Vegetables, Self-Improvement and Good News.

While Ratty and Lily the Pink do their best to deal with the day's harvest (he a persimmon, she a pear) and the ratadilloes enjoy the soporific effects of lettuce (instructed as they were to eat it up before the frost does), I embark on Day Three of an online course called Work Less, Earn More and Make a Difference. Don't you hate titles with that 'you can have whatever you want this instant' promise? Nonetheless, two Kiwi women have put this course together and I like their infectious enthusiasm. Following their workbook seems like a good way to pin myself down, find new, workable ideas and, potentially, meet other women with small online businesses. I'll let you know how it goes.

Lily perches on a huge Italian pumpkin, a marina di chioggia, often used in the making of gnocchi.

In other news, you may have see that Sue Wootton (The Happiest Music on Earth) won second-equal placing in the Hippocrates Open International Prize for Poetry and Medicine with her poem 'Wild'. Some feat, with 1000 entries received from 29 countries.

The Linen Way is being styled up. An essay by Martin Edmond on the defeats, diversions, and even the delights, of cab driving is being tweaked to make the third in the 10k series. And editing has begun to Fait Maison (subtitle yet to be determined), a cookbook by New Zealander Rachel Panckhurst who lives in Montpellier, presenting recipes and anecdotes in a deliciously French-flavoured international culinary pastiche.