Put all of the ingredients minus the bacon into the blender jug (liquids first followed by the solid ingredients).
Place the blender jug on to the base and select the 'Hot Soup' function.
Start the machine and let the programmed cycle run (roughly 5 minutes in total) by which point the soup should be silky smooth and steaming hot!
While the soup is cooking, fry the strips of crispy bacon in a large frying pan. Once crispy dice into small pieces. (Optional)
Serve the soup with a drizzle of creme fraiche, a sprinkling of the thyme and the crispy bacon bits.
Notes
If your blender doesn't have the hot soup function, start on the lowest setting ('1') and slowly increase (up to '10') until the soup is smooth. Heat in a pan as required.