An Atlantic storm blows through. Wet and windy all day. Sophie appears in the kitchen looking gale swept. She is towelled dry. With this wet weather there is a lot of towelling going on.
The stonemasons arrive ... unannounced. I thought they might bring their truck into the driveway but they park outside on the lane and use a mechanical arm to hoist the pallets of stone into the courtyard. Sophie, who is keen to supervise what is going on, is ' encouraged ' indoors. She enters the house 'reluctantly'.
A feisty Polish Lowland Princess, a mechanical arm, pallets of heavy stone and gusts of wind are the stuff of nightmares.
Sophie is rewarded with a trip in the car to the bakers. This mornings croissant a 9/10. Sophie gives it 15/10.
A duck story you could not make up : https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/army-of-100000-chinese-ducks-on-standby-to-combat-locust-swarms
Great graphic in the factoid du jour: https://twitter.com/simongerman600/status/1232647808412520448
7 comments:
I tried to bake my own croissants from Picard this morning, but it wasn't a great success - maybe a 3/10? I liked the animated graph as well and wonder why I've never seen one before. As to the ducks, I do hope they will be granted some sort of absolution if they do their job, although I suspect that may be an overly romantic notion.
Love the martial music accompaniment to the 'duck troops' video!
But what a tragedy it's been these past few years in Venezuela - I've worked with so many wonderful colleagues from that country over the years, and heard so many individual stories of hardships suffered by their family and friends back home.
As long as the ducks don't carry some avian influenza into new areas... Michael Pollan recently remarked that while humans are unlikely to overcome our aversion to eating insects, we might do it indirectly, by feeding insects to animals that we then eat. Ducks fattened on locust pests that are turned into canard à l'orange might be killing two birds with one stone, so to speak.
And one for you: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/25/the-end-of-farming-rewilding-intensive-agriculture-food-safety
Oh dear, the weather isn't doing Sophie's appearance any favours - some seriously "bad hair" days lately. The croissant looks scrumptious and surely makes up for all the indignities our girl has suffered at the hands of the elements!
With all the problems of Chinese viruses, in future we shall all be looking very carefully at the country of origin on any tins of paté. Locust-fed will be the least of our worries!
I am excited about the pallets of stone! Will the stonemasons also install the stone, or will you need a different group of professionals for that endeavor?
A different group will be needed. None of them answer the phone so the stone pallets may be a feature in front of the house for some time to come.
Good thing Sophie doesn't really care what she looks like.
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