Chicken coop

Not really sure which blog to put the chicken coop on.  I think in future I'll put chicken related matters on the garden blog.  But that is in serious need of updating and I don't have time at the moment.  But just so as you know ...

... The chicken coop has arrived :-)

Taffa's Birthday weekend

We did manage to get away to Cambridge on time and had a good run down, arriving in the middle of the day.

In addition to it being Tabitha's birthday, it was also the weekend of the Cambridge town and country fair on Parker's Piece.  So, having unpacked the car and sorted ourselves out we all trundled into town, in the sunshine, for a poke about.  And we rather enjoyed it.  There was lots of food for lunch.  There were horses and sheep and chickens. There were food tents and craft tents.  There were amazing ball things you could run about in.  And there was a parajump tower, hosted by the army.  Somehow, we persuaded Gaz to have a go on that!! The sun shone, the crowds were amiable, there was lots going on, no one was driving so we all ambled around clutching a glass of wine or beer.  We had a good time. And then repaired to a pub for a couple of pints to rest our aching feet and The Builder's back. 

We were remarkably lucky with the weather!!

So lucky, in fact, that we decided to have a Clayton's barbecue (the barbecue you have when you're not having a barbecue) for dinner.  We called into the little Sainsbury's in town and acquired barbecue meats and salads and potatoes and went home and cooked everything inside and then ate it outside, enjoying the lovely evening - and the sound of the England  v America World Cup Match commentary being piped through the window.  The match was a not very exciting 1-all draw (although that was considerably better than the 4-0 drubbing Germany inflicted on Australia on Sunday evening!!!)

All in all - it was a good day!

Sunday was a good day too.  It was Tabitha's birthday and she had lots of skype-calls and cards and merriment. We had decided to have a Sunday roast at home, so I had brought a Pork loin roast from one of Farmer Jane's pigs.  And we had it with roasties and lovely vegetables and an apple and sage gravy.  We had a Frannie-made apple pie for dessert.  Joan joined us for lunch.  She seemed fit, well and happy and was in very good form. She appeared to enjoy her lunch - she doesn't have a very large appetite any more, but made a good job of her plates of food.  We had a lovely afternoon.  And the sun continued to shine.  Right up until The Builder and I were approaching Derbyshire on our way home when the skies clouded over and the rain finally found us!!

I was strangely tired yesterday morning :-)

Tabitha has a new job!  She went away for a super-duper long weekend over the Spring Bank Holiday weekend at the end of May.  When she got back she discovered that one of the checkout team leaders had left and the Powers that Be had decided not to advertise the job but to give it to her.  She's quite pleased.  Not to mention surprised!!

I've just had a message from The Builder.  The chicken coop has arrived at home!!!  I wonder if he's busy assembling it even as we speak ...

The Eyre Arms, Hassop

We went last evening to the Eyre Arms with Richard.  It's a lovely pub out in the tiny village of Hassop out in the Peak District.

It serves fresh cooked pub food, using mainly locally sourced ingredients. It's not a fancy menu, but there is plenty of choice and even the seafood ingredients (which are obviously not locally sourced!) are fresh and tasty. My only "complaint" would be that the cream sauce with my chicken hartington was pretty much just a plain  white sauce with nothing remarkable about it at all. If it had cream, or even hartington cheese, they were undetectable. But the chicken was beautifully cooked and the vegetables were lovely, I got a finger bowl with my starter crevettes (something that is so often forgotten!) and the chocolate pancakes that The Builder and I shared were lovely.  And you absolutely can't fault the portion sizes.  I'm not at all sure I could have finished the rabbit pie, which Richard had!

Richard thoroughly enjoyed his rabbit pie. The Builder was impressed with his scampi. There is a range of local ales and the wine list isn't bad.  And it was fairly quiet when we were there, which might be a bit of a worry on a Friday evening in June, were it not for the fact that the World Cup had just started and people were mainly at home watching the opening matches.  They were expecting a very quiet evening on Saturday when England was playing its first match.

You wouldn't go if you were looking for fine dining, but it is an excellent example of the good country pub. We will certainly go again.  I am a bit tempted to try their Sunday lunch.  So often pubs which do perfectly good food at other times fail completely at Sunday lunch!!  If you can find one that does a good roast, it's worth remembering it!!

The Builder has met the bloke next door

No, no.  Not Steve.  We know Steve.  Other side! 

