cod | The Little Room of Rachell

Eating: Mackerel salad with homemade honey, lemon & mustard dressing, sprinkled with 4 different mixed seeds.

Reading: The Crow Trap by Ann Cleeves it’s the first in her Vera Stanhope series. Far, far too good. I’m bleary today as I stayed up reading until 12:15 this morning. Oops!

Looking: at all the colourful photos I took during a recent visit to Waterperry Gardens

Baking: cinnamon buns in May, a few times. It was a very, very tricky month and they were needed to bolster and treat a few special people.

Anticipating: paddling in the sea, eating Cornish pasties for lunch, walks, a cream tea, cold lager shandy, ditto cider, toast & salted butter with marmalade for holiday breakfast, ice creams, chatting to strangers, taking flowery and coastal photos, visiting a favourite garden, zooming down the motorway to sea views and sand!

Watching: Everything I Know about Love on the BBC iplayer. It’s one for when he’s gone fishing!

Smelling: the scent of the Ambre Solaire I’ve just put on. It’s such a nice smell. It’s 25° today. Lovely.

Wearing: shorts & t-shirt

Drinking: cold filtered water. A glassful has just thoughtfully been brought to me outside.

Planning: a return visit to the Cotswold Sculpture Park. I bought May’s issue of Gardeners World magazine from Mags Direct after hearing about the 2-for-1 card, it’s valid for a year. It’s given us a couple of really nice days out, to places we’ve never visited before. We’re planning to take the card away on holiday too.

Repeating: this superb recipe with cod, butterbeans, canned cherry tomatoes, rosemary & parmesan breadcrumbs on top (with my twist of lemon zest.) It’s so tasty and healthy. Recipe from Olive mag website

Buying: my first pair of prescription sunglasses.

From now on I won’t be screwing up my eyes through lenses of cheapy plastic sunglasses and making them tired from lots of reading. I have also bought some better quality sunglasses from Boots.

Visiting: my Aunty with my Mum next week. I love being ‘the young one’ and seeing them together. It feels special. There’s also something that makes me laugh about it too, but I can’t tell you. Sorry.

Loving: the new to me Czech gin Tōsh which was sent to me in a surprise free gin box on Saturday. It’s strongly flavoured, citrus with rosehips and works really well with Fever-Tree original tonic. I’m not a massive fan of it usually, because it’s quite bitter with strong quinine, but this gin complements it well.

May’s box – given free to me in June. Whoop!

Recommending: Craft Gin Club yes I know – again! But every time I include a referral code it’s used. If you also love gin and live in the UK this is for you. The offer is £15 off a box, free delivery and no further commitment. I love it.

Use my referral code to get this offer.

Visiting: a new National Trust property. We went at the weekend. Well, it was completely new to Someone, only new as an adult to me. Chedworth Roman Villa has changed as a visitor experience since I had to complete a worksheet and “Pay attention!” on a school trip.

All from the 4th century. The FOUTH century!

But it was these that made the hairs on my arms stand up:

I recognised and remember liking the dog and cat paw prints which were captured as they wandered around while the tiles were drying, either at the site of the villa, or in nearby Cirencester. But I remember feeling regretful that the cat’s print was not clearer, since I always preferred cats to dogs!