My own Gobolino (the witches cat)

I can't believe it's eggs for tea Sunday again, which is how I always think of the clocks changing backwards. It is also Halloween tonight and I have finally managed to carve a pumpkin. I have wanted to do this for years but always have done it with my niece and nephew who got to the pumpkin first. Now they are grown it was my turn so I thought I would do something less scary than theirs. I chose a cat and a bat and here it is my first solo carving. I love the colour of pumpkins they are so comforting. Now we have a great-niece I decided to save the seeds and let her sow them next year and grow her own to carve and keep up what has become a family tradition. This is so much fun I can hardly wait!

Return to Sender?

Bri's very favourite person in the whole world is the Postie, doesn't have to be one we know just the postie. Even the kids told him he should be one when he was made redundant, in fact everyone told him. This is because everyday he gets post, expects post, gets excited when it's post time until - a few weeks ago that is. What has changed you may wonder, has he stopped ordering stuff... No, we have a new dyslexic postman. He is driving us crazy! You can spot him holding the letters at arms length and scratching his head, this is not good we think. It isn't good we hadn't had mail in days.We finally got a letter that wouldn't go through the letterbox and when I opened the door (only because I saw him, not because he knocked) he was half way down the path. I asked are you our new regular postie? he shrugged and became confused, he didn't speak English. No hope for us then! The next day, however, he left a red card saying we weren't in for delivery so we trekked up to the sorting office having waited the 24 hours they said on the card, to be told they couldn't find our packet and when they asked our postie thet weres told he couldn't visualise our road. Tough, we want our parcel and we want it now! No chance! They took our phone number and would ring us if they found it. I hate our postie, I wish we had a dog and I'm not keen on the Royal Mail either. I might start a protest. I am watching with Bri at the moment as he is watching the postie going back down the road as he has missed someone and he has now gone past us yet again and we just know we are expecting something. No, wait he is coming back again, yes pushing post through, well half way through ....we have got mail... just not ours!!!

We Don't Get Out Much...

...which became VERY apparent this week when we went to Marks and Spencer for a quick coffee. They have the most up to date caff we have ever been to. So much so that we had to figure out how to order a cup of coffee and a teacake. None of your slosh it on the counter and no butter for the teacake affair. You order and get a thingy which you hand back when your order is ready. You then go to another island and get your coffee which came hot and steaming in large cups and then you go to your table with your thingy and wait. No one could have prepared us for the shock we got. We were just taking a sip of delicious coffee, and this thingy rattled and beeped and vibrated on the table and scared us half to death. It took us a full minute of this racket to realise what had happened, our teacakes were ready, that's all. It wasn't a fire alert or our phones it was a wonderful new fast way of letting us know we could collect our order. Genius! we thought and decided there and then we must get out more, we are being left behind by retail technology. So I thought I would just pop to the ladies powder room before I left and was met by a wall of plastic where I couldn't find which was door and which was wall, new fangled locks and all that. When I did get in I was met with square loos and square everything else, amazing! Came out to wash my hands and blow me the taps were automatic and the scary bit was you put your hands down a hole to dry them, I've seen too many horror movies to do this. I used a tissue which was swallowed up by a greedy bin that pulled it in. I left pronto, too much technology for me, perhaps I'll become a recluse instead.

It's Been a Funny Old Week

This week hasn't been a run of the mill usual one for us, it started with a party and is ending with a party and for anyone who knows us, they will know this has never happened to us before as we are not usually party goers. The first one was a very special occasion as it was Terry's 50th birthday celebration, Bri had written him a song and I had spent all last Winter and this Spring making him a quilt which I called "50 Quilted Leaves", there really are 50 I counted them after to make sure I hadn't missed one. I spent all the Summer worrying if he was going to like it. He did and it is now on the bed. The party was a great success and we really enjoyed ourselves. Sunday brought us another invitation from one of our neighbours who we cat sit for Elle C , Little Momma) this time for a 3 course Sunday lunch in October. Monday' we had a surprise from our friend Sarah who brought us damsons to make into jam which we've done. It is all dark shiny red waiting for scones or crusty bread. Tuesday our surprise was our little pear tree was ready for picking and although we feared that we wouldn't have many this year as it looked a poor crop, we still managed to pick a giant basket full, all sound which we share with our neighbours every year. Wednesday the postman started bringing our Autumn collection of books and movies. Thursday, a neighbour brought us round a box of chocolates to thank us for sharing our veggies from the plot with her, she especially loves the raspberries and a second box of chocolates on the evening from our cousin who had come to share information about our family tree. Friday, Bri won a cd in a competition from a magazine he subscribes to and today, being Saturday,we are about to get our glad rags on and go partying again to another cousin's 60th birthday bash. Blimey! time flies when you're having fun. Wonder what next week will bring?

Wild, Weird and Wonderful

We revisited our favourite village of Elford again last Sunday. The weather was wild and stormy and just the right setting

for a Scarecrow Festival. It was a terrific way to spend an afternoon. Terry, Yvonne, Bri and I went round the village searching out the scarecrows one by one, they were wonderful. There was even a scarecrow wedding in the village church complete with guests. I sat next to one of them and then thought better of it in case someone might poke me to see if I'm real or one of them, as I said it was really wild and windy. The scarecrows outside the Crown pub having half a pint were my favourite. Terry liked the Wizard of Oz scene, Yvonne and Bri loved the one made with flowerpots. We had hot dogs along the route and went through two old fashioned kissing gates passing a French man on a bike complete with onions and E.T riding in the basket on the front of Elliot's bike on a roof, Dennis the Menace and Fag Ash Lil. They were all just great and so much effort made by the people of Elford yet again to give their community a sense of togetherness. The village certainly knows how to have a good time and the atmosphere at any of their events is just fun all the way. I have never spent such a weird afternoon but I hope to again soon!

