Going home from work

We were making our way home yesterday. I was sat, gazing out Uncle John’s window, not paying much attention and pondering whether the bread dough, which I had kneaded in an experimental mood in the morning and put in a large bowl on the dining room table to rise (the dining room stays quite cool during the summer; it gets very little direct sunlight while the sun is high in the sky) would have risen, not risen because it was too cool, or over risen and collapsed. And whether to try making mint-choc ice cream with the super abundance of mint there is in the garden and if the skimmed milk we had in the fridge would make a tasty ice cream or whether to stop somewhere and get some full fat milk. And watching the rain and mildly bemoaning to myself that we had intended to go to the allotment and dig some potatoes and heavy showers are not an ideal condition for doing this.

As we started to trundle up the hill from Woodseats towards Meadowhead, The Builder suddenly expostulated: “Something’s gone!”. Gone? What something? Oops – the accelerator cable had gone. No power to Uncle John’s wheels at all :-( Fortunately, the engine was still working and we had just enough oomph to crawl up the hill at a gentle walking pace, through the traffic lights by Morrison’s supermarket and up on to the flat, top of the hill.

Clearly, we cannot drive all the way from Meadowhead to Tupton at a gentle walking pace. Fortunately, however, we have breakdown cover – as any sensible person would do on a vehicle they have bought on eBay! While The Builder was coaxing Uncle John up the hill, I was talking to the breakdown people on his mobile phone (The Builder’s, not Uncle John’s!).

There we sat, waiting patiently, by the side of the road. It stopped raining and the sun came out. I almost never go anywhere without a book or a magazine somewhere to hand. By a minor coincidence, the book I had with me yesterday was one about bread-making. Did you know that you can leave bread dough to rise in the fridge for up to 24 hours? No – neither did I. It will take very, very much longer to rise and (I think) works better with rolls rather than loaves – but I might try it one day. Makes it look slightly more promising for my experimental bread back at The Sidings, though.

Anyway. Eventually the breakdown man turned up. Didn’t even attempt a roadside repair but efficiently hauled Uncle John up onto his wagon and off we all trundled towards The Sidings. All was well. Perhaps there may yet be potato digging.

Well – all was well until we got to the Unstone slip road on the Dronfield Bypass. The traffic ahead was queued about a mile back from the roundabout and pretty much at a standstill. Looking down to the right, onto the northbound lane – there were police cars and an ambulance and flashing lights and all sorts. The northbound lane was closed. Somebody had clearly gone down the embankment.

Slowly, slowly, we inched forwards. The air ambulance flew in. Slowly, slowly, we crept a tiny bit more forward. Uncle John could have done this under his own steam no worries! The air ambulance flew out again. I assume it took at least one patient with it. Eventually – we reached the roundabout. And finally managed to get round it (all the traffic that would normally go up the bypass was being diverted onto the little side road that runs up to Unstone and was blocking southbound traffic from exiting). And eventually got home 2.45 hours from when we had left the Adsetts Centre and 3 hours almost to the minute since The Builder had left work.

I left The Builder to transfer his tools and things from Uncle John to the Vixen. Walked into the dining room and thought. That’s an unusual smell, sort of yeasty. What is it? Looked at the table and saw my entirely forgotten about bread dough, all risen and puffy and full or air holes. Grabbed it, took it into the kitchen and re-kneaded it and set it in the late afternoon sunshine to rise again. Had it been in a baking bowl rather than a mixing bowl, I might have been tempted to bake it as it was. As it was, I just plonked it on a baking tray and left it to get on with things while I fed the cat and poured The Builder a vodka and tonic. Turned out to be a very tasty loaf. Extremely crusty!

We didn’t go to the allotment and dig potatoes. We didn’t really do anything else terribly useful. We had beef and tomato sausages and chipped tiny new potatoes with gravy instead, and watched a Time Team special I had on DVD and talked to Stella and Tony and went to bed.

I think The Builder is considering trading Uncle John in on a station wagon (that’s an estate car for those of you who don’t speak Australian). I’d have thought if he can get most of his stuff in the Vixen’s boot, a station wagon would do for most things he needs to carry about. And it would be easier to park in our very narrow driveway to boot.

There must be something about this particular week and us being thwarted in our attempts to get home. It’s a year ago this week that those floods prevented a smooth return home from work. Although – I think last year’s effort seriously outdid the excitement and interest levels that yesterday’s trip engendered!