I've been wondering for some time what it is about our partner semi that attracts people who live in the dark with the curtains closed, who are seldom heard, seldom seen and who never, ever use the back yard.  I asked Facebook one day, and had a series of serial killer vampires diagnosed!

We knew a new bloke had moved in because we saw him carrying stuff in, and we occasionally hear the front door closing.  But he seemed to be yet another serial killer vampire.  We never heard him, seldom saw him and the curtains remained obdurately closed.  This time it was even weirder because we knew he had an Alsatian.  We had seen him taking it out in the mornings, but had never seen it in the yard and had never heard it.

Then on Wednesday The Builder was putting out the rubbish bin when the bloke walked past and stopped to talk to him. Turns out he isn't a serial killer vampire.  He's a chef, somewhere in Dronfield.  And he heads out at about 10 in the morning and doesn't get home again until after 10 at night.  He takes the dog with him.  And he works more or less seven days a week.  So that explains that, then.  I never see or hear him because I've gone by the time he gets up in the mornings and have gone to bed when he gets back.  The Builder says he seems quite pleasant.  Sean the Chef.  And Spirit the Alsatian.

I was pottering about in the kitchen on Thursday evening when The Builder ambled in with the phone.  It was Richard with a sad, sad tale.  He had been expecting to go out to dinner last night with not one but two beautiful ladies.  He'd booked a table at a country pub and everything.  And the beautiful ladies had now stood him up.  So, in their absence, he would be willing to put up with us, if we fancied dinner out in a country pub in the Peak District.

As it happened, we were free last evening and were delighted to join him at the Eyre Arms in Hassop. It was a beautiful evening. Richard was driving. The Peak District was looking beautiful.  And the food at the Eyre Arms isn't bad at all. You'll find a description of the meal here, should you be interested.  It was a good evening - and all the better for being unexpected.  Retirement seems to be agreeing with Richard.  Though he also seems to be extremely busy.  He's been doing some exam invigilating for us during our exam period but otherwise is merrily keeping occupied with the many projects that he used to squeeze into his spare time when he was working for us full time.

Right.  Must get up.  We're supposed to be going to Cambridge this morning and there is lots to do before we go.

June

We are not having much luck with the cucumbers!

The first plant simply turned up its toes and died on us.  We couldn't see what was wrong - until I pulled it up to replace it.  It had no root system at all!!

The second and third plants were doing quite nicely.  Until we had an extremely windy afternoon and evening and one of the plants got snapped right off.  So now we have one cucumber plant, one pumpkin and one butternut squash in the first bed.  I also have some watermelon, zucchini and more squash seedlings in the greenhouse.

Although - it has been getting quite hot in the greenhouse and we can't keep the seedling watered.  So I've moved them up into the propagating tents. The plastic has weathered on them so they are sheltered from the wind on the sides, but the tops are now open to the elements.  But they seem to be doing all right.  I must getting around to potting them on, though.

The flower garden is very pretty at the moment, but it is in a sad state of disarray.  It desperately, desperately needs weeding, and all the paths have disappeared.  I just don't seem to have the time or the inclination to do anything about it.  The orchard and vegetable gardens are looking ok, though, although the raspberry, gooseberry and currant beds could do with weeding too.

In the meantime, the Under-gardener has been industriously digging on the allotment.  He's doing a fine job indeed.

You will find pictures here

Monkey bread

I ran across this recipe for Monkey Bread in a Lakeland email and thought it looked quite interesting so I decided to give it a go.

It was only after I had started mixing that I realised quite how enormous the quantities were!!!  I had, of course, read through the recipe but mostly to make sure I had all the ingredients required and that I was capable of actually following the recipe.  I hadn't looked at the amounts involved.  I should have!!!

Also, I wasn't sure whether I had misread the quantities or whether the recipe has them wrong, but the resulting dough was very, very liquid.  More like a thick cake batter than a bread mix.  You most certainly couldn't have rolled it into balls.  I've just had a look at the reviews on the Lakeland website and it seems I am not the only one to have made this discovery! It more or less flobbed into the baking tin and ended up looking more like cake than bread.

I baked it anyway, and it was quite tasty, although a bit sweet for my palate and rather heavier than I had expected it to be.  The Builder seemed  to enjoy his.

But I've decided to try again, cutting the quantities in half and reducing the liquid a bit while slightly upping the flour.  I was going to give it a whirl yesterday evening but in the end decided to bake cinnamon scrolls instead.  I can more or less make the recipe up for them!! 

