Gear Sticks

We should, I suppose, be grateful that when the gear stick in the car decided to break, it didn't do it while we were travelling at speed, it didn't do it while we were on the motorway and it didn't do it while the car was in neutral or reverse. On the contrary, it decided to break just as we had come off a quiet roundabout on the way to the station and while we were, we think, in third gear.  Thus The Builder, in his guise of my chauffeur, was able to coax the car to the station so I could get to work, and then managed to coax it home again, ably assisted by all the traffic lights which turned green on his approach.

Now, most cars these days have gear stick in little boxes. If you should need to replace or repair any of the cokmponent bits, you dismantle the gear box, fix whatever it is that needs fixing, remantle the gear box and off you go. But no - not ours.  Our gear stick is encased in a hermetically sealed box which would take a nuclear blast to dismantle - and then you would never get it remantled again.

We had to buy a whole new unit at around £150.

As you will be aware, most gear sticks have a knob on the top of them which usefully tell you wehre the various gears are.  In my naive innocence, I had always assumed that these come as an integral part of the gear stick.  But no. They are a separate unit. In most cars, they screw on and off, or can be levered off.  In our car, they are a separate unit which is then sealed eternally to the gear stick itself with resin. Our mechanic gamely tried to get the old one off the old gear stick, but it retaliated by shattering into a zillion pieces.  We had to buy another one for a mere £60

:-S 

All up, it took almost £300 to get the car back on the road. The Builder's bank account has gone into hiding!!  Still, we are now mobile once again and I have given up my flirtation with the early morning bus drivers, and indeed the evening bus drivers. Was nice running across our next door neighbour Debby most mornings, mind you. She works in Chesterfield and most mornings was on the same bus as me

Pea and Broad Bean Tart

Back in the summer, when we went to Clumber Park, I had a pea, broad bean and brie tart which was extremely delicious. I marked it as something I could serve to vegetarians which was a bit out of the ordinary. A change from goats cheese, ricotta and spinach!

We were going to visit Freyja at the weekend and I thought i might make a variant on it to take with us. I remembered that the Clumber Park tart was a little dry and neither Freyja nor The Builder is especially partial to brie, so I decided to make small tarts with a cheese sauce. I made the cheese sauce with quite a lot of red leicester

So. I took peas and beans from the freezer, and lightly simmered them. Then I removed the skins from the broad beans. In the meantime I had made some shortcrust pastry. I stirred the peas and beans through the cooled cheese sauce, rolled the pastry and lined some small aluminium pie cases, filled the pies with the cheesy mix and topped it with a vegetarian friendly Parmesan style hard cheese and baked them in a moderate oven for about 30 minutes or so. Then we packed the car and took the pies to London for lunch with Freyja.

The pies were extremely lovely but very filling. The left over cheesy mix made an excellent addition to some minced pork I was using to make a quick pork and noodle supper when we came back home.

I still had quite a lot of peas and beans left over, so decided to make another tart to have for our lunches this week. The intention had been to make a pea and bean quiche, but I blind baked the pastry for the tart and all the quiche mix ran out when I tried to put it in :-S  So I topped the peas and beans with grated red leicester and parmesan style cheese and baked it without the quiche mixture, and made a baked savoury custard separately to go on the side.

I must remember these tart variants.  They were all really lovely and certainly do make interesting things to offer to vegetarians

Pea, broad bean and cheese tart

Lunch, with a serving of baked savoury custard on the side

London

*I* want to move to London Docklands, then when someone says "Would you like to help stage and perhaps even have a small part in a Medieval Mystery Play  at St Clement's Church?" I too could say yes - although I would not need telling that this is probably THE St Clement's of Oranges and Lemons fame. (Not only did I already know this, but I have even been to St Clement's, once upon a time, a long while ago)  I too could audition for the Olympic Games opening Ceremony, even if I can neither dance nor skate. And I could meander about during a free afternoon and find that I had walked to Canary Wharf and have a nice potter about in the shops.

Actually, I had been a bit worried when I delivered Freyja to UEL that I had more or less abandoned her in what looked like an industrial wasteland. Apart from the University itself, which is quite sweet and rather charming, there didn't appear to be anything else much about. Freyja, however, has been out exploring and has found suburbs and shops and even a park plus, of course, lots of exciting things to do in the city itself.  So after we had had a small spot of lunch on Saturday, after The Builder and I had driven down in the morning, we went out for a look around. And it's quite a nice little area of London, around where Freyja lives. The park is huge. There are horses in it. And people wandering around. And even two silly boys on a VERY loud motor scooter rushing up and down on the grass. Mind you, the signs around the grass only forbid the playing or practising of golf. No mention of motor scooters. And, come to that, no mention of cricket, football or even lacrosse. Presumably we can do all of these things, provided we do not attempt to do it with golf clubs!

