The Bushcraft Magazine review
We have newspapers delivered at the weekend as a treat. Years ago I used to spend Saturday and Sunday morning in bed, grazing my way through them. Now I’m just too busy. Magazines are different matter. These are kept in a pile beside the loo. We have recently discovered a great quarterly, The Bushcraft Magazine. Following an email conversation with Huw Woodman, one of their writers, we were sent some back copies and have spent many happy hours immersed in this wonderful magazine. We are thrilled to announce that we have now linked up...
read moreGuest spot: The Mildred Mittens Manufactory recipe for Stollen
I love Stollen. When Mildred sent me her recipe I was delighted. This sounds so good I just had to put it on the blog. I will be making this with my mum when I have a few days off over Christmas. Mildred wrote “Have you ever made Stollen I wonder? The recipe in Andrew Whitley’s ‘Bread Matters’ book is superb! I tweaked it a bit and the resulting Stollen is wonderful! Andrew’s recipe has made a nice sized loaf and every step was explained very well. Everything I have made from this fantastic book has worked...
read moreEvery being loves attention. Dogs and Pay it forward.
Most nights I tuck the Min Pins and great aunt Daisy Beatyl into their beds. We have a lot of rugs. Mainly Barbie rugs, cut from the blanket that I bought just before we collected Inca. Sometimes I unearth one of the starter rugs – the size of a facecloth – it’s easy to forget how small she was at seven weeks. Easily wrapped in a 6″x6″ cloth. The response from the dogs is variable. Inca and The Contessa snuggle firmly into their hat shaped baskets. These sit on chairs, out of the draughts. A small cuddle and tummy...
read moreSuperb sloe vodka recipe
We have found that most fruit recipes work equally well with gin or vodka. With a few exceptions. Raspberry gin is sublime and dessert gooseberry vodka is to kill for. Their cousins, Raspberry vodka and dessert gooseberry gin are companiable and gluggable but not the super stars of the cocktail cabinet. We traditionally always make sloe gin. Lots of it. This year I has so many sloes that I decided to give sloe vodka a whirl. A litre of vodka made two 750ml bottles of grog. One for the cellar and one for testing and tasting. I need to clear a...
read moreEight happy thoughts Meme
I got home this evening feeling a bit grumpy. On the run up to Christmas I generally work a six day week. Everyone wants their work finished by Christmas. At the start of November, this is fine. Just a distant date. By now things are hotting up. I have four clients on the go and promises have to be honoured. Jalopy and I returned late tonight, with no post in mind. The Min Pins were fighting over an organic carrot, filched from the vegetable bag. Great Aunt Daisy Beatyl was asleep and Danny greeted me at the door. I was delighted to see that I...
read moreMaking Mildred’s homemade butter using an electric whisk
At the age of six I almost came to blows with my best friend’s mother. This lady was elegant, French and chic. She had one of those woven basket shopping trolleys (2 wheels and a handle) and wore espadrilles. Her fridge was full of mysterious ingredients. I remember examining a jar of capers. Trying to imagine how any food could be improved with these small reptilian greenish greyish balls. Looking back this rather distant lady probably considered me a bad influence on her youngest daughter. We were very wild. But the big altercation was...
read moreBurglars in the village
There are quite a few burglaries in the village. Mainly the bigger houses. There is a spate and then nothing for months. Jewellery thieves hit our village a couple of months ago. They broke into our neighbour’s house (4 bedrooms) and stole a few precious pieces that were inherited from K’s mother. She had died just a few months before. As K’s husband said, the market value was small but the sentimental value was huge. Danny was so incensed that the next time that our neighbours went away, he went in and switched on lights in...
read moreJelly set too hard
I had promised Margaret a jar of our Sloe and Bramley Jelly – great for adding to casseroles, brilliant with game. The sloey edge gives it more bite than a conventional jelly. I gave her a large jar of our Apple Chilli Jelly instead. She looked flummoxed and examined the label. I explained in one embarrassed word. “Iwasmakingthesloeandbramleyjellyanditfailedit’slikerubber.” It was probably a mistake to ring my mother when I was making sloe and Bramley apple jelly. She likes to chat and muse about life. Usually I am...
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