Rhubarb jam

Hello Friends,
Well, a productive morning here at 'Hagstones'. One of the things I love about this time of year is my daily perusal of the veggie garden, looking at what's ready to pick: Lettuce 'Lettony' & 'Salad bowl red', rocket 'Wildfire' , basil & a handful of new baby carrots today!

The rhubarb had re-grown triffid-like since I last cropped it. Already blanched & frozen some for the freezer for crumble & sponge pudding later in the year, so decided to make jam. Recipes for rhubarb jam can sometimes get a bit lah-di-dah fancypants with additions of strawberries, stem ginger, etc. Mine is very simple. Here's how:

Rhubarb jam
2lbs rhubarb
2lbs sugar
Juice of 1 lemon
2 tbsp water

Chop rhubarb into 1 cm pieces (no need to get the ruler out, that's 1cm-ish). Put in preserving pan with the 2 tbsp water. Simmer, covered, until rhubarb is soft. Add the lemon juice & sugar. Stir to dissolve. Crank up the heat & boil rapidly until setting point is reached. (Do the time-honoured 'wrinkle' or 'flake' tests, or use a jam thermometer). Skim the usual jammy scum off the top, stir well & pour into warmed sterilized jars.  

This is good on buttered crumpets, or to fill jammy buns or sponge cakes. If you have a fossilized tin of custard powder still lurking at the back of your pantry since Mrs Windsor's silver jubilee, you could add some to a bit of buttercream for a rhubarb & custard cake. Nom nom! 

Albert Whiskers is already turning out to be a character. Today he let us know in no uncertain terms that a single course at breakfast is completely unacceptable & later caused me to turn the air blue when I stubbed my toe hard in my attempts to prevent him getting inside the oven, which I'd just lit. Then he managed to escape by casually strolling through the front door, having conned me into believing he was asleep!

Thankfully, I managed to re-capture him fairly quickly by making a killer lunge when he stopped to investigate a particularly riveting corner of privet hedge. I have a ton of jobs to do in the veggie garden this week, so must make sure I leave post-its on all the doors & windows to remind me to keep them closed. Great to have a cat around the house again, but he really mustn't go out until he's had his innoculations & completed his 'settling in' period.
Back soon,
C x

Introducing Albert Whiskers.......

Hello Friends,
Today Albert Whiskers has joined us here at 'Hagstones'. We left the Kirkby-in-Ashfield Cat Rescue with the words 'He'll be lovely, absolutely no trouble' ringing in our ears, we set off on our 23 mile journey home. Before we had even reached the top of Diamond Avenue (approx 0.7 miles), Albert Whiskers was in meltdown mode. He managed to BEND THE METAL DOOR of the cat carrier basket & get first one, then both front legs out, followed by the rest of him! He jumped across the BHO who was driving & proceeded to look out of the window to see just where the hell he was going! Pulled over at the side of the road & managed to recapture him & repair the door sufficiently to strap it tightly closed. Albert Whiskers had other ideas however, & every mile or so, he had another furious attempt to break out, getting a quarter of himself out again, savaging the BHO's arm in the process. I was travelling in the back of the car, & was unable to hold the door firm against metal-bending skills which would have left Uri Geller in the shade because of the slashing claws coming through the grill straight into my hands! I had the idea of holding two car mats firmly over the door for the rest of the journey home & thankfully further crazy attempts to break out were thwarted. 

 

When we got him home, 3 lots of blood pressure heading for the roof, we opened the cat basket & he walked out & started purring. He has barely stopped purring since then, has been head-butting us in the legs demanding strokes, has already scoffed half of his biscuits & he'd only been here 10 minutes before he said he wouldn't mind his dinner, actually, if there was any danger of it coming out any time soon! 

Albert Whiskers is about 3 years old & had been living rough as an un-neutered stray over in the Eastwood area of Nottinghamshire. He was apparently very dirty when he came into the Cat Rescue & had obviously recently gone a few rounds with someone a lot bigger & fiercer than himself, as he had the remains of a probable cat bite abcess on his face, a swollen eye (you can just see in the picture that it is still a little closed) & a scratched nose. 

So, we've finally got him! We are the People & Cats Republic of 'Hagstones' once again. My blood pressure is falling. The BHO asked me what I wanted for lunch.. I said 'Valium, please'.....(I got a cheese cob!) Our cat flap lock has broken (I think Siegfried may have charged it). We have a piled a heavy box of tiles, a box, a bin & a sack of spuds in front of it. Hope it's enough. Albert Whiskers has escapology form!!

