Damson Thursday and a couple of links

Yesterday when I was all energetic after a half day at work and with the prospect of a whole day off today I dragged one friend out to the country after a hard day at the office to evict another friend from the place on the sofa she'd earned after a whole days teaching so that we could go and bother her father who has a damson tree in his garden... I love damsons, I love them more than enough to impose on the good will of anyone who has access to them, and I even love them enough to be sanguine about the fact that I came home with something like 10 kilos of them which turns out to be 5 kilos more than I know what to do with tonight especially know I've run out of jam jars. 

After an exhaustive search of the county revealed that jam jars are apparently more precious than gold (when did it become acceptable to charge £2 or more for an empty jar? I could buy crappy jam and throw it away for less) I was more than grateful to discover that WH Smiths have 'River Cottage Fruit Every Day' in stock (I think this is early) even better they have it quite keenly priced so I didn't feel at all guilty about not being Salt Sugar Smoke' for Damson and Gin jam, this is the perfect jam if, like me, you prefer sweet things with a tart edge and believe that gin is A Very Good Thing (in moderation).

able to come home without a copy. I love River Cottage books almost as much as I love damsons, a River Cottage book with a good selection of recipes for damsons... Well you can imagine how happy I am (there will be ice-cream, for which there is a recipe). Meanwhile it was back to Diana Henry's brilliant '

Out in the wider world Thomas at My Porch has compiled a list of his top 80 most enjoyable novels by women. It's a great list with links to other lists and is an excellent reminder of just how many great books there are out there (by both men and women). I really like that Thomas had a list of 80 books that had scored more than 8 out of 10 on his personal rating system - somehow a satisfactory sort of number. I see too that Lyn at I Prefer Reading has been reading Georgette Heyer... And not just any Heyer but 'Sylvester' which judging from the comments is everybody's favourite (mine as well).