MY NEW BED

Hooray! It arrived early this morning and in spite of the fact that he was very tired my son heroically offered to assemble it for me. Of course I agreed at once and as soon as we had finished breakfast we tackled the job. The bed is very similar to the one my son purchased for himself last August, the only difference is that mine does not have a foot board. It is quite an old fashioned style which suits the room with it,s Victorian fireplace, we have one in every room upstairs, even the bathroom!
The bed was assembled in record time, it took us longer to take off the packaging and I must say it looks splendid.
It did not arrive a moment too soon as last night the old one collapsed completely and I spent a very uncomfortable night with the bottom of the bed chocked up on some books. It felt like trying to sleep on the “Titanic” as she went down. I got up early this morning as there was little inducement to stay in bed and got on with the day,s bread making, one of the loaves is a prosciutto loaf and we shall eat it this evening with a lovely creamy vegetable soup

PROSCIUTTO BREAD
One and a half pounds of strong bread flour
! sachet of quick yeast
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 teaspoon of salt
3 slices of Prosciutto or any air dried ham
half a pint of warm water (you may need a little more, it depends on the flour)
Grease a baking sheet and heat the oven to 230 C. Put the flour ,yeast and salt in a bowl and add the olive oil and the waster, Mix together and if the mix is dry add a little more warm water. All the dry ingredients should be moistened but not too wet.
Turn out on to a floured surface and knead for ten minutes.
Shape in to a round and then using a rolling pin roll out to a circle of about ten inches.
Break the Prosciutto in to pieces and scatter over the rolled dough the roll up like a roly poly, lay on the greased baking sheet with the join underneath. Make three slashes with a sharp knife and then cover with a damp cloth of a sheet of oiled cling film until it has doubled in size.
Cook at 230 c for fifteen minutes and the reduce the oven temperature to 200c and cook for a further fifteen minutes. Test with a skewer to make sure it is cooked or turn it upside down and give it e knock, if it sounds hollow it is done. Place on a wire rack to cool and cover with a dry tea towel, this stops the crust from becoming too hard.
This type of loaf is good with cheeses or soup and is a lovely picnic bread .

My sons appraisal went well, it seems that they were in a hurry to do them as the head honcho is visiting in the next week or so and I think that the fact that there have been no appraisal,s for over two years may have caught his attention, that means that he at least is awake!
I have a man coming tomorrow to relieve us of a huge pile of rubbish and I shall be glad to see it go. There are now so many things that the dustmen refuse to take that it hardly seems worth their while to turn up at all.
We are all having an early night tonight as it has been a tiring week for us all. Tomorrow our week off will really start and I am planning a feast for tomorrows dinner.
I am looking forward to getting into a bed that does not creak like an old shipwreck . Sweet dreams one and all.

DECISIONS

After two and a half years my the outfit my son works for have at last decided to give him what should be an annual appraisal. You may remember my commenting upon their lack of professionalism a week or so ago. It still angers me that a company which demands such accuracy and professionalism from its employees behaves in such a cavalier fashion towards them.
Much depends upon their attitude tonight, that is of course if they do not cancel, it will not be the first time if so!
The people who make the decisions should realise that their own livelihood is heavily dependent upon the high standard of work produced night after night often in difficult situations by people like my son and his team of hero's. Every one of them is committed too do his or her best, it is as I said before a great pity that their diligence and hard work go unnoticed more often than not.
They have tried my sons patience to the utmost, enough said.

We are looking forward to our week off. My son is off to Portsmouth on Wednesday and we hope for a good outcome from his visit. He is still planning a couple of retreats in the next few weeks, I believe he is going to spend a week in the Dark Peak in Derbyshire, close to were we used to live.
“It,s a wild and lonely place you understand.” To quote Private Frazer but stunningly beautiful at any time of the year. It is just the place for cosy log fires and brisk walks in the frosty air when the ground is as hard as bell metal and rings when you walk upon it. At least his mind is working on other things and I am only too happy for him to forget about work for a while, it seems to me that diligence, honesty and loyalty count for very little in a world full of crawlers.

The ironing raised it's ugly head again today and I dealt with the mountain with a very bad grace
Even the cat hates ironing day as she is afraid of the steam and she scoots off the moment she sees the ironing board.. Her look of reproach as she leave the room is enough to wither the soul. Pa gave me a box of chocolates last night and I did enjoy myself curled up in bed, I felt very special, it is so nice to be spoiled a little now and then.

I am making a special type of bread tomorrow, so you may expect a recipe, I also intend to make a cake if there is time as my kind neighbours have not had a lemon drizzle cake for a month.

I do hope you all had a relaxing weekend and wish for us all a good week ahead.

THE BATTLE OF THE TROLLY'S

Guess who ended up in Tesco on a Saturday again? Very foolishly I forgot a couple of essential items yesterday so much to my chagrin I had to make another sortie. Never in the whole of my life have I encountered so many people with a death wish, if they behaved in theit cars as they do with their trolleys the accident and emergency units nation wide would be swamped by coach loads of injured shoppers. What I find so exasperating is the fact that these idiots look me straight in the eye and then proceed to walk straight in to me as if they expected to be able to pass right through!
Now I have to tell you that my corporeal frame is not inconsiderable these days.....middle age spread..... so that I am easy to see. Add to this the fact that I am sitting on a large blue buggy and you will understand why I am puzzled . I have come to the conclusion that this phenomenon is caused by a great want of manners in the individuals who engage in this dangerous occupation. Convinced of their superiority they calmly expect people to either get out of their way as they make their royal progress around the store. Well today I decided to show at least one of these clue less types the error of their assumptions!

One particular individual stood out even among the throng of thoughtless so and so,s. This fellow had caused me to apply my brakes on four separate occasions by assuming he had a divine right of way and that all others must either stop of get out of his way. After the fourth encounter I carried on with my shopping muttering darkly about what I would do to the next rude toad who crossed my path. \I do not suppose that I should have done anything except that the next person was the same person who had already caused my shopping to avalanche off the front of my buggy several time, that,s right, it was HIM again!
He came bowling up the aisle looked me in the eye and kept on coming.....this time so did I! I was going at a crawl so he had plenty of time to stop, but he did not and I ran in to him. Judging by the anguished bellow it must have hurt quite a bit. “You ran in to me1” he yelped in disbelief,
“Not so.” I replied “You walked in to me.” The couple walking behind me agreed and the fellow limped off in a huff.

I am normally am easy going sort of person but when I had deliberately been run into several times and been forced to wait for ages while a stream of battle axes with trolleys full of shopping and no manners push my fro in front and behind something snapped. It gave me a degree of satisfaction at the time but now I realise that I have sunk to their level....I should be ashamed of myself, and I am. Still the look on his face when he realised that he was not God will stay with me for some time.

A VERY BUSY DAY WHEN NITHING HAPPENED

Today has been the sort of day well known to every woman or man for that matter(let us be P.C.) who has ever kept house. My feet have not touched the ground today but they could not feel more tired if I had run a marathon , I am shattered!
At first light I was up making bread seeing my son off to bed and waking up Pa with a cup of coffee. This morning he was up and dressed in record time and we had breakfast while the bread was baking. I tried out the new 2lb loaf tins which arrived yesterday and I am happy to report that they worked very well indeed. I baked two tin loaves and two bloomers which will, with luck last until Monday. We had decided on porridge for breakfast and very nice it was, except for having to wash up the pan afterwards....yuk!

Next it was off to the shops, I was a little nervous about the buggy but she did nit let me down. The super market was heaving with shoppers so it took ages to get around. I wanted some thick woolly tights, I was out of luck. Tesco, like every other shop is no longer selling winter clothes, the only tights they had were silky ones and except for a few odd winter coats on sale the place was full of light summer coats . Am I the only person who thinks it unreasonable that the shops are full of summer clothes already, after all it is still January. I once tried to buy a bikini in August and found nothing but winter woollies, how tiresome and how typical. Right moan over!

Dinner went well tonight. I wrapped a dozen gorgeous meaty chipollata sausages with streaky bacon and roasted them for forty five minutes covered in foil son and I had ours with onion sauce, mashed potato, served in scoops like the school dinners of old, peas and thyme and apple gravy. Pa has his sausages with roasted tomatoes and stuffed mushrooms. There was a sausage left over for Twiggy, she loves them and there would be trouble if we neglected to give her a fair share!

