Figgylicious!

All summer long I've been waiting for them, hoping the summer will last out long enough to taste them.  I was lucky this year as we did find some amazing ones on a local tree which were huge and we did get dozens of them, it's fair to say, but isn't it so nice to eat your own ones.  I bought a white marseilles fig tree last year as I wanted to try white figs aswell as brown turkeys.  Unfortunately our 2 brown turkeys didn't make it over the cold snap we had last winter so they didn't happen this year, but hopefully will again next, but my white marseille did and all summer long I watched them grow in anticipation.

I'd just about given up hope and as the colder weather set in had almost forgotten but when I hung some washing out on Monday I noticed them, looking really good!  They were large and brown but disappointingly hard still.  So, I thought 'I wonder whether anything can be done now?'  Matthew confirmed my ideas and suggested I ring up the supplier which I did.  They were so nice and helpful.  Apparently I could pick them now and place them in a brown paper bag and ripen them up in the airing cupboard!  Wow, what a revelation this was to me as I had read that figs don't ripen up off the tree!

I just ate my first home grown fig today!  It had gone a little mouldy on top which I threw away but I had a little.  The other one I picked on Monday isn't quite ripe yet.  I have just gone out to pick a few more in the hope they will ripen and I will get some more soon.  The rest I shall leave on the tree as they will ripen early next year, and hopefully will be much larger!  They kind of needed a prune as some of them were growing very near to one another.

Soooo, I am looking forward to a few more home-grown figs.  Hopefully I will get loads as I have formed a group about setting up a vegan community in Portugal and have made loads of connections recently with like-minded people.

Best wishes,
Gina

Cervical Cancer Rate Doubles in 20 somethings

Here's an interesting article about cervical cancer rates in younger ladies:-

http://lifestyle.aol.co.uk/2011/11/05/cervical-cancer-rate-doubles-in-twenty-something-women/?ncid=wsc-uk-lifestyle-headline

Of course, this could be about misdiagnosis, but knowing the diet and lifestyle of majority of younger people in the West, it would hardly be surprising if this were true.

Best wishes,
Gina
httP://www.VibrancyUK.com