Freyja had mentioned that there was a city farm somewhere round about, but I had got the impressions that it was quite some distance away. So it was something of a surprise to run across this across the road from the park.

An unexpected find

Naturally, we had to go in!  If you click on the photo, you can see what we found in there.

We had a good potter around the city farm then a bit of an explore on the way back to Freyja's place, where we had a nice cup of tea and then trundled back to Tupton.  It was a good day. Although I think The Builder was a bit tired when we got back. He had done all the driving and his knee was objecting quite strongly to this. So I fortified him with liberal applications of wine and a nice stir fry. And we did almost nothing on Sunday - which was grey and dreary and gloomy in Tupton, despite reports of warm sunshine from almost everywhere else in the country!

I am, however, extremely glad that the gear stick in the car decided to snap away from the gear box when the Builder was calmly and steadily taking me to the station this morning, and not when we were hurtling up or down the motorway at great speed on Saturday!!

A long, long weekend

The advantage to having a long, long weekend is that you get two short working weeks and the time passes very quickly. 

The disadvantage to having a long, long weekend is that you get two short working weeks and the time passes very quickly.  It seems to be Wednesday already.  I am definitely not ready for it to be Wednesday!!

It was a good weekend, though. We went to Bishops' House on Saturday morning to open it up for visitors.  Not that we had many visitors.  It was a drizzly and gloomy sort of a morning so there wren't many people pottering about in the park.  But we did have a mother with two excitable small boys drop in to say hello.  And a couple of committee members came to meet a visitor from Colchester who had lived in the house during the 1970s, when it was divided into two residences and occupied by park keepers from the council.  And Freyja came to visit too, not from London but from Simon's place near Nether Green.  It's kind of fun, in a quiet sort of a way, volunteering at a small museum.  We get to play shop. We get to wander around and look at things. We get to talk to the visitors, when there are any. Plus we had taken books and tea-making provisions, so between visitors we got to sit and read and drink tea and eat flapjack. Not a bad way of spending a morning.

Sunday was an absolutely beautiful day. Truly glorious. So, naturally, I washed absolutely everything I could find and hung it all out on the new washing lines The Builder has put up right down at the bottom of the garden which gets sun all year round, when there is any sun to get. I had intended to get out and do some clearing up in the garden and plant some bulbs and generally do useful things.  Instead, we repotted the ficus in the lounge room which had very seriously outgrown its pot and was looking very unhappy.  I've had it since I very first arrived in Sheffield when it was given to me as a present. When I got it it was about 40 cm tall and now it's around 120 or so and serves as our Christmas tree. It's looking very much happier now that it is in a substantial pot!  So then I was about to go outside and do useful things in the garden. Instead I made some bread and an apple crumble and a beef and tomato stew.  And suddenly, it had gone dark and was too late to go out gardening. Never mind. There's always tomorrow. I can sort the flower garden out then. In the meantime we will eat roast chicken and indulge in late Sunday afternoon activities.

Alas. Monday dawned gloomy and misty and damp. No gardening for me then. And the bulbs sit, unattended and unloved in their boxes for another week. And we more or less had another Sunday. All very restful and peaceful. And damp.  But not as damp as yesterday.  Yesterday was one of those days which, when you get them at other times of the year, cause people to say "Goodness - look at the weather; anyone would think it was November!!"  Grey, dark, drizzly, misty. Not cold. Quite mild, really. But definitely not a nice day.  Fortunately, I was back at work. The Builder and Marlo, alas, were stuck at home in the gloom.  Fortunately for them, we have electric lights and central heating!!

Speaking of being at work, Gareth is off again this week. I think that the company that he has been working for has actually ceased trading. fortunately, the call centre in which he was based has found him a job with another company so there is no immediate need for me to send stale crusts and mouldy water to keep them ticking over.  And he is on annual leave so is at least being paid, even if he might not have chosen to take leave this week.

And I am still waking up at around 04:00 ;-(

The house is looking distinctly tatty now that The Builder has painted the porch!