Back soon,

C x

Beachcombing & razor clams

Hi,
I've been doing things with razor shells this week......
I've always lived in landlocked parts of the country, far enough from the sea to make a simple day at the seaside into a real event. Perhaps that's why I've always loved beachcombing. As a child, the nearest coastline to us was North Norfolk & we would collect bags full of shells at Heacham Beach or walk out onto the fascinating squelchy mudflats at nearby Snettisham. This is where an iron age treasure trove of gold torcs was discovered (now in the Boudicca Gallery at Norwich Castle Museum) & I don't think there was a single time we visited Snettisham mudflats that Mum didn't say to us 'Keep your eyes peeled, girls, we might find a golden torc!' Of course, we never did, but enjoyed the usual haul of pebbles, shells & sea glass, which we never knew quite what do do with, when we got them home, athough leaving them on the beach would have been unthinkable.

On a holiday in North Cornwall several years ago, I beachcombed the cove at Port Quin. Like a lot of Cornish beaches, there is a fast flowing stream rushing down over the sand & shingle to the sea. I picked up a small shard of old blue & white china from the stream, an oriental design, showing the head of a tiny figure in a Chinese hat. It was added to my pocket with other such treasures, which came home to adorn a patio plant pot. Almost exactly a year later, I returned to Port Quin, picked up another little piece of blue & white china, rinsed it in a rock pool & saw that it featured a tiny tunic & pair of legs. When I got it home, it matched EXACTLY with the previous shard to make a perfect tiny oriental man. Two high tides each day, almost certainly a few storms, a swiftly running stream & a year of other holiday-makers kicking around the pebbles & beachcombing.........yet I was in the right place at the right time to find that matching shard! Synchronicity is a fascinating thing.

My most recent opportunity for beachcombing was earlier this month on a camping trip. A walk to the tideline at Wells-next-the-sea yielded a bag of impressive razor clam shells. I'd been hoping to find some of these, as they make such great plant labels. Just carefully separate the two halves of the shell, wash & dry, then if you have a waterproof marker pen, you can use them straight away.

 The great thing about these (apart from them being free!) is that when they start to biodegrade, they can simply be added to the compost bins, where I'm sure they contribute a few useful minerals. They look a whole lot nicer than the plastic labels too. If you've collected plenty & have gardening friends, tie a bundle of these with ribbon & give as a gift with some seed packets & groovy string or gardening gloves. The pebble in the photo is the label for my Black Hamburg grapevine. I sometimes use pebbles for labelling big plants where I want something more decorative than plastic.

I'm feeling a bit stiff this morning from yesterday's over-exuberant weeding session in the red onion bed.....which is hard lines, as I'm off down the veggie garden again shortly to clear a jungley bed ready for transplanting the leeks.
We are still meowless, but have heard that Saturday is definitely going to be THE day!!
Back soon,
C x

Chapter 1 - Getting started!

Hi Friends,
Well, let the long-threatened blog commence! Thanks for being patient all those of you who have been asking & encouraging me. (I have a list of 50 things I want to do before my next birthday & starting a blog was No.1!)

I don't know if anyone has seen the old film Passport to Pimlico (1949)? An unexploded WWII bomb is accidentally detonated in the Pimlico area of London & the crater reveals an ancient long-buried document proving that the area is actually part of Burgundy, & therefore officially 'foreign territory'. It's 'knees-up time' all round as the residents revel in their independence, while the British government attempts to regain control. The film soon develops into chaos & high farce - this is an Ealing Comedy after all, but it gave rise in our house to the expression, "Here in the People & Cats Republic of 'Hagstones'"('Hagstones' being our house name)........followed by whatever piece of government, corporate or cultural nonsense we were determining to avoid. I found myself using the expression increasingly frequently as our refusnik tendencies grew, & I was JUST ABOUT to use it as the title for my long-planned blog, when the unthinkable happened......

The vitally important feline contingent of our micro-republic became very ill, & we found ourselves taking him on that dreaded trip to the vet......the one with the one-way ticket & old blanket. So it was a sad goodbye to our beautiful big ginger & white boy, Siegfried, & as I could not see the appeal to anyone (except weird cat-hating ghouls) of a blog called 'The People & Deceased Cats Republic, etc, etc'. I shelved my plans.

Now, I'm a proper Mrs 'Grow it, Make it, Mend it' these days, so if you have only limited interest in slightly smelly composting exploits, cooking, crafting, upcycling & veggie-growing, then you're in for a stultifying ride & I would advise you to seek out blogs on the variable drying times of domestic paints. I enjoy the simple life, (as does the Big Hairy One) & shutting my door on unnecessary tat, so that is mostly what I shall write about, with a bit of stuff on books, politics, films & music as well
as those random thought-provoking things which
happen (such as how with hindsight my 'Judy Finnegan moment' outside the post office was actually empowering, rather than embarrassing).

I can begin properly this week, as we will once again be The People & Cats Republic - (Hurray!!) We have adopted a new rescue cat. A snuggly cat bed & cupboard full of delicious fishy feotidness awaits. Can't wait for him to arrive so I can introduce him!
Back soon,
C x