This recipe will serve four people and tastes even better the day after cooking. It keeps well in the fridge or freezer and makes a great lunch.

Ingredients

275 grams of potatoes, cut into small cubes

250ml of hot water

1 can of chickpeas

250 ml of canned coconut milk

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp oil

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped or crushed

2 tsp ground coriander

½ tsp turmeric

1 tsp chilli powder

Juice of half a lemon

Chappatis, roti or other Indian bread

Method

Put the potatoes in a saucepan and pour in the hot water. Bring to the boil and cook until the potatoes are al dente. This should take about five minutes.

Drain, wash and add the chickpeas, cooking for a further three or four minutes. Add the coconut milk and salt, and simmer gently.

While the mixture simmers, heat the oil in a frying pan and add the garlic with sliced fresh chillies if you prefer it hot. When the aroma starts to come through, add the turmeric and chilli powder. Cook for around half a minute.

Mix the oil, spices and garlic into the chickpea and potato mixture, add the lemon juice and serve straight away with warm Indian bread.

I’m hardly a sleep expert, but I was thinking about why I seem to be slumbering so soundly at the moment and have come up with a few tips I’d like to share.

Avoid Caffeine

It seems obvious, but cutting down on caffeine before you go to bed is the first thing to do when suffering sleepless nights. I replaced my bedtime cup of tea with a cup of green tea or malted milk drink and went on to swap my regular coffees for decaf. It’s hard at first, but soon you’ll have more natural energy throughout the day and are ready to sleep when the time comes to hit the hay.

Take Exercise

As you know I’m not one for cross country running, but an hour in the gymn seems to fine-tune my body clock. If I’m feeling too lazy, a short walk after dinner has exactly the same effect.

Tidy Your Room!

I’ve found that good surroundings equals a good night’s sleep.  I I feel for any reason that tonight be  be a sleepless night, I make sure the bedroom is spotless before going to bed.  Sleeping on fresh bed linen helps too and for some reason it also make it easier to get up in the morning.  I’ve no idea why this works for me, but it does.

For a couple of nights last week, the moon appeared huge in the night sky and tinged with a gorgeous yellow hue. I tried to take some photos myself, but none of them are much good. It’s the kind of event that only a really decent SLR will do justice to.

The science behind it is something to do with the full moon happening at the same time that it is closest to the Earth during its elliptical orbit. (See, I do remember something from those school science lessons!) Sometimes, knowing the scientific explanation behind something only adds to the mysticism and wonder of the event itself and it’s hard not to feel that way when I imagine our planet hurtling through space on its immense orbit.

And now back to earth. It’s been a few years since I brushed up on developments in employee legislation, so I’ve booked on a course in Liverpool which I’m really looking forward to. Although I only employ a handful of people, I find it useful to keep abreast of ever-changing rules and regulations with fairly regular employment law training. Liverpool is a fantastic city, with loads to do. If I have time, I’ll skip the Beatles trail in favour of a trip to the Tate. I’ve no idea what’s on, but there’s something delightfully oh-so modern about rocking up to a gallery for coffee and a wander.

If I’m feeling really adventurous I’ll dust this with a tiny pinch of garam massala. There are also some yummy sweet versions made with sugar or cinnamon and rosewater. But for my money, there’s something about the tangy dryness of salted lassi, combined with the heat from the chillies that makes this an amazingly refreshing drink.

Ingredients

½ Tsp salt

4-6 Ice cubes

I cup yoghurt

1 Tsp oil (extra virgin olive oil, mustard or rapeseed work best)

¼ Tsp mustard seeds

¼ tsp ground cumin

Chopped green chillies

Chopped coriander

Method

Heat the oil in a pan, add mustard seeds for a few seconds until they begin to pop and leap out of the pan.

While the oil cools, combine the salt, ice and yoghurt in a blender and blend until the mixture has a thick milkshake consistency.

Pour the oil into the yoghurt mixture, stir

Add chopped coriander and chillies to taste, and stir. (For a milder version, remove the seeds from the chillies beforehand, although I like mine hot and never de-seed my chillies!)

Pour into a tall glass and serve.

Salted lassi is the perfect accompaniment to a hot curry, and equally as good on its own as a long refreshing drink on a hot summer afternoon. Now all we need is some good weather!

The programme made me wonder what I might be if I’d led a different life.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty content as things go. But if circumstances had been different, how might I have been different? For a kick off, I’m hardly possessed with the mathematical abilities of Carol Vorderman and playing second fiddle to Richard Whitely isn’t my style.

Nope…It’s a cop out, but I think I’d settle for something not too different from the life I have at the moment.

I don’t think there’s any way I could handle the pressure of a job in the city. I’d be better suited to a life of leisure, or at the very least some part time charity work. London life would be out of the question, as would a career in any of the UK’s major cities. I don’t think I could stand spending half my life commuting.

