The cherry blossom is falling now. It's been a spectacular year for blossom - not just the cherry trees but also apple, pear and peach. This year, with Spring being so late, they all flowered at once.

We're hoping the bountiful blossom, so late in the frost season, might mean a good year for fruit. In the meantime, we've been indulging in what the Japanese call 'hanami' - viewing the cherry blossom (sakura).

The cherries bracketing the entrance to the courtyard have dropped their blossom in a thick carpet. Sometimes, sitting in the living room, I'd see the blossom falling outside and think for a moment that it was a flurry of snow.

The courtyard looks a little like it did in Winter, when we couldn't drive out past our gate because of the snow and ice. But the impression doesn't last in the wonderfully warm weather we've been having. In fact, it's more like someone held a wedding in the courtyard without telling us. Even the car looks like it's been part of the procession.

The current foodie fad would have you believe that 'good food' is all about exotic ingredients and clever-dick techniques. And the supermarkets would tell you that it's about fancy labels on over-packaged, processed foods.

In fact, throughout history, the best food is to be found among the peasant cuisines where people use simple ingredients, cooked by simple methods, but with imagination. And because this food is eaten by, well, peasants, it's very inexpensive.

That's the kind of thinking that has gone into Trish's new book, Make Do & Cook (available now in print and Kindle e-book editions from WebVivant Press).

The book is all about cutting the amount you spend on food while still enjoying delicious and nutritious meals.

The secret lies in understanding the food you eat. Instead of ready-prepared foods - which may contain who-knows-what preservatives and colouring, and always involve expensive processing and packaging - the book focuses on basic ingredients and how you can make the most of them.

There's nothing difficult here. The majority of the 100 recipes are quick and easy to make. And you don't need fancy equipment - just some basic items that the book lists for you.

The important thing is to start with good ingredients, and Trish takes you through how to buy and prepare them. So while the starting point for each meal may be basic, the end results are tasty and impressive.

What's more, the techniques, tips and recipes in the book are as useful, and as money-saving, whether you're cooking for a whole family or just yourself.

»  For more information, visit the Make Do & Cook page at WebVivant Press »

Savvy Shopping

As well as cooking the food, Make Do & Cook also gives you invaluable tips on shopping, budgeting and menu planning. Indeed, you'll probably make back the cost of the book the first time you do the weekly shop.

Many of these tips have been adapted into a free e-book, Make Do & Cook: Savvy Shopping, available for download in PDF and ePub formats from the WebVivant Press site.

One of the benefits of having the ground covered with snow is the picture it gives you of the local wildlife - and not so wild life. Animals leave traces in the snow of their daily, and nightly, activities.

Take the footprints on the right. We think this track was made across our courtyard by a pheasant. The chasse (the local hunt) has established a pheasant enclosure in the woodland near our house. The idea is that it's a safe, protected environment for the pheasants to breed and raise their young, so that they can fly off into the surrounding countryside and get their heads blown off there.

We often get pheasants on our land. The winding, apparently aimless track left by this bird confirms what we've always suspected: pheasants are stupid. The other thing that struck us about this track was how fake the imprints seem. It's as though someone has come along with a pheasant stamp.

There was more evidence of pheasant stupidity over at the enclosure itself. Above is the fence that runs around it. You can just make out the bird's track coming down from the top-right corner, outside the fence.

The bird reached the corner of the enclosure and made a right turn to continue following the fence. In the picture on the right you can see how it continued until, after about 100 metres of walking, it suddenly thought, "Wait a minute! I'm a fucking bird!" and took off.

The beating of its wings made a fascinating pattern. We saw this repeated on numerous occasions - strange little snow angels. Below is another - note the pattern on the right side of the picture. The other disruptions in the snow suggest there may have been some sort of encounter:

Others are not so easy to identify. We think the tracks in the left-hand picture below are those of a rabbit. The pairs of marks are the hind feet, the other two the front feet. In the right-hand picture, there seem to be at least two rabbits running the same path. Meeting this track is that of (we think) yet another pheasant. The line in the snow is caused by the dragging tail. Either this bird met the rabbits or encountered their trail. Either way, it decided flying was the safer bet.

 Hope you all have a great Xmas break and a happy New Year.

Looks like the odds for a white christmas just got stronger - it snowed overnight, the first snow we've had in December since the Grande Tempête (Storm Lothar) of Boxing Day 1999. The pic above was taken on the 17th.

Here's what part of the garden looks like:

Being small, Mini can find lots of interesting places to sleep. She's always liked climbing inside my bathrobe. Now she's discovered the sleeve is the snuggest place.