Hello Friends,
Hope you are all coming to the end of August with body & soul together. I've had a serious case of 'Garden Envy' this week, as we've been on a couple of trips out & seen some beautiful late colour in the borders, something which is sadly lacking at home. I still have some things flowering: Japanese anemone, Geranium 'Rozeanne', penstemens, verbena bonariensis, cosmos, calendula, etc, but our garden looks at its best in May & June, when all my cottage garden favourites are flowering, & it's a slow decline from there until Autumn......sort of shabby-chic....without any of the 'chic'.
Easton Walled Gardens (near Grantham, Lincs) had some beautiful hot colours on display, like this sunflower, & the dahlias (I'm not usually a huge fan) were looking great too.
We also had a fantastic day up at RHS Harlow Carr in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, & it was a similar story. Fab colourful beds which made me feel so envious now that my own borders are all but over. I used to have some eye-popping achilleas & echinaceas but they have sadly been lost to the Mollusc Army.
I mean, just look at this! I'm assuming it's some sort of fancypants sunflower, & I shall be tracking it down to have a go at growing some for next year. Could you ever be miserable while looking at such a bloom? Luckily the big hairy half of the relationship had his camera, so took lots of pictures to inspire me.
The high summer borders at RHS Harlow Carr are simply packed with plants, many of which are repeated several times, so it looks very casual, as though it 'just happened'.
Well, I decided I'd really like more late summer flowering plants in my own borders, so this week, I've come up with a plan. I'm going to walk around the garden & spike every bare boring patch with a yoghurt pot on top of a skewer. Then I'll remember where I need a zing of colour. I'm hoping I can start this by dividing up what I have & growing from seed, so as to avoid a '££££-Signs at Dawn' scenario at the garden centre!
A big achievement (for me) this week has been ticking another thing off my '50 things' list.....& guess what it was? Yes, shock horror, I actually managed to walk 5 miles WITHOUT MOANING!! I was actually more worried about achieving the 'not moaning' bit than the 5 miles. There were rules about what constituted a moan, i.e aching legs, whining for caffiene, complaining about it being boring, being out of breath, etc, so I decided to have a few subjects in my mind which I could use to work off some vitriol if I needed a moan. These were The Government, particularly Eric Pickles, as I knew he'd be worthy of at least a mile of hatchet job (can you imagine the mess?), the Very Weaselly Grant Shapps (with apologies to actual weasels everywhere), & the Monarchy (was sure I could get a circuit of Clumber Park out of that one). So I was all prepared, but the oddest thing happened! I didn't need to moan at all because I quite enjoyed it! We saw teenage goslings, moorhens, chaffinches, great-tits & dragonflies. The weather stayed dry & I burned off 520 calories (which I was lucky enough to replenish afterwards with a large coffee & piece of coffee & walnut cake! Feel inspired to tick off a few more things now.
The vegetables keep coming. I've made piccalilli today, a big kilner jar to put away for 'December C-word' & some smaller jars for the pantry.
I've also baked some jammy buns today (just for the joy of cooking something which doesn't involve veggies!). Hands up who can remember cooking these at school?
They are so simple & quick to make. I've tweaked the recipe over the years, so this is how I make them now:
Jammy Buns
12oz self-raising flour
4oz butter
4 oz caster sugar
1 egg
2-3 tbsp milk
1 tsp almond extract
Jam (I like to use my home-made plum)
Pre-heat the oven to Gas 5. Sieve the flour & rub in the butter till it's crumby. Stir in the sugar. beat up the egg with the milk & almond extract, & mix into the dry ingredients. Flour your hands & bring it together into a soft ball before divvying up into 12 blobs. Shape each blob into a ball & put on a greased (preferably lined) baking sheet. Now make a hole with your thumb & dollop a teaspoon of jam into it. Bake for about 20 mins.
There's no finesse about these. You wouldn't make them if Paul Hollywood was coming over for coffee. They are proper comfort food home baking. Get a cafetiere made & eat one warm from the oven. Did you like it? Best to have a 2nd one just to make sure. They keep in a tin for a few days & are a nice portable addition to a packed lunch. I suspect the Big Hairy One could probably eat his bodyweight in these.......so as you can see, I only made 6 this time!
