Snoozing Seagull

This breed has an amazing capacity to doze in the midst of a blustery southerly.



Plimmerton, New Zealand
© by Sparrowchatter 2011

Grateful for rain

Our lemon tree, early morning
© by Sparrowchatter 2011

Damson and chocolate steamed pudding

Here's a recipe for those of you who own a microwave:

2/3 cup brown sugar (muscavado or soft brown)
2 eggs
100g melted butter
3/4 cup self raising flour
1/4 cup milk
3 tablespoon damson jam and a few chopped plums
1/4 cup good quality cocoa powder

Mix together sugar, flour, cocoa, eggs and milk. Add melted butter. Put jam and chopped plums in the bottom of a microwave proof jug, pour mixture in on top. Cook, covered with a plate, in the microwave on high for 4 minutes. Let it stand for a minute, then cook for a further 4 minutes.

Serve with plain yoghurt.,

Just a few thousand calories.......

.........to start off the weekend. From our favourite cafe which has its own French pastry chef. La Cloche, Kaiwharawhara. Bienvenue!
© by Sparrowchatter 2011

Oh what a glorious thing to be

A healthy, grown up, busy busy bee.........
Mana estuary
© by Sparrowchatter 2011

Looking for swans

An estuary five minutes from our house by car is home to around forty black swans. Today my husband drove me there, to see if I could get close enough to photograph them. It involved walking a way under a railway bridge and along the outside of the tracks, a somewhat boggy pathway, railway on one side, estuary on the other. I was thwarted in the attempt. There just wasn't a dry piece of land close enough.

On the way back, I stopped suddenly in my tracks to watch this adorable sparrow taking his afternoon bath. I went looking for swans and ended up with the sparrow. How very typical - wherever I go, these plain little birds give me so much joy.
© by Sparrowchatter 2011

Who were they?

I collect Russian things. Mostly books, occasionally Matrioska dolls, and more recently stamps. The collection is eclectic and has no real value, other than to my curiosity. I'd love to be in the position to collect Faberge, Icons and paintings by Repin, but my budget stops at random packs of ordinary stamps and the odd second hand book.

Today I was captivated by two small stamps. I found myself wondering what women these two stamps were based on. I find it difficult to believe that someone in the "Soviet Department of Stamp Design" (or whatever it was called), just came up with a generic Soviet "Miss" for the design. Surely, she was someone's sweetheart or sister or friend. Where did she live, what did she live through? What memories would she share with us over a glass of vodka? Would I have learned to cook pasha with her at her dacha? Would she have liked singing or writing poetry? Did she work on a farm or a factory? Was she Jewish or Christian? Did she live in a communal apartment or in a wooden cottage in the country?

I'll never know of course, but we say hello occasionally and I ask them the questions. They are condemned to exile outside of the arms of Mother Russia, in a box in a country far, far away. Currently they slumber inside a drawer of a French dresser.

Imagine what the person who sent a letter with these stamps would have thought of that!
© by Sparrowchatter 2011