Finally the day came. 30 April 2008

30 April 2008 - I married Sue. After many months of planning and a 4 year engagement we had our day. At the castle in Malcesine, Lake Garda in Italy. It went without hitch thanks to Gwen, Pam and the team at http://www.lakegardaweddings.com/ , who were fantastic and can recommend them highly for friendliness, efficiency and attention to detail.
Sadly not all our family could make it in the end, however everyone else I believe had a good time with a nice a little holiday thrown in.

In Italy, as you may expect, the custom is to throw rice.

Here is the castle we got married in. I would say that that is romantic.. The weather was mostly cloudy, but the sun eventually came out and shined on us.

Mrs D looked absolutely radient..

Here are 40 of the 700 photos Gwen took of us at the wedding

Sauce Results

I am happy to say that my Scotch Bollocks got a commendation, however Purple Haze was described as 'a little strange' ergo not so good in the subjective eyes of the judges. I will take some of their comments onboard however.
My faith in the judges impartiality from the beginning was not entirely 100% to be honest. My request that there should be blind tasting (for reasons you may glean from below) was dismissed out of hand without explanation - no real surprise there. The chili galore forum I should say is one of the best chili resource forums on the net that I would point anyone in the direction of who is interested in Chilies; however there is a strong oligarthy that will bluntly not take any criticism, and the forum over the last year has become nauseatingly clicquey to say the least.
I am now looking forward to a new Chili season - lets hope for a better summer and making new sauces and chutneys in 2008.

Hot Sauce

http://www.chillisgalore.co.uk/ are having their first chilli sauce making competition. Check out their forum for details. I have been thinking of what to submit and have come up with a couple of sauces. Subject to inspiration, a third could be on its way...

The competition is at the end of January, so needless to say I am unable to go into any detail as to what might make my sauces different to what others may submit. However here are the labels which give a little clue...

Scotch Bollocks is based on Scotch Bonnets and Purple Haze is made with Peach Habanero. I had put in the sophisticated Purple Haze for our office Food Day Competition with the aim to keep the title (I won last year with a cranberry, mango and chilli smoothie), however though my sauce generated compliments from fellow culinary heat seekers, unfortunately for the rest of the capsaicum challenged, it was a little too much. So the prize went back to the Internet Support team for winning with some scones I believe.

We Don't Often Flood, But When It Happens..

The tide doesn't often breach the quay wall where we are, but when it does the flood results, can sometimes be more dramatic than others. We had a 6.2m tide on Sunday and unfortunately this fishing boat ran aground. He got off on the next tide around 2 am ok. A few houses on the main street had tidal marks on their front gardens, and the pub's basement probably flooded. Apart from that, no great damage done this time.

Hachec Walkaround

Here is some video clips and stills put together to give a taster of what the house and grounds are like.

Vineyards In November

I am slowly cataloguing my photos and video clips of our recent trip to Hachec. Sue and I managed to get an afternoon off and just drove around with a map for a few hours. The main crop in the area we saw, were not surprisingly as we were in the Bordeaux region, vineyards with a few Domaines and a main cooperative. We didn't go further than an hour away in any particular direction. The grapes were mainly concentrated on hillsides - which they prefer of course; whilst on the flat plateau, just hectares of maize - real children of the corn territory. I ventured a little offroad which got a bit creepy to be honest..

Last of the chili's for this year

Picked pretty much the last of the chili's. Some Peach habs Antillais Caribbean a few Thai Dragons, Bulgarian Carrot and some Whippet Tails here. However I have strong hopes for a remaining Rocoto Red to ripen up with a further 5 or so not looking too hopeful. Soon it will be time to work on next years list and start doing some sauce and chutney making to get me through the winter.