Garden envy & a challenge accomplished!

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

And still they come......

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

The 'exercise dodging' gene

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

Harvest time & freedom for Albert Whiskers!

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

July's garden wildlife - this month's assorted squigglers & wigglers.

Hello Friends,
As you know, I've been keeping a log of all the wildlife I've spotted in our garden this month. July hasn't overwhelmed us with different species, but of course, there are bound to be all sorts of wildlife shennaigans going on as soon as I put my list away & come indoors. I've not forgotten one of the Big Annual Bird Counts we did. The only feathered visitors to our garden during our selected hour were the usual suspects (though very welcome, of course!) then within 10 minutes of finishing it, a goldcrest alighted on a climber right outside the conservatory window & sat there for ages.....laughing at us, I'm sure! We are very much aware that different species visit us at different times of year. We see the most varied bird life during the winter months, whereas pond life seems most active in spring. I intend to keep putting additional species seen onto our list so that by the end of June 2015, we will have a complete record for a whole year.

Our garden wildlife at 'Hagstones' - July 2014
Butterflies: Small white, Large white, Small tortoiseshell, Meadow brown, Gatekeeper, Brimstone, Peacock, Comma, Ringlet.

This month, gatekeepers & peacocks (pictured) have been the most prolific butterflies in our garden. We haven't spotted any red admirals in our garden at all this year, which is very unusual.

Moths: Elephant hawk moth, Angle-shades moth & several tiny micro-moths which I'm unable to identify. This little orange & black stripy chap is a cinnabar moth caterpillar.

The caterpillar plant food is apparently the ragwort group, but he was tucking into our ligularia.

Birds: Swifts (nesting in our eaves again this year, hurray!!), Sparrows (ditto), Starlings, Blackbirds, Thrushes, Wood pigeons, Collared doves, Coal tit.

This is quite a low species count for us, but I think there is probably a decent amount of food around & the birds which visit our garden during winter aren't needing to put in an appearance. We've seen juvenile thrushes, starlings, sparrows & wood pigeons too, so good to know they have bred successfully. Usually, thrushes only visit in an icy winter or drought, so it was such a nice surprise to see that we now not only see them regularly, but that they have clearly nested nearby.

Other insects & assorted squigglers: Greenbottle, bluebottle (both of which are quite attractive when outside on plants & not indoors making a nuisance of themselves), 2 types of hoverfly (Episyrphus balteatus & Scaeva pyrastri, I think), common wasp, cranefly, dragonfly (medium sized reddish brown) 7-spot ladybird, 22-spot ladybird (beige with black spots), ladybird larvae (hoovering aphids, yay!), green shield bug, green aphids, black aphids, earwigs, woodlice, centipedes, earthworms & red composting worms, common garden snail, snail (Cepea nemoralis? Hundreds of the things, anyway, but doing sterling work feeding the aforementioned thrush family), keel slugs, bloody massive brown & orange frilly slugs (probably not their correct zoological name!)

Bees: (I like bees too much to list them under 'Assorted squigglers') Garden bumble bee, bufftail bumble bee, honeybee. Surprisingly, we haven't seen our usual summer leaf-cutting bees yet, & as the leaves on the witch hazel are intact, they either didn't visit us during July or have decided to pick on a new plant!

Pond: Frogs, froglets, tadpoles, pond skaters, lesser water boatman, whirligig beetle, titchy leeches, pond snails. 

Mammals: Hedgehog. No sign of our bats yet, this year. 

I'm sure there are hundreds more little wiggly chaps out there just dying for a place on my list, but these are the species we've seen in July & I've really enjoyed doing a bit of pond dipping & just taking the time to walk around looking for signs of life. Must remember to check the buddlejas at night during August, as I know we have a great variety of moths out there.

And while I've been enjoying life in the garden hunting for critters, our own big furred critter has continued to count the hours until Going Outside Day. He wasn't able to have his booster jabs yesterday (bit of a saga) but should get them tomorrow, so we're hoping he will still be able to go out this weekend. In the meantime, he's been spending his time like this:

And this:

And with quite a lot of this:

Until next time,

C x

P.S. I mustn't forget to credit the Big Hairy One with the beautiful peacock butterfly photo, plus the bumble bee & frog.

The dubious role of cats in aerobics.........plus pesto!

