Summer nights ...

Do you ever wish that summer would never end? I do. 

One of the many things I love about this season is how it never gets totally dark. The sky turns a dark, inky indigo, not the usual jet black from other times of the year. And you can go walking in the woods after twilight to listen to the creatures that come out after dark. Emi comes with me, but he's a bit scared of the dark. He likes to draw me into involved conversations. We talk about aliens and what kind of dinosaurs used to live in this part of Devon. In fact we talk about anything at all that will take his mind off his fear of the night. 

As the twilight darkens the bats come out and swoop around us. Sometimes we hear the big dog fox who lives in the orchard. On nights like tonight he enjoys a good bark at the moon. I think he needs to find himself a girlfriend, but that's a whole other story. And if we leave our nocturnal wanderings until really, really late we sometimes catch a glimpse of the barn owls. They appear like phantoms out of the night and they sound like nothing else in the world of the living ... . 

All the best for now,

Bonny x

Dino rampage at the Eden Project, Cornwall

Calling all dino fans - or perhaps, more accurately, calling the mums and dads of all dino fans! If you've got a child who's mad about the big prehistoric lizards I've got the perfect day out for you: down in Eden they've brought the dinos back from extinction, and they're running amok through the perfectly manicured flowerbeds. It's all a bit crazy ... but it's guaranteed to delight.

Emi has had one of his best chums down for a few days to stay with us in deepest, darkest Devon. Both boys are mad about dinos, so when I asked them what they'd like to do I got a list that had a predictably pre-historic theme to it: a trip to the Jurassic coast was mentioned, and so was the dino rampage down at Eden. Emi had picked up a leaflet about it in town, stored it away and then waited for the perfect opportunity to suggest it as a day-out.

Malteser squares for tea time ...

Emi has just had one of his school friends down to stay with us in Devon for a few days. They bonded originally over a shared fossil fascination, so much of our time has been  dinosaur-themed. We haven't done anything extravagant, but we've enjoyed long country walks with the Wonder Dog, feeding the chooks and making friends with our bovine neighbours who've moved into the cow paddock down the lane.

One of the country rituals that our little visitor from London approved of whole-heartedly was afternoon tea. In my world everything stops for tea, and my world always looks just a little bit better after a nice cup of Rosy Lee.

Now as everyone knows a cup of tea on its own is just too ... wet. It's calling out for a nice biscuit or a bit of cake. These Malteser Squares fit the bill perfectly. They're from an old recipe from my own childhood that my mum used to make for me when I had friends home for tea after school. And you know in all my years I've yet to meet a person who doesn't like Maltesers. Sure there are lots of chocolate snobs out there who'll sneer at the humble honey-combed chocolate-covered balls, but just watch them carefully and you'll find that none of these self-professed foodies is above snaffling a few when they think no one's watching.

Anyway, enough of my rich and philosophical observations on the human condition, here's the recipe for a super simple no-bake classic that's guaranteed to go down a treat at teatime:

Coldharbour Mill: a little piece of knitting history ...

The other day I popped by a wool spinning mill with more history than you could shake a stick at. The Coldharbour Mill in Uffculme, Devon (just beside junction 27 on the M5) is a little chunk of the West Country's industrial heritage. It's been doing its thing, spinning wool from raw fleeces, for more than 200 years. At first it was powered by a huge water wheel, then they upgraded to steam. These days they mostly run on mains electricity, but on certain days of the year they fire up their huge beam engine and return to the age of steam once again.

Coldharbour Mill, Uffculme, Devon

How to waterproof your seed drill labels ...

The other day I was mooching around a rather fabulous garden, where they had everything organised and cared for to a level that I can only aspire to. I happened upon these seed drills where they'd recycled some used water bottles to water-proof their drill labels. It's such a simple but effective idea.

Attach your label to a stick, and then house it in an upturned plastic bottle, and the rain's not going to wash away your ink: genius!

All the best for now,

Bonny x