After spending the winter in the snowy mountains I am now in south west France right by the beach. Life is good! We have been biking around and running on the beach and so far we have surfed, sunbathed, sprained one ankle, not mine this time thankfully, seen a very thin green snake, eaten the best mussels in the world, drunk lots of wine, spoken very bad alcohol fuelled french and shopped at the local fish and veggie markets...tres bon! It has been pretty boiling the last few days so I decided to make a fairly labour intensive salad to take to my friend Mhairi's bbq, a great excuse to spend the afternoon soaking up the sun and podding peas. The down side about this salad is that even if you pod a big bag of peas and broad beans it doesn't make enough to feed a big bunch of bbq folks, I bulked mine up after with quinoa which was really delicious, you could also use pretty bow pasta or if you want to keep it green add sugar snap peas too. The flavour is very fresh and clean with