Hi Friends,
Actually, scratch the word 'dubious' from that title, for I can tell you this, absolutely & categorically, there is NO role for cats in aerobics, not one. Probably ever! 
As most friends will know, I've been working hard on my weight over the last 3 years or so & have achieved a weight loss of 6 stones. This has partly been done by old-fashioned portion control & calorie counting (& a 'Virtual' Rosemary Conley on my shoulder nagging in my ear) but I can't emphasis enough how important exercise has been, especially now I have hit those 'woman of a certain age' years where calories form into small magnetic balls of fat which ping onto my middle like lard tiddlywinks. I've spent my whole life being an Exercise Dodger (I'm sure 'School: The PE Years' will form a blog topic at some point) but I've realised this simple personal weight loss fact: If I stick rigidly to my diet plan alone, I will lose maybe 1/2lb or 1lb a week (I've been doing this a long time now). If I do 5 x 30-40 min exercise sessions a week, then that weight loss will usually be around double. I quite like walking (not more than 3 miles or I get bored & moany!) but for everyday activity, I do aerobic-type DVDs. These are pretty boring on the whole but I prefer them to the body conditioning type (Not convinced any DVD anywhere is up to that job, frankly!) My preferred exercise time is first thing in the morning as that gives me less time to talk myself out of doing it.

So rug rolled back to expose stripped wooden boards, curtains closed around Albert Whiskers who is zonked on the windowsill, I'm down to my bra & knickers going through the warm-up routine & stretches. Half way through the first fat-burning routine, Albert Whiskers launches himself off the windowsill & throws himself down full length smack in the centre of the floor. I try to adapt a step or two to see if I can box-step round him. I can't....& he's eyeing my feet. I move him. He comes back. I move him again, he comes back. I try to introduce a sort of new 'ungainly leap step' (you won't find this anywhere in the Rosemary Conley repertoire) so I can do 'Swing & lift, weird jump' instead of just 'Swing & lift'. I can't. I put him out in the hall. Next track. Ancient M-People number. I wonder for the umpteenth time why no-one has brought out a heavy rock aerobics DVD, instead of this cheesy nonsense. Then the meowing starts. I don't have the volume turned up very high because the music is pretty irritating & I don't want the neighbours subject to the same 8 tracks every day, so instead of the encouraging voice of Rosemary, I've got a combination: 'Meow & lift, meow & lift, leg raises on the end, meow, meow you can put as much effort into it as you like (& he is doing...), sounds of door being clawed to shreds, meows have morphed into drama-queen yowling.....' Then they stop suddenly, I sashay backwards while still trying to keep my arms going & have a peek through the frosted glass door....at first I don't see him, then I do...the bugger's all but swinging off the door handle! He must be standing on one of the lower panels. I decide to ignore this display of attention seeking. |No cat can need to gain room entry that badly. I manage to get through another 2 tracks, then realise I can hear muffled action in the hall. It sounds like someone systematically killing a doormat.......I work through the final thigh & hamstring stretches & open the door. The mat looks like it's gone several rounds with someone intent on world doormat domination & there is a sad little heap of loose pile from the hall rug. And Albert Whiskers? Does he bowl me over in his efforts to get into the denied room so as to continue whatever he was doing that was so important? No! He doesn't want to go in there at all. In fact, as I opened it, he was already heading off the conservatory to catch some rays. Bloody cats!! Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em!!

In case anyone is thinking that all I've done since my last post is jump around to bad music in my frillies (I refuse to spend my clothing budget on anything as tedious as sportswear when I could be spending it on dresses & boots!), I should add that I have been busy in the veggie garden & turning nature's bounty into stuff for the freezer. I've picked 2lbs aubergines & turned those into a tasty curry, a really low calorie recipe too, & have started picking & freezing our chillies. These are jalapenos......so big & shiny, looks like a great year for them.

I also cut the basil, grown in large pots this year. The hot weather has brought this on well. Basil is a sniffy crop to grow. It gets just so far in a colder summer, then says it isn't playing any more, & what's more it wants its ball back, before wimping into a collection of sad barely green stalks. 

Not so this year, though! A whole colander of absolutely lush leaves gathered & turned into pesto. This freezes really well in small plastic pots & is great for providing a taste of summer in the depths of winter.