My son is planning a retreat in the near future. Not a religious one but a writers one. He has done a good deal of writing for magazines and has even edited a long running magazine of his own. He is working now on an exciting new project in which a good deal of interest has already been shown by those in the know. The need to write is a family characteristic and believe me he is very good indeed. One of his magazines was so highly regarded that he got exclusive interviews with some of the Gods in the world of R.P.G, some thing of which he was justly proud.

Night has fallen and it is turning even colder, as I said at the beginning it has been a very ordinary sort of day, oh one thing I forgot to tell you,this morning my ancient bed finally collapsed. The miracle is that it did not happen sooner, I survived but the cat was badly shaken by the experience and is refusing to go near it at the moment. I have ordered a new one and it should be hear on Monday, when my son promises that he will assemble it for me. Until then things will be a little precarious as one corner is held together with binder twine. Hey ho, only two more nights to get through, wish me luck!

LEEKS

For the first time in over twenty years I have been obliged to buy leeks. Each year in spring I sow several types of leek and harvest them from September right through until March. This years the severe weather wiped out a bed of sixty late winter leeks and their loss is keenly felt. Bought ones are often spongy and the flavour is never as good, but beggars can not be choosers and so for now I am at the mercy of the commercial growers. Thankfully the curly kale is flourishing and we shall not have to buy any greens this winter.
Leek and potato soup is on the menu tonight served with hot buttered granary toast. When we lived in the north of England it was a favourite meal after a long day on the moor,s, nothing warms you up so fast and it is hearty enough to be a main meal
.
Leek and Potato Soup
2 large leeks
1 large onion
12 oz potatoes
a blade of mace of a good grating of nutmeg if you do not have the mace.
Salt and pepper as much as you like
1pt chicken stock
1 pint of milk
small pot of crème fraiche
2 oz butter with a drop or two of olive oil

Wash and chop up the leeks and chop the onion, melt the butter and oil in a large pan, add the leeks and onions and sweat slowly for about ten minutes, make sure the leeks do not brown.
Peel and slice the potatoes and add to the leeks with the chicken stock, salt and pepper there should be just enough liquid to cover the vegetables, add the blade of mace of the nutmeg and simmer for half an hour.
Blitz in a blender with the milk and crème fraiche or pass through a sieve, reheat, check the seasoning and serve. Toast goes better than croutons with this very English soup.
Today I purchased some new leek seed said to be extremely hardy, I have now intention of being caught out again.

The chilly weather has curtailed Miss Twiggies exploits in the garden, she has spent the entire day hugging the radiator or curled up around my lava lamp. The wind is strong and is finding all the chinks in our old windows and doors, walking down the stairs to the hall way is like descending in to a well and the wind whistle through the key hole like a banshee.
I warmed up the kitchen by making a huge batch of Ramshaw Rockies, I had intended to bake oat cookies today but my son asked for more of the Rockies so that was that. I discovered that I was short of walnuts and so I added some chopped almonds and a bag of chocolate peanuts just for fun. I also tested a gluten free flour and I must say the result was surprisingly good.

During the afternoon small flakes of snow drifted down and my robin sat in the ash tree singing his sad winter song, against the grey sky his red breast looked like a small flame and he seemed so full of life in a seemingly lifeless winter world.
I think it will be another hot water bottle night and fluffy bed socks too. I drew the curtains early tonight, I could actually feel the cold striking off the glass. I love to snuggle up in quilts and rugs, I should be denied this pleasure if there were not chilly weather, there is some virtue in all things,

SINS OF OMISSION

I have received a compliant about the recent lack of recipe's in the content of my blogs. On reflection it is all to true, I have been rather prone to waffling of late, so a thousand pardons to the complainant, I shall remedy the matter at once.
I have been amazed recently by the cost of small tubs of dip that are to be found in supermarkets these days. Then there are the small packets of mixture to be sprinkled in to mayonnaise or crème fraich ladies and gentlemen we are being ripped off! Here are a few recipes that are quick to do,cheap to make and will turn an ordinary bowl of chips or wedges into a tasty supper.

Lemon and Dill Dip
5 tablespoons of mayonnaise (or crème fraiche
Rind of half a lemon
Half a teaspoon of dried dill or a tablespoon of fresh
A pinch of salt
Mix the ingredients in a small bowl and refrigerate for and hour or so.
This is good with chicken or fish. Or just a bowl of chips

Horse radish and mustard dip
Small tub of crème fraiche of sour cream
I tablespoon of horsehadish (less if you do not like it too hot, and the bottled sort is best)
1 dessert spoon of made mustard, I use Dijon
pinch of salt
ten twists of fresh ground pepper.
Mix all the ingredients together and chill for a couple of hour
This is terrific with grilled trout. Salmon or steak, you can spoon it on to Yorkshire puddings and at a barbecue it is splendid on a beef burger. Very versatile.


Italian herb dip
This one is a breeze.
Five tablespoons of mayonnaise
1 teaspoon of garlic salt
half a teaspoon full of Italian seasoning ( thyme, rosemary ,basil and marjoram/oregano) This can be purchased for just over a pound as a mix and will last for ages.
6 twists of fresh ground black pepper.
Mix in a small bowl and chill for about two hours, less if you use fresh herbs.

Cheats hot tomato dip or sauce if you make more of it
Half a cup of tomato ketchup
quarter cup of tomato purree
teaspoon of sugar
pinch of salt
1 clove of garlic crushed or a teaspoon of garlic salt.
juice of an orange
If you like it very hot add a little cayenne pepper or as much chilli as you are comfortable with, I hate the stuff but if you like it go ahead.
Put all the ingredients in to a small saucepan and heat, do not boil, serve at once
This makes a lively change from parsley sauce with any fish and is good with tortillas or chips.

Blue cheese dip
2 oz of any soft blue cheese
half a cup of crème fraiche
salt and pepper to taste
! teaspoon of lemon juice.
Mix in a small bowl and chill until needed
Serve with crackers or jacket potatoes

My own favourite is the simplest of all and I think I may have already cast the recipe in to the ether but here goes
Tarragon dip
1 tub of crème fraiche
1 tablespoon of fresh chopped Russian Tarragon (much better than French)
salt and ground pepper to taste.
Mix in a small bowl and chill until needed. You can substitute dried tarragon if you grind it up in a pestle. Chopped fresh chives can also be used a s a substitute and are very good. Do not be tempted to use dried chives they really are ghastly!

I hope this swift trot through the dips is satisfactory and I promise more recopies and less waffle in the future.

GREAT NEWS

I find myself almost overwhelmed with relief today,and absolutely nothing can dim the joy . You will understand when I tell you that A barrage of test which Pa underwent last week have tested negative for several types of cancer. He has lost so much weight in the past couple of months that I was beginning to fear the worst. All through the Christmas holiday we had this praying on our minds but non of us realised quite have worried we were because of course each of us kept his fears firmly locked in. there were tears when the good news came through. Pa,s G.P kindly telephoned to give us the results and I have been walking on air ever since. God only knows how Pa must have felt, and now we can all breath again. The doctor believes that one of his medications is causing the trouble so hopefully it will be sorted out before the poor old boy goes down the plug hole!?

The buggy repair man arrived this morning and guess what? The buggy went like a bird. He took her for a long drive over the bumpiest pavements he could find, not difficult as bumpy pavements are plentiful in this neck of the woods. He returned very apologetic having found nothing wrong with her, she had not stopped once. There was nothing more he could do.
Encouraged by his findings I went to the garden centre to buy food for the birds, and beasts , our poor squirrels have not seen a peanut since last Friday ! I returned home laden with goodies and without incident.

Confident once more I set off to the supermarket to buy fresh fruit and a few other necessaries, half way around Morrisson,s the old girl conked out.
There I was, stuck in the dairy isle, loaded up with sweet potatoes, bananas,mushrooms and two bunches of flowers I felt a proper Charlie and probably looked like one too. Fortunately no one seemed to notice my predicament as I sat planning how to get home. After about ten minutes or so I gave her one more kick and off she went as if nothing was wrong. I payed for my goods and drove home at top speed(eight miles and hour) and arrived safe and sound without further ado.

I had to work quickly to catch up the lost time but all went well and a dinner of toad in the hole with savoury beans was only about twenty minutes late.
As I said before nothing can dampen my spirits today,Pa is safe and my son is happier than I have seen him in ages, having time to think must have done him good, he seems to be happy making plans for the future and I am glad of that. As for me my little world is peaceful.......for the moment and all I ask more than that is a good nights sleep. Night night and blessing lite upon you.

