If I told you I'd have to kill you.

That is how seriously the French take their mushroom foraging.

I found another three cep mushrooms on Tuesday but I can not tell you where as I am bound by blood oath never to reveal their secret foresty location.

We are intending to eat them gluttonously this evening in an omlette.

I put aside some time today to start conserving all my dried herbs, so far a large jar of dried parsely, a jar of dill seeds, a jar of coriander seeds and three smaller jars of dried chopped chillies.

The cold weather we had a week or so ago which necessitated in lighting the Rayburn left me with space in the warming oven to completely dry out all the seed heads. There is just fennel now left to do, but with the recent Indian summer I have not been lighting any fires, so they are still outside in the garden.

The smallest of the foraged ceps - I am thinking that perhaps one omlette tonight, and a thick creamy mushroom sauce for tomorrow.

Poor Thea - she really hates 'shrooms.

Never mind - I have her hard at work in the garden today, sanding off the new bureau she has been given, which, being a teenager, she is obviously not happy with in its natural wood coloured state and which she wants painted black for her room.


She is of course being ably assisted by Ferguson.