Yesterday Dan and I took Merlin to see the vet for his annual check-up. We knew he has put a fair bit on since his last check-up (when he was 6.3 kg) and he was so heavy in his cat carrier that we had to drive him up the road as he was too heavy to carry the 15 minutes’ walk up the road.

Dominika took one look at him and declared he was overweight. A weight of 6.3kg-6.8kg is fine for Merlin as he is a Maine Coon-Siamese-something else crossbreed and definitely takes after his daddy Michaelangelo with his long whiskers, bulky body, big paws and tiger stripes and has a fascination (like most Maine Coons) for water, but being a greedy puss he has munched his way through too many bowls of cat food and is now at risk of diabetes and heart problems. Dominika said we must be strict with him and deny him treats, and give him only 80g of dry food per day and she wants to review him in 8 weeks.

I  somehow don’t think Merlin the Kitty will be very happy with his new diet regime but it is for his own good. If Fred leaves some of his food in the bowl then Merlin eats that too. We have tried separating them but it just doesn’t work and Microchip bowls cost £99.99 which we just can’t afford at the moment. Fred isn’t quite so bad but needs to lose about half a kilo ideally so we’re cutting both their food down and hopefully this will help them to lose a bit of weight, even if it’s not as much as we’d like. Maybe it will help us to bide some time to shell out for Fred’s microchip bowl in a few weeks when we have a bit more money.

It doesn’t help that Fred and Merlin are house cats and really don’t get enough exercise and Dan is afraid of letting them out and never seeing them again – run over or nicked, as they are the most beautiful specimens with bright eyes and lovely thick, healthy coats of fur – and our garden area isn’t private or safe enough for them to wander without the risk of them coming to some harm.

However, I am determined to have another attempt to put them in a harness and walk them round the garden. They may protest a bit at first but they’ll get used to it!!!

Catherine.

Today Dan and I took a morning train down the line to Barnes Bridge, for a morning of shopping and strolling.

We went to Two Peas in a Pod greengrocer’s at the far end of the high street, opposite Barnes Green. The fruit and vegetables are not cheap but they are of excellent quality and it’s self service with brown paper bags provided.

We chose some broad beans, two huge sticks of beautiful deep pink rhubarb, ripe plum tomatoes, salad tomatoes, a purple lettuce, some plums (to make compote to go with Greek natural yoghurt at breakfast time), and a few other bits. It came to just over £23 which I though was very fair, given the high quality of produce. No more expensive than ordering a large organic vegetable box from Riverford Organic.

The service inside the shop was polite and efficient, and I was particularly impressed by this as there were a lot of customers being served in its small space and nobody had to wait long.

This shop also incorporates a large deli section and I noticed there was an excellent range of dried spelt pasta, two or three types of polenta and some Stoates’ organic bread flour.  I was hoping they might have some of the Stoates’ award-winning Maltstar flour, but there were only two types – strong organic white bread flour and organic plain flour, ground the traditional way between French burr millstones. I bought a bag of the bread flour to make Dan’s loaves for work sandwiches. A 1.5 kg bag was £3.50, quite reasonable given the high quality of this flour. I also bought two sausage rolls, still warm from the oven, rich and meaty topped with a delicious fruit chutney and encased in lovely thin, light flaky pastry and though I usually shun wheat flour I couldn’t resist. I also bought Dan a very chocolaty brownie. We ate the sausage rolls on a bench on Barnes Green and they really were scrumptious with a very high meat content. Two Peas coin them as “the best in Barnes” and I can quite believe it. Dan was super-impressed with his brownie and my stomach didn’t puff out like a football after eating the sausage roll so a very high quality wheat flour pastry.

After our early lunch we nipped across the road to the Sun pub for a relaxing drink and then wended our way back to Barnes Bridge for the train journey home. Waiting for the train we saw the Red Arrows in formation high in the sky perfect day.

A perfect day.

As some people may know, I have always been into cooking and especially baking. I have been doing more and more, specifically because the crunch came in January with my ongoing health problems and I decided to stop eating wheat once and for all. I have intolerances to sugar (including lactose), wheat, soya and a shellfish allergy. I also have to be a bit careful with yeast because I am prone to thrush ever since I caught a really bad cold virus from my mother in December 2013 that gave me oral thrush, and my poor mum’s oral thrush was so severe she had to have a strong course of antibiotics. In contrast, I treated mine with a mouthwash made with tea tree and rosemary essential oils. It took a while to go but it did eventually but I seem to have been left with something in my bloodstream and since then I can get a bit itchy after eating foods containing yeast, especially if my resistance is low. Mushrooms are one of the worst things for me, it seems. I had some shitake mushrooms a few weeks ago when lunching out with friends and the itching afterwards almost drove me crazy.

My body doesn’t like preservatives or additives or the like and I make all my own bread at home with Shipton Mill spelt flour, and also have the occasional gluten-free treat. Today I made two delicious organic wholemeal spelt loaves. My recipe is really versatile because you can add chopped nuts or dried fruit, or include more savoury ingredients like gently fried chopped onions, chopped olives or sundried tomatoes or even a dollop or two of pesto. I then took a photograph and posted my recipe up on the Shipton Mill website: –

http://www.shipton-mill.com/baking/recipes/very-versatile-wholemeal-spelt-loaf.htm

So have a go at it and see what you think!

COMET

Bursting forth, whitest light

She, of the Golden Realm

Of burnished pinks and silvery hues,

A galaxy above the stars.

From an earthly place released

Her icy fingers reach and flex,

Grasping hard the feathery veil

That spells each letter of her name.

Spinning, spinning into space

Released from suffering and pain,

A comet now she leaves this world

Emblazoned on the skies.