GETTING TO GRIPS WITH THE NEW OVEN

It has taken me a week to become acquainted with my new oven, at least as far as the baking of bread is concerned. The new oven is wider than the old one but not as high and this has had an effect upon the type of loaves that I can bake as I usually make three of four a t a time. Also the temperature differences have caused a little trouble but today all went well and I produced two baguettes, a two pound tin loaf two cottage loaves and a bloomer. I shall need to buy a couple of loaf tins as the one I have is not really up to the job and the bread made in it has a habit of sticking. The over all result however was very good and I feel confident again.

It always takes a while to get used to a new oven , no two are the same and so everything I bake for the first time will be a trial . Things get easier with each use and I am looking forward to trying out a cake of two later in the week.
There has been no word from the buggy repair man and I shall call him first thing in the morning to see when he will come. I hate being house bound again and we are in need of some fresh produce so I hope he comes soon.

My little cat has been in the garden all day again. She investigated the fox earth at the bottom of the orchard with arched back and much hissing and spitting, she is a territorial little madam to be sure.
She sat for a while inside the poly tunnel, it is a favourite warm spot and a great nuisance when there are young tender plants inside. She prowled around the potting shed in search of mice, found non and then turned her attention to the front garden where she sat on the sundial watching the passers by and revelling in their admiration, vain creature.

What a dark sort of a day it has been, it even looked cold, I spent as much time outside as I could , I am the type of person who is miserable stuck indoors, even in winter. I took some photographs of the river and the gulls and chatted to friends who happened by, all in all I spent a happy hour of so watching the boats, the birds and the world go by.

Back home I made coffee,feed the caterwauling Twiggy and prepared my sons sandwiches for work. Tonight he has a baguette filled with roast ham and mozzarella cheese and a big red apple. Then I assembled a lasagne for dinner, I had cooked the meat sauce earlier and the milk had spent the day infusing with some garlic, peppercorns and a bay leaf. It is such a simple dish and the boys ask for it often. Served with a salad it makes a good weekday meal.
I prefer a good old cottage pie but I am usually overruled by the dinner menu committee.

My son is going back to work tonight for the first time since his bout of flue. I am not sanguine about his disission but he is a grown man and makes his own choices. His still looks pale and he is still very tired. He says that he is fine but as you know it is different just sitting reading to working under pressure. I shall keep my fingers crossed and hope that all goes well.

Pa has been a little off colour today but has tried hard to keep going for my sake bless him, I too am tired and shall be glad to sink in to a soft bed after a nice hot bath, maybe a hot water bottle too....yes I think so.

The light is fading fast as I write and soon I shall serve our meal, lights from passing cars rake across the ceiling of my room , throwing shadows in to the corners. I shall not switch on the light, I love the softness and the mystery of half light at evening. Time enough to light the lamps when the last of the daylight has gone and it is truly dark once more.

THE CASE OF THE VANISHING DUCK ARK!

Today has been almost the perfect Sunday for me, only Pa feeling a little unwell has darkened the day at all. After all the pressure of the past week of so I feel the need for a little relaxation ans so I decided to give myself an afternoon off.
Since the buggy is out of action and the day very cold I decided to stay indoors and play with my paints and my computer, and having made Pa comfortable wrapped in a fur rug on the sofa I indulged myself in a very lazy afternoon.
I am not the sort of person who finds doing absolutely nothing relaxing, a fact which cause much amusement among my friends, my hands at least must be busy and then my mind can wonder,and wander it did.
Thoughts drifted in and out of my mind until at last one of them stuck fast and demanded to be recognised. Funnily enough it was the sight of the bare tree branches through the window that reminded me of some thing in my childhood.

The small hamlet I grew up in had quite a population of children who's ages ranged from three to seventeen. I was, to my Mothers dismay a dreadful tom-boy and tended to prefer boys games, I was never,ever to be seen with anything so girlish as a doll! Next door lived a boy who had spent some time at a boarding school until his father, tiring of expulsions and bad reports decided to send him to the village school for a few terms to...rub the corners off.....as he put it. You may judge for yourselves the success of this ploy as his doings will feature in this and ,other stories.
The boy,s name was Todd and he had a reckless fearlessness which exactly matched my own, we were a dangerous combination indeed. It there was any thing going on we would be in the thick of it.
One balmy August day a gang of seven of us were hanging about sitting in a row on the stone wall above my house. Gangs were all the rage and we were in a state of continuous warfare with a gang from a village less that a mile away. Our “den” had recently been targeted by these ruffians and had been found and destroyed a few days previously. Our meeting was called to discuss the building of a new hide out. No one came up with any ideas at first and then I remembered that Jenny;s Mother used to keep ducks and that the duck ark had not been used for well over a year. This was hailed as a good idea and off we went to have a look. The ark was about eight feet long and had a triangular shape, the floor was slatted and there were two poles through it from front to back for moving it about We spent hours getting it down to the woods, the general idea was to somehow lodge it high in a tree. Next came the question of how to get it up there and Todd had the answer, he produced from a Hessian sack a very long rope and a block and tackle.

It took hours and wore us all out, but as darkness fell the ark was wedged firmly across two thick branches and help in place by being tied in to a branch above.
We made our ways home delighted and of course sworn to secrecy. The next day we met in the woods full of plans for our brilliant new hideout. Todd had brought with him a hammer and I had purloined a bag of six inch nails from my fathers workshop and we proceeded to nail the ark very firmly in to place.....now nothing would shift it.
We made a harness for the block and tackle and used it to haul ourselves up into the tree, it was perfect and could not easily be seen from the ground. Our delight was boundless....and short lived!
Less that a week after the completion of our Herculean endeavours Jenny;s father returned from the Wednesday market with two dozen Aylesbury ducklings. We were all playing hide and seek in the farm yard so the farmer asked two of the boys to go and fetch the ark. They went.....they returned ….without the ark.
The farmer was surprised but not too worried thinking it may have been moved, we were sent to go and look for the missing ark......we looked.

There is a limit to how long a person can convincingly look for something which they know is not there and one by one we drifted off, wondering what would be the out come.
By the morning the farmer had convinced himself that the ark had been stolen by a party of gypsies who had passed through the village some time before and as no more was said about the matter we dropped it from our minds. Except for the farmers son Alex who had the job of helping to make the new ark.....we sympathised of course!

Time sped on and the school holidays came to an end. We were kept busy in the evenings and weekends by our mothers who insisted that we spent our free time picking blackberries, bilberries crab apples and rose hips, all to be made in to preserves and syrups for winter use.
Autumn advanced and the days shortened.

On night in the middle of September a gale blew up during the evening.,all night it roared around our farm, whining in the chimney and rattling the doors and windows. The walls of our farm were three feet thick and it was roofed with great slabs of stone so we were not afraid.
The next morning was a Saturday and we set off in a body to survey the wreckage, Willie Simms hay stack had blown away, and several large trees were blown down in the lane.
We were at Jennies house waiting for a ride on the farm trailer to the crossroads when another farmed arrived in the yard
“Well Jim.” he said. “that was a wild old night.” “Aye it was.” said Jim. “There's been a lot of damage,I've never known such a blow as that.”
You;re right there said the newcomer it was strong enough to blow your duck ark half a mile and wedge it up a tree.”
“You don;t say .” said Jim
“I do say, and it was strong enough to tether it with six inch nails as well!”
The great gale had blown all the leaves off the trees and the ark was now plainly visible!
The strong wind may have blown the ark up the tree but even we knew that the six inch nails would take a lot of explaining!

By this time we were nowhere in sight. Of course we were made to get the ark back and it took even longer to get down than it did to get up. The wages of sin,I suppose!

FUN IN THE KITCHEN

I know I said that I would do as little as possible in the kitchen today but with a gleaming new oven just sitting their I thought I had better try out a few things today rather than later under combat conditions as it were. The bread that I made yesterday came out very well, I had made a 2lb tin loaf two bloomers and a crown. They came out perfectly to my relief as I was unhappy with my first attempt. Next I decided to make a huge batch of Ramshaw cookies and tried the tins in various parts of the oven, all came out beautifully with none over cooked which was a problem with my old oven a at times. An oven that will bake evenly is a godsend but it must be said that many manufacturers who make the claim do not always deliver the goods.