The Builder has now finished levelling the area where the greenhouse is to go. Not only that, but he's put the frame up. Took quite a bit of swearing and throwing things, but it is now up. All that needs to be done now is to put the glass in, and then the greenhouse will be ready for its new life as an orangery.

The Builder has also dug the rest of the row of ambos and the next one. We have a trug full of new potatoes. They are VERY tasty! He's also supported the tomato plants in the greenhouse on string. Everything on the allotment is growing beautifully, including (now) the bean plants that were hit by that late frost. We lost a handful of bean plants from that. Fortunately, my soya plants are now ready to go in, as are the capsicum plants. I'll plant them some time this week.

So we're eating quite well at the moment. There's no need to buy much in the way of veg - just a bit of beetroot and some cherry tomatoes this week. Oh, and some mushrooms, but we always buy mushrooms.

Something has been eating the raspberries and the strawberries just as they were getting ripe. So we've netted them. There were several raspberries this morning which looked as though they would be perfect this evening. I do hope that whatever has been munching them can't now get to them.

Oh - and last autumn, I put some chocolate cornflower seeds into one of the flower beds (that's seeds for chocolate coloured cornflowers, not seeds made out of chocolate which would just be silly. Nothing came of them. I decided that I must have hoed them out as weeds when they germinated and decided to do it again this autumn, but to put the seeds in a seed box rather than directly into the ground. I was pottering about yesterday, thought: What are they, ambled over to look - and I have TWO chocolate coloured cornflower plants which have survived :-) But I will still put some seeds into a seed box this year.

I've potted up all the peace lilies. They look much happier. And I've put the orange tree and the bay tree out onto the patio and tidied up the front door "conservatory".

It's all looking very productive. I wonder if my next instalment of brassicas will arrive today. They were supposed to arrive during June. The May contingent arrived on May 31st. There is no 31st of June!

One of the nice things about working for this department is that once a year we have a “Well Being Event”. Used to be a week, then it became a fortnight and now it’s three weeks. During that time, boxes of fruit are delivered into the staff rooms. Plus, we get the chance to try different sorts of activities which you probably wouldn’t pay to do. Like Reiki. Would have been very disappointing to pay for a reiki session only to discover, as I did at a Well Being session two years ago, that reiki really is terrible rubbish.

This year there were some quite interesting activities. There was Fired Earth mug painting, which Bea went to. Rupert is going on a guided tour of the botanical gardens this week. He also went to jujitsu, which is an odd activity for a Well Being Event. This year I took the opportunity to try tai chi, which Lindsey and Stella seem to love. And it was fabulous. I really enjoyed it. Plus, on Friday afternoon, I spent half an hour having a neck and back massage, in the university’s time and at its expense. Was wonderful. My shoulders haven’t felt this good in years! Mind you, it did feel slightly daring to be lying down in work time while someone fondled my shoulders!

We met with Bea and Steve on Friday evening for a night out on the town. We started out in a pub on London Road (where a very strange man came and sat down at the table I was minding and proceeded to unpack all his belongings until I asked him to move; AND the pub had no white wine and hardly any of the advertised beers!) and then we moved on to a Greek Restaurant which I would strongly advise you not to visit should you be struck with a Greek Food urge whilst ambling around the London Road area. The food was veryveryvery salty. And not, particularly, Greek. Nothing like as nice as the food in the Mediterranean restaurant in Cambridge, and quite a bit pricier. We did score complimentary shot glasses of ouzo – I think because my food went back largely untouched. But I wouldn’t rush back there. I think we’re planning Japanese next time.

We went back to Bea and Steve’s place for a wee, tiny bit more wine and went to bed quite late for us.

And got up amazingly late for us! Was practically lunchtime by our standards. Bea sent us on our way with egg, bacon, tomato and mushrooms on home made toast. Just the thing, for we were off to Chatsworth to a small food fair, and it is not ideal to go to a food fair on an empty stomach!

But first we went to Dunstan Hall to the garden centre. Alas – they didn’t have any purple carrot seeds. I had to buy orange ones. Nor did they have any mesclun mix seeds. I have curly leafed lettuce seeds instead And lots of things for the birds. Then we made our way to Chatsworth to meet the people who supply the shop. Came away with some nice cheese and some lovely cider. And a chicken. Ready for roasting, not for running around in the garden.

