Advent

Tags

Advent, Advent Crown, Advent Sunday, candles, Carol Services, chores

The Advent Crown that I helped assemble with its first candle burning. This photo was taken in our church at Rumburgh on Sunday morning.

Here we are in Advent again.  I enjoy Advent – I like the quiet thoughtful aspect of the season.  One tends to get caught up too easily in the rush and tear of Christmas preparations – the frenzy of shopping for gifts and preparing food.  Advent is all about waiting patiently and being prepared – not for the arrival of friends and relatives or having enough food and drink to last through the holiday (though that has to be considered!) – but for the gift that God gave us, his son Jesus Christ.  We also have to be prepared (as Maurice reminded us on Sunday morning) for the Second Coming; for the Day of Judgement.  Have we been leading good Christian lives?  Have we loved God with all our hearts, with all our souls and with all our minds?  Have we loved our neighbours as ourselves?  Or, if we were suddenly asked to account for ourselves, would we be found wanting?  I love the beautiful words of the Collect for Advent Sunday written by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in the 16th century.

‘Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious Majesty, to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal.’

The Advent Crown seen from a different angle.

Elinor and I made our own Advent Crown at home.  I had a look in the garden for greenery to decorate it but could find hardly any.  Our hedges have been cut and there weren’t any branches that hadn’t had all the best bits cut off.  A lot of the ivy has gone from the garden this year as well.  Fortunately, I visited Mum on Friday to deliver some shopping (which included candles for her Advent Crown) and while I was there she invited me to forage for useful evergreen in her garden.

Our Advent Crown

I have to provide two dozen mince pies for a carol service next Sunday evening.  I have collected the ingredients for the shortcrust pastry and the filling and now I will have to find the time to bake them!  This is the post from last year where I described how I make them.

The next few weeks are going to be quite busy and it will be hard to set aside enough time for quiet meditation and prayer.

Elinor breaks up from college at the end of next week and next Tuesday evening Richard and I will be attending a Parent’s Evening where we will meet her tutors.  The pop-up design of Red-Riding-Hood and the Wolf she made at the beginning of term has been put on display in a gallery in Norwich.  We must go to see it!

We have someone coming to see us tomorrow to discuss the replacement of our garage doors and we have the gas man coming to service our gas boiler on Friday.  We believe that we need to replace the boiler quite soon and we will have to ask his advice.  I will have to take my mother Christmas shopping soon – this will need to be carefully planned as she doesn’t have as much energy and strength as she thinks she has!

We have a trip up to Manchester planned for one weekend and I hope to visit my sister in Kent as well.  She is a paramedic and is on stand-by from now until the 28th December and can’t visit us until after Christmas.  There is another carol service on the 20th December and I will no doubt have to provide mince pies for that as well.  Richard and I have tickets for a Carols by Candlelight Concert in Halesworth!  Alice comes for Christmas and will arrive quite late on Christmas Eve and will need collecting from the station.

So what with all that and the usual round of our own chores to do we will be kept quite busy.

Thanks for visiting!

The Merry (?) Month of May

Tags

family life, flowers, fruit trees, health, spring, Suffolk

Japanese Cherry ‘Fragrant Cloud’

We have been fairly busy during the past few weeks with not much time for trips out.  Not that the weather has been conducive to those type of activities; we get one quite nice day with sunshine and a bit of warmth and then we revert to cold, windy days with grey skies and some rain too.  We are still getting cold nights and looking at the photographs I took this time last year, the flowers and blossom I am seeing now were ones I saw then during the second half of April.  The photos I am including in this post have been mainly taken on the few nice days we’ve had this month.

Crabapple ‘Evereste’ 

I took my mother to the hospital for her six-week check-up and we were sorry to be told that both her eyes had suffered a bleed or some damage and she would have to return to have injections in both eyes at the same time.  We duly returned a few days later and she had the injections.  Her eyesight has deteriorated again and for someone who has always enjoyed reading she is finding it so hard not to be able to read with ease any more.  She can’t read sub-titles on the TV quickly enough either so has had to give up watching her favourite foreign-language programmes.  She has also been told her kidneys are not functioning too well and her GP is having to re-think what medication she should be taking now.  She is a brave and sensible woman and is trying to make the best of the situation.

Crabapple ‘Harry Baker’

My mother-in-law has now moved into her care-home.  The actual move caused her some distress and she is still very unhappy.  She had lived in her home for over forty years and she had been very happy there.  She knows that she wouldn’t be able to care for herself if she went back home, even with a full care package, as she is almost totally immobile now and has so many other serious medical problems.  But that thought doesn’t take much of the sadness and frustration away; it probably adds to it.  Richard and his brother spent two full days last week going through her whole house finding the few things she would be able to take with her to the home and then trying to decide what to do with the rest of her belongings.  They had four trips to the tip to get rid of things no longer needed and have stored the rest of her possessions in my brother-in-law’s cellar.  My poor mother-in-law is sad that she has to sell her house to pay for her care and that she won’t be able to leave anything to her sons when she dies.

Pear ‘Concord’

My eldest daughter Alice is working hard on the few corrections that have to be made to her thesis before it is printed and bound.  She is also rehearsing for her next production with her drama group.  Because of her work schedule she won’t be able to visit us until the beginning of June.  We haven’t seen her since 31st December – the longest time we have ever gone without seeing each other.

