OFF AT THE GALLOP

Having to jump, well crawl out of bed half asleep and attempt to get two people who are even sleepier than myself out of the house on time is not my ideal way to begin the day. So it was this morning, Knowing the pitfalls that lay in store for me I slept ill last night and this morning I felt is if there was a fog where my brain used to be.
My son, who had been awake all night and would normally be off to bed was a great help even though he was very tired indeed. Pa did much better than usual but finding that he had plenty of time dawdled about until he was almost late leaving the house, by nine fifteen I was a nervous wreck.

Bread had to be made and with my oven still behaving like a Prima Donna I was even more nervous as six assorted loaves went in to the oven at nine thirty. I cleared the kitchen as the loaves cooked and fed crumbs to a certain spotty young robin of my acquaintance, he is becoming very tame and will now come in to the kitchen to see what goodies he can find. It must also be said that one of the squirrels has taken such a liking to buttered toast that it came in to the house this morning and pinched my breakfast while I was answering the front door, I returned just in time to see it disappearing over the step with my breakfast firmly clamped between its teeth, charming!

The garden is full of young birds of many species at the moment , all a little lost and most of them not quite sure what is edible and what is nasty. I watched two newly fledged wood pigeons attempting to eat ash leaves this morning so I quickly put out a little bread for them, I just hope that they do not find my lettuces! Judging by the huge numbers of young great tits it has been a very good year for them and I am happy to note that the wrens have been successful this year bringing off two broods already.

Pa returned from the doctors on time and I was able to attend the meeting of our conservation group a twelve, due to circumstances beyond my control (Pa) I have missed the last two meetings.
The meeting went on for over three hours and was stormy to say the least. We have a member who can not tell the difference between conservation and total neglect and she absolutely refuses to see any ones point but her own. We have undertaken to control certain areas in order to prevent the local authority from sending in contractors to hack and slash some rather sensitive areas, Even conservation areas must have management and we stand to lose all we have gained if this lady is not made to see that she is partly the cause of the problem. You see one of the areas in question happens to be a pair of allotments rented by her. For the past ten years nothing has been done with either of them and they are now above shoulder high with brambles. If she can not be made to see sense these areas will be sprayed with weed killer and all the wild life will be lost.

Her response is that she will not , “conform”and no one is going to tell her what to do. I fear that she did not quite like my own trenchant remarks on the subject and stormed out. A number of our members have allotments on this site and are desperate to prevent the chemical spraying and tree felling which we have temporarily managed to stop. This one woman's selfish disregard for others could well be fatal to the wildlife on this site as another group wants to have the whole site cleared and so far as they are concerned the wild life can go to hell as long as everything is neat and tidy.

I hate committees as I may have already mentioned before precisely this reason, I do not suffer fools gladly and I meet enough of them in the normal course of events without going out deliberately to meet then. I offered to resign but since I had voiced the private opinions of everyone there my resignation was not accepted......well I had to try!
We are to hold another fund raising event in September and I shall be providing lots of preserves to sell. We have had a good deal of success and I hope that we can win round our problem member before she does too much damage.

My son is less that happy with the meeting he attended this morning and feels that he was called in under false pretences, I can not go in to any details at the moment , all I will say is that he was pretty damn cross when he arrived home from his meeting.

Having been out for a good deal of the afternoon I made Pa and I a quick dinner of Eggs Florentine ans left my son to sleep until seven when I cooked his favourite chicken pomodori in an effort to cheer him up, with only partial success. I have decided to have an early night as I am shattered, I intend to get Pa off to bed as soon as possible and then retire to my room with a pot of tea and a bag of rather delectable looking nougat and to hell with the calories...a short life and a merry one say I!

UP THE DOWN ESCALLATOR

This is the second time I have written this blog as the first time I managed to press the wrong key and deleted my first attempt, And that sums up the quality of today.

For some bizarre reason my son who should be at work tonight has been told to take the night off as his presence is required at a meeting tomorrow morning at around nine, hang on a moment, if he went in to work tonight he would already be there to attend the meeting, that sounds sensible yes?

So why has he been forced to take tonight off and then have to work tomorrow night having been detained at work by the afore mentioned meeting. Surely it would have made more sense to take of Friday evening after the meeting. As it it my son will have to stay awake tonight in order to be able to sleep tomorrow. After torturing himself to stay awake to night he will then be obliged to catch a train in the morning in order to attend the meeting and then catch another train home after the meeting and hopefully get a little sleep before having to catch yet another train to go to work tomorrow night. I do hope that you managed to follow that little lot, the whole idea defies logic if you ask me, but there, it is a management decision, need I say more!

