Chocolate and what??

Chocolate avocado mousse. It is a thing, apparently. And not just a thing as in weird recipes you find on wacky websites - no, this was in a genuine published cookery book. Entitled, since you ask, River Cottage Light & Easy by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. Although I'm sure you can find it on any number of wacky websites too.

So I had a couple of avocados that had been sitting in the fridge for ages, and I was convinced they were about to dissolve into slushy puddles if I didn't use them soon. Of course, one of them turned out to be rock hard. Another root in the fridge produced about 100ml of pureed tinned pears, left from an experiment in making pear and elderflower ice lollies. So, into the food processor went the one ripe avocado, 3 tbsp of cocoa powder, the pear mush and a couple of teaspoons of honey. One good whizz later, it had amalgamated into a pretty good mousse-like mixture that tasted much more like chocolate than avocado. Success!

Come dessert time, each of us got a little cupful. Each of us? Uh-huh. You can see where this is going, can't you? Want to see what a baby can do with two spoonfuls of chocolate mousse?

This.

And this.

How about this?

Man, this is good.

Don't forget about me!

Um... success?

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One hundred churches

About the middle of January, I was walking to school one afternoon when it occurred to me that I must have visited quite a few churches on my explorations. I started counting them. But I quickly ran out of fingers, so when I got home I plotted them on Google Maps. Not only was the number much higher than I was expecting, it was also tantalisingly close to one hundred. Only a few dozen to go. So of course, every walk since then has had to include at least one church! Last Monday I visited my hundredth church: St John the Baptist, Dethick. It was a beautiful little 13-century building with an unusual tower - I was glad it had claimed the 100 spot. I haven't been inside every church. Sometimes they were locked; sometimes I was in a hurry and didn't try the door. St Leonard's Church in Alton had bellringers practicing, and I almost interrupted a funeral when I stuck my head through the door of St Mary's, Marston-on-Dove. A few, such as St Oswald's, Ashbourne, and St Wys...

Derwent Valley Heritage Way: Steep drops ahead

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Limestone Way - the end! (for now...)

Bonsall is a pretty little village just up the road from Cromford. It was the centre point for my final Limestone Way walk. First I walked one way, back towards Ible, then I walked the other way to Matlock. I started at the fountain and climbed up to a tree in which a mistle thrush was singing loudly (helpfully identified by the Merlin app). A few fields took me across to the hamlet of Slaley. Then there was a pleasant walk through the woods, which dropped steeply to my left down to the Via Gellia. At Dunsley Springs the stream went right over the edge. I made my way down more gradually, and then was faced with the long climb up again to the point near Leys Farm where I was rejoining the Limestone Way. Tree down! Rejoining the Limestone Way Once I'd reached the top, it was a very pleasant walk across dry grassy fields. There were signs of old mining activity, which suddenly made the ground feel less solid under my feet - how many holes were hiding under the turf? Back at Bonsall, ...

Martha's Marvellous Munchies

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