Bergenia flowers. I took this photo on the 5th of May thinking that they may not be around that much longer. In past years I have had all my bergenia flowers eaten by deer or rabbits almost as soon as they came out. Not this year (so far). They are still flowering and have got so tall and look wonderful.

Elinor has taken her Art exam and has finished and handed in all her course-work.  She was pleased with the way her exam went.  She managed to do all she had wanted to do and didn’t panic at all.  Of course, she is now starting to worry that she hasn’t done enough and might not pass her exam!  She has an interview on Wednesday with tutors of the next two-year course she has applied to go on.  She wants to do Graphic Art and we and her current tutors think that she will do very well.

Lathyrus ‘Spring Beauty’

We are currently applying for assistance for Elinor for next year.  This will provide her with one-to-one mentors who will be able to help her if she experiences anxiety at college and it may also be possible to provide her with different equipment and/or furniture which she may need because of her mild scoliosis.  She suffers from frequent back pain especially when she has to stand for any length of time.

Apple ‘Discovery’

She has her other exams during the first two weeks in June and is trying to revise for these at the moment.  English and Psychology are no problem to her and she is predicted to do well in both these exams but it is Maths as always which is causing her, and us all, such headaches.

Heavy rain on 8th May

Dove’s-foot Crane’s-bill (Geranium molle)

Richard is fine and is getting used to the fact that he will need to be on medication for the rest of his life.  Join the club, I say!  He will be seeing the specialist in a few months time to have his situation reviewed with regard to the lesion on his pituitary gland.  Will he or won’t he have to have an operation to have it removed?  He is counting down the days until his retirement at the end of August but in the meantime is having to work very hard at work and has been allocated a number of jobs to do at locations all over the country, all to be done in the next couple of months.  The firm is getting its money’s worth out of him before he goes.  He is naturally saddened about his mother’s situation but knows she is being cared for properly now.

Lilac

Not a good photo of Bush Vetch (Vicia sepium)

I continue to have a problem with my dry throat.  I have seen a different doctor at our local surgery a couple of times and he has prescribed artificial saliva spray and also pastilles that should stimulate saliva production.  This all sounds unpleasant but the treatment has improved matters a little.  I would have liked to find out why I suddenly got a dry throat in January, which can be very uncomfortable at times, and would also like to know if there is anything I am doing or eating which has brought it on.  It would be good to know that I could get rid of it by a change in life-style.  I cannot get anyone interested in this and am just supplied with medication to alleviate the symptoms.  The GP says I am to tell my Rheumatology specialist about my dry throat when I next go to see her – there is a possible connection between one of the tablets I take, rheumatoid arthritis and dry throats.  I asked if the specialist might be able to do anything for me.  Oh no, I doubt it, said the GP, she will just find it interesting!  The one unfortunate side-effect is I am unable to sing properly any more.  I get great pleasure from singing and hoped to be able to re-join a choir when circumstances allowed but if things stay as they are I would be a liability.  It saddens me that I have had to give up so many hobbies because of my health and I had hoped that I would be able to sing for a while longer –  I hope nevertheless that the medication will eventually enable me to sing again.  I have also had a very upset stomach for the past ten days.  I have had to continue with driving my daughter and mother to the places they need to be and also had a few appointments of my own to keep, but when I have eventually got back home I have no energy for much housework or any gardening let alone the enthusiasm for reading and blogging.  I have felt quite a lot better today and have managed to catch up with commenting on the blogs I follow but if I have said anything over the last couple of weeks that has been a little odd please blame it on the stomach bug (it wasn’t me!).

Bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta)

Male Orange-tip butterfly (Anthocharis cardamines) on bluebell. It’s a pity the butterfly chose to drink nectar from a bluebell with a bird poo on it! 

On May Day Bank Holiday Monday, Rumburgh village had its annual fete and as usual I provided a couple of cakes for the church’s cake stall.  Richard pulled a large amount of our rhubarb as well which was also sold on the stall.  I spent most of the day before baking the two cakes I took to the fete.  We went out in the afternoon to Captain’s Wood to see if the bluebells were flowering.  I will put that visit in a separate post.

Honey Cake tray bake. It’s always good to provide tray bakes or individual small cakes for cake stalls. They sell for more money than a large cake does.

The tea tent at the Rumburgh fete

Last week, while Richard was away in Manchester helping his brother sort out their Mum’s house, Elinor and I went to Minsmere RSPB reserve to walk through the woods.  This will also be the subject of another post.

While I was baking cakes for the fete I also made an Eve’s Pudding for us to eat at home. I didn’t manage to photograph this before some of it had been eaten. The other cake I made for the fete but didn’t photograph, was a Mincemeat Cake. A good way of using up the extra mincemeat bought at Christmas.

This is the sum total of our activities so far this month.  Quite gloomy in places I’m afraid.

Thank-you for visiting!

Bread

Tags

baking, bread, flour, mill pond, mute swans, Pakenham Water Mill, tea shop

Pecan and maple-syrup loaf made in the breadmaker

For the past couple of years I have been making almost all the bread we eat using a bread-maker.  If I had the time and strength in my hands I wouldn’t use the bread-maker as much as I do but would knead my own dough.  However, needs must and so I use the machine.  Bread-makers don’t make perfect loaves but the bread is so much nicer than most shop-bought loaves; the texture and the taste especially.  We know what goes into the loaves – there are no hidden ingredients – and I try to use the best flour available to me.  For white flour I use Marriage’s Strong Organic and until November I used Pakenham Water Mill Flour for my wholemeal flour.  Since November I have not been able to buy Pakenham’s flour as the farm shop I used had to close down.  The mill itself isn’t open at weekends during the winter and I can’t get there on Thursday mornings when it is open.  I have been using Marriage’s Strong Wholemeal flour instead.  The results are not the same.  The bread is heavier in texture and the loaves don’t rise so well as when I use Pakenham’s flour.  I am looking forward to Easter when the mill re-opens for the summer.

