So. What to do? As we checked out of the Swan @ Stoford, the heavens opened and it RAINED. We waited in the bar for it to ease a bit and than made a dash for the car.

But a bit puzzled about what to do next. Whenever we come up or down the Fosse Way, we see signs for a National Trust Roman Villa near Moreton in Marsh. We keep thinking that we must go and look at it, only we tend to be driving past rather too late on a Sunday evening, or during the winter when it’s closed. Sunday had seemed like an ideal opportunity to go and investigate. But we don’t want to be doing a Roman Villa in torrential rain. But perhaps it’s under cover. Oh, let’s just go and find out. We can always go away again if it’s raining hard and the villa is outside.

In fact, by the time we got there, the rain had stopped. The villa is well off the beaten track, along quite a narrow, winding road. We saw almost no traffic – and so were quite surprised to get there and find the car park almost full and loads of people about! We spent a pleasant hour or so pottering about the ruins (http://www.chedworthromanvilla.com/) and then hopped back in the car and made our way back along another narrow, winding road back to the Fosse Way.

Another thing that we have repeatedly passed on our way along the Fosse Way is a sign to a small farm shop called Simple Suppers, which is accompanied by a sign which invites you to visit the farm’s piglets. Again, whenever we have been passing, it has been too late to go and visit piglets. They would all have long since retired to their piggy beds. So we took the opportunity to drop down, visit the (very cute) piglets and raid the farm shop. This solved the minor problem of what we were going to eat when we got home. I had intended to take a Sunday joint out of the freezer before we left on Friday afternoon and had completely forgotten to do it. So – roast pork instead of roast beef. And very nice roast pork it was too. Had some more of it last night in a pork, mushroom and bean “pie” with a rosti potato topping. Equally nice.

I had yesterday off. I meant to do loads of useful things like washing and ironing and vacuuming and weeding. What I actually did was washing and ironing and making ciabatta (my first attempt at proper ciabatta – worked out quite well, except I might leave it in the oven a bit longer next time; the air holes collapsed when I took it out and it’s a bit denser than it should be now) and mint and chocolate ice cream, and planting the 60 brassica seedlings which eventually arrived from Thompson and Morgan (had to do this between showers). Oh well. I guess the cleaning can wait for another day.

Stella is due home from the hospital tomorrow. Then she goes back in next week for bypass surgery, plus a valve replacement, plus a repair to an aneurism. Might almost be cheaper to buy a new heart!

Uncle John has had a new accelerator cable fitted. The old one, apparently, was a hybrid made up of accelerator cable and bicycle break cable held together with a jubilee clip!!!! No wonder it abruptly broke. The brake lights are being very hard to get along with. They keep failing. We are beginning to think that it would be very considerably cheaper to trade Uncle John in. Preferably for something that Nick the Mechanic has had a hand in fixing. He is most unlikely to repair and then sell on a vehicle with a cobbled together accelerator cable.

Music, noodles and other things

We came down to Stoford near Salisbury on Friday after work. We’ve stayed here before, in The Swan by the River Wylye, only last time it was warm and sunny and this time it is chilly and wet. We’ve come down primarily for a concert in the Cathedral on Saturday night.

However, can’t hang about in the hotel all day on Saturday, waiting for a concert in the evening. So after a magnificent eggs benedict (The Builder had a full breakfast, but I really, really can’t eat a full breakfast followed by a proper, full lunch, not any more), we trundled off to collect The Builder’s mother ready for a day out. We stopped en route in Waitrose, where I caused consternation to a youthful boy by asking where the powdered milk was. It seems he had no idea that there was such a beast!

