Saturday 8th July - random non-sequituers

 Professor Tim Spector is keen that we should all eat 30 different types of plant per week. I think the newspaper headline

'Eating 30 plants per week will cure all your ills' is probably a vast overstatement of what he actually said. I have learned not to go past the headlines on news items such as 'insert name of minor celebrity here gives update on their devastating diagnosis' when it turns out they have sprained their ankle or some such.

Thirty plants seems a lot, so I kept a running total this week. It seems that seeds, spices, vinegar, pickles, coffee, tea, chocolate can all be included in the list;

so my breakfast of fruit-nut-and-seed muesli contains raisins, sultanas (are they the same?) apricots, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, almonds, hazelnuts, oats, wheat and barley. Not in great quantities, but I eat a portion of this most mornings. This with a cup of coffee gives me 11 items.

Over the course of the week my meals and snacks included brazil nuts, macadamia nuts, sugar snap peas, garden peas (I think they are different because of the pods), potatoes, rice, asparagus, raspberries, tomatoes, lettuce, pea shoots, baby spinach leaves, red peppers, olives, jalapeno peppers, chilli peppers, lemon, lime, pine nuts, cucumber, apple, basil, parsley, chocolate, tea, edmame beans, black beans, white beans, borlotti beans, canelli beans, ginger, indian spices, mushrooms, onions, spring onions, garlic, and cauliflower.    Around another 38 items. I haven't counted in today yet - indeed, I stopped counting!

It appears that it is not the quantity so much as the variety that matters. No problem then!

Dead-heading sweet peas is an odd sort of task. I went out yesterday and did all three pots as comprehensively as I could. Today it looked as though I hadn't been near them, and I came away with another handful. On closer inspection I saw that they hide their little seed pods inside the faded petals. Aha! You won't catch me that way again!

I brought a few stems indoors yesterday, but today the petals have faded and even have seed pods! The other flowers are coriander from the herb pot and a small bit of erigeron.

I adored 'Mrs 'Arris goes to Paris' and read it in one sitting. Paul Gallico's writing is so vivid. It feels so full of love... with the message that it's the people, inside the clothes, that really matter. I'm in luck; 'Mrs 'Arris goes to New York' came in the same book. I'm almost afraid to start reading it in case it isn't as good...