Although - I am not sure that cinnamon scrolls for breakfast will aid my mid-term goal to reduce my girth so I fit into my summer linen trousers!!!

Goodness, but that was an exciting storm

It's been threatening thunder and rain and wind all morning.  And now the thunderstorm has arrived.

There's been bright lightning and loud thunder claps, followed by a rolling grumble of thunder echoing around the valley.  Mostly it sounds grumpy rather than angry.

Until just now when there was an enormously bright flash of lightning, followed immediately by such a deafeningly loud clap of thunder that it almost made the windows rattle.  It certainly made us jump.  And all the birds flew in a mighty woosh up into the large trees in the field.  Marlo is somehwere out on the farm.  I am expecting him back very shortly, dripping wet and wanting to be towelled dry!!

And it's such a contrast to yesterday.  Yesterday was sunny and warm and bright and shiny.  We pottered about and ambled lazily out to Chatsworth and pootled around in the garden centre, pottered around in the shop and came home via the Wingerworth garden centre - where we hardly ever go for some reason. Not sure why, because it's quite a nice little garden centre.  We sat outside in the late afternoon and evening sunshine and drank wine and thought about the garden and allotment and gently drifted along.

I do not think we will be sitting outside this afternoon or evening!!

So we are sitting inside now, waiting for our roast lamb and roast potatoes to be ready.  About 2:00, I think.  I have opened a bottle of red wine to accompany it.  And I am about to dash outside between rain showers for some oregano for the gravy.  I am hopeful of a peaceful and leisurely afternoon and evening

I enjoyed that weekend

For me, it was a super-duper long weekend.  Monday was the Spring Bank Holiday.  Tuesday the University was closed.

So, we took the opportunity to make a longer trip to Salisbury than we can usually manage.  Two nights, instead of one.  At The Swan.  Excellent! (You may have noticed that we like The Swan, though I do try to mute our enthusiasm on these pages!!!)

First, though, we dropped to Bakewell to inspect a house that my friend Jo had put an offer on.  It's up on the hillside, behind the church, almost out of the village.  And it's beautiful.  Absolutely beautiful.  I am considering selling The Builder on eBay and gazumping Jo!!!

Then we made our way across country down to Salisbury, stopping on the way for lunch.  We didn't do too badly for traffic, except that parts of the M6 we closed and we had to divert around Wolverhampton.  So we were late to Barb's where we were supposed to be going for afternoon tea.  We went anyway, but skipped afternoon tea so as not to spoil our dinners!!  Afternoon tea postponed to Monday.

They had put us in the rather swanky first room at The Swan.  It was extremely comfortable. Four poster bed and everything :-)

Sunday dawned bright and shiny.  And we went with Gwen to Whiteley, where we found Ian and Sophie, and Mike and Rosie.  Oh, and, of course, Jeanette, Matthew, Rebecca and Evie.  As you would expect.  It being their house and all!  We had a barbecue lunch and sat out in the sunshine and drank wine and played with Mike and Rosie's dog and generally had a lovely afternoon.

On Monday we took Gwen to Street, near Glastonbury, where there is an outlet shopping complex.  Gwen's children are all more than happy to go and collect her shopping for her, whenever she needs anything, but she does rather miss going and pottering about in the shops.  We had nothing pressing to do and so had the time to take her shopping.  And I think she had a nice afternoon of it.  She certainly came home with lots of parcels.  We did not.  I am looking for some pasta bowls - but I want some that will at least complement the three I already have (used to have four but dropped one, alas).  And I want a pair of surf sandals.  But I have quite specific sandals in mind and there weren't any.  There also weren't any satisfactory pasta bowls.  No worries.  I can be patient.  And also, of course, am unexpectedly short of funds this month!!!!!

We meandered back across country to Barb's place and sat outside and ate scones and drank fizzy wine (or Barb and I did - The Builder and Gwen had tea). Then we delivered Gwen back to her place and meandered on home ourselves.

On Tuesday, I mainly baked.  Cheesy damper.  Rhubarb fairy cakes.  Flapjack.  And slow roasted gammon for dinner.  It was a lovely day (not the weather, which was cool and damp).  I need more baking days!

You will find the various pubs we visited over the weekend here.  And my chip obsession here

Chips

I have been trying to decide why I get so stroppy when I am served disappointing or badly cooked chips.  And I do.  I get very stroppy.  Especially when I am eating in places that otherwise do remarkably good food (sorry, Matthew; I shouldn't have shouted at you ;-(  )

I think I have decided that it's because there is almost nothing nicer in the world than a well-cooked chip.  But chips are extremely expensive in terms of calories, fat and other dubious dietary elements so they have to be worth the investment if you are going to eat them - if you see what I mean.  There is no point eating a hard, uncrispy chip.  You don't get sufficient pleasure to make the calorie and fat intake worthwhile.

