Our beautiful farm is stepping into its most beautiful garb - light, lacy, luminescent leaves, newly unfurled on the trees.  Spring blossom makes dark branches a graceful backdrop.  You can see why the Japanese hold cherry blossom festival, and party as the petals drop on their picnics.  The hedgerows explode with Queen Anne’s Lace, cow parsley, white umbrella flowers on long stalks that suddenly make the lanes very narrow.  After it rains the heavy flowerheads lean in and brush your car, leaving petals on the side.  The birds get busy nest building and egg laying: not the peregrine falcon that the pair of goshawks nesting over the hill devoured.  The peregrine was being trained, but escaped from the next village, but got no further than here.
 

So I was scrolling through the Culture blog roll and came across a post by Eilis that I must have 'hopped' over: http://www.culturecheesemag.com/blog/eilis_restaurant_week

'Welsh Rarebit' or 'Welsh Rabbit' happens to be scrumptious, if done right. A beer, cheese, mustard and spice 'mess' melted on top of bread and broiled to impart a crispy caramelized crust. We came up with an idea for a panini at rubi's cafe (where I am the manager/monger/chef) and it was an instant hit and is currently a standing menu item. It took a little bit of tweaking to get the flavor down. A British gentleman protested, "It has to have more mustard! It has to burn your nostrils when you eat it! And you must only use Coleman's!" I didn't get that carried away with the mustard but I dusted some more Coleman's in.

I just can't get the image out of my head of shoes made of cheese, so I've just GOT to blog about it.

The MailOnline posted this piece yesterday: A fashion student from Bath Spa University designed and made a pair 'Jimmy Cheese' shoes using bread and West Country cheddar, and they will be displayed at the 2011 Royal Bath & West Show to promote the region's cheese.

"The budding fashionista sculpted ablock of cheddar to make the heel, and a stale cheese sandwich was used for part of the platform sole. The front of the shoe was moulded from more cheddar and extra cheese was melted and shaped to embellish the design."

I'm so impressed...and I am dying to try them on. Of course, I can't stop wondering if they do smell and if they are comfortable...and if they actually would stand up to a night on the town (not in rainy London, I'm guessing...) At any rate, it's certainly peaked my attention and that was what it was the point, right?