Some of you will know I am constantly battling with Google to keep Psoriasis Club in search results. You will also know that I will never pay them to get a better ranking, I prefer to follow their advice and give regular and reliable content. But this time they have gone too far and I'm not happy.

Towards the end of last year 2018 our Google performance graph started going down a little before dramatically rising at the beginning of 2019. Nothing had changed in the way we publicise ourselves and there was no explanation for the odd movements.

Then in March as you can see by the graph there was a sudden drop and again nothing had changed. But then suddenly I kept getting Emails from Google offering me £240 of free ad credit if I spent £240. I always ignore them as I'm never gong to pay, and we continued to drop.

After a couple of months I got more offers, this time it was "Get more visitors to your website for £120" Again I ignored the emails. As you can see by the graph this is again where we took another drop. Now call me sceptical. but there is no denying the emails coincide with the movement in the graph.

This is very underhanded and a dirty tactic. We don't have any money and we are just a bunch of people trying to help each other, but Google thinks they can push us around and milk us. Well it isn't going to happen, and although we are loosing our visitors we will never bow down to Google.
 


So what next?

I have been pushing Googlebot back to our website and now they keep saying our forum isn't mobile friendly. I accept that it isn't, but I asked our members and not one of them has a problem using it. The problem we have is that we use free software and it's not mobile friendly, and I know whatever I try Google will keep moving the goalposts anyway till I pay.

So I have now taken Google on yet again and built a homepage on our .com that is mobile friendly.  Maybe it will please Google for a few months till they start dropping us again and offer more incentives if I throw money at them. 

The new page probably won't get used as it's the forum our members want, but it does give some basic information and hopefully will help people find our great group of people. If anyone out there reading this values the small independent website owners they should stop using Google.

https://psoriasisclub.com

Easy to make and very tasty. *This will make two chicken wraps.

De-bone two chicken leg and thigh, remove the skin and marinade.

Marinade:

In a pestle and mortar grind up:
1 teaspoon of coriander seeds
1 teaspoon of cumin
1 teaspoon of smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon of back pepper corns
1 fresh mild green chilli
A small chunk of fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves
1/2 a small onion
Once you have it all pounded up mix it with:
1 pot of natural yoghurt
1 teaspoon tomato puree
1/2 teaspoon lime juice and zest
3 teaspoon olive oil

Put your chicken in the marinade and leave it in the fridge for 24 hours, or at least overnight.

Wraps: These are simple, but be careful as they can go crispy and will break when you try to roll them up to eat.

3 Tablespoon plain flower
3 Table spoon soya milk (you probably could use ordinary milk but I've not tried it)
1 Table spoon of melted butter

Mix it all together and knead it till it goes smooth, wrap in cling film and leave at room temperature for 1/2 an hour.

Cooking:

Heat up a shallow backing tray in a hot oven. add the chicken and cook for about 20 minutes. Remove the chicken and slice it up to bite size pieces (you may need to pour off some liquid) put the pieces back on the tray and brown them off under the grill.

Roll out your wraps to about 3 mm, heat up a non stick frying pan with a spray of olive oil. Cook over a medium heat and keep pushing the bubbles down. These don't take long and you want them a bit like a pancake (too hot or too long and they will go crispy)  we don't want that.  

Serving:

Lettuce
Fresh coriander
Finely sliced onion
Chicken
Mint and yoghurt dressing

Wrap it up and enjoy.



*Play around with the marinade to suit your taste, and add other seasonal vegetables to your wrap if you have them. Cucumber, Spring Onion, Tomato, Sweet Pepper, etc work well.

If you like going to your local Chinese restaurant and trying the Crispy Seaweed you will probably know it is not actually seaweed, it's Kale. But it is very good for you and so simple to make.

Get a good handful of Kale leaves. "Nero di Toscana" works best and is so easy to grow.

Peal the curly leaves off their stalks (keep the stalks in your freezer for use later in stews etc)



Finley shred you leaves and add a little olive oil, a little bit of brown sugar and some Chinese Five Spice powder to your liking.



Mix it all up and put on a flat backing tray in your hot oven for around 15 minutes. Keep an eye on it as it will suddenly go crispy and could burn.

Serve hot or cold. Enjoy.

This is a simple recipe that ends up with some very tasty pork rillons.

