Now that the holidays are upon us this means that it is time to finish the garden once and for all.  The only thing left to do is to concrete under the aviary so that it has a solid base.

You remember a while back that I have written about the work in the garden on many ocassions.  Although it has been fun to redevelop a plain space with grass into something much nicer and to be able to sit out on the patio with a glass of wine or a beer it has been hard work, and I am glad when it will be over.

Over the next few days I will be posting pictures etc. of the transformation of the underneath of the aviary.  The first job tomorrow is moving the aviary and with baby budgies recently hatched it will be a delicate operation.

Today I got my hand on a nice new gadget. The gadget in question is a Panasonic SD card camcorder. So I thought that I would share my opening thoughts.

I have been looking for a Hard Disk camcorder for a while now, and I also needed one for work, however there are few, reasonably priced hard disk camcorders that are compatible with iMovie 08 and therefore when I saw this SD card one was compatible then I snapped it up at a good price. The advantages of using a hard disk or SD camcorder are that you do not have wait for the tape to play into the computer before you can start messing with your movie. However they do have their disadvantages, the main one being that the quality of the movie that is shot is not as good as a DV camcorder. With me not wanting to shoot movies that will end up on DVD I thought that I would give this one a try. Most of the movies that are shot end up on the web at around 500 pixels wide and therefore I am hoping that it will do the job.

First impressions are good. The camcorder is very light weight and is in fact much more like a camera than a camcorder. The small sample clip that I shot was decent quality although I hardly used it really. iMovie seems to pick the camera up a dream and drop the clips into the iMovie library really quickly which is great. So, so far so good, but I will keep you posted on the quality!

I have been making this recipe for a while now and thought that I would share it, as it has to be the best quick chicken recipe I have had.

INGREDIENTS

1 tbsp. runny honey
4 tbsp. soy sauce (I prefer the light soy sauce)
2. tbsp. tomato ketchup
A pinch of crushed chillies
1 garlic clove, crushed
Water to loosen if needed
Plenty of freshly ground black pepper
2 chicken breast fillets

METHOD

1. Combine all of the ingredients, except the chicken into a shallow tray (Lasagna dishes are good) and mix together well
2. Score the chicken breast fillets and then place them score side down into the tray. Baste the marinade over with a spoon and then set aside to marinate for anything between 20 minutes and 3 - 4 hours.
3. Now cook as desired. I like to fry them on the griddle pan to start off with and then finish them off in the oven.

It is great served with all-sorts. My favourite is with a simple dressed salad and some potato wedges. My wife likes it with rice and peas.