While we've been busy with day trips, dealing with the veggie onslaught, pickling, baking & walking 5 miles, the other resident of The People & Cats Republic has been spending a goodly amount of his time thus:
Going by the available evidence (a seriously squashed area of the leek bed, various piles of fur spread around the lawn & 4 new scratches on his nose), I think he may be out most of the night letting the local moggies know he means business. He's also met the neighbours. They said they called him to 'see if he was friendly', & he marched straight in through the french windows, helped himself to a chair & spent the whole afternoon! I warned them about not leaving food where he can reach it. Albert Whiskers is the sort of cat who'd say 'Hey mate, look over there' then he'd have your pork chop while you were looking. He is, however, proof that these older ex-street cats can be rehabilitated into the most lovely (& very amusing) pets. He's the 3rd ex-stray we have owned. If anyone out there is considering adopting a cat, do consider one of these big older boys. They might have a few issues to begin with, but once they get their paws under the table, they don't look back!
Have a great weekend,
C x
Hello Friends,
I wish I had another topic for you today instead of more adventures with vegetables. I tell you, it's like The Good Life in this house. Don't be surprised if you hear that I'm building a generator out of old lawnmower parts & sticky backed plastic, or indeed weaving scratchy green suits from homespun nettles! Actually, if I start going down that road, do intervene.....I will need stopping for my own good!
It's been all about courgettes recently. I've been putting them on top of spicy hot home-made pizzas, slipping them into curries, roasting them & tossing into bulghur wheat salads, bunging them in stir-fries, but sill they come! Courgette chutney isn't really one of my favourites, so I decided to pickle some. Found a couple of recipes I liked & concocted a mash-up of the two. It seems to have worked really well & will be good with BBQs, pulled pork, etc.
The other big croppers waiting in the wings to strike are our apples & pears. The winds this week have resulted in a lot of early windfall apples, which I've made into apple sauce for the freezer, & am half-way into making another bucketful into apple & mint jelly.
I've boiled up the fruit & mint sprigs, added the cider vinegar & it's currently dripping through the jellybag, ready for jamming tomorrow. I completely love the word 'jellybag'. It's totally wasted on a humble piece of muslin. Perhaps it should be recategorized as a personal name? You know, for those parents looking for something that bit unusual? I will make a box of my whisky truffles for any of my friends prepared to name their child 'Jellybag' - & no, you can't just pretend so as to get the truffles!
Well, I'd love to say that my jellybaggery this morning has made impressive inroads into the apple crop, but it would be a fib or the first order. Let me show you our tree:
Almost scarily full of apples, & that's only about a quarter of the tree. I couldn't fit it all in the picture. Apple chutney, apple & ginger chutney, apple muffins......recipes are stacking up ready for the onslaught. And when the apples are under control, look at these........
....loads of lovely pears! Pear chutney, Pear & cinnamon cake.......pickled pears maybe? Though I'm the only person who eats them.....but I could successfully offload a few jars onto my Dad, who is usefully for me at this time of year, a food hoover in the same league as Albert Whiskers! We have a greengage tree too, which only crops when it feels like it. This year, it felt like it, but thankfully I've already dealt with those - 13 jars of scrummy jam packed away into the pantry,
Albert Whiskers continues to get his paws well & truly under the table. I find cat body language fascinating. Let's face it, it isn't usually all that subtle, but previous cats we have owned have managed a little more nuanced approach than Albert Whiskers.
A brief guide to Albert Whiskers' body language:
* Gluing himself to human leg = Where's my food?
* Licking elbows = Where's my food?
* Jumping onto laptop keyboard & meowing into human's face = Where's my food?
* Bouncing on bed attempting to extract reclining human with actual claws = Where's my food?
* Grabbing human's foot with both sets of front paws while applying teeth = Where's my food?
* Lying in a long sausage across the front door at his big hairy human's home time = She hasn't given me my dinner. P.S Where's my food?
* Staring long & hard at the BBQ while purring like a helicopter = There seems to be an awful lot on there for just the two of you. Where's my food?
* Following human around the house & garden keeping distance below 30cm at all times while emitting increasingly desperate vocal barrage = You have two minutes to fill my bowl before I phone Ban Ki-moon to demand an emergency air drop of food aid parcels over Farndon (Call yourself a cat lover....bloody disgraceful)
Yep, this boy loves his food! I think he may have survived some of his time as a stray by begging scraps at kitchen windows. It's very noticeable that if he's outside when I open a window, he stops what he's doing & races to the window meowing. Old habits die hard. He does this even if he's just snarfed an entire pouch of fish stink with a hefty biscuit chaser.
He's cute though!
Till next time......Oh, & I gather I may have 'been organised' into doing my '5 miles without moaning' walking challenge by then, so it'll either be a result & a tick on my '50 things' list, or I will have moaned spectacularly & will have had to set another date for it.