I just hope that “The Management “ understand if on Friday night my son falls asleep at work through sheer exhaustion..
All this malarkey has thrown the house into a state of confusion, my sons sleep routine for his working week is in as indeed is in tatters and tomorrow promises to be much worse, as it is I shall have to cook two breakfasts and two dinners tomorrow and I don,t even work for the blasted company

I am supposed to attend a meeting of the conservation group tomorrow at twelve noon , unfortunately Pa has a Doctors appointment tomorrow morning which clashes with my own.
This is no fault of Pa's, it is entirely due to the fact that Pa had to reschedule his appointment having arrived at the surgery a few days ago to discover that his GP was in a meeting and had neglected to let his patients know that he would be unable to see them, how tire some and how typical; that is.


Even the cat Twiggy had a meeting of sorts this morning, on rounding the corner of the house she came face to face with out fox, both cat and fox almost jumped out of their skins Nd I should say on balance that Twiggy was much less put out the the fox who jumped the wall to escape while Twiggy collected herself , remembered her dignity and stalked off up the garden path with a regal air.

The weather being inclement she has spent a large part of the day roosting in my bedroom, curled up on a fur rug, she is fond of luxury, as are all cats. Twiggy has been known however to take her love of the good life to excess and on chilly winter nights insists upon getting in to bed, right under the covers, and she hogs the hot water bottle too!

The summer pudding that I made yesterday turned out wonderfully and we ate it all up with lots of fresh cream, naughty but irresistible. We began the meal with sticky chicken skewers, bulgar wheat salad, roasted peppers, coleslaw and crispy lettuce from the garden. The marinade is the secret of this recipes success and is as follows.

In to a large bowl put two tablespoons of runny honey
I teaspoon of garlic salt
2 tablespoons of paprika
a pinch of nut meg
a pinch of powdered clove
Juice of 1 lemon
Six twists of black pepper.
Stir the ingredients together and then add two tablespoons of olive oil and stir again
You can add a few strands of saffron if you wish it is nice but I find it rather expensive and the marinade is almost as good without it.
Cut your chicken breasts in to strips and place in the bowl with the marinade, stir and leave for a few hours them thread on to skewers and either grill or cook on a ridged griddle as I do.
I do hope you enjoy it, oh I forgot, you can do the chicken on a barbecue also, but you know my views on the wretched contraptions.

Having spent the day swimming through treacle, paddling madly and achieving very little I am inclined to be rather cross. If there is one thing I hate is is being messed about by other peoples woolly mindedness.
So if any one else, I don't care who they are decides to pox up any more of my week, a gypsies curse lite upon him ,or her, and may the fleas of a thousand camels infest their respective underwear!

THE OVEN IS STILL ON THE FRITZ

Just as I suspected the oven is still not working correctly, the experimental loaves made last night are passable but that is not good enough. Because they are not properly cooked they will not keep well and of course they do not taste as good as usual. Refusing to give up hope I made two orange and lavender cakes this morning and just like the two chocolate cakes I attempted to make on Saturday they sat down in the middle due to the fact that the oven temperature fluctuated during the cooking. This time I watched the whole process and saw exactly what happened and it was not a pretty sight.

Being a glutton for punishment I decided to pit my wits against the refractory appliance and set about making a large batch of cookies, this time with more success. By dint of a great deal of fiddling about and great diligence I managed to produce several dozen cherry cookies, I tried one and they are not bad. This however does not alter the fact that my oven is at the moment more temperamental than Naomi Campbell, and will have to be fixed multo pronto.

Pa had an appointment at St Tommy's this morning and I packed him off in a taxi, the whole experience was rather like getting a small child ready for his first day at school, except that the only tears were my tears of frustration as he forgot first this and then that and then his mobile phone. I am certain that the taxi driver was convinced that we were both potty! Alone at last I returned to the kitchen to make yet more strawberry jam, this will be the last batch this years as I am rapidly running out of both jam jars and cupboard space.

Within a few weeks I shall by making all the fruit jellies, chutneys and the damson jam, I need to make a great deal of the later as it is required for the produce stall at our next fund raising day. Incidentally the moth trap, purchased with the proceeds of our last fund raiser was tested in our orchard last night and although the weather was chillier than we would have liked we caught a few moths, we really need a still balmy night to do well.

Pa returned at around three safe and sound and chaos descended upon the house once more, still a few hours of peace and quiet was better than nothing and I was glad to have him home all safe, really I was.