My baking was halted by the arrival of the fresh fruit and vegetables, as you know I am unable to go to the shops today as the buggy has broken down. The good news is that e are covered by our insurance for the repairs and the hire of a buggy if ours has to go in for repair,I had forgotten about the policy so it came as a pleasant surprise.

My son is insisting that he is well enough to return to work next week, I am not so sure. He is as pale as a ghost, is still having tummy trouble and is, not to put to fine a point upon it worn out through being so ill. Every night he falls asleep at about nine and sleeps like the dead so how the devil he expects to stay up all night next week I do not know. One thing is certain.” He ain't gonna listen to his Ma."
He has gone out to game with a few friends today and I hope that he does not over do it, pushing my buggy a few yards yesterday exhausted he completely. Why are men so damned stubborn?

The cat Twiggy is once again asleep on my desk, this has become her roosting place of choice these past weeks and I must say that she makes a very pretty ornament indeed. She is being a cosy kitty cat today I am relieved to report. In a fit of tigerishness last night she left her mark on me in several places, I never learn! I am cooking a Mexican dish for dinner, nothing spectacular ,just some marinated chicken with wraps, salad and sauces. Not very Mexican is the tabbouleh I am serving with the meal, it is a favourite with Pa and as his appetite has been poor of late I am serving all his favourite things. He is not as keen of the wraps as my son and I so this dish is especially for him, I dare say my son will have some too. There is gammon on the menu for tomorrow, either steaks of a joint, I have not decided yet.

Marinated gammon steaks with butter sauté potatoes and salad
3 Gammon steaks 1 per person
3 tablespoons of tomato purree
3 tablespoons of olive oil
2 cloves of garlic crushed
2 dessert spoons of cider vinegar
Pepper
Salt
A teaspoon of made mustard
A good grating of nutmeg
2 table spoons of honey

Mix the ingredients in a bowl, lay the gammon steaks in a shallow sided tray and spoon on the marinade. Leave for and hour then turn and leave for half and hour.
At this point you can either grill the gammon, basting occasionally with the left over marinade or as I do cover them with foil and cook in hot oven for thirty minutes and then grill for about four minutes on each side, a little charring of the fat is rather nice.
For the sauté potatoes
Peel enough potatoes for three and cut in to even sized pieces Cook in boiling water for about two minutes then drain thoroughly. Melt about three ounces of clarified butter in a large frying pan and add the potatoes. Keep on shaking them around until they are golden brown all over then drain on a little kitchen paper.
Serve the gammon with some of the hot marinade from the cooking tray with a portion of the potatoes and some crisp green salad. Salad sprouts are also good with this dish. Peas too are a good accompaniment.
Of course there is absolutely nothing wrong with good old gammon with eggs and chips, my personal favourite in fact.

I found a really good recipe for Huevos Rancheros on line today. They were mentioned in a “Charlie Brown “film and Until today I had no idea what they were. The website showed a man actually cooking the dish and while I do not think that I could eat it for breakfast I am definitely going to try it out for a lunch or supper dish. Call me a wimp if you like but I may leave out the chillies, I can not abide the blessed things, a great failing indeed on my part I am sure.

FOUR WHEELS ON MY WAGON BUT I'M NOT ROLLING ALONG!

I am in serious trouble, the buggy has broken down. I took her out for a test run this afternoon to make sure that the tyre had not gone down again and at first she did not want to start. This happens occasionally when the weather is cold but today she was more than usually stubborn.
Finally I got the old girl going and all went well until I wqas almost home when she stopped dead in her tracks and I was obliged to call my son to come out and give me a push.

The sight of my son pushing me down the road caused a good deal of merriment to passers by, and to a bunch of roofers working on the big house on the corner of the lane. Even we had to laugh.
Pa was due at the doctors surgery at three so I called for a taxi to get him there and then phoned the buggy repair man. The good news is that he is coming to have a look at the old lady. The bad news is that it will not be until Tuesday of next week...........help!

My son was dispatched to the bank to draw out some cash , one of my Saturday jobs. Then came the question of the Saturday shopping, fresh fruit etc., another of my Saturday jobs. I shall probably have to put in another order to come on Monday as we shall need the fresh things by then.
Other than these minor catastrophes things went well today. Pa was up and about well before nine when the groceries arrived and everything was put away by ten. I made two trays of blue berry muffins for breakfast, the first time in the new oven and I am still getting used to it.
The bread I made this morning came out well so that is one thing less to worry about , the first loaves I made were not up to my usual standard and I had complaints from the troops!

By the end of the day the house was clean and tidy and we sat down to a big pot of vegetable and bacon soup with the bread. Both of the boys had asked me to make soup for tonight and I was happy to go along with their wishes. It makes good sense to have soup of a stew on bread making day as it is always nicer when the bread is very fresh.

It appears that I shall have very little to do in the way of chores tomorrow and so I hope to spend a little time in the garden if the day is fine. If not I shall get my paint box out .or even do some work on the book I am writing, I seldom have time for these pleasures since Pa became ill.

I must say that I shall not miss the Saturday battle to leave the supermarket intact and with all the goods I need. I feel really light hearted. One thing darkens the rosy view, not knowing what is wrong with he buggy and how much it is going to cost to put her right. These things are in the lap of the Gods and it is pointless to meet trouble half way.
I shall enjoy tomorrow, next week can look out for itself. Have a good weekend every one, where ever you are.

THE QUIET LIFE

All was peaceful at the cottage this morning, my son woke first and made coffee for the two of us and then he did some writing while I slept again for an hour or so. We had decided not to bother Pa too early this morning as we felt the need of a more relaxing day than usual.
Imagine our astonishment when Pa appeared at the top of the stairs asking “What does a person have to do to get a cup of coffee around here.”
Needless to say the coffee was instantly forthcoming, it was a wonderful start to our planned lazy day.
Breakfast was a lazy meal of oatcakes spread with hot cheese, tea and orange juice. The conversation was merry, it was a lovely meal and afterwards my son helped me with the washing up.
I needed to pop into the village so I made that my first little task but half way there I discovered that I had a very, very flat tyre. The buggy was handling badly and I got home as fast as a person on three wheels can.. Pa said that he would run her down to our local garage and put in some air, perhaps it was not a puncture after all. I had cleaned the buggy and I must say that she looked splendid in spite of all the mud and gunge I had scraped off her. Our luck seems to be in as the tyre does not seem to be going down again,it is wonderful when things go well, and rather rare.
Twiggy the cat has spent the day disporting herself in the garden, she spent a long time sitting on the high orchard wall staring out across the old graveyard. I have no idea what it was that she found so absorbing, whatever it was it kept her out of trouble for a while.

During the bad weather we kept her litter tray in the house during the day as she would have needed a pneumatic drill to excavate a hole in the garden. Unfortunately since the thaw she has taken to digging up the large half barrel beautifully planted by my neighbours with pansies and polyanthus. Her attentions combined with those of the local squirrels who have made off with all his tulip bulbs , also planted in the tubs have wrought havoc with the fine display.
Miss Twiggy is deaf to all my reproaches and must therefore take the chance of a deluge of cold water, the usual fate of those caught digging up the flower pots! At the moment she is sitting on my desk, the picture of innocence, I know better!

Today has been much more relaxed and I hope we can have a few more of these special days. It is hard to make time for lazy mornings when there is an invalid in the house who needs constant care, and it takes time to adjust to changing circumstances but I hope that we are at last making a little headway against the encroaching tide of Pa,s failing health. He deserves the best from us and we are going to make sure that we are up to the task.

WHO AM I, WHAY AM I, WHERE AM I

Things have not exactly been going according to the manual around here of late. One problem I have is that I can not keep track of what day it is. Having my son at home last week has caused much of the confusion , as normally my days are so bound up in his comings s and goings that I tend to use them to mark the passing of time. I do not know half the time what day of the week it is, this morning I was shocked top discover the fact that we are more than half way through January. On the other hand it seems ages since New Years Eve.
This is causing pron=blems as I almost forgot to put in the grocery order thinking I had plenty of time. My vagueness is beginning to cause comment and I am sure that there are some,who think that I am loosing my marbles,, this is of course entirely possible.
I knew that the meat delivery was arriving today and yet I completely forgot all about it this morning.
As you know we have all been unwell of late and a combination of that and the demise of my oven have interrupted the normal bread making routine and this could have been a disaster as tonight,s meal was to be steak sandwiches and salad .

