Pudding

Dinner was a broad bean and red onion risotto followed by this:

Home grown, and chemically untreated, strawberries with homemade cheese. The flecks of green are chopped chives. We lost all but one strawberry to molluscs last year; this year only the largest fruit (viz: one strawberry.) showed any sign of damage. Table salt for slugs and crushed shells for snails, immediately upon discovery. I was assiduous and industrious last year and this year I've seen few signs of slime and even fewer signs of the slimers. I don't agree with those who claim that everything has a right to life. However, even were I to be persuaded by their arguments I would still object that nothing can have the right to live at my expense, since such a right compels me to put the life or lifestyle of another before mine and that is not what I was brought into being to do, and eating my strawberries is at my expense, and unacceptably so.

The strawberries were small and sweet, and I and The Mrs Gruff, and not the molluscs, enjoyed them.