Thanks for all the positive comments I've had about my blog via Facebook, etc. It's had well over 1000 views now, so there are obviously a few people out there who enjoy (or are grimly fascinated or perhaps choosing to self-stultify on a weekly basis) the whole cat/vegetables thing.
C x
Hello Friends,
Well, since last time, I've been picking a lot more of this.....
and getting to grips with a vast amount of these......
and I'm kind of both looking forward to & dreading the apple crop coming in, as it looks huge this year, so I'm gathering my recipes for jellies, chutneys, cakes, brown sauce, muffins, stuffings......anything I can make & store away in our pantry & freezer. Never mind winter & emergencies, I'll soon have enough to see us through a Martian attack! I've also thought more about trying to increase my fitness levels, which are better than they've ever been since losing lots of weight, but quickly start to decline if I stop!
Now, I've mentioned before that if I don't get my exercise session done early in the morning, I tend to talk myself out of it. This exercise dodging would typically take the form of excuses i.e "I've already walked to & from the shed twice" or "I sweated through an exhausting 10 minutes of 'wiggly string' with Albert Whiskers AND I've got the ironing to do" or even "Oh, hang on, I've just walked to the post box" as though the calorie burn from these activities will equal a proper energetic 30 -50 min exercise session. We do have quite a long garden, but it's 130'......not the brisk 2 miles minimum walk I need to do 3-5 times a week. At No. 16 on my '50 things I want to do before my next birthday' list is 'Walk 5 miles without moaning'. Hmmm. It doesn't sound like much, & I'm sure some of you are wondering why I don't just sign up to one of the shorter charity walks. Therein lies the problem. I have the Exercise Dodging Gene. I would honestly rather just donate to the charity than do the walk, & neither am I a lover of 'organised fun'....unless I'm doing the organising!
So, instead of prancing around to cod Latino sounds on my exercise DVD this morning, I decided to start getting into training for my 5 miles by doing circuits of the local park. I can walk around 3.5 miles tops, then the tedium sets in & I want coffee, preferably with cake. I think I did walk over 4 miles once, years ago, but only by accident because the map reader forgot to bring the map.....it certainly wasn't 5, & I moaned.....a lot (though in my defence, endless just-ploughed Wiltshire fields after a week of incessant rain isn't my idea of pleasure) I set off for Circuit 1 of the park, pedometer clicking away nicely. Reach the point where I can choose either the longer or shorter route. Hmmm. I feel the Exercise Dodging gene start to wriggle a bit. There are not many folk about, & being a life-long magnet for the '3Ws' (weirdos, waifs & winos), I select the shorter route. I wonder about climbing the civil war earthwork for extra thigh-work, but decide on the more decorous option of walking across the (wimp's) bridge instead. Then I get distracted by the wild flowers growing up there. Look! Harebells! One of my favourites & not a common sight these days. I lose my walking pace completely by stopping to admire them......
.........& then by waiting for a rather peculiar dog to go past. By now, a group of post-natal Mums has arrived with a fitness trainer. They are doing circuits too, but they're RUNNING! By the wailing coming from the buggies, some of these women have probably only given birth a few weeks ago, yet they are are actually running & doing core muscle work......in public! I pick up my pace, down towards the river, back up past the coffee shop.......Oooooh, coffee shop, don't mind if I do, no cake, just some caffiene. Most pleasant. Suddenly, cup in hand, I don't feel much like doing another circuit. I check my pedometer. HOW MANY? I give it a solid bang on the table. This adds on precisely ONE step......not the 2,000 I hoped were missing. 0.75 miles. PATHETIC!! The E D Gene kicks in with 'But you're planting out 5 gazanias later, you'll be lifting the tomato basket & you're bound to need a few trips to the shed'. I almost head for the car, but then I notice that the post-natal Mums are doing squats. Actual SQUATS, for goodness sake!! They have pushed out babies, some may have had to undergo some rather personal needlework...... but here they are, doing squats while I'm trying to worm out of some extremely undemanding walking. I do another circuit. Shamed into it by the Mums & buggies! My attempt to walk 5 miles without moaning will take place at Clumber Park, date to be decided. The Big Hairy One has announced that he is coming with me to make sure I don't cheat.......or moan!
OK, so I know I only walked 1.5 miles today & that was poor even by my standards, but I now present to you Albert Whiskers' incredible contribution to world fitness today. I got home to find he hadn't moved off the sofa. He managed the 4 metres to the kitchen, fortified himself with whatever fishy gunk was on the menu this morning, then heaved his exhausted body to the cat flap. A long sit down to regain his strength, then he made it another 4 metres onto the bark chips before settling down for his Really Long Snooze. If cats wore pedometers, I swear there would be days that struggled to come in at 25 steps!
