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Wednesday 27 July 2011

Chilli Time Soon, Storms, Hottest Days so far & Stalker Beware!

Well the chilli's are growing well & we have lots of fruit on the plants. I was also given a chilli plant in a clay pot by our local potter, lovely gesture, when you buy things she gives a gift :-) Well this was back in May & I never thought to ask what type. As it has grown it has proved to be a lovely decorative plant & I love it but
what is it & just how hot will it be? I was hoping it would be a nice mild chilli that I could munch on in a salad but the shape of it sort of alerted me to the probability of it being a hottie.
Well I think I may have identified it through the thousands, well that may be an exaggeration, of chilli varieties out there. The plant & shape & colour certainly looks the same! It is, I think, called Abbraccio & its origins are from Italy. It will look beautiful soon with lots of different colours all at the same time. At the moment it is at the first stage.....
I have decided to try them fresh in a mince dish, just to see then also to dry them in a ristra & grind them or I quite fancy making a chilli sauce so I can add to different dishes as & when, perhaps I can sweeten it up?
My friends Claire & Peter Kidd gave me a bag load of their chilli's too so my first Ristra's hanging outside the kitchen drying out :-)
They also gave me two lovely Marrows A bag of spuds & a bag of my favourite white plums, yum, Thanks guys xxxx We all grow similar stuff & I love to preserve. Friends & neighbours pass around surplus produce & I pass around jars of preserves I have made with it :-)
I went to pick our first Marrows, as Nigel told me there were some beaut's ready, but when I went down to pick one for a frittata found they were butternut squash & not ready yet :-( I have lost my marrow's!!!!!
I guess when we clear the weeds (well over due) we will find them :-) Good news is the tomatoes are now ripening & we are picking them every day.
We have four varieties this year Huge beefsteak tomatoes (my fav's), plum, heart & medium. Hopefully we have covered all the bases hahaha. Normally I just grow the beefsteak but this year we have 100 plants, nothing compared to Yovo's 1,000! The runner beans are coming along nicely as are the aubergines, love this time of year :-)

I have been really busy preserving jams & chutneys, baking a friends birthday cake & breads, I love it but at this time of year with the high temps its grueling! I am starting to pickle the gherkins today & more jam to make with the last of our plums & the ones from Claire & Pete.
Not long now till my daughter Claire her partner Tom & my granddaughter Hope arrive for a holiday with us, I can't wait, it's been far too long & I am soooo looking forward to it :-D Lots of house & garden work to do as they are not used to the dusty conditions here so we must try & give them a good impression & a nice outside space  :-)
Phew the weather here is still boiling hot even with the storms we have been having. I was so relieved on Sunday when we had rain I stood in it reveling in the coolness after such a hot day food shopping. This then turned into a huge storm & we got home to find no storm (yet) but also no electric! To say I was not amused is definitely an understatement as we left in the morning with no water! I was sitting in the garden on the phone to my mum when the storm was right above us & I must have deafened her with my scream as the almighty crack of thunder shook :-) Reggie scrunched up into a corner & Mini was running round the living room :-) I told mum I had to ring back while I cowered inside just till it moved off, then I sat back outside to watch the show. The sky was alight & we had fork lightening, sheet lightening coming in all directions & I saw fork lightening going up in all directions too, amazing!!!!!
Well it cooled down for a day then just heated up again. We are all knackered from the heat & mugginess of it all but I don't want to change it, I am just thankful to be living in a beautiful country that gets wall to wall sunshine for most of the very long hot summer. Too many years in UK with no sunshine & months of rain & flooding during the so called summer, let alone the rest of the seasons!
We have been socialising rather a lot lately which is rather nice, its a great time of year for that. There is a group of us & we have all been having BBQ's.
We all have pool's so its great to cool off when we start to over heat while enjoying good food & company, very different to anything we have ever done in UK :-D
Tomorrow its our Russian friends birthday party. Looking forward to it as its going to be massive. I have baked her a birthday cake & we are off to find her a gift. Galia is a very beautiful & stylish lady who is/was a fashion designer, she loves beautiful things & I hope to find something lovely for her :-)
   On the downside I have a stalker! A bitter & twisted woman who follows me around facebook under assumed names pretending to be different people & adding me as a friend! I have caught her out minimum 4 times & now have to vet everyone on my friends lists who are newish & decide if they could be another made up person! Not only on my personal page but on other groups too. I am a reactionist & tend to respond to nasty comments but this seems to backfire & I may have just come across as a trouble maker when in fact I just stood up for a particular group or a friend. So I am going to try my hardest to keep my fingers quiet & get rid of anyone who is an imposter.
Oh I have to say the biggest downside to living here is the people who love to spread lies & innuendo's amongst people. It has been a real eye opener to me, I did wonder if I was strange, but others have suffered this phenomena too. Isn't it sad, we all move here to get away from the rat race, nasty people & yearn for a quiet life & make a living at what we are good at, then have to put up with this rubbish! Well I am no chicken & will not put up with people who want to spend their life sniping, lying & spying on others just because their lives are not what they want & they are bored out of their brains!!!! To those people I would say Get a life!
Right enough of my soap box back to real life ;-)
   Yesterday we went to a get together with other ex pats. We met some really nice people, always good to meet new people, & enjoyed a very full day with friends. On the way back from the market I spotted this very fine looking specimen of insect, anyone know what it is? Oh & is it harmful?
It was very beautiful & also very aggressive! Pete got a stick & moved it onto the grassy area, as it was on the pathway, & it went mental as all the weeds were anoying it. It twisted itself front & back trying to get at whatever was touching it! It has a horn on the front was quite plump & large but what a beautiful thing I am very pleased we got to see it!
Comparison by the side of a large size mans shoe ;-)
A friend (in England) has just told me it is a Deaths Head Hawk Moth caterpillar, Thank you Rachel x

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