MY WEEK - WALNUTS, HONEY BUT NO WINE

Tree
Each morning I go to look at the little walnut sapling I brought back from the Auverne. Having survived being uprooted from the old tin bath in which it had germinated, the journey back to Blighty wrapped in sacking, and being over-wintered in some very acid compost, which rotted away its few remaining roots, I finally planted it on the lawn as part of the recent gardening operations, where it now stands like an accusing finger.

This week - we are in late May - it put out its first tentative shoot, low down on what one day may be called a trunk. Well, walnuts are not the earliest of birds.

What is curious is that the shoot - completely formed with leaves - is so small that you almost need a magnifying glass to see it. Even on my twig like tree it is disproportionately miniature - like those infant arms that bud out of the mighty chest of Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Moreover, despite my daily coaxing the shoot shows no sign of actually getting any bigger. Other buds are bursting now; I wait with anxiety to see whether they will produce anything bigger. I do hope it grows - for I have pledged it as part of the 'Plant a Billion Trees' campaign. My (very little) bit to help save the planet.

Regime
I am on a new regime - I have forsaken my usual welcome glass with my supper and replaced it with water. This is a great sacrifice.

But having again put on a few pounds in as many days on my recent trip to France, I felt I had to do something drastic. I have always found alcohol to be a great appetiser and after a glass or two I am always hungrier than before.

So after a week of drinking fizzy water what has happened? Well, the weight has come down (a bit) but the biggest change has been an absence of that bloated feeling after eating: the feeling that someone has opened a valve in your feet and your energy has just poured out on the floor.

Usually after supper, I just want to relax, to read the paper or just potter about in the garden. Anything else demands real effort. Now I have regained that energy. Last night I was out cutting the grass until almost dusk.

Funny how these things creep up on you. Alcohol (in moderation) never used to have the effect of knocking me out - of leaving me feeling zonked - especially when I've had a hard day. If suddenly you started feeling zonked after a couple of glasses, you would, I suppose, stop immediately. But when the effect is gradual and irregular you simply accept it as normal. I suppose its age.

I don't intend to give up completely. We have a big barbecue planned on Saturday to celebrate the made-over garden. I shall make sure I indulge then. Wouldn't want to lose the habit after all.

Farm Shop
There's a new Farm Shop just opened in the lovely Vale village of Peterston-super-Ely. J and I have been over there a couple of times. It is full of lovely produce: locally grown vegetables, some of them organic, that remind me of the market gardens of my childhood. They also make quite gorgeous ice cream, marketed under the 'Wild Fig' brand, which left me thinking at first that their display must be very dull with only one flavour. Not true of course, and there are tables to sit outside in the sunshine while you eat it.

But the loveliest things in the whole shop are the jars of honey. For £28 you can buy a great Winnie-the-Pooh size pot of honey. The pot is glass (so you can see there is honey all the way down) and has a great honeycomb in it. The honey inside is a glorious amber through which the sunlight filters and refracts like a crystal. There must be at least a kilo of honey in each pot - but I could never dip into it; the honey pot is simply far too beautiful. Now all I need is £28.