Autumn flowers in the driveway and our new back door

Waking early

It is extremely irritating when you are consistently waking an hour earlier than you need to. It is even more irritating when you wake at that time on a day off!!

I have today off.

And still I woke up at about 4:00 this morning :-(

I *think* it's because our clocks went back last weekend. Usually I adjust quite quickly to the change in time. Not, apparently, this time.  Not that I actually need to be awake at 5:00 in the mornings. Usually The Builder gets up around 05:20 and goes down to make us a cup of tea so we can have a leisurely drift into the morning before I get up at around 6. But I am usually awake a little before all this happens.

There was, of course, absolutely no reason at all why I needed to be awake, and up and attem on a day off ;-(

So we stayed in bed and drank our tea and listened to the radio and generally behaved as though it was a Saturday.  It's quite nice having a Saturday when everyone else is doing Friday!

Gareth is doing a whole run of Saturdays. The company that he works for has been being naughty and it looks as though they might be about to cease trading. All their call centre staff were sent home earlier in the week while things sort themselves out.  Fortunately he is being paid for this week. But he's not sure what will happen next week.  Tabitha is due to go back to work later this month and has been doing odd extra shifts recently to get back into the swing of things. But I don't think anyone can comfortably survive on just statutory maternity pay, even with a few extra shifts thrown in and particularly not when there is a small creature in the family. For their size, small creatures are very expensive! We will have to hope that either the company Gareth works for keep going, or that the call centre they are based in can redeploy him (and, of course, all the other staff; let us not be selfish in our hopes for gainful employment).

Right.  I'm off to do some useful things.  The more Saturday things I do today, the fewer I'll have to do when it really is Saturday

Autumn this year is very colourful

Even our garden has some beautiful colours




Looking from the bathroom over to the grapevine and beyond the kitchen garden to the farm

 




Looking over Steve and Debbie's garden as well as ours, from the bedroom. There are horses in the field

  




The fan of orange behind next door's shed is particularly striking this year

 



And our red, prickly bush is even redder than usual. The sparrows are really enjoying playing in it




Tomato, cheese and ham loaf

I have a subscription to the BBC Good Food magazine and each year they send with the December issue a calendar with monthly recipes.  I have to admit that I don't very often make them, although I do, of course, look at them.  This month's recipe is for a tomato, cheese and basil loaf. Each time I've gone past the calendar I've thought that it looks remarkably delicious. Today I had a proper look and realised that it is more or less a savoury cake and decided to give it a go.

The recipe called for basil, which is not really in season any more and which in any case I didn't have.  I did, however, have some ham, so decided to use that instead to add a bit of interest to the loaf. The cherry tomatoes came from the plants in the greenhouse (still producing really very well). The hens had provided *exactly* enough eggs for the recipe. And for the milk I used some slightly sour left over milk from the last lot we got from the dairy (we have fresh milk for the tea and coffee, you'll be pleased to hear).

So this is what I did.

I took 100g of soft butter and 300g of SR flour and rubbed them together until they resembled fine breadcrumbs.  I then took 100g of cherry tomatoes chopped in half and 100g of sheeps feta cheese, crumbled and gently mixed them into the flour. I also roughly shredded a slice of medium cut honey roast ham and mixed that gently in. I put 100ml of slightly soured milk and 3 eggs in the blender and briefly blended them then added that to the flour and tomato mix, making sure it was all blended in together and that all the flour was incorporated. I poured the mixture in to a buttered loaf tin, then scattered some more halved cherry tomatoes and the rest of the feta over the top. I put it in the middle of an fan oven  pre-heated to 160d for about 55 minutes.  I then cooled the cake/loaf in the oven. 

I have to say it is extremely delicious. But next time I think I might put more tomatoes in.  And I think it would work really well with olives instead of tomatoes.

A hippo has come a knock, knock, knocking

... at the back door, looking for Freyja, Bernard and Sleepy.

The Builder was a bit surprised.  He wasn't expecting a box in the post.  It was addressed to me.  *I* was surprised.  I wasn't expecting a box in the post either.  And I certainly wasn't expecting a hippo, searching for Freyja, Bernard and Sleepy, wishing to join them in East London so that she too can study, become a Lady of Letters and (apparently) smoke cigars and drink port.  I am not sure that any of the others smoke cigars, but I expect they can oblige with the classes and the port.  The hippo came bearing vegemite, socks and packets of chips. Hippos bearing gifts are always welcome!

