Pea and ham soup

Ingredients

1 tablesp oil
8oz bacon pieces
8oz onion chopped
6oz dried green split peas (Sainsbury’s) soaked overnight
2oz frozen peas
8oz potatoes diced
1½ pints water
1 stock cube
seasoning

Method

Fry bacon and onion for 5 mins
Add peas, water and stock cube and boil rapidly for 10 mins then simmer for a further 40 mins. Add potatoes and cook a further 20 mins. Remove some bacon pieces with slotted spoon and keep aside. Puree soup and adjust seasoning then return bacon to pan, add frozen peas and simmer a further 5 mins.

Serves 4

Saved again after a funny smell indicated all was not well inside our computer,it just decided to close itself down and give of a burning smell upon investigation by the wizard (my mate Mot) who has no sense of smell! and didn’t find anything wrong but we decided to change the power supply which is what we thought was suspect.A new one was fitted at double the wattage and seems to be OK up to now (fingers crossed).Thanks must go to Jean (that’s Mots boss) for patience shown during this operation (” ta”) as she has been installing a new Kiln for her china painting and glass work,if you had just waited a little longer Jean before you bought it you may have been able to pick up a cheap one from Royal Worcester!!!.

Last but not least is the little fella enjoying the autumn son.

Four days away at Kielder for our autumn break went down really well,three days of sunshine and one day confined to the motor-home with heavy rain and it was a little cold at times too.Lots of changes taking place especially on the path around the lake with another section opened just in time for us to explore,taking us from Leaplish to Kielder village along the lake shore and over the new feature bridge at Lewis Burn (see pics ) a nice steady bike ride of about 6 or so miles.Top spot for the break has to go to the Red squirrels great entertainment up to five at a time coming to the feeding station some of which are quite bad tempered showing there disgust when not able to get on the feeders. The local birds were all looking in good condition even the black and white Crow but you have to look hard (more pics).