The Good Life...

..if you don't count Saturday standing out on the allotment in torrential rain picking raspberries for tea. We feel very Tom and Barbarish these past few weeks. We have been almost self sufficient in fruit and veg (we don't intend keeping any pigs). ..we have had peas, beans, beetroot, radish, lettuce, courgettes,cucumbers, tomatoes, red cabbage, gooseberries by the thousand, strawberries, blackcurrants and now, our Autumn bliss raspberries. So, it will be back to making jam in the next few days as our nephew has a partiality for raspberry jam. We are also going to be digging up our Red Desiree potatoes and the corn is coming along nicely, must be our scarecrow, Zak watching over them. Then later we shall have our very own plums, apples, swedes, parsnips, onions and leeks and perpetual spinach which we have just planted out. We have also risked a second crop of peas which are almost mature and Reg from further down the Hill says that they will more than likely mature before the first frosts and they will be o.k. As he has won firsts for so many of his beautiful veg, we believe him. Yes it is the good life if you don't count the pesky slugs.

Pond - ering

After walking to our plot yesterday afternoon and seeing squashed dead frogs on the driveway, I decided to do my bit and have a good look round for something I can use for a little tiny wildlife pond on our plot. John of number one plot, said a little washing up bowl or the like would do plus a few plants to keep the water clean and clear which I could have from him and, as we all know, frogs too. I fancy the odd newt though or something like. I have seen the said newt at the back of our plot under our greenhouse when I moved an old damp brick, he may just need a home. I haven't found the perfect pond yet but I know Hall's Garden centre have a real good variety of tiny ones. I love the one in the picture don't know where to get it from yet. I have a new quest!

a nice little haul

We had a lovely surprise when we started harvesting today we came home with a basket full of tomatoes, cucumber, beans ,red cabbage, a few raspberries that we hadn’t eaten on the way round and of course, yes you’ve guessed, courgettes. Alison on the front of our plot asked us to pick what was ready on her patch while she is away and so we had a second crop of beans, great they are a different variety to ours, thanks Alison. Julie was hidden in her fruit cage picking red gooseberries which we sampled and they were sweet and a lovely flavour and they didn’t make you run about sucking in your cheeks either! We also ran into JB, plot number one and his granddaughters and all had a chat about the show this Sunday which was nice. He was also trying to off load frogs today, he has a glut...so if anybody should need any you know where to go!! Well, now we are home and I need to do something with the red cabbage, which weighed in stripped down at 5lbs. I shall braise it with apples, onions and sultanas ready to go with those autumn casseroles, with the next one I shall probably do pickled red cabbage and there will be one for my friend Cara who loves them. Tonight I think we shall make a tomato, courgette, onion and basil sauce to go with pasta for tea and tomorrow we shall have beans with - well everything there seems to be more than I thought...

P.S Molly is also having courgettes for tea as I notice Felix has put some in their with their salmon packets

Eggstra special

My ultimate fantasy in food is a perfectly cooked soft boiled egg. Simple as it is I just love them. It has taken me a very long time to do the egg justice, but after seeing the Julie and Julia movie I got out the Art of Mastering French Cooking by Julia Childs and first thing I learned was how to boil the most perfect egg. I thought after all my experience in the kitchen I should know this but did it her way just to see. It was perfection. We had bought some very large eggs from Amerton Farm,( near Salt) fresh as a daisy, we know this because we were looking at the hens that laid them across the courtyard. The timing is crucial apparently, no egg timers - just know the size of the egg and lower it into salted boiling water (the salt in the water was a tip my grandmother taught me, it stops them cracking) then time them. Six mins for very large, five and a half for standard and five for ordinary smallish ones. Then run them under cold water to set the whites. Well mine came out just like you see in the ads and the yolk was a wonderful deep golden yellow mmmmm' lovely stuff. I'm going to try some more of her ways of doing things. I was impressed and I may move on to the French stuff too. I won't be doing 365 recipes in one year though, like the girl in the movie, she must have been crazy. I'm not crazy?

Lost...Where?

Now everyone that knows us will understand when I say we got lost yet again, but NOT when I say on the way to Nuneaton. A small trip we planned would take twenty minutes took us two hours. We enjoyed seeing the red tractor in the cornfield the first couple of times but then we panicked - yes - lost in the countryside. No signs, no one to ask, here we were again! We carried on as you do and eventually found a Post office cum village store. Hope restored. "Where are we?" the reply "Not sure all the roads around here are very long but if you keep on the one straight out of the village and don't give up you'll be somewhere". O.k! I half expected her to have a meat cleaver behind her back and direct us to the mincing machine but we made it out o.k. Down the very, very long road to somewhere and found we were going to the Astley Farm Book Barn just where we wanted to be. WOW! We're getting much better at this lost and found stuff. However, next day we did get lost inside Dobbies.