Doves

The pair of collared doves who eat at our bird table appeared this morning with a third. Presumably it's their child. Ailz says pigeons and doves are notably good parents. 

British Justice

The woman who was jailed for five months for accepting a pair of looted shorts from her lodger has been freed on appeal. Instead she gets 75 hours community service (plus the week in jail she's already served). That's better: more proportionate, less vindictive. Some of the sentences that were handed out in the first flush of judicial reaction have been making us look like a panicky third world dictatorship.

Fruit Talk

We have lots of apples- and there are still plenty more on the tree. It's my father-in-law's tree but he isn't eating any. Ailz took some with her on a curtain-buying trip yesterday and handed them out to friends and family. Today I made apple sauce. I make good apple sauce. Cut apples up,  add a generous amount of fresh ginger, cook in orange juice or white wine (whichever is closer to hand), add sugar to taste (I don't add any because we're going low carb). My father-in-law also has a pear tree- and it's loaded  but not yet ready to pick.  I'm not fond of pears. I think they're bland- and I don't know of any way of fixing them I enjoy. His plum tree- which was brilliant last season and the season before- seems to have died.