The small bowl is lemon basil pesto, to which I added a chopped hot red chilli for a bit of a different vibe. This is the first year I've had a successful crop of lemon basil. It's fab chopped into mayonnaise with some crushed garlic too.
So I've been quite productive. If I don't post again, you'll know I am trapped under a mountain of courgettes awaiting a winch or preferably a fireman's lift!
Have a good weekend, everyone,
C x

Marigold scones & one stir-crazy cat!

Hi Friends,
Another busy week in the garden. It's mostly all maintenance now, to maximise those lovely food crops, but I've done a little more seed-sowing too. We're now picking cucumbers, tomatoes, courgettes, spring onions & a few mange-tout, as well as continuing to cut lettuces. The BHO lifted his shallots at the weekend & those are outside drying in the sunshine. We've had an unintentional little free gift from our neighbours, as the annoying brambles that keep poking through the hedge & arching over one of my borders are now bearing ripe fruit, so I'm picking it daily & adding to my blackberry treasure stash in the freezer. The aubergines & jalopeno chillies will be the next to be cut, so should it be moussaka first, or a curry? Can't decide!

The pot marigolds (calendula) have put on such a fab display this summer & are still flowering their socks off. I save the seed from year to year, so they're probably a proper 'moggy' of a flower by now. I get lots of different shades of oranges & yellow, as well as plenty of double blooms. This afternoon, I've picked a pot of the petals (you only need 2 tbsp) to make marigold scones.

Freshly picked petals waiting to be used

Marigold petals were used in the past as 'poor man's saffron', & they do give a cheery warm glow to a scone (I should know because I've just snarfed one, fresh from the oven, with a slather of butter........what a good job the aerobics DVD has made an appearance today....) I just used my basic scone recipe & added the petals at the same time as the sultanas. I'm also planning to make a batch with  chives, as well as marigolds & a sprinkling of parmesan or Lincolnshire Poacher on top. 

Warm & ready to eat!

At the beginning of this month, I started a sort of survey of our garden wildlife. I'd intended to do this for just a day or two, but this would leave out the interesting feathered visitors we occasionally see in the winter, so I decided to keep a list, add 'new' species as they appear, then post at the end of each month with a little report of what we've seen. So far, I've done a bit of minor pond dipping, had a poke around in the compost bin & been checking the flower borders daily for butterflies, bees & other buzzies.

Somebody who would very much like to be outside undertaking his own wildlife study is poor old Albert Whiskers. He is turning out to be the most lovely cat, extremely funny, with very definite ideas about how he likes his household to be run. He is the most vocal cat I've ever owned. Nothing can be done without a barrage of meowing, chunters & grumbles. The escape attempts continue.......for his Big Massive Escape before we'd even driven 1 mile from the Cat Rescue, see my earlier post about his arrival. Since then, he has faked being fast asleep then walked straight out of the front door, waited till the BHO was at a critical point in some or other virtual alien-splatting pursuit, then attempted one single vast leap for the window from the floor & today, he has feigned an overwhelming interest in the ironing, with the ulterior motive of sneaking behind me & along the bedroom windowsill for exit through the window. I didn't spot any specialist cat abseiling equipment about his person, nor was he knotting together sheets, so I suspect that one could have been an expensive trip to the vet! He is absolutely DESPERATE to go out. He's had his primary injections, but has to stay in until he's had the boosters, which will be next Wednesday. 

Proper fed-up!

 In the meantime, it's every variation  of mouse on a string you can think of (with  & without holey cardboard box), alternating with him sitting in our bow window, looking for other cats. Some elicit bigger yowls & more interesting body language than others..........it's almost as if he has his own copy of 'The Spotter's Guide to the Village Cats'.....(10 points for Big Grey Fluffy) In just a week or so, he can meet them in the fur.........lucky them!! He is a friendly, nice-natured cat indoors with us, but he does have a rather diva-ish  streak, too, so I think he's going to be a bit of an unknown quantity once he gets a whiff of the great outdoors.
For now, he's doing his best to snooze away the hours until his big day & making a good job of it!


That's it from The People & Cats Republic today.....till next time.....which I bet will involve aubergines.......bet you're all glad I've stayed off the topic of nuclear litter trays.......
Hope everyone's enjoying the sunshine.
C x