And thereafter we mainly did garden things this weekend. On the allotment and in the garden. Mostly the sun shone and it was nice and warm. The Builder spent most of the weekend preparing a place for the greenhouse that Clarissa and Mike gave us, and then building it. All it needs now is the glass putting in. I spent quite a bit of time baking and cooking and pottering in the kitchen. Nothing too dramatic, except that I burnt the bread rolls in a bout of inattention. It was really rather a nice weekend. Quiet and quite productive.

I've just had lunch with Richard. The height of my prandial decadence was to have a bowl of chips with my crayfish tail salad. Richard went further even than a bowl of chips (though he had those too). *He* had a treacle pudding with custard for dessert. I wonder if he is still awake. I'm fairly certain that I wouldn't be!!

We dug the first of the Ambos last evening. I put them in as first earlies (though the websites all say that they are second earlies - they are, however, well advanced on the Arran Pilots which actually are first earlies!) The Ambos, which were sadly slug and wireworm damaged last year, seem fine this season. And they tasted fantastic. We had them with carrots, broad beans and mint from the garden.

There is one tiny zucchini on one of the zucchini plants. The summer onions are oh-so nearly ready. And everything in the greenhouses is growing.

Won't be long before we won't have to buy much in the way of vegetables at all!

(I have run out of carrot and mesclun seeds. Looks like a trip to Dunstan Hall is called for this weekend)

The Builder has made a start on putting up the new greenhouse. It's going where the volcano was. The volcano remains have been moved up to where all that rubbish was. Eventually the ashy remnants will be spread over the garden and new veg beds will take their place

The soya beans have germinated!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It wasn't me, after all. The last packet must have been duff. Only about half of them are up, but that is a very vast improvement on none!

I had noticed that most of the radishes had gone very woody, even though they were not yet full grown. Then I noticed that the orange carrots were also woody, though not the purple ones. A little investigation suggests that carrots go woody when their growing conditions are too cold. This would makes sense. The white radishes are fine; they came from seeds which were to be sown late winter or early spring. Likewise the purple carrots. The other seeds were from a collection which didn't give sowing instructions. I think they were planted too early. I think that next year I might put the first boxes in the greenhouse. It's been lovely and warm in there since the beginning of March!

Last night for supper we had new potatoes, which were not yet from the allotment. Still a bit early. But with them we had steamed peas, broad beans, carrots (purple!) and tarragon all from the garden. Eaten about 7 minutes after I picked them!

I made some elderflower "champagne" last weekend with elderflowers from the track down to the sewage farm. I bottled it this weekend. It smalls fantastic. The recipe says to leave it for at least a week before drinking. Most other recipes say to leave it for several months :-S I've never done it before so I don't rightly know what I'm doing! If I had any more bottles I'd try making some more. I wonder if The Builder could be persuaded to drink more beer from bottles with the resealable lids.

We haven't had all that much rain. There is a bit more water in the water butt up by the house. We might have to set up a watering programme!

We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo ...

The intention for this last weekend had been to go to Cambridge to have lunch with Peter and Joan and to stay with Taffa and Gaz for playing purposes. Alas, Peter is not well, so lunch had to be abandoned. Playing, however, did not have to be and was not abandoned. We went down to Cambridge on Saturday afternoon.

We were up bright and early on Saturday morning, for there were things to do before we could go. The Builder went up to water the greenhouses on the allotment. Bang on 8 o'clock as forecast, it started to rain. He came back. It didn't really rain for very long, though. We passed the morning doing useful domestic things, had lunch, then took ourselves off to Cambridge, asking Jenny to take us avoiding motorways. It was quite a pleasant drive down. Not much traffic. No rain to speak of.

We arrived and found Gareth at home. A quick drink to fortify ourselves, then off we went to Tabitha's shop to meet her for a night out on the town. The area around Tabitha's shop is well serviced by nice pubs. We started out at the Cricketers' Arms and had intended to go on and have another drink in another pub - but the Cricketers' Arms is quite pleasant so we stayed there. And then meandered into town for a rather nice Greek/Turkish/Mediterranean meal in a new-ish restaurant opposite King's College. My lamb was wonderful. Then we went back to the house, via The Boathouse for a pit stop and another pint. Was a good evening. And only a little rain.

The Builder and I slept soundly, and even slept in, by our standards. I put this down to not having slept at all well (me, not The Builder ) on Friday night and having nothing at all to do with the amount of alcohol we had consumed!

It was a lovely day.