This is Pakenham Water Mill (on the right) and the former miller’s house.

We have visited the mill a couple of times for a tour and these photographs were taken last summer.

They have a little tea shop in the miller’s house and Richard and I partook of scones and tea. Richard had cheese and chutney with his scone and I had clotted cream and jam with mine.

They make all their cakes, bread and scones using their own flour.  The flour is made from locally grown wheat and is milled twice to make it as smooth as silk.

This is the view I had of the little kitchen where two ladies prepared all the meals for the visitors.

The view of the river across the road in front of the mill

The river at the back of the mill. They have a bird-feeder hanging from the ancient plough.

The Mute Swans that live on the mill pond

The mill pond. The pond never dries up as there are a number of springs feeding it all year round.

The miller’s house

Pakenham also has a windmill and it can be seen from the bottom of the watermill’s garden

Elderberries ripening in the garden

Heartsease growing in the grass

House Martin’s nests under the eaves

The boat on the mill pond

A photograph of the mill I took in 2013 during a previous visit.

Please try to click on the link to the watermill if you have the time.  It describes the working of the mill and its history (briefly!) better than I could ever do.

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I hope you have enjoyed your visit to the watermill!

 

Christmas

Tags

Christmas, Christmas Day, Christmas Tree, decorations, food, tradition

My mother’s Kissing Ring.  My mother’s family had no tradition of having a Christmas tree.  They had a kissing ring instead.  This one has a sprig of mistletoe for kissing under. 

We have had a very pleasant and quiet Christmas so far.  Christmas Day itself began at Midnight Mass held this year in St. Mary’s church in Flixton.  The Rector handed us all a slice of Christmas cake as we left and when we got home we had some hot mulled wine and a mince pie before going to bed.  I was a little late in going to bed as I still had a few presents to wrap which I did after quickly washing the kitchen floor.  Yes, I know what you are thinking, but it needed doing and that was the only chance I had to do it!

 

In the morning we gathered together in the living room where the presents had been put under the Christmas tree and drank a cup of tea while we exchanged our gifts.  In recent years our breakfast has been Italian pannetone which is luxurious but light.

For lunch this year instead of turkey we had rib of beef and it was gorgeous!  I had a lot of help from Alice who peeled and chopped all the vegetables for me and she also made a lovely lemon sorbet for a starter.  We had roast and mashed potatoes, mashed swede, roast parsnips with honey, carrots and brussels sprouts.  I had another attempt at making Yorkshire puddings and my usual failure.  Why I can’t make them I don’t know but this time they at least were light and in one piece but they were flat like pancakes!  I made some gravy which was rich and good and also some stuffing.  Why stuffing when we had no bird to stuff?  Because Elinor my youngest daughter loves it and it wouldn’t be Christmas for her without sage and onion stuffing.

 

Richard went to collect my mother who always joins us for Christmas lunch and she brought with her the Christmas Pudding.  She has always made her own puddings and they are very good indeed.  She makes them in October and they are left to mature until Christmas when they are steamed for two hours.  She brings our pudding hot from the steamer and well wrapped and insulated.  I make thick custard to go with it and provide cream as well.

 

The afternoon is spent quietly together, talking and drinking tea, coffee, wine or spirits and sleeping.  Richard spent quite a lot of time washing up and loading and re-loading the dish-washer – a seemingly thankless task but a necessary one and I am very grateful to him for doing it.

 

Mum had invited us to her house for a buffet evening meal the next day, Boxing Day, so Richard and I decided that it might be a good idea if we went for a walk during the afternoon.  Neither of the girls wanted to come with us.

We set off for Mum’s house just before 6.00 pm and it was just starting to rain as we got there.  She had provided a sumptuous spread for us and had worked very hard.  A gammon with orange, chicken pieces coated with sesame seeds, mixed roast vegetables, sausage rolls and a selection of crisps and savoury biscuits. She had also made an apfel strudel and a yule log with chocolate and chestnut filling.  The rain was pouring down when we left and continued all night and into the following morning.  Many of the roads and fields were flooded but we didn’t have the snow that fell just to the north of us.

 

 

Making Mince Pies

Tags

Christmas, Christmas cooking, Mince pies, mincemeat, sweet shortcrust pastry, traditional British food

We had our Carol Service at Rumburgh church on Saturday and I made two dozen mince pies to take with me as part of the after-service refreshments.

Sweet shortcrust pastry ingredients

Sweet shortcrust pastry is used for French fruit flans, tarts, little fancy cakes – and mince pies!  The following recipe makes about twelve mince pies.  I use the same method when making little individual apple pies which are lovely for buffets, packed lunches and picnics.

225 g / 8 oz plain flour

pinch of salt

50 g / 2 oz butter

50 g / 2 oz lard or vegetable shortening

25 g / 1 oz caster sugar

1 egg yolk

a little water

This makes 225 g  / 8 oz pastry

Sift the flour and salt into a mixing bowl

Cut the fat into the flour

Rub in to a breadcrumb consistency

As soon as I think that I have finished rubbing in the fat I then tell myself to continue for another minute.  I always find a piece of fat I had missed.