Twiggy has spent most of the day asleep in her favourite tree house, during the past twenty four hours we have been twice visited by a lady with a dog and Madam Twiggy is not amused. When ever I happened to pass her retreat she gave me a stare filled with reproach, hey ho!

Tonight's meal at the request of my son was a soup we call London Particular. Really it is a sort of pea and ham soup but it is as thick as the London fog from which it takes its name and is very good with home made bread.

During a lull in the kitchen while the fruit was boiling in the preserving pan I made a large summer pudding for tomorrow, at least this did not depend upon the vagaries of my electric oven and therefore should turn out well, fingers crossed! After spending so much time in a hot kitchen I am in urgent need of a bath and that is exactly what I intend to do so goodbye for now, and don't forget to tune in tomorrow for the next thrilling instalment of Avies culinary disasters!

IS THE OVEN FIXED?

Dawn broke as they say ans I was wide awake, the morning mist did strange things coming and going several times before finally vanishing in an instant at around five. I fell asleep at last at about seven and my son brought me coffee at eight, to say that I am a little weary today is a gross understatement.

As soon as my son had gone to bed and P a had breakfasted I whizzed off the the shops to buy a few necessaries, having the oven out of action has thrown a very large spanner in to the household works and I have had to rethink our menus for the next few days. I was home before eleven thirty and after tidying up the kitchen I went out to pick fruit, once again the mozzies were very much in evidence but this time I had rubbed my skin with elder leaves. As a child I used to weave them in to the headband on the horses harness to keep the flies off and it worked well for the horse so why not for me? I must admit that I smelled like a cats earth box but it seemed to do the trick.

There were plenty of gooseberries, Tay berries and raspberries today as well as a few strawberries, all in all quite a good haul. Picking fruit had made me very hot and sticky so I set of down to the river to visit my pet swan and to take a few photographs. The tide was high and boats on the river made a lovely wash, it is a sound that I love. Swany was in his usual spot waiting for food and he came straight towards me as he always does, I have known him to cross the road to come and see me, he is such a sweety.

I had not been out long when my Mobile phone rang, the electrician had arrived and so I hurried home. Trying to explain the problem caused by a fault oven to a man who has never cooked is like trying to knit fog! He kept on telling me that the oven was working and so it was, if that is it was turned up a high as possible, even Yorkshire puddings would be tricky with a fan assisted oven at maximum. It was in vain that I tried to explain about the necessary temperature for sponge cakes, biscuits, egg custards and so on, as far was he was concerned the oven was on and so the oven was working.

At last he appeared to grasp a little of what I was telling him and after fiddling about for a while had said that he had fixed the problem and all would now be well. With that he departed leaving us scratching our heads , I quickly made five loaves and put them in the oven, this is not really a fair trial as bread is cooked at high temperature but at least now we have bread again. Tomorrow I shall try cakes, that will be a better test of t=weather the oven is fixed of-r not.

Throughout the day my mobile phone has been ringing it's head off, I had no idea that I was so damned popular, if it was not for the fact that I need to keep in constant touch with Pa if either of us are out I should drop the wretched thing in to the Thames this very evening. The human race is fast becoming the slave of technology. Years ago there was a television programme called “Tomorrows World”, its presenters would constantly talk of the time when everything was automated, when we had communicators as they did on “Star Trek”. A time when everything would be run or made by computers and mankind would be free............so what happened. Certainly many thongs are made by machine these h=days leaving mankind to draw unemployment benifit and be called a scrounger!
Now that we have mobile telephones any Tom, Dick or Harry can disturb our peace and quiet whenever they wish and answer phones and voice mail make sure that you cannot claim that you did not get the message. E mails, the devils own invention mean that every time I switch on my computer I am obliged to read a mass of epistles for all and sundry and worse than all I have to reply to them. Speaking for myself I had much more free time before these pestiferous gadgets were invented...........”beam me up Scotty!”

ALL IN A DAYS WORK

Last night I slept, for the first time in almost a week, I did wake a couple of time during the night but I was so groggy that I fell asleep again almost at once. Waking this morning was like climbing out of a well,it took the better part of an hour for me to wake and to stay awake . Thank the Gods that I was unable to make bread today, I can not imagine how it would have turned out with my brain in such a state of fogginess.

Having collected myself at last I provided viands for the boys, cheese on toast this morning and having little to do I went on line, found some nice jam jar labels and down loaded them for use on my jam jars. The site I used is called Domestifluff and I heartily recommend it to any one who requires some good no nonsense labels. Once upon a time we designed new labels every year, I no longer have the leisure for this and I am grateful to these on line sites, they ,make my life a little easier.