I saw Freyja for lunch on Friday (and handed over the hippo, and her share of the goodies).  I saw Tabitha and Cally and Gaz this afternoon and handed over their share. So many thanks to Tammy the Hippo for her largesse, and to Ian and Lindsey who I believe provided the airfare that allowed Tammy to get here.

We went to Salisbury on Saturday afternoon. And from Salisbury we went to Braishfield near Romsey so we could carry on stalking our favourite Australian publican and, entirely incidentally of course, eat the magnificent food his chef turns out (a mighty burger and some truly lovely French fries for me; steak and positively gargantuan chips for The Builder). We returned, well fed and well watered, to The Swan.

It was quite exciting the following morning when we came out in search of breakfast, to find Carl the landlord up a ladder outside our room peering into the fuse box (not that it has fuses, but it's the same sort of thing). There were no lights on in the bar! For some reason they had decided overnight to stop working!! So we had a romantic breakfast in dim lighting, sat by the window. Not that the window was providing much additional light. It was a grey, gloomy, misty morning. Entirely appropriate for autumn, but not much use if the lights aren't working!  Still, how much light do you need to eat an egg and bacon sandwich?  Or even a full English breakfast?

And by the time we returned at lunch time, bringing the Builder's mother with us after a really lovely drive around in the New Forest admiring the autumn colours, the lights were back on and we could easily see our Sunday roasts. It seems that the trip switches had taken against the beer coolers in the cellar and turned the lights out.  (Don't ask me - I don't understand these things!)

The Builder's mother is in a right pickle. About three weeks ago council workers came and stripped out her kitchen and her bathroom. Agreed, they did do this by appointment, but THREE WEEKS LATER she still doesn't have a functional kitchen, the bathroom is more or less a toilet and a shower attached to a wall, the kitchen equipment is in her bedroom and loungeroom (although the washing machine is out in the corridor)and her (tiny) loungeroom is full of leaves and dust and chaos. Fortunately her youngest son Peter lives in the same complex so she can go and stay at his place during the day, so she isn't starving. But for goodness sake - how long can it possibly take to put in a small kitchen and bathroom?!?!?!?  She'll be 87 in April and doesn't have the sharpest of short term memories any more. All this chaos and confusion isn't helping matters at all.  She definitely enjoyed the lack of chaos at The Swan. And the food! (And the drive through the New Forest)

Lindsey asked for some more detailed photos of the progress of the porch.  Here they are:

The back door with a new, large letter box. The shoe rack is by the dining room window

The Builder is going to paint all the boards yellow. Then he's going to put shelves up along this wall, which backs on to Steve and Debbie's garden

Eventually all this will go and the large freezer will go here. The Builder is going to reconcrete the floor and then put down lino



The door out into the garden. The hole at the bottom is to allow Marlo in- and egress. The windows are now glazed



A mid-week day off

At some point last week I was musing that it was very nice to have a table booked at the Nettle for their Italian themed evening. Nicer still that Bea and Steve were coming with us. We don't go to the themed evenings very often. They have them every 8 weeks or so, but they are always on a Tuesday, which is not an entirely convenient evening for going out revelling if you happen to work full time!  Mostly we go if I am off anyway on the Wednesday. And mostly the evening are full of food, full of wine and finish quite late (at least by my standards).

I consulted my diary to see if maybe I could go in a bit later on the Wdnesday following the Italian evening. And discovered that on that Wednesday, unexpectedly and quite remarkably - my diary was completely empty.

I booked the whole day off :-)

We had a really lovely evening. As predicted, it was full of food, full of wine and finished quite late (at least by my standards). I particularly enjoyed the deconstructed pizza - a warm bread roll which you could fill with your choice of charcuterie, olives, mozarella, tomatoes. It was nice to have an evening of gentle chat with Bea and Steve. It was a lovely evening.

And it was particularly lovely that I didn't need to bounce out of bed at 6:00 on Wednesday morning.  The Builder, of course, is retired, so no need for bouncing for him.  Bea was on an evening shift so also had no need to leap from her bed at an early hour.  Spare a thought for poor Steve who alas did have to go to work first thing on Wednesday morning!

We had a nice, gentle morning on Wednesday, pottering about. Then The Buidler went to the surgery to see if they could work out why he is getting a bit breathless when rushing about. They did blood tests and a blood pressure test. They did a puff test. They stuck a thingy on his finger to measure how much oxygen his blood is getting. It was all very exciting for him. He has to go for an xray of his lungs as well. But the doctor doesn't seem to think that there is much amiss - and probably nothing that losing a bit of girth won't fix.

