To pick up the sweet theme again - a nice treat for young and old alike, and a recipe that requires a healthy disregard for Health and Safety, as it involves Hot Things. You have been warned.

Ingredients:

8-10 small apples - coxes or russets are good. (I do mean small - you want more candy and less apples!)

One stout kebab stick per two apples

A greased baking tray (or use baking parchment)

1/2 lb granulated sugar

1/8 pt water

Pinch tartaric acid (cream of tartar)

Method:

Make sure the apples are clean and dry, then starting at the stalk end, push half a kebab stick almost though the core. Wipe off any juices.

Put the sugar and water in a heavy pan with the tartaric acid, stir gently till sugar dissolves, then boil hard without stirring till the syrup is just turning a gentle straw colour (145 degrees C on your thermometer). Take off the heat, and twirl each apple in the toffee, allow to drain for a second, then put on the tray to cool.

If any toffee is left over, pour it out and break up when cold.

Eat as soon as they are cool: the combination of glassy toffee and cold sweet apple is magic. Leave them a few hours at this damp time of year, and you'll have dripping browning apples to look forward to!

To make more grown-up ones, you can leave the toffee for a few seconds more till it's darker - but it continues to cook off the heat, so don't overdo it or you have black bitterness to look forward to.

The TV licensing authorities clearly believe I tell lies and receive TV signals gratuitously and illegally because their records indicate that we don't have a TV licence and therefore we must clearly be in the wrong. I had a red-edged letter from them yesterday telling me my premises did not have a licence and if I didn't get one I would be breaking the law and all manner of punishment would be meted out for my appalling crime.

It seems it is up to me to telephone them and tell them we do not own a television. I take huge exception to the high handed and accusatory tone of the letter and, left to my own devices I would ignore it and let them pass the matter to their 'Enforcement Agency' which is the next step they threaten to take if they do not hear from me by 23rd Oct. Richard however is wary of upsetting these types and has said he will ring them.

I consider it a hugely depressing sign of the society in which we live that such zealotry is displayed by a mere TV licensing agency, yet old folk are left to die of neglect because they just don't appear on the radar, tax avoidance by the wealthy and big business is almost acceptable and government shoulders are just shrugged at stolen pensions; but then, they're alright Jack, aren't they?

I think my sis will confirm that I am normally of a cheery disposition, but sometimes the overwhelming idiocy of authority and human behaviour in general sends me into a spiral of despair and no small amount of splenetic outrage. It achieves nothing, I know.

I think it's time to get my coat.

Something of a more cheery nature next time

Seen in the recent Bridport Open Art exhibition, on a card next to an exhibit:

"Julie Price
Mary's Bakery
Mixed Media
NFS
Evangelical cookies and pasties to order"

And they have just unveiled a crack in the floor of the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern - which symbolises the rift in modern society. Appropriately, the sculptor is a Colombian - hence the crack, no doubt. What a hoot.

See here

I am fervently hoping that a guerilla activist from the HSE will come along and place hazard warning tape, plus those jolly orange netting barriers on pigtails, each side, to stop the general public falling down the hole.

I and my co-author spent a most delightful past Saturday in warm sunshine walking across the fantastic limestone 'pavements' in Lyme Bay, and were able to go farther than usual as it was a particularly low seasonal tide. The rocks were, of course, embedded with fabulous fossils everywhere. Gazing at them and trying to absorb the fact that their remains still exist millions of years after they lived is amazing. Well it amazes me anyhow, but the gazing was kept fairly brief as I was, I acknowledge, overly nervous about the speed of the tide coming in from its low spot despite calm assurances from my sis.

Above: ammonite pavement; below: shale and limestone layers on Pinhay beach. No herons though

Of course there was the usual plastic detritus washed up on the beach to spoil things and I don't think I shall ever be able to reconcile the awe-inspiring stuff with which nature can come up and the self-absorbed stupidity and resulting destruction wrought on this planet by the human race. I acknowledge (for a second time) that it is a thoroughly unoriginal observation however.

Anyhow, amongst the normal seabirds flapping about the place, we were surprised and delighted to see three large herons flying languorously, as they do, along the water's edge. They did land on some fairly slippery rocks, it appeared, but seemed to keep their footing. I hope they don't mind salty fish.

I might add following the previous post that we were conveyed to the location in my W reg Fiat Punto which as far as I know is currently lichen free, but extra weight in said vehicle notwithstanding, its small engine meant a very slow journey in very high gears (or do I mean low gears? - first or second anyhow) up the exceptionally mountainous roads of Lyme Regis. I also think that due to all the fossils about, gravity is stronger in those parts too.