Monthly Archives: November 2013

To quote Morrissey when with the Smiths”A dreaded sunny day, so let’s go where we’re happy”…

So off I went nice and early to play golf with Steve and Julian.  I wasn’t happy for long, though, as I’m playing like a dog at the moment so my round was the classic good walk spoiled.  But what a walk: the sun was just rising as we started and it was still shining when I got home at 11:00, just in time to stand for the two minute silence for Remembrance Sunday.

In the garden we decided it was time to clear the leaves from under the walnut tree so set to with a rake and the wheelbarrow.  But then Claire remembered the Old Man has a leaf blower which is not any faster than a rake, but it is a lot less tiring.  And after the leaf blowing, I cut the grass for the last time this year.  All looks very trim now…

Today’s daily post is back to gardens and dogs.

Yesterday, as I was grinding my teeth on the side of a blue hockey pitch, Claire was on cloud nine taking the dogs up Cadbury Camp.  This was Ella’s first trip up what is always a great ramble for dogs and owners alike.  Dogs love it, be it rummaging through the brambles on the slopes of the iron age fort as Poppy our first dog used to, trying to flush out rabbits, or simply galloping up and down the high banked ramparts, as Fudge still does gamely at the age of 13.  I like to think that they are running with the spirits of the some old Iron Age lurchers.

Ella tried her hardest to keep up with Fudge, but body shape outdid youth quite effectively as Ella’s Labrador physique is not, apparently, designed for sprint reps – especially up and down the steep slopes of Cadbury.  Last night, neither dog strayed far from their bed all evening and Ella was truly shattered.

So, today being my day off, I took them for shorter walks.  During the day we were caught in a serious shower as we were down the garden.  In terms of participation, the roles were reversed in the changed conditions.  While Ella continued to romp round the garden (probably flattening one or two cauliflowers, I suspect) Fudge quietly retreated to the garage to keep out of the rain.  It is clear which one is the water dog.

And now I have just come back from an early evening stroll up the field and back. The sky was looking typically autumnal with clouds beginning to clear after the wet day.  I count my blessings daily to be able to live in such a beautiful part of the world.  I took another picture of the view.  I probably have more of these pictures than AP McCoy has ridden winners – but I never tire of it.  The other week when the OM was having work done to the chimney, I was able to stand on the scaffolding and take some photos of the mist rising over the lower lying land and also around Cadbury Camp – as the view from the chimney is particularly impressive.  Even in the time I was up there the picture changed almost by the minute.

In the garden the only thing that is changing is how wet the soil is.  But that is fine.  I’ll stay in with the smell of damp dog to keep me company.

Although, as I said yesterday, I feel that I am putting the garden to bed at the moment, somehow harvesting veg at this time of the year and heading into the winter seems almost more satisfying than the summer months, when we had plentiful (but sometimes short-lived) harvests of fresh produce.  I am sure that when I was young I would have dreaded the call to go and pick some Brussels or dig a parsnip, but this autumn I am feeling that I am almost getting something for nothing.

For example, the swedes are gently expanding and growing, but are perfectly edible in the meantime.  And the same goes for the parsnips, although there are not as many of them.  The cavolo nero will keep producing for a good while yet, as will the curly kale that is looking great.  Only the cabbages have produced a glut which I will not be able to eat.  When there are only two of us at home, one cabbage can last us weeks…

Although we had some Brussels sprouts at the weekend, they are not up to speed at the moment.  The plants seem to have shot up and the sprouts themselves have opened in the warm weather.  In some ways Brussels Sprouts are the benchmark against which I measure the garden, as it was the Old Man’s excellent Brussels which drew me in to taking on the responsibility in the first place after the cows had rampaged through the garden and destroyed his work in a few hours of bovine mayhem.  Those sprouts a few years ago were looking truly impressive – but had not been picked as there had not been a frost up till the point.  But after the lunch on Sunday, I am thinking that there is more than a grain of good sense in the OM’s insistence on picking after the first frost.

