Dried Fruit and Christmas Lights

Went to this excellent, amazing food store on Atlantic Avenue and bought lovely dried fruit. Apricots from Turkey and dates from California, dried without sulphur. Yum yum yum. I had to eat the dried figs straight away. And the dried cranberries. I love dried cranberries and they are something that's SO much cheaper in New York.

I then bought some Xmas lights of the type that Debs said that she wanted, and when I got home she'd bought 4 boxes of them. Jeesh, my good ideas didn't work out. But I managed to get some paint thinner. I realise now that hardware stores in NYC are not really like British hardware stores. They are more like chemists and homeware stores, with a little bit of hardware in the corner. Which is why I didn't find a hardware store earlier.

On the way back from Mitch's we walked through picturesque Cobble Hill and he pointed out a plaque on one of the houses saying that Jennie Jerome was born and lived there, that is, Winston Churchill's mother. Nice house. I knew the story because I'd done a dissertation on Randolph Churchill, that is Winston's dad, for my history A level.

Fig tree

I bought a fig tree and planted it today. It looks a fine little thing. Fingers crossed we get lots of figgies.

Hot milk and figs

I do really enjoy a cup of hot milk in the evening. I'm drinking one now while eating a peach off my peach tree and an apple off my apple tree and thinking how wonderful it is in this little patch of land.

Earlier today I ate fig rolls for breakfast. Apparently they were an ancient Egyptian snack and later physicians thought they were really good for the digestion and so were a good treatment for lots of illness. According to Wikipedia, a Mr Charles Roser patented a machine which inserted fig paste into a dough. They're great as they are not really a biscuit and to my mind they make a nice change from the old office biscuit.

I would like to plant a fig tree this autumn. I expect they grow quickly compared to many other fruit trees so I can probably get away with planting a small one and then urging it to hurry up and bear those yummy figgy parcels by serenading it gaily. Is this right?