Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Summer storms and munching on flowers


After dinner last night I decided I fancied some Elderflower Fritters. The plant is only in flower for a few weeks, and I'd missed the boat really so wasn't expecting much joy. So, off I trotted with my carrier bag and scissors. I'd been walking for a good twenty minutes(and secretly loving every minute of being without the children) and disappointingly only had five flower heads, when I got a sudden headache. I noticed a change in the atmosphere, turned around and there was a bloody great thundercloud on the horizon.

Now, I love storms...when I'm indoors or in my garden. I don't go out in the open, haven't for years, as I had a near miss with a thunderbolt when I was in my teens. I power walked home(I cheated and pretended that it was my exercise for the day so I didn't have to go on the bike later), and got home just as it started to rumble overhead. It was a great storm, but I ended up sitting in bed with Isobel until 9.30pm as it was a loud one, the house was rattling! We eventually got to eat our fritters, even Pete liked them. They are a strange flavour, and I know most people baulk at the idea of eating flowers, but they really are delicious. They taste perfumy and sweet. We had Cornish ice cream melted on them...yum.

We had no veg in the cupboard or fridge for tea last night, so I finally got to dig out some spuds from the garden. We had these Catriona potatoes for tea, covered in butter and rosemary, and my god they were tasty. I'll definitely be growing more next year.

3 comments:

Dan said...

Last nights storm was great :D And the rain between 11-12 was so loud it even drained out the sound of the fan in the bedroom - I love having a flat roof and sleeping under it in rainstorms!

And it's not so humid today! Hurrah!

If I had any elderflowers I'd give then to you, but we only have Japanese Ragweed in our garden. We've given up on it and giving it the green light to just grow now. We've recently discovered you need a license to throw it away, to remove it and generally chop it up. Marvellous!

Laney said...

Oooh, do you mean Knotweed? I've heard of that stuff, it has superpowers and can't be killed. You poor buggers, did you know it can grow 2cms in a day! I didn't know about the license bit, that's mad. Do you have any neighbors you hate? You could throw little bits over their fence so that it grows and takes over their garden...LOL

Revenge via Knotweed!

Dan said...

Actually, we think it started next door and has spread - I'll get a photo up later on - it's now two-doors left, three doors right.

And no, it CANNOT be killed. Trust me, we tried everything!

Luckily it's pretty stuff ;)