the damage as best we could. In these days of awareness about climate change ,bio-diversity loss and the pressure on our local wildlife this anal need to tidy everything up really gets on my tits, nobody, except us overlooks it anyway so I'm baffled why they have done it. Especially here in Hurstpierpoint where there is an initiative to try and bring more green spaces into town, encouraging people not to mow their lawns etc. Something I've been well head on for years now, although that may be more to with laziness than pure wildlife concern😀

The Trashed Ivy was 3 ft higher than this😢

So, what to do, after several hours on google we identified the trashed tree as a Prunus Padus, known as a Bird Cherry Tree, 3 weeks and £112 later we had a new one😲 ,unfortunately due to the pond we couldn't plant the tree where it came from in relation to the other side of the fence, so we had transplanted our Buddleia from the other side of the garden to the area behind the pond whilst moving the Cotonaster ,which wasn't doing very well there anyway to the front garden, which would leave a space between the Rowan and Hawthorn that we have grown from whips into magnificentish specimens, for the new tree

The Transplanted Buddleia behind the pond,which is sadly lacking in Frogspawn!😡

The New Tree,was supposed to be 4ft but towered over me at 6ft !!

So despite the risk of side-effects, I got to work  planting the tree, my training as a youth on the MSC coming to fruition. Work was slightly delayed due to an argument with Margie over the exact positioning of the tree in relation to the washing line, "what's the point of saving the planet planting trees if we have to use the tumble dryer all the time" she pointed out,  this would have been a legitimate argument if 1) where I wanted to plant the tree wasn't a good 12 feet away from the washing line and 2) where she wanted to plant it would have been approx 4 inches different!!😏 Anyway my superior weight advantage paid off in the end although her illegal use of a rabbit punch could have swayed it! She eventually retreated to the shower muttering something about where she wanted to shove the poxy tree!!😲😲😁

 I broke soil, was an amazing amount of worms in the ground with each spade full producing about 20!! After several minutes of intense activity the hole was dug!!

Wormfest

The Hole

Look at the roots on that!!!

So popped it in, stamped it down jobs a good un!!

Looking good hopefully be producing flowers and berries very soon

The shed still look magnificent no rumblings as yet from Margie about needing a new one😀

The Hawthorn coming into leaf was about 2 ft high when we planted it

The Rowan planted as a whip, now ready for the Waxwing irruption if only the Blackbirds would stop eating the berries!

So with the garden sorted, left to the healing power of nature, I turned my attention to the kitchen, I had decided to cook a Lemon Tart, this mainly because I have done 2 before which have turned out ok, but I want to perfect it, but the main reason was a surfeit of eggs due to an Ocado related incident where some how we ended up with 28 eggs and despite last weeks Haddock quiche (tasted better than it sounds) and a Bread n Butter pudding we still had 15 eggs left!! This sort of incident usually happens with Dark Chocolate Hob Nobs or Green & Black Chocolate bars so not sure how it happened  this time (Margie says if it happens again I may not be allowed to do the online order unsupervised in the future😲😢)

Last weeks Haddock & Pea Quiche

Bread n Butter pudding my experiment to soak the Sultanas in Brandy didn't really work!!

The Pastry recipe that I used for the Quiche worked so well I made it for the Tart as well, substituting a bit of the Flour for some Icing Sugar and bunging an Egg Yolk in (one down hurrah!!) This came out well and after much chilling and rolling baked it blind!!

Pastry in construction

Pastry wrapped and ready for the fridge

Buttered pie dish

Stole this trick from "The Berry" roll the pastry out on the bottom of the tin!

Roll out over the edges

Fold the edges over

Drop it in the tin

Then push the pastry into the tin, take time on this, important to get it right to prevent shrinkage later

Fill with beans and weights and bake blind

The problem I have is that most recipes are for 23 inch tins and due to my eyes being bigger than my belly (hard to believe I know!) we have a 28 inch one, so generally have to scale up recipes ,for the filling I chose Greg Wallace's recipe, the Gregster likes a pudding so figured it would be a good one and also it used 5 eggs (ramped up to 6 by me for the bigger tin) All went well finally got to use my new Lemon juicer hurrah!! and even sieved the mixture as per the recipe!!

The newer squeezer

Can't make a Lemon Tart without them

The Zest

Well juiced Lemons

Smooth, sieved mixture

Blind baked tart base

So poured the mix into the case, found that I should have ramped it up even more as it looks like the tide has gone out, a missed egg use opportunity damn!! But it turned out ok!

The finished product, nicely set needs a bit of a trim!!

So a nearly all Organic Lemon Tart, still struggling to get Organic Caster Sugar but as close as I could get!

Looking pretty, should defo have made more filling!! So into the fridge soon be out of the tin!

Well we've had the Jab, we've planted the Tree and baked the Tart so what about the prize, well funny you should say that, there must still be one or two people in the western world that don't know I won a prize (some birdcare products) in a Facebook Competition from Upcountry Garden Center😄!! 

With this picture of a Sparrowhawk taken in our Garden

Prize-winning Sparrowhawk 😀😀😀😀

An eventful day where vaccine side-effects only slightly manifested themselves when the footy started, hopefully I will be able to get out birding tomorrow!!!