Pa had an appointment with his G.P. this after noon, I prefer him to have afternoon appointments as this means that I do not have to spend ages waking him up to be ready on time. Even so it can be tricky getting him out of the house as he has no concept of time what-so-ever, an irritating character trait which he shares with my darling mother. I grew up in a wild and lonely place you understand and there was only one bus a week which took us to the nearest market town. This bus left promptly at nine in the morning, not that early really and yet not once that I can recall did we catch that bus with pit having to run for it. I have always been punctual and this type of slackness makes me cross as I am frequently made late by the dawdling of others. That makes me sound a complete pill.. perhaps I am!

With Pa out of the way and my son resting I headed for the garden to plant out some beetroot seedlings, pick some fruit and to plant a new catnip bush for Twiggy, the one she already has is getting sparfse through over use as every cat in the village is now getting high in our front garden, often with noisy consequences. When other cats are around Twiggy adopts a proprietorial air and even quite large Tom cats are forced to flee from her wrath if they take liberties,when Twiggy ha s a hissy fit she is a force to be reckoned with.

When Pa returned from his appointment he too was in a hissy fit as the appointment had been cancelled because all the doctors were in a meeting, no one had bothered to tell Pa. Of course they claimed to have tried several times to let him know but as his mobile phone log showed no evidence of any calls from the surgery it would appear that they were not being exactly truthful. Pa now has another appointment on Friday at ten in the morning, God help us all!

The recent rain has done wonders for the fruit crop and this afternoon I picked a large bowl of early raspberries, these are destined to be steeped in vodka to make a delicious liqueur for Christmas. Some one bought a bottle of Raspberry vodka to the party yesterday and it is still haunting the kitchen as it is horrible. It tastes as if someone has dissolvedd a couple of pounds of Harribosweetss in alcohol and it is truly vile.
The strawberries are producing larger fruit and the gooseberries are as big as ping- pong balls, just right for gooseberry tart of gooseberries cobbler if only my oven was working.

Mt son woke very early this morning and as a consequence is very tired , not a good thing as he has to work tonight, he puts a brave face on things for my sake but I can easily see how he really feels, you can never fool your mother and that is absolute.

Now it is my turn for the bathroom and I shall have to anoint the numerous insect bites I squired while fruit picking this afternoon, a plague take the little devils, I look like “Spotty Mulldoon.” I can not help wondering what tomorrow will bring, good or bad I will take what comes, that is all any of us can do.

RAINY SEASON

Hopefully in the nick of time the weather has turned and rain has arrived with a vengeance, this will with luck

scotch any talk of a hosepipe ban in our area. The drawback, and there always is one is that the rain has been accompanied by a rapid and somewhat drastic drop in temperature which will not do my tender crops any good at all.

With my oven on the blink and the garden out of bounds due to inclement weather I decided to make another batch of strawberry jam with the fruit picked yesterday, and soon another six pounds of jam was cooling in the kitchen and waiting to be labelled.

My son and his friends had departed to their gaming session and I decided to pop out for a while to pick up some suet for the birds, cool off, get a breath of fresh air and to have a look at a craft fair in the park . “Local Artisans” said the legend over the gate along with “Special Event” Admission five pounds. Having chosen the first wet Sunday for months the “Local Artisan who turned up looked rather tragic as did the poor sodden soul on the gate waiting presumably to take the entrance money. I went to the pet shop to pick up the bird food and had a look around the garden centre on my way home. Passing through the park at two O clock I noticed that there were now four soggy rain drenched gazebos with more artisans that customers, I just hope none of the artisans had watercolour paintings for sale

The ironing awaited me on my return and amongst the pile was......da, ad, daaaaaa!...The Shirt of Doom, so called as it has so many epaulettes, pleated button over pockets, appliquéd badges and other embellishments that in the time it takes me to iron this monstrosity I can iron five ordinary shirts. Last year I basely hide the wretched garment to avoid having to iron it but my poor son was so grieved by its disappearance that my heart smote me and I replaced it in his wardrobe without a word. The look on his face was reward enough until I had to iron the blasted thing again...I am too soft for my own good you see!

Tonight's meal was a very large Chinese takeaway, this has become a tradition when birthdays or other occasions are celebrated by my son and his friends and I was not at all sorry not to have to cook. Pa and I ate our share of the feast and the left the gang to their festivities having donated a large bottle of damson gin to the party.