Chunks of pork belly. (We use the rough bits left over from when we get a large chunk of belly for sausages or ribs)

One litre of sweet cider.

One table spoon of lard.

Two bay leaves.

Sichuan pepper corns.

Star anise.

Cloves.

Salt.

Black pepper.

Sprinkle your chunks of pork with the salt and pepper then fry them off in the lard till they are nice and  brown. Throw everything in a metal cook pot or saucepan with a tight fitting lid, bring it all to the boil and then simmer very low for 3 hours.

Remove and cool on a wire rack till they are cool and set. You can freeze them for use later or keep in the fridge for a few days.

Serve cold in thin slices or as a chunk with cheese and salad.  

Don't worry about the look of them as they are very tasty.

ArteMie independently designs and bakes arty mugs, e.g. oldtimers and traditional sailing vessels. Freshly designed mugs are ready to ship or pickup in Amsterdam.  

You can find out more about Artemie and her work here:

https://www.artemie.nl/

@emmymeester

We went for a little break to a strange place next to a power station.

The weather wasn't great the first day, but it got better the next. We wasn't sure what to expect but the power station was small and didn't seem to be doing a lot.

Here is the power station



It's situated on the blustery Loire River where it heads out to sea.



Now we need to find somewhere to stay. :91:

There must be somewhere to stay down here.



That's odd, I'm sure I saw a house on top of a chimney.



Let's check the other side. ............................... It is a house and a tree on top of a chimney.



Better get a closer look.



Yep it's a little house, I think we should look a little closer in the next post.

I thought I would have a go at drying some herbs in the polytunnel.

#1 Some odd bits of wood found in the Man Cave.
#2 Old mosquito netting also from the Man Cave.
#3 A hook and a length of strong string.

Make up the frame.



Staple the netting on.



Chuck in some herbs.



Pull it up and tie off with the string.



And there they are drying at the top of the polytunnel.



I'll see how it goes and report back. If I remember.

Here's another one of those Fred moments when I prove to you that I do like modern bands.

Yeah it's Bluesy but it's not that old stuff I'm often accused of being stuck with. This is something that you need to wind up the volume for and either play it in your car with the windows open or better still open the windows in your house and let your neighbours get a listen.

It needs sharing and this band Low Society are doing a great job of keeping the Blues alive, you need to like a very powerful female voice and some damn good guitar playing to like this. If either of those are not for you then walk away now..........................No Stop Right There. Hold on, let me find you something to try maybe it's not so Bluesy as you thought.



But then again those of you that now me will be expecting some Blues so I'm throwing in two videos in this post. You just have to watch this one (It's my favourite find) from Low Society. It's a cover and as some know I'm not a huge fan of covers, but they have done a great job of this.



Give them a listen, you can find them on Twitter https://twitter.com/LoSox and I'm sure elsewhere on your favourite social thing.

Enjoy.

Here's your chance to get your hands on some original art by Kathryn.

Kathtyn went to Winchester School of Art for her foundation diploma, then the University of Portsmouth in 1993 to study a degree in Art and Design. Her recent work has been studies of the rural aspects of Winchester.

Winnall moors.


Autumn Lane.


From the hill beyond

Today I've been making the first batch of passata.

The tomatoes are "Black Russian" a very odd looking tomato but about the best tasting one for passata you will ever find.

Recipe:
Black Russian tomatoes (other toms will work but it may not be so thick and tasty)
Garlic
Sea salt
White pepper
Brown sugar

Roughly chop up your Black Russians throw them in a baking tray with a couple of bits of garlic, some sea salt and white pepper, a tea spoon of brown sugar and a good splosh of olive oil.

Chuck em in a hot oven for around 40 minutes or until they go all soft and some edges start going black. When they're done pour them in a saucepan and give them a good blitz. (I use a saucepan to blitz them in as it's safer than a jug)

Once they are all blitzed up you need to pass them through a sieve into another saucepan. (you don't have to sieve them but it does give a smoother passata)

Let it cool and put it in portion sized containers. We use one container big enough for a Chilli or Bolognese and a smaller one for Pizza topping. Now you just throw them in the freezer and use as needed through the year.  

Yum



The one on the right weighed in at 566 grms









This is the first batch form our poly tunnel and we should end up with enough to give a meal or two each week till this time next year.