For some reason several light bulbs and a florescent strip gave up the ghost yesterday and I hurried off this afternoon to buy replacements. On my return, convinced it was Thursday I flew about cleaning the bedroom and bathroom cursing the fact that it was late in he day and I still had a meal to prepare. The fact that it was Thursday was only pointed out to me after I had finished these tasks, I was not amused.
Since our recent bout of flue none of us are eating properly yet. It is very odd because we all feel hungry, we just do not seem to want the food when it is time to eat. It is a pity because the meat that arrived today is some of the best I have seen for years. Beautiful thick gammon steaks, plump free range chickens, pork joints, bacon rashers and lean steak mince. I also ordered some more diced mixed game as it is so versatile and is equally good in pies stews ans casserole's. I treated us to a lovely gammon joint, it is lovely cooked in a cider and mustard sauce with vegetables and served hot with crusty dumplings and the left overs can be fried for breakfast and served with eggs or sandwiched with salad.
At one point this afternoon I was taking bread out of the oven while dressing to go out at the same time as I was making a shopping list, to add to the confusion I was on the receiving end of a lecture on fluorescent tubes the gist of which I have completely forgotten. It is small wonder that my brain feels scrambled this evening.
I hope this bizarre feeling of disorientation has gone by tomorrow , trying to operate with a dislocated brain is both difficult and potentially dangerous. I have today left a kettle boiling turning the kitchen into a sauna, I almost let a deadly secret cat out of the bag in conversation, and heaven help me came within seconds of basting the steaks with marmalade in stead of mustard.....this really can not go on.
I must pull myself together before something awful happens, today I actually tried to brush my teeth using a tube of rheumatism cream. What next I wonder, trying to clean the furniture with hair spray! It does not bare thinking about!

VICTORY

To day has gone better than I could have imagined in my wildest dreams. My son and I got to the doctor,s surgery in good time and were not kept waiting at all. I left the surgery as my son went in for his appointment and sped off to the shops for a few necessities As I left the shop my son arrived and we made our way home. We had left Pa asleep and I was worried that the new cooker would be delivered while we were out. I called Pa on my mobile and behold not only was he awake and dressed but the new cooker had been installed, I was speechless.
The best news of all is that my son ,s blood pressure was normal and it seems that he has lost over eight kg in the past month. I suspect that his late bout of tummy trouble has had a lot to do with it but all the same how many of us can claim to have lost weight over Christmas.

We had a celebratory breakfast, and I had a look at the new cooker, still reeling at the speed with which the job was done. Perhaps I should have lost my temper earlier!
Pa Tired out by his efforts during the morning had a good rest in the afternoon while I tried out my oven by baking two large sticky malt loaves. These will be good for the invalids as their appetites return, spread with a little butter they will make a nice snack at any time during the next few days and provide me with something to serve to any visitors.

The cat Twiggy has revelled in today's sunshine and has hardly been seen indoors at all. She has stalked about the gardens revisiting her neglected haunts and has climbed the apple tree, the damson tree and an Ash tree by the garden shed. As the dusk descended she arrived home hungry and tired, ate a huge plate of food and then flopped down in an armchair to dream of her adventures.
Every thing seems to be on the move, I saw several mice hopping about in the dead grass in the lane, foraging I suppose and the squirrels, sleek and glossy raided the peanuts feeders with even more vigour than usual.
I for one intend to have an early night and I know that my son intends to do the same , the mile and a half walk to the doctor,s surgery is the first exercise he has had in days and he is very weary now.
Pa God bless him will be given a bedtime drink of coffee and brandy and a big hug, what a trooper he has been today.
Every thing in the garden may not be perfect but nothing is going to spoil today, I am so glad my son,s results were good, I cannot tell you how worried I have been. Now he can think about taking his pilots licence ,delayed until now by his hypertension. He is so happy and he deserves to be. Of course being his mother I would say that but truly he is a rare individual he always puts others before himself, a rare quality in these selfish and self-seeking times.

I have so many good thing to think about that I shall not care if I do not sleep tonight and I am sure my little cat will not object either as it means she will be stroked for hours and hours. Night Night.

TEMPER TEMPER!

You may remember some of my past skirmishes with the witless wonder who passes for our maintenance manager. I may also have mentioned the fact that my oven broke down yesterday. Well today things came to a head. By eleven thirty this morning we had received no acknowledgement of the numerous emails and messages which we left on the subject and I was not at all surprised. When our electric grill broke down we contacted the maintenance manager on Monday morning and he did not contact us for four days. Now when I tell you that the electricians are usually on site on Mondays and Tuesdays it is reasonable to suppose that he would send them on one of those days instead of which he deliberately waited until they were no longer on site and them told us that we would have to wait until the electricians were back on site , the following Monday. There then followed weeks of waiting for the part to arrive. This morning I had had enough and confronted the mule headed idiot with a few home truths. I pulled no punches. You see I had received a tip off that he intended to do exactly the same as he did last time and I saw a red mist rise before my eyes.

Like the Incredible Hulk I am not very nice when I am angry, I have emptied a room with my temper more than once, people hide in corners it is awful. Thank the Gods it does not happen often because I am not proud of it and it exhausts me when it happens.
The result was that the electricians were in our house within half an hour and a new cooker is to be fitted a.s.a.p. The old one has had so many repairs that it most resembles the Starship Enterprise after a battle with the Klingons. Jury Rigged!

Now I admit that I was already stressed to the limit by a week of nursing a pair of swine flue victims and that may have shortened my fuse just a little , but I have along with every other person who has to deal with this twerp been fighting a running battle with him for several years...enough is enough! He is a thorough going bully and enjoys throwing his considerable weight about, but like all bullies he can dish it out but does not like to take it. This unpleasant individual has reduced more sensitive people to tears with his threats and dirty tricks....not this little black duck!

While I doubt if this mornings explosion has benefited my high blood pressure one little bit I did have the satisfaction of making the toad grovel and he moved faster this morning than I suspect he has done for years.
I am a patient sort of person, it takes a lot to make me blow my top but when I do, oh boy.

I hope to return to my usual more peaceful pursuits and pray that I have no further cause to loose patience with this individual, however experience shows him to be incorrigible, so it is a faint hope.

Better news is that Pa seems a little better today and my son also seems stronger although he has a way to go before he is his normal self again.
Before the plague struck I had taken some photographs with my new camera, today I down loaded them. The picture on today,s blog was taken a few yards away from where I live. I doubt if any sculptor could do better than nature has in this display of dead ivy branches, I hope you like it.

HAT TRICK

Woe, woe and thrice woe, Pa has now become the third victim of our little plague. Yesterday evening I truly felt that I could do no more, the past week has been a nightmare and as I have been unwell my self, that and a lack of sleep combined with the extra work two invalids make has worn me out. I was just about to collapse in to bed last night when the excrement hit the fan,well not the fan but just about every where else.
There followed a merry few hours of cleaning up and preparing for the siege to come ,plastic covers were applied where appropriate and carpets were shrouded in bin liners and news paper to avoid trouble. By the time Pa had subsided and fallen asleep I was totally exhausted.
What followed was a game of musical lavatory played by my son and I while Pa slept, thank the Gods. We kept meeting on the landing, it would have been funny if we had not been so tired.

In the early hours of the morning, about four , we slept at last, but last it did not.
Pa decided wake my son up by asking rather loudly if he was awake, the purpose behind this action is still unclear and now Pa denies all knowledge of the incident. My son was not amused, and neither was I when I was obliged to begin yet another bout of cleaning up the bathroom and the living room, and more laundry.
Pa slept again and my son and I had a light breakfast and a cup of tea and then both collapsed in to bed in my case praying fervently for a little respite, but with little hope.
By the grace of God I slept for a couple of hours but woe, woe and thrice woe, when I went down stairs to check of the progress of a casserole I discovered that the oven had given up the ghost and the casserole, half cooked sulked in the rapidly cooking oven,

“What great sin have I committed that all this aggravation should be visited up[on me.” I cried, feeling as I imagine Job must have felt. I am certainly getting more than my fair share of trouble just now.
I am trying to remain calm but in the face of continuous disaster I am ,I think becoming a little paranoid. Murphy has been here long enough tomorrow I shall give him his marching orders.
I expect that the bed will collapse as I get in to it tonight, or the loo flush will cease to function, it,s a little like “Sting Ray” anything could happen in the next half hour......... God help me!

