Vitamin therapy

The summer seems to have slipped by in the twinkling of an eye, the admirals have sailed off with the tide, and I remain, beached, almost wondering what to do with myself, so much have they filled my days over the past few weeks.

Dear readers, I would love to tell you that I can manage to edit a book, run a B&B, be a good mother, and keep my house and garden tidy at the same time.

But sadly if I did I would be lying.

Catching up with the laundry mountain

I would love to be the sort of blogger who leads a life to which other bloggers aspire, in a house filled with sunlight whatever the season, where the dogs sleep on clean blankets of patchwork and crochet, with a garden where one can take a photograph anywhere and be confronted with a vision of loveliness and distinguished plantings.

Did someone mention a crochet blanket?

And yesterday I could have started on that route to the pink and pineapple of perfection by addressing the dog-hair, ankle-deep in the sitting room, or polishing the windows to improve the light-levels indoors. Maybe I could even have done a little light weeding in the aim of getting to grips with the bindweed, creeping buttercup and ground elder which threaten to overwhelm my flowerbeds.

I pegged up my sadly deficient dog blankets that seemed to have taken on the appearance of ragged old bathtowels, splotched with sinister-looking stains which are highly resistant to the boil wash, and sighed.

Dreaming of a tartan blanket to sleep on

I looked at the bedrooms of my absent boys: the Ploughboy's is merely grubby and unkempt, whereas that of the General one could categorize as a health hazard and threatening to the fabric of the house. There is very little floor space available for standing in, even if I wanted to attempt some sort of fumigation.

A strong aroma of mouse

But when they do come home, I want to be a welcoming, glad to see you, sort of mother, and not one who berates them with the amount by which their disorderly nests reduce the value of the house (£8,000 per mucky children's room apparently).

Then I heard the caressing tones of Dr Mark Porter on Radio 4 (trust him implicitly, he is a doctor) recommending the benefits of vitamin D as an anti-inflammatory (this is why TB patients were made to sunbathe in winter).

I need such treatment, I thought. So I took up my knitting, heaved a chair onto the grass,
and I sat and basked in the sunshine, in order maximize my intake of anti-inflammatory vitamin D.

Very soothing

And I thought that you might like to know that the result of my experiment was to feel very much better, so I can highly recommend its efficacy, and anti-inflammatory nature - the experience of such therapy was distinctly healing.

Sunning oneself

However, it does not seem to work for dogs. As two out of the three were sick on the grass,  I cannot affirm its effectiveness in canines.

I think I am going to be sick

So the moral of the story is that if you are feeling a little inflamed, then go and expose your body to sunlight (trust me, I am a doctor).

But don't forget your knitting ...

 

And if you would like to see some pretty pictures of far better regulated households, then do go and visit some of the new faces at the cottage, who are:

Ada at Vintage Sheet Addict, Lush at Diegoagogo, Nancy McCarroll at Art, Crafts and Favourites, Jane Sorgetz at Atelier de Artes, Gillian at Tales From A Happy House, Gigibird, and Ellimay (I couldn't find your blog, so do let me know if you have one).

A genteel good afternoon to some lovely new friends and charmed to meet you, I am sure.

So many shades of grey

And no, I haven't read the book (and goodness knows what Amazon is going to recommend for me now that I have looked at the link), but the unremitting greyness of the past couple of days is oppressing me as I sit in my north-facing office - even with the lights on.

But the jolly redness of the tomatoes seem to defy the leaden skies, and the taste hints at Mediterranean summers and terrace living - if you shut your eyes quite tight and sit close enough to the Aga to feel the warmth.

Frilly tomatoes

The polytunnel has protected these tomatoes from the blight, and kept them warm enough to ripen up - the pretty frilly ones are Costoluto Fiorentino, a variety which has been consistently successful for us, in spite of our distinctly non-Mediterranean climate.

The Head Chef has been slaving over a hot stove preserving them for winter - we make an all-purpose tomato sauce/soup which is quite easy to do. Just cut the tomatoes in half and spread one layer thick on a baking tray (no need to peel or deseed). Scatter liberally with basil leaves and thinly sliced onions and garlic; drizzle with copious amounts of olive oil and season well, before roasting in the oven for half an hour or so (medium heat/middle of the Aga). Leave them to cool when they come out, then blitz in a food processor or blender. Freeze in portion sizes suited to your family.