Peter (The Builder’s brother, not my uncle) dropped by to say hello while we were there. Odd that for all those years, even after he moved into The Orchards, we never clapped eyes on him and now he seems quite keen to see us. Anyway, after admiring Gwen’s garden and Peter’s garden and Peter’s tomatoes (about three weeks advanced on ours) we bounced Gwen into the car and off we took, across country, to Whiteley, where Jeanette, Matthew, Rebecca and Evie were expecting us for a Sunday lunch on a Saturday. I don’t think Evie (now 10 months old) was all that delighted by the notion. She was VERY grumpy when we arrived. Though she perked up a bit when she realised that the crab we had brought for her ran about and made lots of noise when you pressed the starfish on its back. I would feel slightly wickedly guilty about bringing her a noisy toy - except that Jeanette and Matthew have bought her something which makes even MORE noise. We had a lovely lunch and then sat about in the upstairs lounge room for a wee while before taking Gwen back to Nunton. It was a good afternoon. Everyone seemed fit and happy and cheery.

We took ourselves off, in the drizzle, to Salisbury Cathedral, for a concert of Vaughan Williams music as part of the 750th birthday celebrations. The musicians were at the very back of the cathedral; the audience, which was seated back as far as the central altar, was facing the back, obviously. And I think virtually all the seats were taken. In the first half they played Pilgrim’s Journey, based on a Pilgrim’s Progress, which was new to me. Then they played the Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis (which was pretty much the reason we had come down - I love the Fantasia) and the Serenade to music. And then To an unknown region, which is a setting of a Walt Whitman poem and which was also new to me. It was performed by the Salisbury Music Society with soloists based locally (and connected with the cathedral, I think). We really enjoyed it. The only odd thing was the acoustics, which were curiously flat for a cathedral. Normally the acoustics in a cathedral spear the sound through you; on this occasion the sound abruptly disappeared, if you see what I mean. I wondered if it was because we were at the back and the sound is supposed to be generated at the front. But Lindsey tells me that she has been to a concert at the back of Notre Dame and the acoustics were magnificent. Oh well. But it was a shame that such lovely music had a strangely flat tenor to it.

But it was still worth coming to. Beautiful music in a beautiful building. Lovely.

Tell you what, though - if RVW had been born thirty or forty years later, he’d have made a dam fine composer of film music. What he could have done with the theme music to Star wars!

We had been pondering what to do about dinner. We couldn’t eat before the concert - our roast chicken wouldn’t have had time to wear off. Most of the pubs stop serving around 9 or 9:30. Most of the restaurants likewise. Fish and chips after the music it might have to be. But while we were checking out the fish and chip options before the concert, we chanced across a Wagamama (a Japanese style noodle bar). I like Japanese style noodle dishes. I wonder what time it closes. Ooooo - not until 11. Japanese noodles after the concert it is, then. So an evening of firsts for The Builder. His first classical music concert and his first visit to Wagamama.

So. All in all, a good Saturday for us.

Stella, Tony and Lindsey, alas, hadn’t had anything like such a good Saturday, over in and around Melbourne.

Stella woke up at around 2:30 on Saturday morning with chest pains. She woke Tony. He (at least, I assume it was he) called the ambulance. A MICA rocked in and carted Stella away to the Frankston Hospital Emergency Department. Tony rang Lindsey. At 5:00 Lindsey left Ballarat and also rocked off to the Frankston Hospital Emergency Department. Tony went back to Mount Martha to sort things out there. Stella stayed in the Emergency Department. Eventually she was taken to the Carbrini hospital in Malvern (That’s Malvern, Melbourne, not Malvern Worcestershire, which is in any case properly known as Great Malvern), with, I believe, Lindsey and Tony following. Eventually, everything was sorted out. Stella is resting in Cabrini and awaiting tests this coming week. Tony went back to Mount Martha armed with fish and chips. Lindsey went back to East Melbourne.

Nothing like as fun and exciting as roast chicken, baby-tormenting, Rebecca-tickling, Vaughan Williams and Japanese noodles.

Haven’t heard anything this morning about Stella’s health. Or anybody else’s, come to that. I assumed things remain as they were yesterday.

Had a full English breakfast this morning. Not expecting to be required to eat a two course, roast Sunday lunch today :-)

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