Enjoyable Dinner and Trumped Swedes?

Bitter Orange Truffle dusted with  Cacao powder, before cutting into cubes

'Sweet Things' was my reference today to find a suitable accompaniment to after dinner coffee for this evening. I hot-footed it to Tesco to buy the ingredients for 'Bitter Orange Truffles'. Three bars of dark chocolate, a pot of cream, home made caramel and the concentrated juice of five oranges underwent that magical transformation into cubes of sheer indulgence, dusted with Cacao powder. Just one or two were enough to give Jane and me a chocolate rush. With over two thirds of the calorific bombs fitting onto two party plates for later, there was enough so share with two of our neighbouring families, so that we would not suffer a death by chocolate from the remainder.

I tackled focus stacking the diatom photos taken yesterday, trying out the BBC Spanish language learning site, 'Vida Loca' inbetween. Not sure if the photos are any good this time, but at least I can placate a frying-pan bearing Spanish woman when cornered on a balcony with 'Soy amigo de Teresa!'

The highlight of the day was dinner hosted by Heidi Lichterman and LvS, with Deanna and Martin Tyson joining us. The three course meal was a tour de force by Heidi's culinary skills, with many ingredients harvested from her garden and chickens. This included lovingly collected saffron, by emasculating individual crocus flowers over a season and carefully drying the harvested stamens, used to flavour our soup first course. The venison joint was not personally culled by Heidi but tasted delicious all the same with the raspberry vinegar. I also really loved the two vegetable sides, a cooked cabbage dish beautifully presented in leaves and a cooked salad of wild rice, baby kale, mushrooms, nuts, chestnuts and plum. Fortunately, there was still space to enjoy the homemade apple pie and ultra-smooth vanilla ice-cream. Our truffles were a full stop with the coffees at the end.

It was LvS who summarised the evening by remarking on the wide range of topics covered before, during and after the meal. The conversation started with recent Banksy work, swirled around politics, sanity, megalomania, and other Trumpisms; travelled back in time to the McArthy area, which had directly affected Heidi's family and saw the dangerous similarities to the present day. We shook our heads at the irrational progress of Brexit; pondered the different generational impact of social media; and debated the merits and emotional impact of handwriting and calligraphy.

Yet it was only as we were about to leave that we heard of a real personal achievement by one of the round. Martin Tyson had recently successfully completed a half marathon in just over 2h!

Re Trump generated fake news, minor story on his mentioning a terrorist event that happened yesterday in Sweden, much to the consternation of the Swedes themselves, who asked 'What event?'

Brexit bill to be discussed in the Upper house in the coming week with initial shots being fired by Lord Mandelson, warning that May may expect some push back.