Never had broad beans this high before!

Just the one chance today for a blip. Will you just look at the height of those broad beans? Getting up to 6 foot tall. So different to last year when the cold spring held back their growth. Hoping for a bumper crop over the next few weeks. Spent the best part of the afternoon down at the allotment, dealing with all the weeds which have grown vigorously in the last week. How do they do it?

Whilst I was working on railway revision then a report for the prison service Susan went out to pick elderflowers for this year's elderflower champagne. The elderflowers are a whole month earlier this year as I was picking them on my birthday last year. So before we went to the allotment I started the process of making the champagne with water, sugar, lemon and white wine vinegar. It'll now stew for about 5 days before bottling. Hopefully this year I will not be creating hand grenades with the bottles. It's a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe in case you're interested.