Musings on domesticity

A little while ago, Lindsey gave me a copy of the New Zealand book A home companion: my year of living like my grandmother by Wendyl Nissen. I read it and very much enjoyed it, but pondered that while life 80 years ago had many things to recommend it, I suspect my grandmothers would have thought I had gone barking mad had I decided to eschew the advantages of modern living in order to take up the disadvantages of pre-and wartime living.

I have not given up using modern cleaning chemicals, largely because, while it might make sense to use lemon juice if you live in New Zealand, or Australia, where lemons grow on trees in your garden, it makes no environmental or economic sense to me to use lemon juice as a cleaning product when lemons have to be imported into the UK.  And I have not found vinegar to be as effective as proper cleaning fluids.

Nevertheless, I do use more traditional methods for many things. For example, we nearly always eat food that is cooked from scratch, that is seasonal, that is locally grown where possible and grown by us to a large extent, if you are talking about fruit and vegetables. On the other hand, I have freezers rather than kilner jars - if for no other reason than the dire, dire warnings I have always read about the likelihood of you inadvertently and rather abruptly terminating your family line if you fail to sterilise your kilner preserved fruits and vegetables properly.  Then again, I do make my own chutneys, marmalades and jams.

This is what I have so far been doing today (it's not quite 10:00 in the morning as I write)

Clean and shiny and brushed

I was moved to clean the shower when I got up this morning - a task I do very seldom as it seems like a herculean activity (although possibly if I did it slightly more often, it would be lilliputian rather than herculean!!). I admit - I did use a chemical spray. But I also used possibly the most old fashioned thing I possess. A scrubbing brush.  The Builder said when I bought it, in surprised tones, that his grandmother had had a scrubbing brush and he hadn't seen one for years.  I assume my grandmothers had scrubbing brushes. I assume my mother had one.  I had one too, a long time ago and in another place. And now I have another. And it is an absolute wonder. Much, much more effective than steel wool or cleaning wipes or anything at all at keeping our shower tiles clean.

Shower cleaned, I came downstairs and, in an activity that I suspect my grandmothers didn't indulge in, but which countless women have over the generations, I went out and fed the chickens, gathered in the vegetables, checked the flower and veg beds - and fed the wild birds and the fish in the pond, which I suppose earlier generations of women wouldn't have done. Then I came in and took some onions out of the freezer (not a grandmother thing to do!) and sliced fresh zucchini, tomatoes and chard from the garden and allotment to make a giant pot of late summer vegetable stew. Which will go into the freezer when it's ready. The Builder has been podding beans for winter stews. And I have pulled a pumpkin from the garden, some of which is roasting in the oven (along with the vegetable stews) which I will make into roast pumpkin soup with home made stock later.

Winter pies in the making

Now I have a pile of Bramley apples to deal with. They'll be stewed down and go into the freezer too. And sometime over the weekend I shall make some bread and some cake and I might even have a bash at making some more butter. But using an electric whisk rather than a hand churn!

Oh - and I have some stalks of mint leaves and flowers in a vase, gently scenting the dining room.

In the meantime, The Builder has been putting a lid over our backdoor, so that we don't have to stand out in the pouring rain, hampered by bags and packages and umbrellas when trying to get in, and so that we don't trek mud and grime directly into the kitchen. It was certainly working when we got back yesterday afternoon in what appear to be a monsoon. Marlo was sat, in the dry, outside the back door watching the tempestuous rain outside his "umbrella".  It's not finished yet, but it's going to be a serious improvement when it is!

It's going to be a very useful dry space when it's finished

The Builder combining the old and the new with his feather doona and his laptop