Cavolo Nero One of the most versatile and handsome vegetables standing majestically in my vegetable garden this winter is the Italian cabbage, Cavolo Nero. It’s thin, long dark green leaves are the essential part of Ribollita, the famous Tuscan bean and cabbage soup, made a day in advance and “re-boiled”. Yesterday’s minestrone!

Dear Sally, That is a long time I did not come back to you but I have been computer less for a long time! The weather had been terrible in Brittany since before Christmas. Huge storms and now snow and blizzard and each time we have a storm we have power cuts and the computer…

New Years Day 2005 came in on the heals of the wind. Dogs and I walked up to the highest fields and watched the clouds scudding across an angry sky. The wind blew so hard I could lean back against it without falling. Th

Autumn is suddenly fading into winter. The wind blows, leaves fall like huge crispy golden snow flakes and colour vanishes from the valley. The smell of the wet, fallen leaves takes me back, in a split second, to my London childhood, to Kensington Gardens, the Round Pond, The Broad Walk, Christopher Robin, Peter Pan. There…