We had chocolate chip brioche with raspberry jam for breakfast.

We were pondering what to do for the rest of the day. There was the midsummer fair to go and play with. And where should we go for lunch? While we were pondering all this, Tabitha was watching an odd series of programmes where the characters kept shouting at each other. Eventually, I asked if we couldn't perhaps watch something slightly less yellsome. What to watch. I know - let's watch this programme about baby zoo animals. Which reminds me; Tabitha and Gareth must come up one weekend and we'll all go and check out Twycross Zoo, which we found on one trip to Salisbury. This reminded Tabitha that she and Gaz had found another Wildlife Park not far away. She was telling me all about it, when the thought crossed my mind: Why are we sitting here watching zoo animals on television when we could go out to a real zoo and watch animals in the real.

So we did. Shepreth Wildlife Park. It's rather cute and has loads of animals. I would give you the link to their website, only it seems to be down today. But there are loads of things. We went into the nocturnal house where large bats were flying about. I was a bit worried that one might decided to hang from the brim of my hat. Fortunately, none did. We went into the tropical house where there were two marmosets also wandering about at will. One of them ran across the top of the head of a small boy. Scared him witless, I think! I stroked the ears of a small deer - which got quite cross when I stopped. Gareth held a corn snake. I stroked it but didn't hold it. We were *this* close to a tiger. *THIS* close. Fortunately, it was behind a solid plate of glass. And it was asleep. But nevertheless - *THIS* close!!! There were bunnies and wallabies and black swans and emus and lots of things. So much better than watching a zoo on the television.

Lunch time. We had driven pat several pubs on our way to the zoo and stopped at the first one we came across on the way back. The Queen's Head in Harston. The food was absolutely fantastic. Really, really lovely. Mind you, it would have been very, very much cheaper for Tabitha and me to have bought a bottle of wine rather than having two separate glasses each!!

We took Taffa and Gaz back to their place and then made our way in a leisurely manner back to ours. Marlo was really quite pleased to see us. Especially since we had picked up some cat food for him in the morning.

Things that go bump in the night

Peacefully sleeping, I was, when I was woken at around 2 this morning by a scrabbling sound.

At first I thought it was the cat. He made the discovery last summer that if he brings a mouse into the house and tries to play with it, it escapes and hides and we catch it and put it out again. If, on the other hand, he takes the mouse to the bath, it can’t escape and we don’t interfere and he gets hours of mouse playing entertainment. It is not uncommon for him to do this in the middle of the night. However, he doesn’t usually make quite so much noise. We seldom know anything about it until we get up in the morning. Must be something considerably bigger than a mouse.

The scrabbling sound continued. Perhaps it was burglars – though how burglars would have got in without alerting us or the dog next door was a mystery.

The Builder got up to investigate. He didn’t think it was burglars. He came back suggesting that something was playing in the recycling boxes. He couldn’t see anything, but perhaps a hedgehog had got into one of the boxes and couldn’t get out again. Well, if it was a hedgehog, it was quite a big one – but neither of us felt much inclined to go and rescue wildlife that had got into the recycling boxes at that time of night. In the morning would do. And if it were a rat it would be able to get itself out.

I got up extra specially early this morning. We were out of bread and I thought I would make some cheesy damper for The Builder’s lunch (I had a bit for breakfast – tastes remarkably like a cheese scone!). Plus, I had some washing to put out (I know I’ve been hoping for rain all week – but not today, all right?!?!?!). As I made my way down the garden, I found cream pots scattered about the lawn, licked nice and clean. There was a margarine pot, likewise licked nice and clean. There was all sorts of stuff scattered about, chewed and licked. Has to have been a fox, then, that woke us up. And explains why the scrabbling was intermittent and why we couldn’t see anything when we went to investigate. S/he had been collecting a pot and taking it down the garden to investigate before coming back for another one.

I shall have to start washing the recycling properly, rather than just rinsing it out!

Our new neighbours are almost entirely silent and completely invisible. Since they moved in, I have seen Joanne once, through a window, dimly. I have seen lights on once. And we have once or twice heard a door close. I wonder if they're actually there. If Darius is there, he's a remarkably silent 8 year old

Current Garden/allotment plans

It has been a very satisfactory time from a gardening point of view. Lots of sunshine, reasonable warmth, a few light showers (could really do with a bit more rain) and general growingness.