THE TIDE HAS TURNED

I am glad to say that my son ate something at last, two nicely poached eggs on granary toast some orange juice and a cup of tea, this is the first solid food he has eaten since Tuesday.Ithink it will be several days before he is up and about. I hope that I can stay on my feet as there is no one left to look after every one if I become much worse. I feel queasy all the time and cooking is difficult I am becoming desperate, it is frightening to have this weight of responsibility pressing down when I feel so ill. I usually get by but things have worsened over the last few months and I am now so tired that I have nothing left to fight with.

The one good thing to have come out of this is that my son is at last beginning to realise that he needs to think seriously about a change of job. At the moment he is overworked and seriously undervalued by the people for whom he make a considerable amount of money. I would be damned before I would bust my britches for a company who could not be bothered to do annual appraisals and who ignored the productivity of its employees by not giving them a pay rise for two years.
Thankfully the scales have fallen from is eyes and at last he is thinking about leaving them to rot. I am certain that there are companies out there who would appreciate his undoubted abilities. He has been bound by a sense of loyalty his to employers which they frankly do not deserve and I has taken me much time and effort to make my son realise this.

The trouble is that he loves the job and the people with whom he works closely and feels that he cannot let them down. While I find this laudable it is the sort of loyalty that companies like this depend upon to maintain the status quo.
I am and always have been a bit of a rabble rouser, at the tender age of twenty three I brought a very large pottery factory out on strike, a thing unheard of in those times. The strike lasted no more than two hours and we got our colleague reinstated. It pays a man to know his own worth..

I am not sure if his resolve will last beyond his current weakened condition but I hope so.
I am quite prepared to support him until he finds what he wants to do.
There are some great people working with my son , all of them hero's in their way and all of them working for a bunch of ungrateful shysters. Who wants to keep on being shafted week after week?
I want to see my boy happy again and not constantly having to do battle with people who seem to have no understanding of what they are asking their employees to do. The place is full of the usual yes men and toadies, worthless dross on large salaries while the people who do all the work take home a pittance. We have gone to far down this road, a company that wants to save money should get rid of these free loaders and do more to encourage productivity by treating the work force with a little respect. This should not be too much to ask.

THIS WAY TO THE PEST HOUSE.

There has been little improvement in my son,s condition since yesterday, I shall not go into the gory details but suffice it to say that his trips to the bathroom have been many and of long duration. This has caused some discomfort to the rest of us and I am beginning to wish that the old outside loo was still in working order.
He is very weak and extremely tired as he has eaten nothing for several days and has not slept very much, I am making some chicken broth tonight and I hope he manages to eat a little as it,s restorative qualities are renown.
I have been feeling ghastly since yesterday evening and I hope that I am not to be the next victim of the prevailing plague. I was obliged to go out today to pick up some medical supplies and on my return the heavens opened and the rains came, in torrents with accompanying thunder claps to add to my delight. Thankfully I had a waterproof cape in the buggy pack so I managed to get home in a reasonable condition although I have to report that my suede boots may never be the same again.

Through out the day a steady stream of parcels has arrived, some for my son and a good many for the boys next door and the living room looks like a sub post office. We had three deliveries each with multiple parcels and the post man with the usual arm full of unwanted circulars, what a performance.
My son has not yet opened the parcels which arrived for him yesterday which is a sure sign that he is unwell.
I am felling rather confused this week as I seem to have lost a day somewhere along the line,I discovered late this afternoon that it was in fact Friday, I was convinced that it was Thursday and am now scurrying about playing catch up on several neglected jobs which I thought I had plenty of time left to do. I seem to have very little energy at the moment so some things will remain undone.
Well as the old folks used to say “The work will still be here long after we are all gone.” Now there,s a cheerful thought!
My little cat is asleep on the windowsill as I write, she had been watching people splashing about in the lane,and as the rain seems to have set in for the night I do not expect her to go very far from her favourite radiator.
I intend to have a hot bath, fill a hot water bottle,make some hot milk and nutmeg and go to bed, to sleep I hope until morning, I always was an optimist!

PLAGUE

The prevailing plague has struck our house with a vengeance. My poor son who has been feeling seedy for a few days was so ill at work last night that he had to leave early. Had he listened to his fond Mama he would not have gone to work in the first place. He has been very sick and has a a temperature, shivering one minute and burning up the next. I have spent the day trying to make him as comfortable as possible and he went to sleep at about six.,having been disturbed during the afternoon . Needless to say he is not going to work tonight for the good and simple reason that I shall not wake him. He has been fretting all day about having to take sick leave and when I tell you that he has not had a day off through illness for over two years you will understand that he takes his job very seriously indeed . I expect he will be cross with me for not waking him.......tough..... I am putting my foot down this time. The people he works for are not worthy of his loyalty and I feel very much like telling his boss (who could not give a damn anyway ) exactly what I think of him and the rotten company!
My son was was mugged about five years ago by five hooligans armed with numchucks, he ended up in hospital with broken fingers and his face was so badly bruised that he could not see for several days. In spite of this he returned to work having taken only four days off ,On his return a member of management took it upon himself to point out that too much time off looked bad on his record, what an out and out b.....d !
I was positively incandescent, but unsurprised at this attitude, it is par for the course where my son works.

The company expects absolute loyalty from their employees but it is very much a one way street,some have not had a rise for two years although they have made the company millions of pounds during that time and been forced by appalling management decisions to work in almost impossible conditions. Being overworked mistakes sometimes occur and them the management do there best to shuffle of the blame to anyone who happens to be handy, it is a great pity that they do not see fit to praise their hard working employees when they do well

Of course it is not just my son,s employers who behave in this way, it is a general plague among the managers of many companies, I call it “Insect Authority Syndrome”. People who are placed in management positions and are perhaps a little less than competent compensate for this lack by behaving like tin pot tyrants, fondly imagining that this will disguise their failing. I have news for such persons ,,NOBODY IS FOOLED FOR A MINUTE.

Please excuse this rant, I have spent the whole day looking after my son who has not been this unwell since he was eight years old. Being older, a little wiser and certainly more experienced in the devious, rotten tricks that bosses are capable of I should like to say that I have convinced him of my point of view, I have failed. But this I will say.
HE IS NOT RETURNING TO THE SWEAT SHOP UNTIL HE IS COMPLETELY WELL EVEN IF I HAVE TO HIDE ALL HIS TROUSERS AND SHOES...........ANY ONE WHO DOES NOT LIKE IT CAN …......WELL HE KNOWS WHAT HE CAN DO!

THE MOBILE VANISHES.

Do you sometimes feel that events overtake you and that every thing has spiralled out of control, well I am having one of those days. Firstly, the mobile phone I lost during the Christmas holiday has at last turned up, having spent over two weeks stuffed in to a bag of old wrapping paper inside the buggy hutch.. Of course we kept on ringing the number but as the phone was outside we did not hear the blessed thing then the battery went flat.
In the week before Christmas the refuse collectors left a good deal of our recycle behind and did not empty the food bin. This meant that we were having to put food scraps in with the rubbish., it is the 27th of December and I have just realised that my phone it missing.

Now picture the scene, it is pouring with rain and a seemingly half demented female of a certain age, is to be seen bin diving , trawling through all the detritus of the late festivities, and swearing the while.....four dustbins....yuk...a bottle bag, a paper box , and three bin bags full of paper, of my mobile there was not a trace.

During the course of the next two weeks a half hearted hope that it would turn up prevailed until at last yesterday I purchased a new phone. As I was putting the buggy away I noticed a bag peeping out of an old trolley and as it was full of Christmas paper I thought I would have a quick look. You know what comes next? There was my mobile safe and sound, the battery was flat but otherwise there was no harm done.
Happy that I had found my mobile and disgusted that I had only done so after buying a new one I charged it up and told myself that it was good to have a spare.

It was when I switched it on that the trouble really started. I was inundated with voice mails, text alerts and calls from friends and acquaintances demanding to know if perhaps I had died and neglected to mention the fact. Had I perhaps emigrated? Was I incarcerated awaiting Her Majesties pleasure? Had I broken both of my arms? Or was I perhaps suffering from amnesia brought on by over indulgence during the holiday?
Every one waxed satirical, usually more than once.
I have spent the entire day trotting out my excuses, not believed I suspect by most of my friends, and I am now snowed under with a back log of committee work and requests for research
from other members. It may be weeks before I get my head above the parapet.
Being incommunicado was actually rather nice, the consequences are dreadful indeed. I finally turned of my mobile at three forty five in the morning as the backlog was still trickling through.

