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A Suffolk Lane

~ A diary of my life in rural north Suffolk.

A Suffolk Lane

Tag Archives: cooking

Aside

Music? Food? I’m Sure There’s a Quote There Somewhere. Play On!

06 Thu Mar 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in music, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Bach, classical music, cooking, London Youth Band, music, Panasonic, Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky

I listened to my new C.D. (the one I bought second-hand at the coffee morning) the other evening while cooking. I have to listen to something while cooking as I find it calming. It would be so dull if all we human beings were the same, but I still find it amazing that some people cook to cheer themselves up or calm themselves down. If there is nothing on the radio I listen to music or the spoken word on C.D.  I have an i-Pod but invariably as soon as I put it on someone comes in to the room and starts talking to me. My i-Pod is for when I am alone!  If I can’t find anything to listen to I either get very grumpy or I start thinking of something – making plans or decisions etc.  This is when things get a little risky!  I sometimes get so caught up in my thoughts that I go off to look something up in one of my books or to ask someone a question, and then I might get distracted by something else.  Before I know it I’ve left a half-prepared meal for ages and I have to rush to catch up or, even worse, something has got burnt and I have to start again.  So, I listen to something that will keep me in the kitchen and stop me wandering off.
I listen to all sorts of music – I have an eclectic taste (to use an extremely hackneyed phrase).  Classical, pop, rock, country, folk, world, religious, old, new – anything in fact, as long as it’s interesting/clever/tuneful/brings back memories and so on.

The new C.D. is a classical  one; part of a Russian Masters series, it is of Sviatoslav Richter playing three old favourites – Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, Sergey Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No.1 in D flat major and Johann Sebastian Bach’s Concerto No.1 in D minor for Harpsichord but played on the piano.  All recorded in the mid 1950s .  Just because a recording is old does not mean it should be cast on the scrap heap and ignored.  Richter’s playing is sublime and stands the test of time.

The Tchaikovsky was played too much during the 50s and 60s and then not played at all on the radio for a very long time – people had got bored with it.  It is lovely and reminds me of when I was nine years old and a member of the London Youth Band.  I had just started playing the clarinet and in our series of concerts I had to play a solo with other new members in a section in the middle of the concert.  The rest of the time I had to stand on a chair at the side of the stage with other young children and play the tambourine.  The tambourine had long ribbons on it and we all had to shake our tambourines and beat them in absolute unison or the band master would scream at us and go purple with apoplectic rage.  He was an old army bandsman and treated us young people like soldiers.  Everything was regimented – we even rehearsed in the barracks at Woolwich (where that poor young army bandsman was murdered last year).  The band master (like Mozart’s father) always told the audience how old we were but always said we were younger than our actual ages.  As if eight or nine wasn’t good enough!

This first year I was in the band, one of our oboe players, who was also a fabulous pianist, played the first movement of the Tchaikovsky No. 1 with the band accompanying her.  I was entranced.  By the following year I had been promoted to the ranks and played 4th clarinet and helped to accompany her again.

One of our regular pieces was the music from the film ‘The Dambusters’ and the band master used to get the father of the girl who played the oboe/piano to shout from the back of the hall,  “What about ‘The Dambusters’!”  as if he was a fan totally unconnected wih the band, at every concert for many years.  I’m sure nobody was fooled!

Prokofiev’s music always reminds me of a girl I used to work with in South-East London.  In the early 1980s advertisers on TV and the radio had just started to use classical music a lot in their adverts.  We are used to it now but then it was really exciting and new.  A colleague and I were discussing this in our lunch break and we were trying to name all the pieces we recognised.  An electrical goods company had just brought out a new music centre (this dates it for certain!) and they were using Prokofiev’s ‘Dance of the Knights’ from his ballet ‘Romeo and Juliet’.  My colleague started singing the tune and I joined in and then we both said Prokofiev together.  “Nah!”, said the girl, “Panasonic”.  Which proves just how effective classical music can be in advertising.

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March

04 Tue Mar 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in churches, plants, Rural Diary, Uncategorized, walking, wild birds

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

bacon onion potato sauté, blackthorn, cattle, chickens, Coffee morning, common reeds, cooking, ditching, Dog's Mercury, electric fence, farmyard, good food, greylags, Italian alders, ivy, lesser celandine, Lords and Ladies, marble galls, narcissi, nature, phone box library, photography, primroses, quiz night, rookery, Rumburgh Church, sheep, snowdrops, St James South Elmham, St Margaret South Elmham, St Michaels South Elmham, stinging nettle, the Beck, trees

A wet start to the month.  R and I went off in the rain to the benefice coffee morning at the Rector’s house.  We could find nothing to bring with us this time and, as usual, I had not done any baking, so we just took ourselves and a little money.  We bought raffle tickets, a classical music c.d., a jar of the Rector’s home-made lenten three-fruit marmalade (i.e. without whisky) and a jar of plum jam.  After indulging in a bit of chit-chat and getting the local gossip (no raffle prizes this time!) we left to go shopping in Halesworth.  Boring groceries shop in the Co-Op and then, while R read the paper in the car, I walked in to town to see if I could find some flowers for the church.  I eventually found what I was looking for in the third place I visited – some really pretty multi-headed narcissi, some in yellow and some in a creamy-white.  The individual flowers very tiny and delicate;  I bought two bunches of each colour.

