Oh that does look lovely @Jane_Williamson
well done !
Yes, it was my goal to learn something new during the lockdown and I decided on Brioche knitting.
It is 70" long, so can be worn in a variety of ways against the Munich winter.
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Just heard that a dear, long-standing friend in UK is safely out of surgery… that’s the first step… it will be a long recovery, I reckon… but it’s wonderful news… 
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I was dreading a call to the DFDS call centre to make a very complicated change to a booking. The booking agent could not have been more helpful and it was all done in a fraction of the time I’d set aside.
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My 88 year old mother got out of hospital today after 4 weeks and 4 days. She got home this afternoon much to everyone’s relief. What made it harder is that the hospital she was in still does not allow visitors, so she spent the entire time with no physical contact with family or friends.
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My OH found out from our neighbor, that if you are over 60, you can get a discount on the cost of ferry tickets from Dieppe; in order to get the discount you have to call the ferry to book the tickets. The customer service left something to be desired, he said… Still, he’s a Very Happy Yorkshireman.
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It depends who you get on the phone. The call centre is in France and one of the team has a pretty impenetrable accent and tends towards the grumpy. He’s the only one I’ve ever found difficult. Most of the team are charming and very helpful.
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The Munich family are on their way here at time of typing. Usually they bring the rain with them, but not this time.
I have finished my baking for the day, got up early before the heat.
Sweet and sour red and yellow peppers to start, mushroom flan and salads, coleslaw made with our own cabbage and a lemon polenta cake.
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Oh… sounds wonderful, Jane.
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We will have it on the ‘lawn’ under the cedar tree, which sounds very Edwardian.
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sounds ideal, given the hot temperatures…
What time have we all to be there 
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Not today, but yesterday I made use of a glut of tomatoes to make 8 large (450ml) jars of salsa. Also used chillies from the garden - habanero and cayenne. Would have used my own sweet peppers as well, but not quite ready. The oh also made pickled beetroot. Those tomatoes just keep coming. Already made about 3 -4 l of tomato sauce for the freezer, and will do more over the next week or two. What do other people do with thier tomatoes ?
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I make passata, ketchup, chutney and sauce for pasta etc.
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My Border Collie used to do this.
They are notorious for it. It’s a combintion of boredom and keeping the wolf factor up to scratch. It’s why so many of them on farms are on a chain. The collie at the farm half way down the hill would go mental trying to get at passing vehicles.
My collie specialised in just one vehicle - the local milk tanker. Every morning this truck could be heard for about 5 mins grinding down the long, steep hill before turning the corner at the bottom to pass the gates of my boatyard.
The dog used to take up ‘the ready perdition’ as Colour Sgt Tom Dickie use to call it and as the tanker passed, rush out and savage its back wheels. Very dangerous - 10 tons of truck and milk…
This dog was, like most Border Collies, super-intelligent. She only ever needed telling something once.
I got fed up with this daily truck attack. One morning I crept out of the front door as the truck was near the bottom of the hill and the dog getting ready to attack … just before she did I let out a loud “Errrrmmm!” just as my headmaster used to do when the noise in the dining room reached a level he could no longer tolerate.
The dog froze, looked round at me. I wagged my finger … and she never did it again.
Same when I asked her not to rush the heron invariably fishing off the end of my slipway, which she did every morning [now that milk tanker attacking was out] . I explained that he had a living to make and this was his patch in the line of herons along down the river.
She never did it again. She switched to the heron fishing off the end of the public slipway 1/4 mile downstream! Never caught it, of course.
Then my shipwright got a collie and they went rabbiting every day - come back dog-tired 
with faces covered in blood - rabbit blood.
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My cheerful news for the day is that my driving licence has arrived 10 days after the email telling me it would come within 15 days. I’m very pleased, as you can imagine!
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Very interesting Captain, but the quote you quoted wasn’t mine, I have never owned a pup in my life. Sweet and cuddly but definitely not for me, definitely an oldie fan myself. 
I think it was @JaneJones 
My cheerful news is that I tested my errant dog, Jules, on the new 30 metre line today. It never got taut and he was able to roam at will and, best of all, he came back to me 5 times to the whistle and once when I turned my back and headed for home. 
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I’ve sort of already done most of those, in that I make a sieved sauce from the tomatoes and freeze it. It’s great with just added seasoning for a soup, or thickened up to passata consistency to make bolognese sauce, or thicker for a pizza sauce. Chutney is a good idea. I’ll definitely try that.
When we had tomatoes (not this year unfortunately) we used Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s recipe for oven roasted tomatoes. They were a tastier (and moister) version of sun-dried tomatoes and kept well in the freezer - also made very tasty sauces and soups of course
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