Anyway.  I decide to make chips last night instead of roasties to go with the roast gammon.  And I decided to thrice cook them.  I don't usually bother.  I always twice fry, but have never bothered to steam or boil the potatoes first.

Last night I did.  I used Shetland Blacks, which roast beautifully.  I figured that they would also fry nicely.  I boiled them only for a couple of minutes (they are a VERY floury potato and disintegrate if boiled for any length of time) and put them in a bowl of cold water.  Then I patted them dry, fried them in very hot sunflower oil until they were just starting to change colour, drained the fat off them and left them to sit until I needed them.

I know that some cooks dip their chips in flour for the final frying, but I'm not quite sure how that works and didn't want to risk it. Shetland Blacks are not the cheapest potato in the box!  So I made up a very, very thin tempura style batter and dropped them in that before frying them the second time.  And I tell you what - they were wonderful.  Absolutely wonderful.  Absolutely worth the investment of calories and fat!!  They were fluffy in the middle and really crispy on the outside. The very thin batter really set them off.

It would be extremely greedy to have chips again tonight.  Wouldn't it?

A weekend filled with pubs

We visited rather more pubs than we had expected to last weekend.

First was one whose name I forget, near Wolverhampton.  We had been diverted off the motorway.  I was getting hungry.  My one small Vegemite sandwich had long since worn off.  The Builder pulled into a pub we were passing so we could grab some lunch.

It's a pity I don't remember its name because although it looked rather unprepossessing, it actually did not bad food.  Not great food, but more than acceptable. We both had sizzling platters - The Builder had gammon, I had chicken.  Not bad at all.  Even the chips were all right.

Then there was The Swan.  Breakfast at The Swan is one of the great pleasures life has to offer.  But I had something of a dilemma.  We were off to Jeanette and Matthew's for lunch and experience over many visits suggests that I cannot have a full breakfast and a full Sunday lunch and do justice to both.  I couldn't have the eggs benedict, which I often do under such circumstances, because I had had them the previous evening for my starter. And eggs benedict twice in twelve hours, no matter how very delicious, seemed excessive even by my standards!! I decided to have the cold platter with toast instead of croissants.  And it was absolutely delicious.  Fluffy toast, a large chunk of cheese, beautiful ham.  And crisp apple and crunchy pear and sweet strawberries and an unexpected couple of cape gooseberries (I love cape gooseberries!!) and even a little pile of carrot sticks.  It was lovely.  I had it again on Monday morning (having had eggs benedict again on Sunday night, with some vegetables as a light supper).  Yum diddly yum yum!!!  Their kitchen may have lost its ability to fry chips (but I'll do a separate chip entry) but you can't fault its capacity to poach eggs and prepare breakfasts.  The Builder had his habitual full English while I was chomping healthily on fruit and cheese.  Judging by the way he scraped his plate clean, he thoroughly enjoyed that too. (Actually, he scraped his plate clean for everything he ate there.  Except that I made him offer me some of the toffee sauce that came with his sticky toffee pudding for my ice cream!!)

No physalis or carrot on Monday but still a lovely platter of food

And so to Monday.

We were pottering around in Somerset, hunting for a pub to have lunch in.  We accidentally drove past a couple of likely candidates, then deliberately drove past another couple that did not entice us.  Then we saw a brown sign for the Waggon and Horses.  We decided to try there.  After all, if they put up brown "food" signs they must have at least a passing interest in food.  On we drove, following the signs.  Off the main road we turned, still following the signs.  Out into the middle of nowhere, drove we.  And finally we got there.  And it really was something of a find.

It markets home-cooked food, and home-cooked food is exactly what you get.  My chicken in tarragon sauce was moist and tender.  The sauce had lots of tarragon and was very creamy.  The vegetables were not badly cooked.  The new potatoes (I'd given up on chips by then!) were lovely.  The Builder had scampi and chips.  Gwen had cod.  Nothing pretentious.  They'd get no points for presentation.  But it was lovely, plain food. We all ate every scrap.  If you should happen to find yourself in the wilds of Somerset, near Shepton Mallet, looking for a spot of lunch, you could do a lot worse than follow the signs to the Waggon and Horses.