Meditating on alternate universes like this doesn’t often do any good, unless the inevitable conclusion is that I wouldn’t change a thing…

The weekend’s storms were fierce enough to fell a number of trees close to the path I’m helping to clear through local woodland, but the forestry and fauna weren’t the only things to fall victim to the gales. Volunteers’ endurance was tested to the limits by icy cold winds strong enough to blow the hat off your head and the grey skies make me feel thoroughly fed up.

There’s something comforting about listening to the wind howl outside the house when you’re nice and cosy indoors though. Sensing we might be in for a prolonged spell of stormy weather I stocked up on library books, drawing up plans to hibernate throughout the week until more sensible weather comes this way.

I should have guessed that the beginning of the working week would bring glorious sunshine!

And with it comes a change in mood, so I’ve been for a couple of lovely walks down the canal and finally got around to updating my dating profiles. I’ve received two measly messages since I last checked the websites – one from a suave exec-type with a high flying business services consultancy who’s really not my type and the other from a bloke with an unhealthy interest in crystals that’s too far out, even for me.

I returned a polite ‘thanks, but no thanks’ to both, but can’t help thinking It’d be nice to find someone who’s somewhere in between.

Here is everything that you’ll be needing…

• 20g/1oz unsalted butter
• 100g/3½oz white onion, finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
• 300g/10½oz watercress, tough stalks removed
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 100g/3½oz spinach leaves
• 500ml/17½fl oz boiling water
• 500g/17½ ice cubes
• 100ml/3½fl oz crème fraîche

It might seem like a lot of ingredients but trust me, it’s all much more easily sourced stuff than some recipes and ingredients I have featured previously. First of all, stick a large saucepan on a medium heat and get some butter melted in which to cook the onion and garlic portion of the recipe until it’s nice and soft. This will result in a nice and sweet onion taste rather than anything much harsher in flavour.

Afterwards, bring up the heat to high and add the watercress and the salt. After 30 seconds, it’s time to drop in the spinach to boot. Another couple of minutes to allow the spinach to do it’s work and then it’s time to add the boiling water. Allow it to simmer for another couple of minutes and then remove that heat as quick as you turned it up. At this point, it’s time to drop in the ice cubes (make sure they haven’t melted), and pour whatever necessary amount of the soup you’ll be eating into a food processer. The rest can be refrigerated and retained for another few days. Blend until smooth, add a dash of black pepper and voila.

Since, I have found a local crafts company of apprentice students who are going to carve the spare wood into a set of benches, and all of the volunteers are going to have their names and initials etched into them professionally, which will be a nice touch for all involved, and I suppose save having to grafitti it on ourselves in arrogant retrospect. Using and sourcing local companies has been one of my key responsibilities, and everyone, even the third parties have been very keen on being involved with the process. It’s little touches like this that have made my work for charity so rewarding overall.

Currently, I’m just ensuring that when the path does open – sometime in mid-June, we’re currently hoping – that it gets the right press attention and the right people know it’s there, without it becoming just a local, ehem, ‘youth hangout’, or that people might miss it on their morning runs, as it’s located in quite dense forestry.

I haven’t really got much to offer in return, aside from this blog, and a surplus list of cheap and reliable wines to treat yourself to. Funnily enough, a companion of mine has recently found herself heading towards divorce with her husband after around five years. Whilst she’s not aware of this blog, she finds my time for pursuits in the garden and in the community weirdly inspiring, as she’s also very career driven. It has set me thinking that perhaps I ultimately am something of a luddite, or perhaps just very fortunate in that I love my work and whilst it can be hard work, have a lot of time in my own head and in my own company. I also wonder that perhaps we’re collectively consumed so much by work, that it almost seems strange to potential suitors.

In response, I’m definitely going to shake uo my dating profiles a little next time I get back into using them. I am now a sure starter, a free thinker, self motivated, and whatever else it might take to pull… Alan Sugar?

Now, it’s worth noting that when you ‘clear’ woodland, you are not removing any trees – unless they are poisoned or vandalised or simply need felling. I have not been rampaging around with a chainsaw I’m afraid, but trees have been our main source of concern, and we have indeed had to say goodbye to a few. I will surely not do much to deviate from any ‘tree hugger’ reputation I have at this point, but marking a grand, old tree, or any plant, for removal, is actually quite a sad task, and feels a little like putting down a sick animal. Necessary, but hard work in the moment. Fortunately, the benefit is that we’re all on target with the project, especially as we’ve elected not to apply for funds for any pavement, instead using the bark of said trees to form a decent pathway, and we’re hoping, some small benches carved courtesy of a local college. I’m hoping it’s a really nice environment at the finish, and something we can also keep adding to.

Whilst I’m all for extracting as much from nature as possible, I did however recently turn down an invitation to see ‘One Pig’ which is a show happening in Manchester, performed, a quick Google tells me, by a composer named Matthew Herbert. He recorded the audio of a pig’s life to make some weird album, and then instruments from it’s skin and organs. He plays them on stage and even takes the opportunity to fry some bacon for the audience as the finale. I don’t think that one’s for me. Will probably stick with the Steps reunion.