Nice green beans

This tomato blend will then do duty all winter in lasagne or vegetable bakes, as pizza topping, pasta sauce, thinned down as tomato soup - the list is endless, and with food prices predicted to rise quite dramatically (and pig feed already escalating) we are eagerly squirrelling away as much as possible.

Tasty but few and far between

It has been a mixed year - the cucumbers are succumbing to mildew after a very modest crop (Marketmore, which is usually quite prolific), and unlike most years we have certainly not been overrun with courgettes - although that could be this pale green variety (I forget the name) which has such an anaemic air that we will be going back to the mix of yellow and dark green stripes which was so much more aesthetically pleasing.

Pale and uninteresting

The good old runners are still running away, and if you look carefully you can still see that everything is coated in thistledown. I fear that next year our little cottage is going to disappear in a prickly green forest and we will be machete-ing our way out.

Machete at the ready

I hope that you have had a sunnier weekend than we have, and if you don't feel up to the famous one, this Shades of Grey was very entertaining, and as far as I can remember, quite decent . . .

Through the square window

The words summer and holidays don't really go together for us in the life we lead now - running the B&B, growing our own food, courses on self-sufficiency and sustainable living - all of these things mean that summer is busy and work-filled, and our down-time tends to be in January and February.

So it is important to remember and treasure brief moments of peace and beauty amongst all the helter and skelter, to take time to stand and stare, if only for an inkling.

This morning I looked out over the sink into the garden and was happy that some of the flowers are revelling in the vagaries of our climate, in spite of the uncooperative weather taking its toll on the edibles. The Japanese anemones under the kitchen window are as tall as ever I have seen them, and the cosmos seem determined to outrun their neighbours.

This is the picture I must treasure in my head when my nerve fails me in those grey and drear months after the turning of the year, and I wonder why ever we chose this path in life.

Such moments are so precious that all the trouble and toil seem as nothing when compared with their fleeting beauty.

Magic beans

A few days ago I was rummaging vainly amongst the bean rows and feeling quite ecstatic if I came away with half a dozen small runners languishing in the bottom of the basket. (My mind is boggling at the Lilliputian image conjured up in my head, but I have forsworn listening to the little voices.)

And now I find that the Head Chef has a multitude of green reasons for sitting at the kitchen table listening to the mellifluous voices on Radio 4 (midoff, dismissal, sunshine, leg bye, three slips waiting for an edge and one in the gully . . . or was it a bat on the off stump, and another by the pavilion ?). The maidens are sending me to sleep and I have quite lost my way . . .

I hope people like eating thistledown, remarks the Head Chef, and moves his hand into the picture, quite spoiling the effect.

Look closely and see those gossamer strands

With a field of thistles to the left of us, another in front of us, and a south-southwesterly breeze, our little patch of land is being drenched with gossamer fibres - the sky is full of thistledown. When I was young and innocent I thought that these were fairies floating on the summer air - now I know that the silken strands will metamorphose into spiky green witches next summer, wickedly invading every last corner of our cottage garden, and running riot in the field.

But for now the greenness of the beans is quite magical, and we can chop them and store them for the long winter ahead. If we eat thistledown, we can munch its witchy magic into nothing.

Peeping toms

And lo and behold! The blight hasn't ventured into the greenhouse, and the sunshine has - we have some tomatoes at last, all red and rotund and beaming from under the beans.

Precious

I seem to have lived this August afternoon with the sound of the cricket, and the chopping of the beans, and the filling of freezer bags so many times before, and remember beans from another garden, bagged by other hands, but the smell of the green growing things and the earth and the warm breeze on my face are forever the same.

And the imminent collapse of the English batting, or not - I seem to remember that this happens quite often too.

