Common ground

Since starting Purple Podded Peas in March this year I've 'met' lots of fellow bloggers - all very different but they have one thing in common: they have an infectious passion about what they do. The best bloggers are generous with their enthusiasm and the links they have to other blogs and web sites take you on an enjoyable mystery tour spanning the globe.

So here are some of my current favourites . . .

Book The Cook is Masterchef 2007 finalist David Hall's blog - if you share David's love of good fresh ingredients cooked simply this is for you - he champions all that's good about British food (with a little help from his daughter Cerys). So I was thrilled when Purple Podded Peas was able to share with David the delights of red dessert gooseberries.

Daughter of the Soil aka folk musician Rebsie Fairholm writes about her adventures in 'experimental horticulture'. She shares my passion for heritage vegetables of all kinds and her blog follows her quest to breed the ultimate purple podded pea. In the past week she has also chronicled the tragedy of the 'great flood' currently engulfing the west of England.

The Cottage Smallholder is a diary charting the author's 'haphazard journey towards self sufficiency and beyond'. You'll find an eclectic mix of recipes, gardening advice, hedgerow foraging and (my personal favourite theme) the progress of the 'Interblog Guinea Fowl Breeding event'. I stumbled across this blog while googling for plum chutney recipes to cope with the forthcoming glut of wild plums in our hedge, and I'm hooked. At my Open Studio last Sunday one visitor cheerfully introduced herself "Hello, I'm Fiona - The Cottage Smallholder", it was like a visit from a friend! And she's written about her visit - Fiona, my garden always looks better when the sun is shining!

Musings of a Textile Itinerant by Dijanne Cevaal, an Australian textile artist whose work is full of such colour and richness and texture and pattern it's like walking across the Autralian bush at sunset. She also likes growing veg and cooking - so a virtual visit to her studio on the opposite side of the world is always inspiring - enjoy!

And lastly, not just for cat lovers We three, ginger cats tales is the magical story of three ginger cats living with 'she who paints' aka illustrator Jackie Morris. Sit down with a cup of tea and roam the wild celtic cliff top paths of St Davids in Wales with the ginger cats as your guides - the photographs are beautiful.