Hey Presto its Pesto!

The return of the summer weather this week has been very welcome in Grange Gardens.  The bikes have been out, the barbeque dusted down and the golf course beaten into submission.  The early part of the week saw Alice and Jen return for a few days so I was under orders to cook a roast dinner on Monday.  I duly obliged and also made some leek and potato soup and two lemon tarts!  No cracks either in the tarts!  Thai salmon fillets were devoured on Tuesday - not as tasty as I thought but still a winner.  The fajitas that we ate on Wednesday were spicy but my masterstroke of the week was the pea pesto I made for a barbeque on Saturday!  I've never really been a big fan of pesto - the colour I always found slightly offputting - and I didn't go a bundle on the taste either.  Whilst I was perusing the magazine section of the Telegragh on Saturday, I stumbled accross a recipe for potato and spinnach salad with pea pesto.  That sounds worth a go, I thought so a blitzed some peas, lemon zest and juice, olive oil, basil and ginger and Hey Presto - Pesto!  I smothered it on some new potatoes which had been cooked earlier with stripos of wilted spinnach - a cracking potato salad to go with the chicken marinaded in  lemon juice, garlic and olive oil and a mixed  leaf salad.  A cracking barbeque enjoyed by Wattsie and Mrs Watts - I'd felt sorry for Wattsie as he'd suffered in the heat on the golf course on Friday at the Llantwit Major Football Club's Golf Day.  He did get the prize for the longest drive though - from the 14th tee to the clubhouse, in a buggy!

Talking of golf - the idea that I had beaten the course into submission this week is not strictly true - it's been more like the course beating me!  The week has seen me exit from 3 knockout tournaments in the first round!  The purple patch of a few weeks ago has deserted me.

Early mornings continue to be a feature of our lives at the moment - the brown pig, AKA Poppy or Mrs Goat ears - has an uncanny in built clock that tells her to bark at precisely 5am each morning to alert the rest of the house that she needs to go out!  Off she trots, does what she has to, and then sets about trying to bite Harri's legs - a nice way to start the day for us all!

The bikes came out on Sunday - a brisk 12 miles was interupted with a couple of hours in the garden of the Plough and Harrow with friends - Sue even got to have a ride in Kevin's AC Cobra  - an experience not to be missed by all accounts!  At least the journey back was mainly downhill!

We're off to Barcelona on Friday to celebrate Tommo's 40th birthday.  The party is a 70's theme so I will be getting out my flared trousers, tank top and platform shoes and Sue has a very eye catching one piece, halter necked trouser suit - like the one worn by the blonde girl in Abba - I'll see if I can get some good photographs for next week!  Hasta la vista - off to enjoy the Tapas!