Revenge of the Chocolate Sponge

My Dad obviously took the last post as a challenge. The result - the best chocolate sponge ever (oh, no, I can hear the yawns - another foodie piece). But honestly, it was - light, fluffy, flavoursome, cooked to perfection and absolutely the right cake to cream ratio. Gorgeous!

And now for something a little different featuring no food, unless you're a caterpillar. Just light and leaves.

Return of the Apple Cake

It's a while since I sang the praises of the St Ann's Well Café on the Malvern Hills. So I'll do it now. Pixie and I had a cake sampling session there on Sunday as recompense for struggling up Happy Valley (and being overtaken by the obligatory octogenarian). My elfin partner had the Lemon Cake which she declared to be first-rate. I plumped for my old favourite, Apple Cake.

But this was no ordinary Apple Cake. Nor was it Marks & Spencer's Apple Cake. It was simply the best homemade Apple Cake, laced with the flavour of almonds and stunningly moist. Do not visit Worcestershire without trying it. (The tea was pretty good as well - it must be the water).

I don't do dogs. But here's one. Don't expect more.

Under the Pier

Sometimes the only way to nip an obsession in the bud is to stop pussyfooting around it and go at it full tilt. So it is with diagonals. Not one or two but dozens, bracing, leaping, rusting, stretching, holding together the twin rows of columns that support the small pier at Teignmouth.

The county of Devon in South West England is a lush, green place. Why? Because it never, ever stops raining. It can do all known forms of precipitation including an excellent rendition of that peculiar, all-penetrating drizzly mist once thought only to exist on the Isle of Skye. It also conjures up fierce, wind-driven, scudding storms that force moisture into your last remaining dry bits, those odd pockets of warmth which the swirling miasma of damp of a few minutes before had left untouched.

There is only one defence against the Devonian climate - find a teashop. We did, it was grand and we steamed away until dry enough to go forth for another dowsing.

Lilac Bench

I selected this image, taken today in the small South Devon town of Totnes, for this evening's post and then a crisis arose; I discovered that I could think of nothing to say about it. Despite the unusual colour, the striking leaf pattern or the omnipresent diagonal, I was dumbstruck. What could I say about a lilac bench that would be both witty and erudite, two attributes which I would desperately like to introduce to the witterings portrayed here?


I really do not possess the expertise to talk at any length about street furniture. The seat appears modern in construction, probably late twentieth/early twenty-first century. The colour contrast between the bench and the wall would appear deliberate and just a little extravagant for a traditional English country town. Perhaps it's a nod towards the hippy culture that lingers on here, with barefooted men in skirts and didgeridoo-playing new-age travellers mixing with farmer's wives and posh totty. It's all a mystery and not a particularly interesting one at that.

Since a colourful bench hardly does this Devonian town justice, I've included another picture, taken at the top of the main street. Crossing the road is an example of what may be posh totty, albeit in a dressed-down mode; Pixie assures me that jeans are acceptable for this development of womanhood. If, on closer inspection, they turned out to be by Versace, or a similar vendor of female clothing, then we would have a positive ID; unfortunately I forgot to look.

More Diagonals

I was out walking the hills of Devon with Peter this evening. After a day of almost solid rainfall, the sun appeared over Dartmoor and slipped down into the combe. A stand of trees, black poplars I think, just caught the last of the light, the spring foliage luminescent. Magic.

It was only when I was reviewing the image that I noticed the diagonals, a loose z-shape of hedgerows. So another theme is born.

Gingham

The chance spotting of a flyer for a village fete at Eastnor led to an encounter with some of the most succulent blueberry flapjacks and possibly the best chocolate cake I have ever tasted. OK, I apologise to all of my friends and relatives who have strived over the years to satisfy my yearning for that most desirable of foodstuffs but this was the business.

I have a hierarchy of cakes and pastries. It is not rigidly adhered to, some rise, some fall, as time passes and my taste varies. Of late chocolate has been at a low ebb, subordinate to lemon drizzle, apple and almond, coffee and walnut and the ever present quest for the perfect almond croissant. Muffins of complex and wonderful combinations come and go, and even fruitcake makes an occasional appearance, egged on by its supreme accomplice, marzipan. But last Saturday, chocolate made a comeback, fighting its way back to the top of the tree and riding once more firmly upon my waist.

Gingham is an Indonesian word which has come into English via Dutch; I just thought you'd like to know that. When I was at school it was used to make the girls' summer uniforms. I don't know whether that's still the case but it does turn up in the better sort of teashop or English country gathering as a table cloth. Cotton, not plastic or throwaway paper - they do things properly amongst the sunny hills of Herefordshire.

Diagonals

A little over a year ago I started selling images through an online stock photography site called Istockphoto. Although there’s little monetary reward, the egotistical input has been very satisfying with a total of over 1100 sales as of today. One concern I had about going down this route was that it would alter the way I take photographs and lead me to only look for images that had some commercial value. Although there is some truth in this, I can still persuade myself to take pictures purely for the pleasure of doing so. Most of the images I make in churches fall into this category as, with minor exceptions such as some of organ pipes that I’ve sold, ecclesiastical imagery is a non-starter.

So today’s offering. It was taken inside a church but is not overtly religious. The composition appealed to me but it is not, I would imagine, of commercial interest; with a figure in it, it might be but I didn’t have one handy. What I like about it are the strong diagonals, the mix of light and shade and the graduation of the sky tones in the window from white at the horizon to a deeper blue in the firmament above. All arty nonsense but without it the amount of pretentious claptrap floating around in the world would be so much the less.