Add the sugar and mix together

Add about two tablespoons of water to an egg yolk

and beat them together

Add the egg and water to the flour, fat and sugar

Mix them together

I always just use my hands, never a spoon, when making pastry.  I find it mixes together quickly and easily and I can feel when it is of the right consistency rather than just trusting to my eyes.  I have never used a blender to make pastry either.

Keep mixing the ingredients together, adding a very little more water if necessary.

Sometimes just dampening my fingers adds enough water to make the pastry smooth and elastic.  Too much water makes the pastry slimy and horrid and will never be anything other than tough to eat.

Knead lightly until smooth but don’t overwork it or it will lose its lightness.

The finished pastry – which needs to be rested in the refrigerator for at least 20 minutes before being rolled out. I wrap it in cling-film.

Mince pie ingredients

Flour your work surface or pastry board and start to roll the pastry out carefully.

As the pastry is very short (crumbly – difficult to keep together) it requires careful handling or it will split and fall apart.  If you haven’t added enough water when mixing it will fall apart very readily.  This problem can easily be overcome by adding a sprinkle more water and re-kneading the dough.

Roll the pastry out very thinly, 2.5 mm / one eighth of an inch thick

Cut out 12 rounds with a plain or fluted cutter. I use a 7.5 cm / 3″ one.

Line a pastry pan with the pastry rounds and prick the bottom of each pie with a fork to help the pastry cook through

Fill each pie with a teaspoon of mincemeat

I have never made my own mincemeat but have been meaning to for years!  Bought mincemeat is very variable, some very poor and more like runny jam than proper mincemeat.  I have found one that is very good and I use it every year.  Some bought mincemeats can be improved by a little lemon juice or a small drop of brandy or rum.

Mincemeat is made from shredded suet (beef or vegetable), grated or finely chopped apple, mixed dried fruit (sultanas, raisins and currants), brown sugar, chopped blanched almonds, chopped candied orange and lemon peel, finely grated rind and juice of a large lemon, mixed spice, cinnamon, grated nutmeg and some brandy, whisky or rum.  Hundreds of years ago it did contain meat as well, hence the name of mincemeat, but no longer.  If vegetable suet is used then the mince pies can be eaten by vegetarians.

Cut out 12 smaller rounds of pastry with a plain or fluted cutter.  I use a 6 cm / 2.5″ cutter.  If you don’t have enough pastry to cut out all the rounds you need, gather all the trimmings together, knead them with a little water and roll out again.

Dampen the edge of the pie with a little water and cover the filling in each tart with the smaller round of pastry, pressing down firmly so the lids are secure. Cut a small hole or cross in the centre of each lid to allow steam to escape.

Place the pies in their pastry pan onto a baking sheet and bake in a pre-heated oven at 220 degrees C / 425 degrees F / Gas Mark 7 for 12 to 15 minutes or until well risen and golden.

Baked pies.

More baked pies!

A finished pie

Leave to cool in the pastry pan for a few minutes and then place on a rack to finish cooling.

If you so wish you can dust the top with a little icing sugar.

Mince pies can be eaten hot straight from the oven or cold, on their own or with custard or cream and even as an accompaniment to Christmas pudding if you are so minded.  They keep for days and days in a sealed container and can be re-heated.  I love them!

An Update

Tags

anxiety, crop spraying, family, fero cactus, germination of crop, hospital, illness, pyracantha pruning, soup and smoothie maker, sugar beet harvest, unhappiness

Our ‘Fish-hook’ Fero cactus developed flower buds for the first time ever. It was so late in the season that the flowers never opened but we were pleased nevertheless.

I thought I would tell you a little of what has been going on with us.

This smoothie and soup maker is a new acquisition of my husband’s. He has been enjoying experimenting with different ingredients and then sampling the results.

My husband has an appointment with his specialist next Friday when we hope he will find out a little more about his condition.  (He has a tumour on his pituitary gland which is probably benign).

‘The pituitary gland is a small ductless gland at the base of the brain which secretes hormones essential for growth and other bodily functions.’  The Concise Oxford Dictionary

He had a blood test yesterday in preparation for this appointment.  My sister (who knows about these things as she works in the medical profession) tells us that to remove the tumour the surgeon will go up R’s nose as the gland is just behind where the eyebrows meet.  It is often done during day surgery with no need to stay in hospital.

I haven’t had much time for gardening lately but this pyracantha at the side of the house had grown so much since its last trim in May that I had to find the time to deal with it.

This is the result of two days of work with loppers and a step-ladder. I will have to get rid of the honeysuckle growing through the right-hand plant as it is pulling the whole thing away from the wall and I am frightened that high winds or heavy snow will cause the plant to lean too far forward and break.

Alice is still applying for jobs but with no luck so far.  She has a part-time job at the university library filling shelves which doesn’t give her very much money and she is finding it very boring.  She thinks she will finish writing her PhD in a couple of weeks time which will be wonderful as she has been at it for nearly four years.  She may be able to spend more time looking for work when she doesn’t have to write so much.  The drama group she belongs to has just performed ‘Antigone’ by Sophocles and Alice was in charge of the curtains and also performed other stage managerial duties.  I didn’t go to see the play as I have too many calls on my time at home at the present.  The next play is an adaptation of ‘Emma’ by Jane Austen and Alice has been cast as Emma.  I would love to be able to go to see her in that but it may not be possible.

