Breakfast has always been at the top of my daily food agenda and I've never been one who could skip it. This may have stemmed from my childhood, for my mother took care to ensure that the family left the house, for work or school, with satiated bellies. Our day would begin with a serving of mum's semolina or rice pudding, or perhaps some French toast; or scrambled or coddled eggs. And there was always some fresh fruit, spritzer water and mum's cooked caffè latte on the table.

Before I launch into this snippet, I would like to thank Bellatrix, Nymphadora, Minerva and Poppy, the lovely ladies (or 'laid/ies') who provided the eggs which made this story possible. Named after females in the Harry Potter books, the hens are owned by my good friend 'The Dog' and his family, and must admit I had a chuckle when I heard about their individual personalities.

'We have much sweet corn for just $1.00 per cob. Freshly picked. All organic,' announced the tweet from Robbie Wallace earlier this month. Peter and I were travelling interstate at the time, but we'd been wanting to pop out and meet Robbie and see his fascinating rock structure for ages. And, besides, we love sweet corn, so I arranged a visit, pronto.

'We've decided we're not going to grow zucchini this year (mainly because everyone else does, so we're happy to take their excess off their hands and we'll have something else to fob off on them, I'm sure). But in the past when we grew 'zeppelins' we used to wrap them in a baby blanket, put them in a basket, leave them on someone's door step, ring the doorbell and run.      —  John Griffin, a.k.a. Kitchen Riffs

'I feel like having hotcakes and fruit for breakfast after our swim,' I said to Peter as we walked hand-in-hand along the sandy shore of Laguna Bay. 'Do you now,' he replied, staring dreamily out to the blue on the horizon. And have them we did!