Garden centres - arggggh

I followed my own advice and I created a garden centre shopping list on my phone, added a sprayer, beetroot seeds, organic slug pellets and potato fertilizer to the list and hubby and I headed off to the first garden centre.

We fell in love with a really cute woolly sheep tea cosy , it reminded me of my pet sheep, Jenny, who I was given when I was 8 years of age and lived at home with us for a couple of years until we returned her back to the farm in Wales due to her antics. Hubby met her just after we got married when I was 24. Jenny’s antics, now there’s a tale for another day or 20.

Tick off the slug pellets, fertilizer, but their seed range was so disappointing, 20 varieties of carrots, 25 of tomatoes, but only red beetroot :( they had 3 different seed suppliers displayed too.

Off to garden centre 2 – still no golden beetroot, just the boring red. The displays were identical to the first garden centre, the size and positioning of the packets, none of the interesting varieties, yes they can read a display chart from the supplier and it is really annoying that there is no difference.

Garden centre 3 – yes, same display, still no unusual varieties. So I headed home and onto the Internet.

Finally, there is a different supplier, I add the yellow beetroot to my basket, then concentric ringed white and red beetroot. Oh, Saltwort now that sounds interesting as I love Samphire, some baby aubergines, Red Sorrel, Chinese Broccoli, Honey Squashes, oops, and Strawberry Mara des Bois plants that combine the taste of wild strawberries with a standard strawberry and producing over a really long season. Roll on the summer, cream and sugar.

We are really proud that all of us are serious foodies, our daughter may be 16, but she’s so good in the kitchen, came home to a wonderful salad, “Mum, I’ve added some of the hazelnut oil to the salad, I think it makes it taste really nice”, and yes, she had made a perfect dressing.

Sunday afternoon – the time for daughter to finish homework and me to plan my lessons for next week, we always put a film on and today it’s “Julie and Julia”, a true foodie’s film, I was given it last week for Mother’s Day and we watched it last Sunday afternoon, snap today, I think this may become a regular pattern for Sunday’s.

It’s time to put a loaf in the breadmaker for tomorrow’s sandwiches and to prepare the roast chicken in true Julia Child’s style, covered with lashings of butter. Scrummy roast chicken sandwiches for my lunch tomorrow. We managed to get some wonderful forced English rhubarb at the farmshop this morning, so I’ve been asked to make a deep rhubarb pie for pudding.

I have decided that I need a decent french cookbook, perhaps Elizabeth David, or is there a better book, perhaps a Cordon Bleu book. I think I need to do some serious research and then drop some hints at my hubby/daughter.

I think this evening is going to be foodie heaven.