Most of the sugar beet has been harvested from the fields near us. This is very early in the season as usually, it is done during the wet and cold of late autumn and early winter and the lanes are then a sea of mud. So far we have had a fairly clean harvest.

My younger daughter E, has had a hard time adapting to college life.  The first few weeks went very well but she suddenly had a return of her anxiety which really shocked her as she thought that she was in control of it.  She has missed quite a few classes in all of the subjects she is taking as the panic attacks affected everything she did.  There were days when she thought that she would be able to get into college and we would drive there only to find she was unable to get out of the car.  The anxiety paralyses her and she cannot think logically.  We would drive away and try again later.  Some days we would make the journey three times.  However, the staff at the college have been absolutely marvellous and have gone out of their way to help and encourage her.  Last week was half-term and she was able to do a little catch-up work but spent most of the time feeling very depressed and frightened.  This week however, she has suddenly found her feet again and has been in every day and is doing very well.  We are praying, keeping our fingers crossed and touching wood.  We have spoken to our GP who has enabled E and me to attend a four session course which will be every Monday evening for the next month on Stress Management which may give us a few helpful tips and stratagems.  The course covers all sorts of stress, anxiety and depression so there will be some parts that will be of only partial relevance to E’s situation.  However, with all the financial cuts to mental health we are lucky to get this help so we will take advantage of it.  I am not sure when we will be able to cook and eat our evening meal as the course is between 6.00 pm and 7.30 pm and it will take about three-quarters of an hour to get there and the same to get home again.  When R is at home he says that he will be able to help out.

This pre-germination spray of the field behind our house was performed on 4th October

My mother recovered slowly from her stomach upset and is now back to normal.  I took her to Norfolk and Norwich Hospital on Tuesday for her regular eye check-up and she is fine and doesn’t need another injection yet.

You can see the horrible-looking green spray which smells very nasty

My mother-in-law collapsed about six weeks ago and lay on her bedroom floor for some time before she was discovered.  She has a panic alarm which she wears around her neck but for some reason she didn’t press it.  For some time she has had great difficulty in walking but after a rather strenuous visit to the hospital that day she found she couldn’t stand at all and fell down.  She was taken to hospital the following day and it was discovered she had also had a mild heart attack.  She is still in hospital as more and more problems with her health have been discovered.  My husband has visited Manchester a couple of times for a few days to see her and help my brother-in-law out.  It may be that R’s Mum won’t be able to go back home.  She is still in the critical ward in the hospital until her health can be stabilised.  She will then go into respite care for a month and will be assessed to see whether she could cope in her home or not.  If she does go home she will have to have much more help than she had before.  If it is found that she isn’t able to go home she will have to go into a nursing home and her house will have to be sold to pay for that.  This is a very worrying time for R and his brother.  Mum-in-law has her 89th birthday on Sunday.

This is the same field on the 15th October

The crop germinated quite quickly because of the warm and damp weather we had

At the same time as my poor mother-in-law was first in hospital my brother found that his 33-year marriage was at an end.  He is absolutely shocked and very unhappy that all the effort he put into caring for his wife and their two children (who are now grown up) and making a nice home was all to no avail.  His wife no longer wishes to be married to him as she has found someone else.  They are now having to sell their house and everything they have has to be split between them – pensions, cars, furniture – everything.  It is all proving to be too much for my brother to cope with.  He has been to stay with me a couple of times so that he can see our mother and have a little comfort too.  I have spoken to him tonight and he tells me that he has been signed off work for two weeks with depression and has been given anti-depressants by his doctor.  He is looking for another job away from where he lives where he may be able to get a cheaper house or flat to live in.  Both my sister and I have been through a divorce because our husbands no longer wanted to be with us so we know what he is going through.  I am now happily married but my sister has not been able to find anyone else.

This is the field on the 31st October with a few pheasants.

So you see, life has not been a bed of roses for us for a while now.  We hope that nothing else happens to add to our load of worries.

Cloud Chasing

Tags

Bertha, black bryony, blue flax, bread-making, clouds, clover, fields, fleabane, gates, grasses, great black slug, greenbottle, hen and chicks, Kestrel potatoes, marsh ragwort, phacelia, Rain, red bartsia, René Magritte, rice, the Beck, thunder, tub-thumping priest, walking, wild radish, willow, wind

I had hoped to be able to stay at home on Saturday as the weather was so nice.  However, when I took a loaf out of our breadmaker and saw that, for the second time in a row, the bread hadn’t risen very much I realised that one of two things had happened.  I knew that I hadn’t made a mistake when measuring out the ingredients or when setting the programme.  The problem was either a faulty batch of yeast or, even worse, a faulty breadmaker.  I went into Halesworth and bought a very nice looking loaf from the health food/delicatessen shop as well as some new yeast.  I had been experimenting with a different brand-name dried yeast and thought that that may have been the problem so I bought some of the old tried-and-tested yeast.  While in town I also got some more vegetables and a couple of newspapers – The Saturday Times so that R could do the crossword (most of the rest of the newspaper usually goes straight into the re-cycling bin) and a Beccles and Bungay Journal.  This had a very nice account of our Requiem Eucharist last Sunday with a photograph and also a double-page centre-spread featuring Dolly and her memories of living in a village which is doubly thankful, in that all its people going off to war in both the Great and the Second World War came back safely. As I drove home I noticed such wonderful clouds in the sky!  The wind was picking up already so I decided to trot back down the lane and photograph them before checking round the garden to make sure all was well battened down and tied up before the high winds that had been forecast arrived. One of my favourite artists is René Magritte who painted clouds like these.