So I am actually wishing for a little cold weather to improve the harvest and keep the food for free coming in.

Over the half term I spent some time putting the garden to bed, as it were. The runner beans and French climbing beans had all needed to be taken down and the canes packed away.   It is a little sad to be undoing all your hard work from earlier in the year: so much blue string tying up the canes and plants that have overgrown the tops of the canes and hang now with brown drying fruit.

So I took some of the pods and harvested the beans inside for planting next year.  I don’t have a clue if they will be good seed, but I don’t see why not.  So I took the plants and piled them up on the compost heap – which is finally looking like it will produce some decent mulch for next year.

The greenhouses are almost clear too: the tomato plants seemed to bear fruit way longer than I was expecting – but finally we had to say goodbye to them and put them to compost too.  And I harvested the last the green peppers before they died: 17 green peppers which will go in the freezer.

But it wasn’t only digging up and composting that needed to be done.  With the so-called storm of St Jude due, I took the precaution to make sure that what veg there are in the garden would still be standing come daylight.  So I staked the white sprouting and green calebrese, as well as the Brussels sprouts which really have sprouted in the warm autumnal air.  Thankfully they survived what turned out to be a bit of a damp squib of a storm:  nothing like the great 1987 storm when whole forests seemed to be devastated.  All we had around us was one telegraph pole leaning slightly precariously towards the main road with a van from the power company parked next to it all day with its hazard warning lights on.

But we all survived as did the garden plants as we head on into winter.

After the fun and frolics of last weekend it was our turn to host family members for Sunday lunch and we were determined to ensure that it was a positive experience for everyone.

We had some advantages over the Old Man in preparing the Sunday meal, though.  For a start, we knew how many were coming and, in addition, we had a clear idea of exactly when they would arrive, because this was Claire’s side of the family:  her mum and dad, and her brother Richard and wife Pauline.

Roast dinners are something of a British badge of honour: doing a Sunday roast is a competitive business.  Everyone believes theirs or their mum’s or their granny’s is the best.  But I am confident that my wife does the best Sunday lunch around.  And I think perhaps this might be one deep-seated reason why I enjoy growing vegetables: namely so that I feel that I have contributed in some way to the creation of a Claire Sunday roast dinner.

So today we had some fabulous roast potatoes (the King Edwards still going well), cabbage, carrots, swede and brussels from the garden.  They were so good, even Richard ate some Brussels.  In addition, Claire made a blackberry and apple crumble with locally sourced blackberries, and I managed to use up some of the glut of eggs that the hens are providing at the moment, by making a rich bread and butter pudding with extra custard.

So a simply planned meal was delivered on time, using local produce to a set number of guests.  But then Claire’s side of the family are always a little more organised than mine.  For example, much of the conversation was taken up with planning for who was going where in February of next year when Claire’s father turns 90, one sister is getting married and another is coming over from Australia for a few weeks.  Planning for every eventuality is essential, but one half of the family will be prepared.

“Would you like yoghurt with your sticky toffee pudding?  There is yoghurt in the fridge…”

And so was rounded off another classic meal next door with the Old Man and it was a classic of its kind, highlighting all the reasons why The Old Man should not longer offer to host meals and why my relatives should avoid putting him through the perceived ordeal.

It all started when TOM invited three to lunch: Fiona (granddaughter no.1), Chris and great-grandchild Edith (now 5 months).  Unfortunately they then declined due to Chris’s work commitments, with TOM making it clear to Fiona that he would have to fathom a way for him and Gill to consume the joint of beef he had taken out of the freezer.  So he devised a second plan and invited Hugh and Sally with their two teenaged boys, Will and Barney, whom it was safe to assume would make a decent job consuming the available food.

I was blissfully unaware of this until he saw me as he was driving out on Friday and he asked me when we were going to Liverpool.  I told him Tuesday.  “Oh…” he said.  “I thought you were away on Sunday….would YOU like to come to lunch with your brother too?”

