Of temptation and capitulation

It is 38 days after the fig guessing game:

Now suffer the fig eaters to come unto me...

I find it unlikely that Eve, if she had existed, would have risked so much for the sake of an apple. Especially since it probably tasted a lot like the crabapples we know today. And while the fig and the apple share the distinction of being domesticated very early, the fig seems to be winning, at around 11,400 years ago.

No. I think it would have been a fig. I would behave foolishly for the promise of a plump, perfect, ripe, soft-skinned fig.

Or perhaps it was a pomegranate? Since Eve would have been naked she wouldn't be risking the staining of white linen by cracking open the garnet-juiced fruit.

Anyway. I have been watching my figs ripen slowly. I am not sure how many I have lost to shrivel, perhaps ten? And till today I had eaten three. Two publicly and one on the sly.

Here is one of the ones that has not made it. They drop off quietly, and are quite soft but dry inside...I'm not sure why my ring was back to front.

I have had my eye on this fat one for a couple of days.

And yesterday I picked one from the far side of the tree. It involves standing on a chair and stretching.

Then I had to decide what to do with my picked fig.

Eat it in lonely splendour?

I put it next me while I wrote.

I resisted. Waiting for two more figs to join it and make it a party.

Today they ripened and this evening was the party.

We sat outside and sipped prosecco from Jay and Guy's glasses and ate sweet figs.

[Update: August figs by the bowlful. And a surfeit of figs.]

Other:

It's hard to believe that of the three roses on the terrace this one, the Abraham Darby, so near death in the spring, has performed the best. My pink Eglantyne is looking for a home. She is not happy. Not enough sun. Maybe I should move her to the roof. But then I will have to farm with her petals or it won't be a farm anymore.

Vince was home early from work and so we had a rare early dinner outside, with the air actually very pleasant and the humidity bearable. There was a pink sky.

Pork tonnnato, with pork loin  that I poached with carrots, onion, peppercorns and terrace thyme. Whizzed up Italian oil-canned tuna, mayonnaise, capers, cornichons, lemon juice and pepper for the sauce. It is a pale-looking meal, but delicious.

Brown baguette from Sahadi's, sweet butter and a real garden salad.

From the little roof farm I brought down some courgette (zucchini) blossoms, and from the terrace I snipped chives and picked parsley.

Cat: I see my deenhair, bod where is jours?

The hard life of a cat. He hates the gravel so I put down a cloth for his pawpads.

I smell feesh!

Indeed.

I yam steel here an' I yam goeen' to faint!

(The shirt is to cover the spot where he has licked his fur off.)

In the interim the cat fainted and we had some peace. Later he went to the roof to hunt cicadas.

We finished the last of the sparkling wine and ate some peaches.

We finished up with petit fours mouthfuls of freakily delicious Marukawa gum.

I'm looking forward to more terrace-weather. It's a good place to be.