One tomato, two tomatoes - virtuosities of flavour

Another summer gone, and all that's left of the garden tomatoes are two sketches, neither of which would make one suspect how truly delicious these tomatoes were. I pick them just as they start to colour pink, getting in before the resident possums.
The yield is maybe one or two tomatoes a day over summer, not much, but the flavour is so deliciously, intensely, sweetly tomato, that when the last one is eaten, and shop bought tomatoes are reluctantly purchased, I find the cut-out shop type now taste just like wet paper.

Camus in Conte and Pencil

Another sketch in the famous author series, taken from a photograph in the Little Black  Book of Books.. Camus is perhaps someone to read in one's twenties, as I did, diligently consuming The Plague and A Happy Death, thinking of him as an ancient. Now I see he died at 46.  Not, ahem, that old at all. The heavy overcoat, worn in this photo, hints at Eastern Bloc winters and perhaps, the TB which hounded, one might say plagued him.
The distortion in these redos gives one a false sense of ownership. Obviously, rereading is needed. 

The Brassica Plot Thickens

As many of you will now be sadly all too aware of, Bart Brassica has gone AWOL, which Mavis Eggwhistle says stands for Absent With Out Leaving a Note. This leaves the Brassica Farm in a Predicament, most of the farm animals followed the literary tradition they know from Animal Farm and Charlotte's Webb, and set up a committee, which in their case has formed a Search Party and Base Camp, see the last episode. 

All this is well and good, says Mr Farmhand, [leaving aside that the horses have ordered ordered two cases of beer from the local liquor shop by ringing up and impersonating Bart, explaining to the other animals by saying 'Hey come on, it's a party.'] but says Mr Farmhand, 'Bart or No Bart, things need hoeing.' This has cheered the horses and other animals up substantially, and the word has gone out on the Range that it's a Hoe Down and they expect a Jug Band or at least Two Fiddlers and Spoonerism to arrive at any moment.
Thanks to Ms Ingrid Periz for nipping in and getting this photograph. 

Home on The Range - Bart's Search Party

 For quite some time now, Bart Brassica has been missing. At first it was thought he'd was perhaps sleeping off a tad too much fermented beet liquor in some shady corner, or was taking a rare holiday to the Annual Cabbage Festival and Sauerkraut Soiree held in Hooterville. But after seven weeks of complete invisibility all the local farm creatures have organised themselves into a search party and have consequentially set up a base camp on the Range Hood.

 This dramatic night search shot show their complete vigilance and close attention to all compass points. The East facing search party, above, never so much as blink, while the Northern Scouts ( below) in difficult arid country-side have curiosity down to a fine art. Find Bart? Well, I hope so.