There is no easy answer to such a question.  To say no would blatantly be rude.  To say yes, puts more stress on him, and leaves you with a feeling of throwing away a couple of house of your life for nothing.

“That would be nice” I said, already picturing the stressed nature of lunch with my father.

So, if one assumes that Gill was always going to be a fixture for lunch, his catering numbers had gone from four plus a baby, to two (just him and Gill), back up to six (him, Gill, Hugh, Sally and the two teenage food processors), to eight (all of the above plus Claire and me).  He was just getting to grips with this after his morning foray into Castle Cary, when Fiona called back, oblivious to his burgeoning guest list, and worried that a perfectly good piece of beef might go to waste, announced that she and Edith would come to lunch, without Chris (who was going to work…)

After the regulation conversation with him whereby I offer all the vegetables from the garden and he says that he does not need them:

“Cabbage?”

“I’ve been given some”

“You know there are a lot of carrots still in the garden”

“No, I didn’t – I bought some”

He had, thankfully, planned to use some of the King Edwards and one of the Crown Prince Squashes.  Anything to do with royalty is acceptable, it would seem.

We did offer to help by agreeing to make a pudding, though the Old Man was very much hanging on to the reins in terms of getting the main body of meal done in his new Alpha stove (more of that another time).  He was a little concerned whether his roasting tray would fit in the oven but otherwise it all seemed on track.

And so, when Hugh and Sally arrived with boys in tow, I went next door to say hi and see how things were going.

Not well was the clear impression.  On the one hand, the kitchen was sweltering.  This was not such a great surprise as the house itself is enjoying central heating for the first time ever, after TOM had it installed last month.  But the kitchen should not have been that warm, even allowing for the fact that in addition to my father’s sizeable frame there were two large teenagers and three other adults filling the air space.

The temperature was further raised by the fact that TOM was – at 12.30 – only just draining the par-boiled spuds prior to roasting.  A 1pm lunch was definitely not going to happen.  And this was further pushed back when it was noticed that the meat was not cooking as quickly as expected, due to the fact that the roasting tray WAS too big for the oven – and so the door had been slightly ajar for the last hour and a half.  So, if you can’t stand the heat, don’t get out of the kitchen, just shut the oven door.

But before the temperature could drop appreciably Fiona and Edith arrived – with Chris, smiling broadly, bringing up the rear.  “I thought one more would make no difference as you have so many for lunch anyway” was the not unreasonable justification for Chris to join the merry throng before getting a train to work later in the afternoon…

….But it did not meet with overwhelming delight from the now ragged Old Man.

I had decided that this was not wort getting upset about elected to open a bottle of wine to relax.  TOM refused to have a glass (he had not planned to open any) “It’ll kill me” was his bald reasoning.

So, as I retired to the living room to chat with my nephews and ponder my impending inheritance, it was left to Claire to salvage lunch by rustling up some yorkshire puddings, some runner beans from the freezer and finishing the beef off in our own oven, while also making the crumble which TOM had assumed she would make in addition to the extra desert she had offered.

But the Old Man had recovered his joie de vivre sufficiently to offer the obligatory plastic carton of yoghurt to accompany Claire’s sticky toffee pudding.  Why, why, why does TOM have to offer yoghurt with every pudding he serves?  I could be cruel and say that it did not do his arteries any good, but then that would be harsh.  I shan’t say it.  But in the meantime I will continue to clog my own blood flow with full fat double cream to accompany my home-made sticky toffee.  Yum.

So, miraculously, the equivalent of the feeding of the five thousand was accomplished.  No fishes were hurt in the making of this meal, and I am not sure that we would have been able to collect twelve basketfuls of left overs, but a crisis (or maybe a famine?) of biblical proportions had been averted.  And we have learned a new chant for the next time relatives my father invites relatives to lunch: