Will Bob lose weight?

Wednesday April 13th. The paragraphs in my last blog were removed automatically as soon as I pressed the 'publish' button. I don't know why this should happen but I will try today to remember to note the end of a paragraph with some dashes and willpress the enter button twice between paragraphs. If someone can give me the answer to this problem, I would be very grateful.----------- For those of you who might be worrying about the safety of sea food, especially crabs, shrimps and oysters, as a result of my last blog concerning Dave Robicheaux, I can reassure you that there doesn't appear to be any danger to health. By a strange coincidence there was an article in the New England Journal of Medicine April 7th. which gave numerous references to the Louisiana Department of Health Websites in an article on the Gulf Oil Spill. From the safety point of view most of the deaths and casualties resulted from the original explosion. The health of the animals living in the oily water is a very different matter, but if shrimp and crab is on sale in restaurants in New Orleans and environs, it is probably quite safe though apparently the taste may not be quite right! The Guardian had an article on the oil spill today so this blog is way ahead of the media--as usual.------------- I have just finished the latest Michael Connelly thriller to appear in paperback called 'The Scarecrow'. I suppose it is quite good because there were a couple of moments when I had to stop reading because it became rather scary and I knew that something unpleasant was about to happen. I felt I needed to be in a different frame of mind to continue. I don't remember anyone eating a proper meal in the space of about a week's action (hamburgers don't count). Connelly's leading men all have a problem with women. There is always a lack of trust beteen the couples and you never get the feeling the relationships are going to last! ---------- War and Peace has arrived. Nearly two thousand pages of small type and no pictures is going to tax my powers of concentration and memory. Stanantel think I should have got it on tape to listen to on my way to and from work but so far the journey has been quite enjoyable and will probably remain so provided I don't have to drive by night. The Brecon beacons look magnificent even on a windy day in rain. The only problem I encountered was that the car heater wouldn't work today and by the time I reached Brecon, the water temperature gauge was at maximum. It has never crossed my mind to check the water in the overflow bottle as I thought it was a closed system that couldn't use up water. How wrong I was! The system was almost completely empty so I poured in about five pints of water and also a couple of pints of oil into the approprate reservoirs and got home without a hitch. I hope there isn't a slow leak in the system which will cause another unexpected panic. I plan to take extra supplies of water in the car from now on. Its been rather embarrassing because I have lectured various children about the importance of proper car maintenance. Thank goodness that a nice lady in a Brecon petrol garage knew what the problem was likely to be and then having proved her point, knew the cure. The car heater was then working normally.----------- It has been very satisfying to have the first crop from the asparagus bed. I like to think that it tastes better than anything one can buy in the shops but actually all asparagus tastes the same to me. The broccoli season will not last much longer but it has been very productive for the past month. After all the effort its nice to discover that it is well worth growing from a financial point of view. The other good crop on the allotment now is rhubarb which is tender and sweet(ish) at this time of year.----------

Tuesday April 5th. I haven't repeated the pate because it dictated my meals for too long a time. I worried that it would not keep for too long and it didn't seem to be the the sort of substance that would freeze well or perhaps unfreeze well. There have been a few more cakes but the problem is that it is difficult to judge how long to cook them and it seems easy to burn the ouside without the core being fully cooked. They are of course completely delicious and don't last long. It is possible that my baking endeavours will cool down when I return to work in the near future though I won't be working at weekends or covering nights so a weekly cake is still very likely. Gardener is a mystery to me so I dont know who to ask to borrow 'The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro'. I have to admit that I have never heard of the author Antonio Tabucchi. He may love food but is his work crime or detective fiction? Anyway its nice to know that someone is reading the blog. It is interesting that there is now a heading on the page after signing in that reveals the number of hits the blog gets; very few actually. A rather meanspirited review in the Guardian of Henning Mankell's latest Wallender thriller called'The Troubled Man' went out of its way to slag off other long running detective series. It included comments about James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux whom I must defend if only because it all takes place in and around New Orleans and regular meals are eaten which clearly reflect the cuisine of that locality. I don't know how much the oil leak in the gulf will have affected the crab and shrimp catches in that area but they feature regularly through his stories,eaten with 'dirty' rice. Other favourites are 'beignets' (doughnuts) and 'boudin' (sausages of cajun rice). The setting of these stories makes a refreshing change from most of American crime fiction which seems to be mainly based in NY, Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles. Furthermore they are quite good stories though I don't know why so many detectives seem to be flawed in some way, in Robicheaux' case by an alcoholic binge in every tale. I have commented in the past in these blogs about Scandinavian crime fiction and my comments have been recently reiterated in the press apropos 'The Killing'. However, John Crace's dissection of the latest Mankell in the'Digested Read' article in the Guardian made any further review superfluous. I have continued to read the only Australian crime writer I know, namely Peter Temple. His investigators also seem to carry some deep scars from their previous occupations in the army or the police. I have one major complaint about his works and that is that there are too many characters with similar names and I have to keep looking back to see who is who. This doesn't bode well for my plan to read 'War and Peace' which has a cast of hundreds often with several names each! Return to work will inevitably affect the time I spend reading and on the allotment but perhaps I will just become more efficient. The allotment is in good condition and I am now digging parts that have been under thick black polythene sheeting for several years. I have peas in pots in a friend's greenhouse which will be planted out in a week or two and then it will be time to plant some early runners in pots. I hope to cut some asparagus this week and there is a great crop of purple sprouting broccoli. Rhubarb is very tender and quite sweet and plentiful and the recent rain has worked wonders on the spinach. All things therefore are looking very encouraging there which is more than I can say for my weight.