So I've been a bit moany this time, haven't I? But will commit RIGHT NOW to doing my exercise DVD first thing tomorrow.......before I find myself wondering if collecting a bucket of windfall apples is likely to be anywhere near an equivalent calorie burn!
Have a good few days everyone.....perhaps the sunshine will return at the weekend, once the last bits of this hurricane have passed over :-)
Till next time,
C x
Hello Friends,
Our veggie crops are really rolling in now, & if I'm not outside watering them, I'm inside picking, chopping & cooking them. I love this time of year. I have a really strong drive to cook or preserve lovely things to stash away in the pantry for the winter months. This is nature's bounty harvested this morning: 1.3 kg runner beans, 1.8 kg rhubarb, 2 kg tomatoes, 1 kg aubergines, 300g big shiny green jalopeno peppers (1 of those lush lovelies sliced onto a rather nice home made pizza tonight), a couple of courgettes & another cupful of blackberries from the rogue bramble poking through from next door & heading for a blackberry & apple sponge pudding :-)
I sat on the courtyard deciding what to do with it all & thought I may as well fetch the little bean gizmo & make a start on slicing those. It was quite a pleasant job, planning ahead what I was going to do with the tomatoes, thinking about our camping holiday to Northumbria next year.....all very peaceful until for some inexplicable reason, I started thinking about Boris Johnson standing as an MP, which rather shattered my tranquil thoughts & led to a more violent wielding of the bean slicer. I doubt he'll have much appeal north of Watford.......his appeal at The People & Cats Republic is off the scale......the bottom end that is, of the minus numbers. Hideous individual.......I don't mean the weird hair, that is what it is, & for all we know, there may be a chronic comb-shortage in London....I mean the scarily neo-liberal politics. Anyway, pretty soon, my beans looked like this.......
.........and I decamped to the kitchen. Beans blanched & frozen , ditto rhubarb (lots of crumbles there!), aubergine curry made & frozen. I've only recently discovered this recipe. Instead of using sliced aubergines, they are roasted in foil for an hour, then the flesh is scooped out & chopped before being added to the curry, making it really thick & rich. Made a batch of bread dough while deciding what to do with the tomato glut. I bloody love gluts! I've already made one of our favourites, a smoky tomato chutney.
It always looks a bit watery in the cauldron, but you just need to keep the faith, put some good music on, & it cooks down into a dark red, sticky loveliness which, with the smoked paprika, is a little bit different.
The Big Hairy One would eat this on everything, so I think I will have to make another batch, as I only make it this time of year from our own tomato crop (food miles = approx 95 feet!). I turned the rest of today's tomatoes into Carluccio's basic pasta sauce. It's so easy, just fresh tomatoes (skinned & de-seeded), an onion, garlic, a little olive oil & some basil. After 40 mins, just zizz it up in the pan or in a liquidiser if you particularly enjoy having to clean up after that piece of equipment. So, 6 portions of that made too, & zero space left in the freezer. Hmmm. Shall get the BHO onto that on the grounds that it'll be like 'Tetris!' I'd quite like a chest freezer in the garage.......if we had a garage. We did have one once. It was horrible. The BHO & his Dad hit it with 7lb sledgehammers until it fell down.
Albert Whiskers is so enjoying being a normal cat. He was allowed outside for the first time on Sunday. He didn't require any cat flap training.....& I should add that some of our cats have had to have Cat Flap Training Level 1 AND Level 2 (That tricky Level 2 is 'Coming Back In', in case you're wondering).
Anyway, he had a top day. We weren't sure how reliable he'd be at returning home, having been a stray, so we decided to have a BBQ to help lure him back, as he's a shocking pig, but when he saw the chicken & pork going onto the griddle, he thought it was his dinner anyway.......(in fact, we only just stopped him helping himself straight from the BBQ), so no problems with him going off a-wandering. He's mostly stayed in our garden this week. I think he likes to make sure he's always in earshot of the tin opener.
He's had two fights this week, one resulting in an injury, but he wasn't blameless. Valuable life lessons need to be learned here on not piling into cats who are bigger & imminently skankier than oneself!
Oh well, the battle against the tomato hoards will doubtless continue tomorrow, & as soon as I get on top of those, the greengages will be ready, followed by what looks like the biggest apple crop we've ever had. If you're watching East Midlands Today & there's a woman's hand sticking up tragically out of a giant mountain of fruit & veg while solemn music plays, that'll be me!
Till next time,
C x