Thought for the day

On Fridays Soulemama always posts a very beautiful picture from her week, under the heading 'This Moment', and encourages bloggers everywhere to join in. It is a lovely idea to encourage everyone to stop and pause and appreciate the good things in their life, and every week I mean to join in, but Friday comes, up goes the post, I admire the picture, and think is it really Friday already, and oh no, I forgot to take a picture - and promise myself to do better next time (you will note that Soulemama manages to do a post without words, which is utterly beyond me, so I hope that you are prepared for some verbiage).

This has gone on for some months now, but this morning I woke up and remembered it was Friday, which was a good start. I then started to think about what magic moment I could pick from the week to post for all the world to see (or at least a few kind readers - I am not really in the big league like Soulemama {and if you want to learn more about the subtleties of hierarchy in the world of blogging, then this is an illuminating read}), and before sitting back in a warm glow of satisfaction.

Unfortunately the only feeling I could sum up was one of faint irritation. Yes, I most definitely got out of the wrong side of bed this morning, and what is worse, I am home alone and the Head Chef is not around to take the blame (for it was surely his fault, as he was out boozing with the boys and came home late so I was forced to wait up for him, reading a very interesting book). Well, maybe not boozing, he tells me that he only drank one small glass of wine, but certainly I feel quite out of sorts because of it.

And the faint irritability is compounded out of having to fetch my own logs in (definitely down to HC), and skies turned grey (well, nobody can help that one, but if anyone was at home, they might well find themselves in the firing line), and finding the chicken water frozen, which meant plodding back to the house to look for the plastic jug which was hiding (definitely HC's fault), and taking hot water back to fill up the drinkers, and a nagging feeling that I should be doing some housework even thought the sewing cupboard's siren call is tempting me.

And then I looked at the little adverts down the side of my inbox and the little links to 'Apple Pie Receipe [sic]', Homemade Dog Biscuit, Deep Cleaning, and Public Sewer Services made me laugh in their hopelessly irrelevant  randomness (although I shivered slightly at the ones for Loose Fitting Dentures? and Dental Practice for Sale (Good Income)). So another little Handy Hint for you - just take a look at Google ads if you want to induce a fit of hysterical laughter (but take heed at a warning from One Who Knows, don't write emails with the word 'pyjamas' in them, as the effect could be most disturbing).

Logs - dwindling fast

But back to the task in hand: my impressions of the week seemed to be overwhelmed by the cold, and I certainly can't show you pictures of my charming offspring as they put their hands over their faces in unison if they see me fumbling for my camera (on Christmas Day, would you believe? How Unkind.).

So at the end of the week, what I will share with you is logs and ash buckets, which is pretty much what it has been about here. Logs coming in, fires to be coaxed alight, and wood ash bucketed out onto the garden (good for soft fruit, garlic, lightening heavy soil, and topping up raised beds).

Chopping block and ash bucket

{The other burning issue here this week has been how to get a Princess to wear a coat out of doors in freezing temperatures, which has taxed my maternal negotiating skills to the utmost. I succeeded in trading coat wearing for an off-games note this morning (genuine indisposition, of course, m'lud) as I felt that the potential withholding of such was a trump card, but if anyone has any hints and tips (apart from buying something brand new from the Barbour shop [who would have thought that Barbour would come back into fashion?]), then I would be most exceedingly obliged to you for sharing them.}

PS The Oxford commas are especially for Angela, and the superfluity of parentheses for Mrs Micawber - the joy of life is in such trifles.

Sew many reasons to be cheerful

[If you were looking for the giveaway, you will find it here.]

No reason to be crabby

I am showing my age when I say that 'Reasons to be Cheerful' by Ian Dury is part of my cultural hinterland, but when I saw the confluence of two bloggy positive thinking initiatives, Planet Penny's Reasons to be Cheerful, and Lily's Quilts Fresh Sewing Day, I felt that it was a good idea to stir my stumps and come up with my own reasons to think positive.

First of all, thank you most kindly to all of you who have enquired about my hand. Yes, it is still there on the end of my arm, and it is still encased in rather revoltingly coloured plastic, which I have embellished with orange and white Sugru (if you would like some, too, they tell me there is a discount code until 19 December, which means you get your fourth pack free - just write YAYCHRISTMAS in the box). But I am quite reconciled to it all really, if a little frustrated when I try to put my coat on, and patience is a virtue, etc.