What in the name of all the Gods did we do before these blasted slave drivers were invented, how did we manage our lives. Now that my mobile is restored to me I am at the beck and call of every Tom, Dick and Harry,,and don't I know it.
We are all hooked by these pestiferous little gadgets and if is far too late to stop their progress now, unless we all agree to throw the little blighter's in to the nearest river or off the nearest cliff.
What do you think? Shall we give it a go? Please!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE WINTER WOODS ARE DARK AND DEEP

Today,s title is a line from a poem,by Walter De La Mare, I think, and it certainly describes the woods today perfectly. There is about them a soft fuzzy blackness that almost seems warm against the cold grey sky.
Our small wood is the refuge of many birds and animals, all in need of the food and shelter that the belt of trees provides. In the ivy wood pigeons are busy stripping the dull black berries from amongst the leaves. Blackbirds too relish this late bounty as by now almost all other fruits have long since been stripped by hungry feeders.
Along the orchard wall a wren has been flitting all day, exploring the many crevices in search of a meal, the nesting pouch in which the pair raised their young still provides vital shelter for this tiny bird in the depths of this cold winter weather. Further along the wall a Tit box is full each evening with Blue Tits huddled together for warmth, I have counted eleven going in and I suspect that the number may be even higher.
My Robin,a dear little creature and very tame roosts in my potting shed the window is always left open just a crack. There has been a battle for territory between two birds during the last week and I am afraid that my little friend lost to a younger bird, probably one of his own offspring. He no longer appears at the feeders in the small garden at the rear of the house but keeps now to the orchard were he has nested for several years, and so we feed him on a platform in the old damson tree. I must say that I miss him tapping at the kitchen window and sitting on the doorstep, I shall see more of him when I go back to the vegetable garden to work once more. I expect you are thinking that all robins look alike and this is usually the case, my Robin however has a white feather in each wing making him easy to recognise even if he did not sit on my boot while I sit or join me for a biscuit when I take a break.

Our resident fox has been courting and has probably mated by now, the chorus of yaps, barks, growls and howls has broken our sleep for some time and our little cat spends a large part of every night in the window watching the suitors cavort about the garden.

The wing is strong today and very cold indeed, in spite of this I went out for and hour for an airing and to watch the gulls wheeling over the tide meadow joined by a great many crows in search of food, there were so many gulls that they seemed like great whirling snow flakes and the noise was deafening as they screamed and called and squabbled over trifles cast up by the retreating tide.
The river is tidal here and we have a great variety of water birds, Canada geese of course but also Egyptian Geese very colourful and very noisy.. At night a large group congregate on the slipway and woe betide anyone who strays amongst them after dark.
On the island a fox prospects each evening for any unsuspecting water bird, he is usually successful although it can take quite a time for him to subdue the larger birds whose anguished cries can be heard all over the village.

At this time of year survival is all that matters to most of the woodland residents and not all of the will make it through to spring .
Those that do will be the strongest fittest and most resourceful of their kind and this is natures way. There is no sentiment in nature ,eat or be eaten, kill or be killed is the rule by which they live and yet these creatures fill our world with so much beauty and give so much joy to those who watch them. I wonder if we humans would be as interesting or beautiful to watch as we scrabble and claw our way through life, although our business is survival too I doubt it very much..

N.B The poem is actualy by Robert Frost....silly me!

WINTER IN THE COUNTRY

My childhood was spent in a very rural environment,very little had changed since before the second world war, in fact not that much had changed since the first. Electricity had barely arrived by the time I was five, ours was one of the few farms with a telephone and that was a party line and there was no mains water in the village.
Most of the farms had their own well while others shared a water source and this was the cause of much trouble at times.

The well on our farm ran in to a small stream and fed several other farms further down the hill, as we were at the top of the hill we got our water first. It was not often that the well dried up but extremely cold weather could and did cause the pipes to freeze. The system of pipes used to carry the water from farm to farm were ancient and liable to become clogged by the fibrous roots of trees as the water course ran beneath a wood, and then along these side of the lane which ran through the village
. Men could often be seen digging here and there in an attempt to find the blockage. The water ran for quite a distance beneath our land and my father made it his business to ensure that the pipes remained clear and the well maintained. Unfortunately on or two of the other farmers did not have such foresight and neglected their part of the pipe work until the water stopped running. Without this water the cattle, housed in barns during the winter months had nothing to drink,and the farmer himself would go short of his cup of tea.
No one wanted to take responsibility for the pipes that ran alongside the road and so this was the usual cause of the trouble.

When the water refused to flow it would be necessary to fetch water from the next village three and a half miles distant, this enterprise was not undertaken lightly as although the well was for public use a farmers inability to keep his own supply running would be the cause of much comment and the unlucky farmer would be mercilessly ragged in the local pub by more prudent individuals.

All of this ran over the heads of us children, we were to busy playing hide and seek among the warm hay barns,or if there was sow sledging . Those hay barns were wonderful places on cold, wet or windy days as the hay gave off its own heat which made the temperature pleasant and the scent of hay was glorious. They became our refuge in times of bad weather or trouble, they were our meeting places and our playground. They became, with a little imagination, hospital wards, castle keeps, houses or pirate ships. As the hay began to dwindle we were allowed to make swings if the hay barn had a roof.
My favourite place was the hay loft above the cow house, a massive stone building, made to withstand the worst that winter could send. At one end of the loft there was a wooden door the size of a small window through which it was possible to see for miles down in to the valley, and the light from this window was sufficient when opened a little to enable me to read, a pleasure in which as a child I indulged constantly.
It also had the advantage that when full only a very small child could crawl along the roof ridge to the room at the end, not a proper room of course but a sort of bay measuring about six feet square, to keep the hay dry as the window was embellished with cut out hearts for ventilation. This time spent alone was precious as more often than not I was charged with the care of one or both of my younger brothers and their presence was not conducive to quiet reading.
Ventilation was vital in these stacks as the amount of heat generated by the hay was enough to cause spontaneous combustion, this did not often happen but when it did the result was devastating.

Here I escaped from my fellows, most of whom considered me a swat ( it was not the thing to be seen with a book too often) and reading was considered a waste of time when the eggs needed collecting or the cows mucked out.

When I was seven years old I read “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe” and my life changed for ever. I was caught up in the magic of strange lands, myths and monsters. It led me to seek out other tales, Celtic mythology, Welsh and Irish folk tales, from this a passion for history developed and an interest in archaeology, all fascination subjects.
I have had pleasure and profit from this study for all of my life, yet somewhere deep down inside me there is still a small child looking for a door into another world,I feel that I truly entered Narnia on that freezing winter day, and I know that a part of me never left.

WINTER SUNSHINE

The bright sunlight that streamed through my bedroom window this morning was most welcome after the last two weeks of living under a sky tented with low cloud and drizzle, and I decided at once to spend some time out of doors if possible.
Break fast was served today in two sittings as Pa was up late and my son needed to eat and run. A simple meal of poached eggs on toast suited us all and I ate my meal with my son while Pa collected himself.
While Pa ate his breakfast I baked a very large ginger cake , a gift for a friend , and set about preparing our evening meal of rabbit pie. The rabbit must be cooked quite slowly in the oven with a dozen or so bacon rolls and some carrot and parsnip, the stock is made with a bottle of pear cider and some home made thyme and apple jelly. When I am ready to cook the meal I just reheat the casserole, put the meat and vegetables in a pie dish and top with puff pastry. This is most convenient as I am never quite sure what time my son will arrive home on weekend evenings. Since the vegetables are already in the pie I need only pop three sweet potatoes in to roast and reduce the sauce a little and dinner, as they sat, is served.

As soon as all this was done I wrapped up warmly as the sun shine came at the price of a sharp frost and scuttled off as fast as possible. The first thing I noticed was the abundance of squirrels running up and down the woodland trees and foraging about, presumably seeking the nuts they had buried in the autumn. It is not often they find any as the Blue jays have the trick of watching where the squirrels bury their nuts and digging them up for themselves the moment the squirrels back is turned. I have watched this performance with interest on many occasions.
Squirrels bury their food in a random fashion, Jays however are much smarter. They usually bury their acorns near a land mark that they will remember. This is often on the corner of a flower bed or vegetable plot, I have watched a single jay bury eight acorns in half an hour in such a fashion.
They do not always collect them all and on our local allotment site almost every plot has a small scrub oak growing at each corner, I believe that most of the oaks in England are the left over larder of jays. The depth at which they bury them has , I am told a lot to do with weather an acorn germinates successfully.