La grande famille Series 1 Lithography by René Magritte

I also saw that one of next-door’s chickens had had some chicks and was taking them for a walk on the grass verge of the lane.

There are six chicks there somewhere!

R was mowing the grass when I got home and he also made sure everything was ready for the storm so I didn’t have to.  What a kind man! We had some very heavy rain and thunder over-night and while we were in church on Sunday morning the rain came on again with more thunder.  The Rector is currently having a well-deserved, two-week break from us so the service was taken by a retired clergyman who lives in our benefice and is a great friend of ours.  The bible readings for the day were very apt – the earthquake, wind and fire from which God was absent and then the quiet whisper that was God, and the story of the disciples being tossed about in the boat on the lake and Jesus walking on water to join them and calming the storm.  I was waiting for a stormy sermon and got one though not quite the one I expected.  In fact, we all got a lecture about the current terrible situation in Gaza.  We were told that a lot of what is going on there was our (the British) fault and that we cannot wash our hands of it.  The priest even struck the edge of the pulpit with his hand!  Twice!  Our Rector might grumble and nag but I cannot remember him ever beating up the pulpit during a sermon! I think we have been lucky and haven’t had such bad weather as others around the country.  The rain didn’t last that long really and by mid afternoon the sun was coming out.  It was, and still is very blustery but the wind hasn’t been as damaging as we thought it would be.  We have lost a few apples and pears from our trees and some of the plants look a little sorry for themselves but on the whole, nothing to worry about. Once we saw that the rain had stopped, R and I decided to go out for a walk.  We chose one of our walks across the fields.

Evidence of recent rainfall

Before we had walked more than a few steps along the path we saw such a mass of fleabane!

Pulicaria dysenterica – Common Fleabane

‘Pulicaria’ refers to the plant’s power against fleas (pulex = Latin for flea) and ‘dysenterica’ recalls a time when fleabane was used as a medicine against dysentery.  When dried and burned, the leaves of fleabane were said to give off a vapour which drove fleas away so the plant was highly prized when houses were plagued with them.  The plants were used in an unburned state as an insecticide too.  Culpeper, the 17th century herbalist, didn’t think much of the flower itself – ‘an ill-looking weed’, ‘the flowers are a dirty yellow’, but he commended its effectiveness against insects.  ‘The smell is supposed delightful to insects and the juice destructive to them, for they never leave it til the season of their deaths’. I believe I have photographed this gate before.  It is in an even worse state than the last time we were here.

Something has been eating this clover in a crimping style.

R and I were quite surprised to see that the normally fallow field was full of plants and flowers.  We haven’t been this way for some weeks.

Wild flower seeds appear to have been sown here – not all native.

The purple flower, Phacelia tanacetifolia or scorpion weed, is often grown as a green compost but is dug in before it flowers.  It is also grown as a butterfly and insect magnet as the flowers are full of nectar.  It is not a native plant.  I spotted all sorts of plants that I recognised, for example…

Blue flax

I think this may be wild radish

It also appeared as if a trial crop had been planted here.  We did not recognise it at all.  After some research I have decided that it may be rice.  The kind of rice – arborio – that is grown in northern Italy.

Is this rice?

I think it looks very much like it.  Can anyone confirm this for me, please? Near to the hedge we found some red bartsia but my photo is very poor as you will see. I also found some ragwort which I think may be marsh ragwort. We walked past another field of dried peas and continued to admire the enormous clouds on the horizon. We were now approaching the Beck and we could hear all the ditches and little streams that join it gurgling and bubbling. We saw this Great Black Slug in the damp grass.

The Beck was flowing very fast

This willow has galls on it and one of its leaves is very distorted

We decided to walk a little further to the top of the hill and look at the view from there.

Greenbottle flies develop a coppery tinge with age

One of our favourite views

The road junction at the top of the hill

After all the humid weather recently it was lovely at the top of the hill with the strong wind blowing.     It looked as if we might have some more rain so we headed back down the hill. On the way I noticed some shiny Black Bryony leaves in the hedgerow. Another view of a field, a gate and some clouds.   The wind and rain had made patterns with the dried grasses. We got home and I started preparing the evening meal.  I used some of our home-grown Kestrel potatoes which are very tasty indeed.

Purple patterned potatoes

In fact, the clouds passed us by without shedding a drop of rain.  The skies cleared by nightfall and we were able to see the enormous full moon as it rose and then a couple of shooting stars as well.  A beautiful end to the weekend.

Fruity Tutti

Tags

apple trees, blackberry canes, crabapple trees, fig tree, Fruit, fruit salad, honey and lemon drink

I have been craving fruit during the past few days; that and yoghurt and ice-cream and hot tea!

This is my favourite night-time drink when I have a cold.  Hot honey and lemon drink.  The juice of half a lemon mixed with a good sized spoonful of honey and freshly boiled water.  A little sugar sometimes but not always.  R likes to add a tot of whisky with his but I don’t like whisky and prefer the drink non-alcoholic.  The mug was a present from A and is just right for this drink and other herbal teas.  It fits so nicely into my cupped hand!