While he was doing that, I pootled into Sheffield and met Tabitha, Cally and Ginger Rich for a wander about the Woodseats shops. That was quite fun too. there is a good butcher. There is a good fishmonger. There are LOTS of charity shops, but we didn't trouble those much. We did trouble the book shop, largely because it is closing down and was selling books very cheaply. We ate chips and met Gaz on his lunch break.  And then I went home again.

I rather like having Wednesdays off. Should do it more often.  And we have booked into The Nettle's next themed night which is another Chocolate evening early in December.  We are hopeful that this time it might not be snowed off.  And I have booked the WEdnesday off, partly for expediency but mostly because it is my birthday :-)

Mid October and Autumn is in full swing in the garden

Pretty much ever since we moved into The Sidings, The Builder and I have found it quite frustrating that you walk straight from the back courtyard into the kitchen. It has always meant that you get very wet while struggling with packages and bags and things while trying to unlock the back door when it's raining. And it is impossible to keep the kitchen floor even approximating clean. For a long time we have been thinking about the ;possibility of putting a porch up to keep the area dry - and to give us a bit of extra storage space.  And now the project is getting very close to complete.

We (well, when I say "we" !!!) still need to glass in the windows and to paint the walls.  Then The Builder is going to re-concrete the floor and lay down lino. He also thinks he'll be able to put a light out there, which would be useful - it is very dark in the porch at night!

Marlo, in the meantime, is a bit puzzled about what we're up to, but is definitely enjoying having a nice dry area outside the kitchen door to lie about it!

The seaside daisies that we put in along the shrubbery have settled in very nicely and are communing happily with the digitalis plants that have come along uninvited. The hollyhocks are growing well. All I need to do now is sort out the wild strawberries and the buttercups which have colonised the path and are making a move into the shrubbery!  It's all looking very pretty though (if slightly unkempt)

I have to admit that I wasn't expecting to find rosebuds at this time of year!

We are beginning to clear up the flower beds and have started planting some more spring flowering bulbs.  I have put fritillaries along the side of the top flower bed, and also along the path in the bottom flower bed. I've also started clearing up alongside the fence and am putting bulbs in there as well.  In total I have 100 fritillaries, 40 dwarf narcissus and 15 tulips. We're going to put the tulips and some of the narcissus in the herb bed up by the pond

The grape vines have really run amok this year!  The Builder is considering extending the trellis so it covers over the patio, then we will train the grape vine over the top to provide a bit of a weather break. We'll also put two new grapevines in on the other side so they can meet in the middle. It will be a living gazebo :-)

We have had a plentiful harvest of small but very sweet grapes this year. And they may be small - but they're bigger than last year's crop

We have just started pulling up the zucchini plants, which did remarkably well this year. We have also pulled all the sweet corn, which also did very well. The carrot boxes are down to their last few carrots. But we still have lots and lots of chard/silverbeet and the cabbages and caulis are also now providing small but tasty additions to the veg plates

Schnitzel, Parsley and coriander coming to see what I'm doing

The chickens have definitely been off the lay lately. Coriander has been off the lay for months - ever since she went broody late in the spring.  But now only Parsley is laying regularly.  Kiev is definitely moulting and therefore isn't laying. Schnitzel is (I think) laying every three or four days.  There was one day last week when we had no eggs at all, for the first time in 18 months. And also for the first time in 18 months, on Saturday I actually had to buy some eggs!! Fortunately, the local dairy farm where we buy our milk and cream also sells fresh eggs - obviously not as nice as our eggs, but better than those on offer in the supermarkets

Marlo watching the hens watching me

It looks as though we  might actually get some sprouts this year. They're only small, but bigger than last year's were. And last year the sprout plants got covered in half a metre of snow and more or less froze to death. I am hopeful that this year there will be less snow!

Looking back up towards the house

 

 The cherry tomatoes in the greenhouse in the garden are still producing quite well. Things are winding down up on the allotment, although the heritage tomato plants continue to produce delicious fruits. But we've had our last cucumber and The Under Gardener is beginning to think about putting the allotment to bed for the winter. And we are beginning to think about the potatoes and other plants for next spring.

And he has planted the garlic and the over-wintering onions up in the garden.  Time to start the garden maps for 2012 :-)