Marie Kate's Charlotte and some sun at last

27°c outside in the shade, can you believe it,  it's so good to be able to fling open all of the windows and make the most of the garden and eating outside.

 Marie Kate made a Strawberry Charlotte yesterday all by herself (or nearly), she searched Charlotte aux fraises rapide and ended up with this Charlotte pictured above.

Thirty sponge fingers and five hundred grams of strawberries and a pot of creme fraiche and some sugar, eaten in minutes by five.

Gaby took this shot of Oliver, he won't know I put it on the blog as he never looks....he has had a couple of busy weeks with entrance exams  and so far so good, he has passed them all, just got the orals to contend with and he's future will be mapped out, at least for the next five years.

Il y a de soleil (enfin)unplugged project

To celebrate the sun's belated return to a rather rainy south of France, we decided to experiment with a solar oven (rudimentary one), and cook an egg for this weeks unplugged project. First, Alexis painted a the outside of a tin can black.

Then he put some aluminumn foil inside

He popped the can in a hole in the sunniest part of the garden, making sure he didn't put soil in the can, he cracked open an egg and lost most of it on the soil (never mind)

He placed a piece of glass on top and waited....one hour later, nothing had changed ( temperature today in the shade 23°c) so we resorted to further measures, we attached one of Marie-Kate's mirrors onto a bamboo and orientated it, to have the sun's reflection on the glass.

Two hours later, no change, moved the mirror a bit more, now we'll wait.

A couple of hours later, no change, oh dear, never mind, doesn't anyone have an idea just how hot it needs to be to cook an egg using this method?

Even though our unplugged project didn't quite turn out as it should have, we're not going to give up. Next weekend we're going to attempt to build a solar oven using a pizza box.
Two hours later, no change, moved the mirror a bit more, now we'll wait.

Update, lunch-time the following day, the egg looks half-cooked, however, it could just be dry...