I also made a fruit salad this evening with the first locally (well Norfolk) grown strawberries.  This is so early for strawberries I was expecting them to be either sour or tasteless but they were very good.  The other fruit was imported mainly from Spain – raspberries, blueberries – I can’t remember where the Galia melon was grown and the blackberries came from …… MEXICO?  I do try to buy fruits and vegetables in season and locally grown but I do succumb sometimes and as I said, I really want fruit at the moment.

While I am on the subject of fruit I will show some photos of our fruit trees.  These photos have been taken over the past week or two.  I haven’t been out of the house today and photographing would have been difficult anyway because of the wind and regular showers of heavy rain.

This is our Concord pear tree on 23rd April and as you see the fruit was beginning to set.  I tried taking a picture of the much larger fruit yesterday but I only got blurred images as it was so windy.  We have found that Concord pears are best as cooking pears.  If we wait until they are beginning to soften on the outside they have already started to rot in the middle.  If we try to eat them while they are hard and crunchy they are quite tasteless.  But, if we cook them when hard but ready to be harvested they are wonderful.  My favourite is caramelised pears!

Our Saturn eating apple tree on 23rd April.

Saturn blossom.  The Saturn has now lost all its blossom and the fruit is setting.

Egremont Russet eating apple tree.  Note the attractive chicken wire which protects the tree from deer and rabbits.  This photo also taken on 23rd April.

Egemont Russet blossom.  As I mentioned in an earlier post the apples on this tree are not like true Egremont Russet apples so either we have been mis-sold or we have a tree that has been adapted to suit people that don’t like the look of traditional Russet apples.  I love them with their dull, rough, RUSSET skins.  They are sweet, juicy and crunchy and the skins are not tough; the flesh has a good nutty taste.  One of my favourite apples.

‘Harry Baker’ crab apple tree, 23rd April.  This is the tree that R has tended so carefully and it is now looking so much better and growing upwards now!  You can see from a lot of these photos that the trenches made by the JCB a couple of months ago are still in evidence.  We have contacted the landscaper to ask him to fill in the holes with top-soil and make good.  We are waiting for him to turn up.  Apparently he is on jury service.

‘Harry Baker’ blossom.  The fruits are enormous and make very good crabapple jelly.

‘Evereste’ crabapple tree, 23rd April.  I don’t make crabapple jelly from these fruits though I could easily.  I like to leave them for the birds – blackbirds and fieldfares – who enjoy them after they have been frosted.  Most of the fruits from last year were left on the tree as we didn’t get a hard enough frost this winter to make the fruits palatable for the birds.  There must have been enough food for the birds this winter without them needing these apples.  I had to cut them off the tree as the leaves were coming out and so we have had hardly any blossom this spring.  I am glad to say that, because of this, the tree is at last beginning to grow again.

‘Evereste’ blossom.

Our weeping species crabapple.  The smell of the blossom was overpowering and when I bent down and went under the tree the buzzing of the many bees enjoying the flowers was very loud.  Mr and Mrs Mole have been working hard on their tunnels under the tree as you can see!

The fruits are very small on this crab tree and are eaten by birds.  I have included this tree because it is so beautiful.  It does have fruit but not fruit that we would want to eat!

I wanted to take another photo of our Turkey Fig tree yesterday to show the new leaves and the enlarging fruit but the wind prevented me.

This is the photo I posted in March and I will try to take a new photo as soon as I can.  We have a Bramley cooking apple but it has decided not to flower this year.  It is growing well so we are not worried.

This is our ‘Norfolk Biffin’ cooking apple tree.  The tree is also known as a ‘Norfolk Beefing’ and is a heritage tree.  The apples are very large and have a slightly spicy taste when cooked almost as if some nutmeg or cinnamon has been added.  They are apparently very good as dried apples and that is how they were often used in Victorian times.  We hope to get a dryer one day so we can try this out (and so that I can dry some of my herbs too).  Norfolk Biffins are mentioned in Charles Dickens ‘A Christmas Carol’ in Stave Three when Scrooge is out on the streets with the Ghost of Christmas Present.  He talks of them being eaten after dinner and it is true that when left long enough they do become sweet enough to be used as an eating apple.

Biffin blossom.

The greengage tree which is quite new had its first flowers this year – four of them.  We may have fruit but it is hard to say as yet.  The damson/bullace trees have fruit setting on them but whether I will get any before the birds, squirrels, wasps etc. get to them is anyone’s guess.

We have been harvesting our rhubarb for a while now and we are leaving it for the time being to grow more leaves.

The flowers on our blackberry canes.  Last year we were able to have quite a few fruit as there were hardly any wasps about.  Usually the wasps get to them and ruin them no matter how I try to protect them.

Monday’s Garden

Tags

blackthorn, bullace, cowslip, daffodils, Elmer Fudd, fritillaries, greengage, jonquils, ladybird, lathyrus, Mothering Sunday, pieris, primulas, rabbits, saxifrage, simnel cake, wild cherry

 

I must admit to having an Elmer Fudd moment this morning.  I went to have a look at the cowslip/primula plants I had transplanted last weekend and to my horror I saw that all the flowers and buds had been eaten on almost all the plants.  I suspect some wascally wabbit!  I will now not know until next spring which of the plants are normal cowslips to be planted at the top of the ditch and which are the different ones to be grown on elsewhere.