But I did of course manage to crack in a little bit of sewing before things went awry, and so when Princess Bunchy was working out her Christmas presents I was actually quite pleased to find that we had enough little purses (from the Keyka Lou Pleated Pouch pattern) . . .

. . . and wallets (from the Keyka Lou Basic Wallet pattern) to go round, including one for the £2 Secret Santa (I think whoever gets this gets a good deal!), and moreover, I have a couple left over for emergencies (you know, that feeling you get late on Christmas Eve when you are wrapping the presents and find that you have fewer presents than names on the list [which of course doesn't happen in well-regulated households]).

So in spite of a little hurdle along the way, my sewing for November is something to feel quite cheerful about (all thanks to the discipline of the Christmas Challenge, I am sure).

Quite astonishingly we still have lettuce in the garden, and a few flowers, too, and I can even feel cheerful about the rain, the more the better in fact, or it will be hosepipe bans all round next year.

So Reasons to be Cheerful, one stitchy, two horticultural, and three meteorological - what more could a body want? Apart from tea and cake, that is . . .

Pausing for thought

But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? Yes, it is the seasonal light show flashing on and off in a street near you. The countdown has truly begun, the days roll on apace, and time snaps at the heels of the unwary laggard.

What is that approaching over the horizon?

It is the first Sunday in Advent and Floss is encouraging us all to take a pause and ponder as we wait expectantly for Christmas.

Free decorations

I am well aware that my readers come from all around the world, and that many of you may not celebrate Christmas, through choice or custom. There are many paths to enlightenment and who am I to presume upon the efficacy of one over another? But the reality in this country is that Christmas has become more of a consumer festival than a religious one, with all the attendant stresses and strains associated with an impending deadline, impossible expectations and not inconsiderable financial outlay.

So while some wait in eager anticipation for the long wished for day, others watch its advent with a sense of impending dread. The last payday in November has arrived, and with it comes the shopping for presents and the draining of the bank account.

So perhaps it is time to think about what we can give for free. Given confidence by a lovely little present I received from dear Ang who spends her time Tracing Rainbows, I have in my pocket some pearls for my readers.

I have been lucky enough to be the recipient of a couple of gifts of wisdom over the course of my life, and in the spirit of giving I will hand them on to you.

The first is that a smile costs nothing at all, so of smiles you can give many, and such is human nature that you will receive an abundance in return.

And the second is that 'sorry' and 'thank you' are two of the most important words in the world - sometimes it seems that they cost a little more dear, but remember that your purse will remain unscathed.

And my further thought is: forget about the tit for tat, and the matching of gifts, which means that the wealthy receive most, and the poorest the least (and that goes for the poor in spirit, too). Give only what you can truly afford, but give it without thought of return, and with a generosity of spirit which can make small things precious.

And the most precious things of all are kindness and love: I know that love can be a bit of a tall order at this season of surfeit, especially when the surfeit is of relatives, but kindness is easy - just try it. It is quite possible to be kind to someone you don't like or don't know, and it will certainly make you feel better, and might even make them feel better too.

And then we come to that old saw - give and you will receive. The oldest ones are the best ones - give a teeny tiny bit of kindness, give a teeny tiny bit of joy, such a small amount that truly you will hardly know it is gone, and my oh my, you will be quite overwhelmed with the return, which will come scudding back to you some time, somehow, and in a way you cannot anticipate, but such are the mysterious ways of the universe that one day as you scan the horizon you will see a ship coming in carrying an enormous gift back for you.

And if you still feel stressed about Christmas, then try reading this. It certainly helped me to put things in perspective . . .

Small things and shivers

There's nothing like a sunny day in November to lift the heart and after too many days of grey, grim, lowering skies, it seems particularly precious.

And the loveliness of the light impelled me to take out my camera to record a happy moment, a small, mundane moment to treasure for when the world turns grey again.

But what an unpredictable moment of bitter sweetness: Princess Bunchy is counting down to Christmas, and every time she tells me how many days to go,  I feel a small shiver of unpreparedness grip my heart.

