There was a request for the recipe for that carrot cake. Here it is (it even comes with an article attached! Scroll down for the recipe). It’s also in Nigel Slater’s book Tender (which is fantastic and well worth the money). I make it with regular flour instead of self-raising because we don’t have that in the shops – so I add an extra teaspoon of baking powder. I also do without the nuts (allergy) and bake it in only one tin, then make half the amount of icing – it’s delicious and I could eat it on its own, but mascarpone is ridiculously expensive here – and only ice it on the outside. It’s a little labour intensive but so worth it in the end.I’m off to have a piece, left over from our midsummer celebration, right now.

Summer has finally made it here, taking us by surprise. There’s no water left in the rainwater barrel which makes it more difficult to water the greenhouse. I’ll have to start filling the watering can in the bathtub. The tomatoes are coming along nicely (but need so much water!) and, finally, after lots of flowers falling off without setting fruit (I think it was too cold), there’s one tiny baby chilli on my huge chilli plant (Ancho Zac, a mild variety). And my aubergine plant is flowering! Purple!