In the peace and quiet of my room I made a pot of Earl Grey tea and decided to opened a box of chocs and have a good old laze about for a couple of hours. I confess to feeling extremely tired today probably due to the fact that I did not sleep at all last night. I stayed awake through !the Shawshank Redemption” “The Quick and the Dead” and “Bogus” a film of which I am rather fond although a could not say why as I detest child actors and dislike Gerard Depardue. Much as enjoyed this film show I would have much preferred to be sound asleep. The chances of my getting an early night tonight are minute and I have resolved to spent the time writing and drawing for a change.

My little cat has had a rotten time today and as she dislikes company she is now sitting on my bed with the air if a refugee, I have a small secret supply of catnip in my desk draw and I shall shortly cheer her up with a nip of the pongy stuff. The ways of cats are odd indeed.

Another week is over and my son returns to work tomorrow, I hope the cooker repair man comes soon, the cooker is only a few months old and so is still under guarantee, until it does I shall be unable to bake, God only knows what I shall do with al the spare time. What if it keeps on raining and I can not do any gardening, I may end up painting the bathroom out of sheer boredom, sad isn't it!

WHAT A DISASTERPIECE

Thank the Gods that today is almost at an end,it has been one of those days when absolutely nothing has gone right and it began in the early hours of this morning. For a variety of reasons my sleep was disturbed but the crunch came when having got up to make myself a coffee I spilled the whole cup full on to the bed. By the time I had cleared up the mess and changed the sheet I was even more wide awake and rather cheesed off into the bargain!

Sleep eluded me after that and I was glad to get up at seven thirty to make tea for Pa and my son.
The high spot of the whole day was looking at photographs of my sons recent visit to Sark, today we looked at the garden of the Seigneurie, it was quite beautiful and I was pleased to see that lots of the flowers and herbs which grow in my modest little garden also grace this much grander show place. After this delightful interlude things went down hill quickly.

I believe I have mentioned that we have a friend from America visiting tomorrow and that he had asked me to bake him chocolate cake, a breeze, I thought......until my oven gave up the ghost half way through cooking the blessed thing. The result was not entirely a disaster but certainly not worthy of our guest. Having ascertained that the oven was not maintaining an even heat we fiddled about with it and I tried again................the result this time was to awful to contemplate so I shall hurry on.

Obviously a home baked cake was out as indeed were my neighbours who I know would be happy for me to use there cooker so I set of to buy the largest nicest chocolate cake that I could find. I was in such a hurry that I left the kitchen covered in chocolate and the dreadful remains of my failures, I needed to be somewhere else, so that was that.

After much travail found a cake which looked good, I had already purchased a box of Swiss chocolates to decorate my own cake so I thought that I might add these to the bought one to glam it up a little. Leaving home as I did in a terrific hurry I had not noticed that the battery on my electric buggy was low, I made it home but only just and at a crawl which a snail could ha e outrun.
There was my kitchen, smothered in chocolate, I opened a beer, downed it in one, gritted my teeth and pitched in.

Chocolate is without any doubt the most messy ingredient there is , I even managed to get some in my hair. Woe, woe and thrice woe the sink became blocked and I had to poke about with a wire coat hanger for ages before the blockage gave up and the sink emptied. The clock struck four, I had been working hard all day and had achieved damn all.

Outside the strawberry bed was heaving with ripe fruit, the green house needed watering, fifty young beetroot seedlings were waiting to be transplanted and I had less than an hour to do all three jobs. Strawberries must come first so I took of the nets and began to pick, there were lots,and lots,and lots, the rain had swelled the fruits to a good large size and I filled a very large bowl before I tripped and fell while trying to avoid treading upon a toad, the toad fared better than I did as I sat down with a bump and hurt my back.

Hey hoe and on with the motley I staggered off to turn on the hose and watered the green hose where the tomatoes are looking excellent and the potatoes which were very dry and was just about to plant out the beetroot seedlings when my son arrived home and in I went to cook dinner.

Than heavens we had decided upon scrambled eggs on toast with fried panchetta which is nice and easy and needs no oven. Doubled up by this time I managed to present a decent plateful to each of the boys and was pleased that they enjoyed the meal so much. After the meal was over I washed up , again cleared the kitchen and escaped to my room to apply some liniment to my outraged back muscles and to write this blog.

The way things are going today anything could happen and I shall not draw a clear breath until tomorrow arrives...that is if it does.

I feel like the old Irish man who exclaimed “Sure and if it wasn't for the bad luck I'd have no luck
at all.”