This has to be the most entertaining programme that I have ever watched; and I do mean 'EVER.' Every single episode delivers surprise, humour, pathos and intelligence backed up by a cracking storyline. It completely enthralls and entertains me as no other programme does. As you can tell - I simply love it! If you have managed to miss this superb drama series then I thoroughly and unreservedly recommend that you add the box set to your cart and checkout a whole load of enthralling and engrossing entertainment.

http://www.cbs.com/shows/the_good_wife/

As a hobby breeder of alpacas I have reached the point where it is difficult to sell the males and so we have decided to eat them instead! This is an issue that is facing the alpaca breeding industry as a whole; up until now the focus has been on fleece production but my own experience with this, is that with just 22 animals it just does not pay. And so they end up as expensive pets instead! Last week we had our first taste of alpaca meat, a difficult experience when you are eating "Snowy" but once I had put that aside, actually very interesting. We have had to apply trial and error to hit upon the best cooking method as it is a very lean, clean meat and certainly long, slow cooking with some added moisture is the key. I was surprised to discover that it tastes just like beef; in fact you would think it was beef. The animal that we were eating was two years old which we felt made it a little tough, so next time (yes we are planning a next time!) we will try one that is around twelve months.

In the meantime if anyone wants to buy some lovely white, live male alpacas, drop me an email……….

to buy alpaca meat (from a reputable source) -

http://www.hendrafarmcottages.co.uk/hendrafarm/alpaca-meat.html

A few years ago I was lucky enough to go on a holiday to Iceland where one of our excursions was onto the glacier cap covering Eyjafjallajokull, the now infamous volcano that erupted in 2010. Somehow, interconnected in a ring of volcanoes, is Katla, a positive sleeping giant by comparison, which, by all accounts may be waking up! The last time anything similar happened was in 1783 involving another close neighbour to Katla - Laki, which saw a fissure style eruption so devastating, with sulphur dioxide spewed high into the atmosphere and carried down over Europe and North America, that as many as six million died globally as crops failed and livestock were killed. As this gas combined with moisture in the air it converted to sulphuric acid which burnt people's skin and mouths and was inhaled into the delicate lung tissue.

Spectacular sunsets were recorded, in common with other volcanic eruptions over the centuries, most famously by William Ashcroft on the Thames at Chelsea a century later, following the eruption of Krakatoa, who commented that he, “could only secure in a kind of chromatic shorthand the heart of the effect, as so much of the beauty of afterglow consisted in concentration.”

I must confess to a frisson of excitement at the possibility of witnessing such an event during my lifetime, after all, better that than to sit about worried sick about something over which we have no control whatsoever!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laki

http://en.vedur.is/