It is supposed to be a time of soup and mittens, and grubby root vegetables roasting slowly in the Aga - so how come I was eating salad for lunch in November?

Tomatoes and lettuce growing in the garden - a moment of joy at the sweet summer taste, and a small involuntary shiver at the uncomfortable thought that the seasons have gone awry . . .

Still, I think there are reasons enough to be cheerful . . . and I have found some more over here.

Cherishing the roses and winter gardening

I must admit that I am not so much of a winter gardener - being a chilly mortal who sits inside at her desk swathed in cardis and shawls, with mitts on, and socks pulled up at the knees, you will understand that I find the nip in the air nips at my fingers and toes rather too much. In an ideal world I would retreat indoors in October, and venture out again in March as the green shoots are growing.

Reach out and touch the roses

But I did sneak out just before sunset today, as I felt I needed a small dose of fresh air, and to count my blessings in the face of some of life's difficulties.

November food

And I wasn't disappointed. It might be November in heart and soul, but we are still lucky enough to have spinach and carrots and broccoli and lettuce (yes, amazingly, lettuce!) all growing outside, a second flush of marigolds, and two precious November roses. As you can see, it is not a tidy garden, but the theory is that leaving plant debris and greenery will provide cover and food for wildlife.

Spot the green tomatoes

But my fairweather attitude to gardening is not the attitude to take when trying to live off the land - after all, we still need our greens in the cold months, and it can't all be stored in the freezer. And after the hectic harvest of summer, we now need to take the time to do necessary maintenance, and work on the structure of our green and growing space when the pace of life has slowed down.

Recycling in the garden - a mouse hotel

And when I say we, of course you understand that I mean the Head Chef, always ready to do the heavy work when I stand indoors and supervise through the windows, for after all, someone needs to keep the home fires burning, and if I wear enough clothes outside to keep me warm, then my movement is so restricted that I really can't be of much use on the hefting and heaving front.

And in terms of out of season hefting and heaving, I have been quite entertained by a couple of books I have come across from Timber Press, which are full of ideas and projects for me to add to the list of the Head Chef's things to do.

Garden Eco-Chic by Matthew Levesque is all about 'reusing found objects to create decks, paths, containers, lanterns and more', which certainly fits in with the permaculture principles we use in designing our growing space.

Be aware that this book is not for the faint-hearted or girlie amongst us - this is a book for chaps and chapesses willing to wield drills and saws, and get down and dirty on the constructive front.

I particularly like the ideas for creating different surfaces for paths and paved areas from a variety of found and recycled materials.

Levesque uses all sorts of interesting and unusual materials such as metals and plastics to make fencing, dividers, and more decorative items such as this mobile of copper offcuts.

However, with the price of scrap metal hitting record levels, I am not sure that now it will be quite so easy to find discarded copper and aluminium, and going by the levels of metal theft in our area, such things would be best confined to the back garden, out of the reach of passing scrap hunters.

The second book is rather uninspiringly entitled Concrete Garden Projects by Malin Nilsson and Camilla Arvidsson. However, it is a much prettier book than the title would imply, and has clear instructions as to how to make various containers, water features, and other garden structures using concrete, all very beautifully styled.

I was uncertain about the environmental implications of using concrete, but have found an article here which seems to be a thorough discussion of the issues. As will all things, there are pros and cons, and one has to consider whether one's use of the material is necessary, and also what the alternatives would be.

Am I mistaken, or is that a rather luxuriant crop of ground elder?

I had seen concrete stepping stones before, and do like the look of them, as well as the rows of concrete pots - the instructions are step by step with pictures, and such projects seem to me very feasible on a domestic scale, and the miniature ponds and water containers could be a very valuable addition to a garden in terms of helping wildlife. However, I am not quite so convinced of the rationale of making concrete 'cakes' using cake tins and jelly moulds and then decorating them with flowers!

On balance, I think these books are definitely useful for practical, hands-on types - there are lots of ideas for achievable garden structures and decorations, and they would make a really good present for the outdoorsy people in your life.

I, though, am retreating inside, heaping up the blankets, and looking forward to winter evenings sitting by the fire, knitting. I will see you outside when the days start lengthening . . .