The afternoon sun hit the tree tops and gilded the bare branches with an almost magical light. An old oak still retaining some of its leaves appeared to be made of bronze and the twiggy ends of my Lovely lime trees glowed red. Along the river the sallows are already turning yellow, a prelude to bursting in to leaf and a promise of spring in the depth of winter.

Towards evening the sky took on a pearly hue, all the colours that you find in the feathers of a wood pigeon were on display and then a parting gift of brilliant red and violet sunset followed. I returned home cold but very happy as the mist began to fill the fields which border the lane.
We were all more than ready for our rabbit pie and I had an extra treat of some very good pear cider to serve with our meal, and we finished off Fridays days scones with jam and clotted cream.

It has been such a lovely day, even the cat Twiggy is happy tonight, she is as I write fast asleep on my desk worn out with cavorting about the garden all the fine frosty afternoon.
Now it will be wonderful to snuggle down under the covers and hopefully drift off to sleep, my knee has been causing a lot of pain lately but somehow I feel that I shall sleep well tonight, and if I do not there are films to watch and my little cat for company, what more can I want than pleasures such as these.
Good night to all, and a happy week to come .

LATE, LATE. LATE!

I am one of those people who need a little time to wake up in the morning, bouncing me out of bed and expecting me to get going is not a good idea.......if you wish to continue living!
This morning we all overslept, well I say all, Pa always oversleeps so what I mean is that my son and I overslept...catastrophically.
On Saturday my son goes out with his friends and they all meet at our house before they head off, because of this we need to have got Pa up and all had breakfast fast. This morning we were still asleep at twenty to ten. My son appeared at my bedroom door aghast, this just does not happen, I got out of bed in a hurry and the pair of us ran about like scalded cats getting in each others way. |Suddenly we looked at one another and said “Pa..” we went to start the waking process and behold, the age of miracles is not past, Pa was not only awake, he was up and dressed .
Pleased and amazed we then ate the fastest ever breakfast of toasted crumpets and croissant and finished just in time for my son to be collected by his friends.
Iwas still fizzing around the house like a mad woman and getting nowhere in a hurry.

This flying start had a very bad effect upon my day. I had not had time to brush my teeth or wash my face, I discovered that I had put my knickers on back to front and was wearing odd socks.
I had mislaid my mobile phone and lost my shopping list.
Pa was inclined to crow over our discomfiture a little and who can blame him. I had a fog in my brain and it took several cups of strong coffee to dispell the mist of confusion.

Still without my shopping list I set off trusting ( foolishly as it turned out) that I should remember the items I needed . I remembered the ground nut oil, Tesco is the only place that sells it in litre bottles and I use quite a lot. Fruit, yes, cheeses, yes, clotted cream, yes, pasta (very important) no, and I was practically home before I remembered that it was what I really went out for....Ocoado forgot to bring any yesterday. “ BUM!!!!!!!!! “I said and “BOTHERATION.”

It was too late to do much about it so I cut my losses and got on with the rest of the day. I have made a special cake for a friends birthday and I iced it this afternoon, then went on to prepare the dinner. Spanish chicken skewers and wraps with salad, roasted peppers spring onions ans dips.

Pa's early promise subsided in the afternoon and he was running true to form by two this afternoon, I was still feeling foggy and when my son arrived home he said he felt as if he had not properly woken up all day.
Dinner was late because I spent all day playing catch up and I failed dismally... we still enjoyed it.
I for one will be exceedingly relieved to return to bed as soon as is possible. We have another deadline tomorrow morning and I hope we do not have a repeat performance of today....time alone will tell.
STOP PRESS!!!!!!!


I also forgot the hairspray so guess who,s having a bad hair day tomorrow.......BUM..........BOTHERATION !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ALL WET AND WINDY

The grocery delivery arrived this morning in a down pour, the rain came down so fast that it looked like chain mail and every thing got soaking wet. Only time will tell if the icing sugar will turn into something resembling a house brick, like wise the caster sugar, the granulated sugar and the flour, all ten bags of it. Feeling that I should begin to use it up I made a batch of cheese scones, a dozen fruit scones and a dozen sausage rolls, to be had for tea with some cheeses and fresh bread and salad..The bag of “Tender Leaf” salad along with a large slice of Brie arrived squashed flat,this was no surprise as it was delivered buried under eight cartons of milk. The logic of the Ocado packing department is a mystery to me, I have no doubt that they gained their degree,s at some of the less prestigious universities.

The remainder of the cleaning went reasonably well apart from the huge spanner thrown in to the works by Pa who as usual spent the day making things as difficult as possible for the rest of us.
Goodness me I do sound waspish today, put it down to hypertension and forgive me if you can.

We were too tired to watch our show last night and so we plan to try again this evening. I could not sleep at all last night although I was very tired, the pain in my knee and shoulders kept me awake.
My son however slept like the dead and I am glad that he did as he also has been sleeping badly and as he returns to work in a couple of days he needs as much rest as he can get.

During a brief lull in the torrential rain I took the buggy out for a spin in order to get a little fresh air, I hate to be trapped indoors and the weather has to be truly dreadful to stop me from taking the air each day. I left as the rain stopped and was out for less than twenty minutes, the sky was black and heavy with more rain which began to fall in sheets as I entered the house. The cat was less fortunate, she got caught in the shower and by the time she had run to the house from the bottom of the orchard she was soaked to the skin. She looked diabolical as she fled upstairs to the bedroom and hung herself out to dry on the radiator, poor puss!

After the past few dark, dismal ,dreary, wet and windy days I feel bound to say that I prefer the snow and ice, at least snow is picturesque, there is absolutely nothing attractive about the four inches of mud in the lane just now and the great puddles are a menace to us buggy riders, and short dogs also, in fact anything that is low slung.

I have just been given a lovely cup of coffee by my wonderful son, his coffee is never the same twice but when it is good it is very good indeed. When it is bad it melts the spoon, the trick is to have a small sip and if it is awful tip it away quietly so as not to cause offence. My tea making can be a bit erratic so I really have not room to speak ill of my sons prowess!

The house looks very cosy tonight, all the small lamps are lit and the soft warm light is very pleasant, there is a lot to be said for a warm fire and a snug bed on such a night as this, I am certainly grateful for mine. Night night.

DOWN WITH CHRISTMAS

Not actually because I love the festive season, what I really mean is that today we took down all the decorations. Since every room excepting the bathroom is festooned it took ages as always. My son woke early again and by five this morning he had taken down his tree and removed balloons and such like embellishments. It took me a little longer to get started but by nine the bedroom was cleared of fairy lights cards and holly.
The real work was downstairs, and as soon as breakfast was over and cleared we set to work denuding our tree. I always feel sad while doing this job, but this year for the first time in years my son was at home to help me , so with jokes and lots of coffee we soon had the tree and its ornaments packed away.

Of course there is as you will know a good deal more that taking down the decorations to do. Places that have not seen a duster for weeks are revealed in all their dusty glory and the immediate application of spray polish is necessary to prevent it from flying off in all directions. My son and I tackled the dusting and the hoovering between us and by five this evening we had finished the upstairs. And were about half was through the downstairs work.
“Enough.” I cried and we packed up the cleaning gear and ordered a Chinese take away as there had been no time to prepare food.
Lord how we stuffed, we had only eaten a light breakfast and we were all famished, we really enjoyed the meal.

Poor puss spent the day wandering around like a displaced person, all her usual indoor haunts were in a state of upheaval for most of the day. Add to that the fact that she adores the Christmas tree and spends hours roosting under its branches and it is easy to see that she would be a very unhappy little cat. Of course it would rain all day just to make matters worse , she hates to get wet. It took a large portion of cold roast pork and one of those wildly expensive little pots of cat food to restore her to her normal charming self.

Incidentally have you seen those little pots of cat food, turn them out on to a pretty plate, add a few salad leaves and a couple of cherry tomatoes and you would be able to pass it off as a fine dinning experience! Years ago our moggies ate “Kitty Kat” and liked it, now they eat better than most people .
Tonight we are all piling in to my room to watch a “Top Gear” DVD, and munch a few of the left over Christmas chocolates, I expect I shall fall asleep well before the end, I often do.

At least the work is done and the house looks tidy and comfortable. On Saturday I shall buy a big bunch of flowers for the living room, it looks quite bare now the tree is gone and it will give the cat something to sit under!