Tune in

Just heading off to Berlin for a few days…. 
thought you might like to turn the dial for a musical interlude in my absence. 

Enjoy being serenaded by eloquent arpeggios, 

 catch the drift of some improvised jazz 

or simply chill with the deckchair daydreamer!

An unlikely couple

A month or so ago a nasty fox came to torment our happy little troupe. There's just four of us left now; a trio of diminutive bantams and Johns Junior the cockerel. I’ve had to handle his unwanted attention all on my own. I’m afraid I find him a little too eager, a little too early in the morning, not to mention the fact he’s twice my size.

The two fluffy bantams are no help. Fluffy by name and fluffy by nature, they just hide in the henhouse all day, breasts plumped, downy feathers quivering and temperatures rising. They think they’re incubating eggs but are too daft to realise that they’re not actually sitting on any. I expect Mary will eventually give in and buy some fertilised eggs for them to hatch. That’s how I started life... swaddled in bubble wrap, entrusted to the Royal (Mail) Stork and then tucked under the very same breast.

Back to the point, I overheard Mary telling J J that she’s been looking on an internet dating site. She wants to find him a couple of ladies, in keeping with his stature, who WLTM a handsome cockerel with a GSOH.

I don’t know what he thinks about Mary’s matchmaking skills but I can’t wait!

(Hulanicki is standing in for Mary who is too busy to blog this week). 

'Popping broad beans out of their skins can be therapeutic, but it isn't everybody's favourite waste of time.' 

Yotam Ottolenghi

After weeks of hard graft in the garden, what a joy (and a therapy) to pick (and pod) peas and beans for dinner!

In contrast, I only have to glance at the elderflower bushes for them to shake their huge blossoms in my face and shout ‘cordial’…. hence the permanently sticky ‘no go’ area in the kitchen. 

The House Martins have been hard at work too and have successfully reared a chirruping family in the garage next to my studio. When I looked in this morning they were all lined up, swinging from the wire that is my internet connection.... hmmm that could scupper a deadline or two if I don’t take action!

June

Chiffon pink and purple velvet

I may not have made it to the Chelsea Flower Show last week but I have been enjoying a 'gold medal' display at my local iris field!

A question for you...

What do a teaspoon, potato curry and a five pence piece have in common?

They all turned up in my compost heap yesterday! Well, strictly speaking the potatoes were not curried when I found them. The thin skinned, firm fleshed, tiny new potatoes were growing happily from a potato discarded months ago. Was it cruel to curry them? I guess mint and a knob of butter might have been sufficient. 

Too late, and anyway they were just the inspiration I needed for dinner. I’d had a long day in the garden. I’d planted out my sweetcorn, celeriac and celery, dug over some compacted soil, sown some more salad and potted up some more tomatoes (why did I sow so many?), culled barrow loads of weeds and now I needed comfort food!

..and a scattering of fresh coriander.

P.S. I am not the only one who has been taking advantage of a serendipitous dinner. A fox has been cruising past lately, picking up his supper 'to go'. Just four chickens left and my heart in my mouth every time I take the register at night!

May diary

Tues.
Sunny and blustery. The ground beneath the wisteria is strewn with petals, brutally torn from their elegant racemes. I feel the same disappointment as that of a child whose carefully threaded beads have slid, unstoppable, off their string.

Weds.
There have been a couple of blackbirds on the lawn all day. Dad is run ragged, dashing to and fro scooping up beakfuls of food. Baby, who is as big as daddy, unabashed, sits and squawks, waiting for the next morsel. Mum’s keeping well out of it!

Thurs. 
Ah, what a gentle and soothing timbre; rain falling on my studio roof. Rain falling on the garden. Rain filling up the pond and water butt. Gentle, caring droplets, dancing around my seedlings encouraging them to sing. 
There’s a tap-tap-tap on my window. I can see the tail feathers of a long-tailed tit but its scraping beak is blocked from my view. A quick look outside and I can see it’s pulling spider egg cocoons from the window frame to build its nest. Spider silk and moss most perfectly crocheted together.

Fri.
Galloping romping May. Boundless greens yelping from the hedgerows. Daubed with towering chestnut blooms and spattered with dizzy cow-parsley.

Last Chance Hotel

This time last year I took pity on a handful of my mother's limp, discarded cauliflower seedlings. I tucked them up in my veg patch… and largely ignored them.

I had not anticipated how much cauliflower we would be eating, tonight, tomorrow, the next day and the next day and….. 

'Out with the old, in with the new'

We’ve just got a new pig!

Which has got me thinking about the highlights of the old pig.... so before I pare our final delicious slivers of air dried ham here’s a snapshot.

Six months ago I was faced with 'pig' laid out before me on the kitchen table, head, shoulders, loin, legs, trotters, everything, the possibilities were endless… sausages, bacon, chorizo, brawn, ham...

Dealing with a pig requires a ton of salt, a sharp knife, an uncomfortably chilly working environment and for hams and chorizo, a frustrating wait of several months. 

I found the whole process definitely lacks the finger-lickin’ bliss that goes hand in glove with an afternoon cocooned in a warm kitchen whipping up sticky cakes. But frankly I’d swap a constant supply of air dried ham for an iced bun any day. 

I simply followed Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s guidance and it couldn’t have been easier. 

Very approximately... debone a hind leg, leaving just the knuckle protruding- easier than than you think with a really sharp knife. Rub inside and out with salt then resurrect your needlework skills with a nice bit of blanket stitch to sow up the joint. (Sadly not as photogenic as an iced bun!)

Completely cover the ham in a box of salt, weight the lid and leave in a cool place for a couple of weeks to cure.

Wash and dry the ham, rub all over with vinegar then wrap tightly in muslin.

Hang in a cool, well ventilated place for a few months until it is firm but not rock hard. Mine swung from the garage rafters, (encased in chicken wire as a deterrent to vermin and hungry cats and only moderately impeding access to the bicycles, ouch).

The only mistake I made was to do one leg not two.... but I can rectify that this year!

P.S. If you're wondering what happened to that box full of salt, it makes a very good weedkiller, more on that later.

25th April 2014

April 25th 1777  "The titlark rises, & sings sweetly in its descent. The Ring-dove hangs on its wings, & toys in the air.' Gilbert White

A wise old gardener would tell you with an intake of breath and a knowing shake of the head that it’s customary to sow maincrop potatoes by Easter. 
Well, as Easter is a moveable feast that lets me off the hook slightly, but yes, I promise I will plant mine today. If I’m looking for excuses, I’d say that I’d been been waiting, hoping for a good downpour so that I could feasibly ease my fork into our heavy clay soil. 

The rain came. Finally. 

I’m loitering in the vegetable garden, triumphant! I’ve just planted all my potatoes, to the centuries old accompaniment of all good gardening…

...a pair of inseperable collared doves chatting gently in the birch tree and a hovering skylark, quivering and trilling, transcending the tuneless crow and it’s stupid caw.

Happy Easter

OK it's Easter, time to give Mary a big clue.

Yesterday I’d just laid another secret egg when I spotted her on her ‘coffee walkabout’. She was loitering under the Indian bean tree, her gaze scouring the banks of the pond. Little did she realise, she was barely five paces from where I was sitting, smirking. 

So I slipped noncholantly off my eggs, ducked through the tangle of sedge and then shoulders back, strode across the lawn to join the gang.

Mary spotted me instantly…. I'm not very camouflaged against green! She retraced my steps and started to poke around in the undergrowth. She was getting warmer...

and warmer...

 and warmer...

and warmer!

Her prize?

The best kind of Easter Egg ever!