BBQ on the Bales

Could we have had a more quintessentially English afternoon on Sunday. We invited James, Henry, Lucy and Hannah over for lunch and decamped into the field to laze around on the bales, gazing out over the Elysian fields of Bedfordshire.

Dad built our trailer decking when I was doing my finals 4 years ago. They now look like they have been there since the days of Zeus. I remember helping out thinking that I really should be doing some revision instead. Dad got all the wrong screws and it took 5 times longer than it should have!

We pottered around under the poplar trees chatting mainly about food. By mainly I mean, completely. At one point someone mentioned something non food related and they got scowled at!

Mum had been to our brilliantly named local butcher, Browns, and come back with a vast array of BBQ friendly meats. Sticky BBQ ribs were fun.



As were the orangey chicken pieces.



Mum's lavender and garlic chicken slithers that tasted like Provence after a bad forest fire. Perfect! It's just a shame I didn't get a chance to photograph it as it was delicious, as well as being a really original idea.

Cowie loved the roasted vegies...



But the star of the show was Mum's special rose petal ice cream. The flowers had been picked from from the garden - Gertrude Jeykel I think - and lobbed straight in Mum's new ice cream maker. 25 minutes after Mum popped inside she emerged with a metal churner and the world's most gorgeous ice cream.



Absolutely perfect with strawberries. If I was Waitrose or M&S I would be beating down our door to sign Mum up to make her own range of Kathy Brown Edible Flower Ice Creams. I'm sure she's got a few more recipes up her sleeves!

I love England in the Summer. And I feel so lucky to be able to pop back to Stevington and feel like I wouldn't want to live anywhere else in the whole world.