Wednesday 6 August 2008

Pika

Bertie's dad has a very large piece of land a mile or so away from the house, which they call la campagne. Well, it may have been the countryside once upon a time but modern life has caught up and it is now next to a very busy main road and velodrome. He goes there every morning (and afternoon when chatty relatives are in town!) and works exceedingly hard (impressive, given his 70 something years) then returns with...
mangos, starfruit, passion fruit, guava, pineapple, bananas, plantain, local cherries, cithere, limes, sugar cane...
yams, sweet potato, malanga, manioc, madere (all some kind of tuber)...
lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, hot peppers, carrots, breadfruit, coconuts...
and no doubt various other things I have forgotten.

Today we took the girls along to visit, but it took them a while to get into it as there were no toys (to quote LissaLou!). We told her to use her imagination and eventually she did!

It is beautifully fresh there, a lovely change from the warmth at home. Bertie helped his dad do some work - his company is ever so much appreciated! We played with one of the cousins, visited the pigs, fed the hens coconut, gave the cow some water, took lots of photos which I look forward to putting on. There are two kittens, the other three were eaten by a dog whose owners foolishly let him off the lead.

When we got home, Bertie's dad complains (rightly) that people don't touch the food and it goes to waste, so I made the most delicious fruit salad which has become our favourite snack. It overcomes the problem with exotic fruit that they are a lot of effort to prepare to eat and very juice and messy. I am constantly being told everything stains, one day I will get out the vinegar and see if it can work its wonders even with coconut water or kennet juice!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello!!!! The fruit sounds amazing! In Musselburgh, nobody has heard of fruit...is that something you deep fry?

Our wee cottage is just lovely - we're the gatehouse to the main school and we're lucky enough to have a little garden surrounded by a fence - nice and safe! Our bedroom is opposite the racecourse, so Elspeth likes to stand at the window and shout "hiya" to everybody passing! She's such a comic!

You are very brave and wonderful - well done for getting there and well done for keeping your family happy and healthy during such a major transition!

We've not got any internet access at the moment, so bye bye for now - I'll be back in touch once we're on line!

Tons and tons of luvvin' to ya!

Anonymous said...

You mean there was no bouncy castle for LL!! You reminded me off the Zoo visit.

Anonymous said...

That last one was me - don't know why it said anonymous.
Why did you call that post 'pika'? Did you see some? WikiP says they prefer cold climates

Anonymous said...

Wow. Sounds great! All that healthy fruit ... I could do with some here! Brings back memories of the fruit salads Che James used to make at Kachere ... Do you have these huge smelly fruits in Gwada? I think they were called Mpasa or Mpaso ... hang on, weren't they Jack fruit??? Now I'm confused. Anyway, do you have them? Sounds like what you have are much more appetising though!

Anonymous said...

If you have photos of all the fruit I could make a Handa's surprise type book for Alyssa to read - or you could.
have you tried googling 'getting bee stings out' very interesting. Vinegar is one suggestion.