The rain was easing off a little by the time we got to Rumburgh church but the path to the church was very puddly and muddy.  The snowdrops were still looking good and the primroses were just starting to come out.  The churchyard will be a mass of wild flowers very soon.  We found a suitable vase in the cupboard and just put the poor flowers in water.  I cannot attempt anything more than this and even this made the flowers look as if ashamed to be where they were.  They all huddled in the middle of the vase and faced inwards and no matter what I did they twisted back and hid their faces.  I eventually gave up,  put the vase on a ledge and checked that the other flowers in the church were all o.k.

I went out to feed the birds later that afternoon after the rain had stopped and the sun had come out.  Something, probably a squirrel, had pulled the top off one of my fat block feeders and had removed and taken away a block that I had only put in the day before.  I mended the feeder, replaced the block with a new one and wired up the top to prevent it being pulled apart so easily again.  We shall see!  I took a couple of photos of the geese and some of next door’s ****** chickens in the garden again.

020Next door's chickens (640x480)

 

 

022Pair of geese in garden (640x480)

I discussed with E what she would like for her evening meal and we decided on one of her current favourites – fried bacon, potatoes and onions.  I added some diced eating apple as I thought that might go well with it.  E was of a different opinion!

024Bacon, onion, apple and potato (640x480)

 

R and I set off for the quiz at St James at 7.00pm.  We had become quite reluctant to leave our nice warm home and get into my very cold, damp car.  It was just 1 degree celsius outside and it took the whole journey to de-mist the windscreen.  I drove most of the way bending forward and peering through the only clear bit at the bottom.  Fortunately, we met no-one on the journey but the real danger is in the deep ditches at the sides of the road.

The quiz was great fun and the six of us on our team all know each other and get on well.  We eventually came second which was very pleasing.  R and I also won two prizes in the raffle.  The food provided by the village hall committee (I suppose) and cooked by two ladies from the village was really good.  A pork casserole or a vegetable bake with a baked potato and a little pot of butter for the first course and then a choice of four or five (I can’t remember how many) desserts with cream or custard for the second course.  This was followed by tea or coffee with a chocolate mint – all for £8.00 per person.  There was thick frost on the cars when we left just after 11.00pm.

A lovely bright morning and hardly any wind the next day.  We went to church at St Michael’s.  This is a very small church in the middle of fields and has only recently had electricity put in – only a couple of sockets though.  There is no electric light, I think, and no heating except for an enormous very old gas heater at the back of the church.  If they have evening services they have oil lamps which makes it look so lovely.  The lane is very narrow and there aren’t many places to park.  R squashed up as close as he could to the electric fence and had great difficulty in getting out of the car.  The fence might not have been switched on as there weren’t any animals in the field – we weren’t going to take any chances though!

058St Michael's Church (480x640)

 

 

057Electric fence at St Michael's (480x640)

By the time we had had lunch and washed up the sun had disappeared and the wind had got up again.  R and I went out for a walk in the lanes near our house.

There is still a lot of standing water about.  This water is as the base of a hedge on St Margaret’s common.

025Water under the hedge at St Margaret's common (640x480)

 

In the village of St Margaret South Elmham is the old phone box which they have converted into a mini library.

027The phone box library (640x480)

 

The rooks are busy in the rookery near the old rectory.

029St Margaret's rookery (640x480)

 

The geese who live at the old rectory were resting for a change!

030Cordelia's geese (640x480)

 

The churchyard is full of pretty flowers.

031St Margaret South Elmham churchyard (640x480)

 

Lots of common reeds in the ditches at the side of the lane all waving in the wind.

033Common reeds in ditch (640x480)

 

The tributary to the Beck at Froghall.

034Tributary to the Beck at Froghall (480x640)

 

Some lovely silhouettes of trees on the skyline.

035Trees on horizon (640x480)

 

Blackthorn just starting to come out in the new hedge.

039Blackthorn (640x480)

 

Marble galls.

040Marble galls in hedgerow (480x640)

 

The top of our lane.

041Top of our lane (640x480)

 

The fields in St James have very few hedges.  It is very windswept here and very cold!

042View across fields (640x480)

 

Primroses at the side of the lane.

043Primroses (640x480)

 

And lesser celandines.

044Lesser celandines (640x480)

 

A lot of work has been done here at the bridge to dig out the ditch again and lay new drainage pipes.

045Newly cleared ditch (640x480)

 

A row of Italian Alders with catkins.  Not a very clear photo because of the wind and my lack of skill.

046Italian alder trees (480x640)

 

The farmyard with sheep wandering about freely and cattle in the barn feeding from their manger.

047Farmyard (640x480)

 

Our lane again – muddier now.

048Muddy lane (640x480)

Even worse!

049Muddy lane (640x480)

 

More primroses.

050Primroses (640x480)

And these are ‘weeds’ in our garden.  All lush green plants – the arrowhead leaves of Lords and Ladies, ivy, dog’s mercury and stinging nettles.

051Lords and ladies, ivy, dog's mercury, stinging nettle (640x480)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I talk about what it's like living in a quiet part of Suffolk. I am a wife, mother and daughter, a practising Christian and love the natural world that surrounds me. I enjoy my life - most of the time!

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