The top of the allotment is looking wonderful, like a really, proper allotment. There are rows of potatoes growing nicely, rows and rows of onions, rows and rows of peas, now with wire mesh to grow up. The beans are struggling along (they could really do with some rain) - and the good news is that I *think* the seeds from the new packet of soya beans might actually be germinating; if so, I'll be able to fill the bean bed right up. Everything in the greenhouses is going well. I'm very pleased. The potatoes in the bed at the very bottom are also growing well. As is the rhubarb. We have digging plans for the autumn and the winter, and the thought that we might put in a proper bed for the rhubarb to grow in.

Back in the kitchen garden, things are also going quite well. We have had our first, very light pickings of the peas and the broad beans (interestingly, in the case of the broad beans, not from the overwintered plants, which are still too early to pick, but from the early spring planting). And I now have a ratatouille bed - I had a few extra tomatoes and have planted them in with the zucchini plants and the spare onions. I've now mulched that bed with newspaper and dried grass. Over the weekend we planted out more beetroot seeds, some scarlet amaranth seeds and I put some Chinese cabbage and pak choi seeds in the propagating tent (though they may not do all that well - I think I watered them in a bit vigorously! Still, there's time yet to do it again.) We've also planted up another carrot box, a parsnip and radish box and a mesclun box. The Builder has been mowing and clipping and whippersnipping with enthusiasm, so the kitchen garden and the orchard look very tidy. He's also lit another bonfire to get rid of as much of what's left of the garden rubbish as possible. Then, when that's burned out and we've moved the ash for later use on the garden, we're going to level it out and put the new greenhouse up where the bonfire is (When I say "we", I mean that I am going to supervise!).

The flower garden is just looking beautiful. And it smells wonderful. Oh - and the fish pond is finally beginning to clear.

We had a lovely weekend, spent mostly in the garden or on the allotment. We ate and drank and pottered about. The sun shone, with very occasional rain showers (although – we could do with some sustained rain). It was all very peaceful and restful.

So you might wonder quite why I have been oh-so-sleepy today?!?!?!?!?!?

We had lunch in The Peacock in Bakewell on Saturday. It’s where we nearly always go when we have lunch in Bakewell. I don’t know that we will go again – it might be time to sample some of the other pubs. I think the standard of the food has been going noticeably downhill over the past little while. Their menu says that they serve freshly prepared, fresh local produce. It doesn’t tell you that they use frozen chips! (I really don’t like commercially frozen chips; they always seem a bit floury and a bit dry). I don’t think we can afford to eat at The Rutland Arms, except for very occasionally – though their menu does say that they serve twice cooked chips. I assume they are not twice cooked frozen chips! We might have a mosey around some of the other pubs though.

On Saturday evening I made a version of the monkfish wrapped in bacon that I had last Saturday evening at The Swan which was, alas, not properly cooked in the middle. Mine was! I can’t remember what sauce they put on it at The Swan, but we had ours with new potatoes, asparagus, peas and broad beans with butter and mint. It was lovely.

Actually, it was a very foodie weekend. I’ve made some vanilla ice cream and the rhubarb puree ready for a rhubarb and ginger ice cream. I made bread. I decided it was very wasteful to throw the egg whites away when making ice cream and have been making meringues. I must remember that egg whites can be frozen in future. Too much meringue isn’t good for our teeth! We’ve been eating home grown lettuce and radish and have just had our first wandering-around-the-garden nibble on peas and broad beans from the plants. And we are starting to eat the carrot thinnings. It’s all quite exciting.

I had a phone call from Peter yesterday afternoon. He has had a recurrence of his chest infection. It seems that he started to feel a bit better and took to Rushing About Like a Mad Thing. His doctors say that this was ill- advised! They also said that it would take time before he was properly better and that rushing about is not to happen until then. In the meantime, we are not taking them out to lunch next weekend. We will wait until he is better and then take them out. We’ll have lunch on Sunday with Tabitha and Gareth instead!

And Peter must be dissuaded from dashing about – it would be nice were he to live long enough to *have* lunch with us! Though I suppose it is a reasonably hopeful sign that he is not in hospital and that he was laughing over the phone yesterday.

What else is there? Tabitha and Gareth have been in Brighton for the weekend. Freyja has been in London at a convention. Austin had a long weekend in Japan. Marlo has been lying about in the sunshine. It’s all been quite jolly really.

Still doesn’t explain quite why I am soooooooo tired today, though!