Very strange weather today.  It was quite warm – in fact it got to 18 degrees centigrade but we only got a little sunshine at midday and then a few showers of rain during the afternoon.  Quite humid all day and extremely cloudy this afternoon.   I walked round the garden checking on the bird feeders and looking to see what plants had started to grow or flower since Saturday.  I hadn’t been able to get into the garden at all yesterday as I had been busy cooking lunch after coming home from church and then entertaining Mum all the afternoon.  We had had a good Mothering Sunday service at church and all the women had been presented with little posies of flowers.  The Rector looked wonderful in his rose coloured chasuble but sneakily removed it before I could photograph him!

My eldest daughter A had sent me a card which had arrived in the post on Saturday and she telephoned me when I got back from church.  E gave me a card and two stoneware pots for the garden.  Mum arrived bringing with her an apple pie and a simnel cake.  My mother will be 84 in a couple of weeks time and can hardly see but she still manages to bake and garden and run her house with no help at all.

Mum’s simnel cake.

 

The goose is still sitting on her nest on the island.  She probably only has another week or so to go until her eggs hatch and then we’ll see how many goslings there are.  While I walked round the pond I heard not only frogs croaking but also what I assume to be toads as well.  We do get toads in the garden but I’ve never noticed them in the pond before.  I also saw flower buds on the marsh marigold in the big pond that has never flowered before as well.  I was really quite pleased about this as the pond has looked so awful since we had the work done to remove most of the willow scrub.  What willows we have left are full of pussy willow flowers and alive with so many bees.

The wild damson or bullace tree is in flower.

The wild or bird cherry is also just coming into flower too.

Our greengage tree has its first flowers.  We planted it the autumn before last and it didn’t flower at all last year but grew very well.  My mother-in-law had asked us if we would grow one as she likes greengages so we got it especially for her and we call it Joyce (her name).

The blackthorn at the front of the house is now in full flower.  The tree at the back of the house has finished flowering and the tree by the front gate hasn’t started to flower yet.  The front of the house is colder than the back and the gate is coldest and shadiest of all.

My pieris ‘Forest Flame’ has new leaves on it.

The saxifrage has started to flower.

The new Frittilaries under the crabapple are flowering.  I am pleased to see that there is a white one.

Primulas.

Cowslip.

Daffodils at the front of the house at the edge of the ditch.

A seven-spot ladybird on a daffodil.  A lot of our daffodils suffered in the hail and rain we had last Wednesday and they also have to put up with all sorts of wild fowl trampling over them.

An orange-red cowslip.

Jonquils.

Lathyrus vernus ‘Spring Beauty’.  This is an ornamental vetch – a member of the pea family.

Being Thankful for Small (and Great) Mercies.

Tags

Mothering Sunday, simnel cake, Thankfulness, The Woodland Trust magazine

I have a lot to be thankful for.  Today especially, I am grateful for

1. R’s safe return from a five day working trip away from home.
2. The fact that E has started to look forward with hope instead of with fear.
3. Mum having a lift to her church this Sunday so that I can go to mine with R.

Mum got a phone call the other day from a friend at church who asked if she was going to provide a Simnel Cake as usual on Mothering Sunday.  A Simnel Cake can be made either for Easter or Mothering Sunday (which is this Sunday coming).  It is a fruit cake with not only a marzipan top but a layer of marzipan baked in the middle.  The top is decorated with eleven marzipan balls representing the eleven faithful apostles.  Mum said she would be providing it if she could have a lift to church and, of course, she will be getting her lift.  Hooray!  I am very grateful for this as I wanted to invite Mum to lunch and if I had to take her to church I would not have the time to cook lunch for her as well.  I am doubly grateful for this as not only will Mum’s church be holding the Mothering Sunday service but there will be a Baptism and a First Communion too!  I am mighty glad to get out of that!   I can now go to a service in my own benefice and see all my friends, be a wife and mother and sideline the daughter bit for an hour or two and get home in time to cook a decent lunch for the family.

I belong to The Woodland Trust –  a charitable organisation which is trying to conserve our rapidly depleting woodland.  It also works to educate people about trees and woodland and among other things, is trying to find ways of combatting all the diseases attacking our native trees.  I received its quarterly magazine today and was looking through it while R and I were drinking a cup of tea when he got home.  I was disappointed to see that, like most organisations, it has decided to ‘dumb down’ its magazine.  It is now aimed at the weekend environmentalist – the better-off, liberal, middle-class urban dweller wanting something to do on holiday.  Lots of pictures and lots of bite-size snippets of information instead of informed articles written by and for reasonably intelligent people.

There was an article about a writer and environmentalist who has spent a whole year climbing trees across Europe.  He has tried to climb one tree a day and often persuaded other people, often complete strangers to join him.  There was a short interview with Elton John who has planted many trees on his estate near Windsor.  There was an article about geocaching – ‘a global phenomenon’ that The Woodland Trust has decided to join in with.  It’s a game of hide and seek using GPS technology where items are hidden in remote spots and people scamper about moors, mountains and woodlands trying to find little prizes in cache boxes.  I read out the instructions to R and we had a laugh when we found we had to ‘winkle out the trove’ from among roots and branches.  R said it sounded like a cue for a Rambling Sid Rumpole song.  People of a certain age from Britain will probably remember Rambling Sid and his ‘folk songs’ and if you don’t, Radio 4 Extra repeats all the ‘Round the Horne’ programmes regularly which featured him.

I will end my post with a photo of the misty sunset yesterday evening.

 

The line under the sun is an electricity cable and the sun appears to be balanced on it.