Bullying in our flock of chickens and guinea fowl
Photo: Hope and Beatyl Boss Now that the mornings and evenings are brighter, I’m spending more time watching our flock. I’ve discovered that there are problems. Our youngest additions to the flock are being bullied. “Poor Beatyl and Hope are being terrorised by Thunder and Carol.” Danny put down his toast. “It’s Cloud too. She can be a real bitch. We could cull Thunder. He’d be tasty.” “But guinea fowl mate for life. Cloud would be devastated.” “We could eat her too.” “Do you really mean...
read moreFoodie treats for under £2.00: Fortt’s Bath Oliver Biscuits
Shopping with my mum I reached for a pack of Bath Oliver biscuits and was shocked to see that they were £1.85 (price matched with Tesco). My hand hovered. I love these crackers but could I justify spending almost two quid on them? These biscuits were invented by Dr William Oliver in the mid 1700’s. Dr Oliver was a medical man and philanthropist. The biscuits were designed as a diet biscuit for his obese clients who were taking the waters in Bath. He died leaving his secret recipe, £100 and some sacks of flour to his coachman, Atkins. The...
read moreDecorating the cottage: update
As I only have outdoor painting jobs at the moment, the persistent soft Irish misty drizzle has meant that I’m working on our cottage instead. Repairing and decorating the inside. Danny works from home so we have spent more time together than we have for months. His mini kingdom is the Rat Room. Here he works on his laptop with a diary full of conference calls and deadlines. “Please make sure that The Contessa doesn’t creep upstairs to nest under the duvet. If she barks when I’m on a call I look/sound like a schmuck.” The kitchen is...
read moreSunday lunch: Roast poussin with honey, lemon and tamarind recipe
I discovered several great cut priced food bargains at Waitrose on Saturday evening. Wild rabbit, two poussin (baby chickens), beef mince and wonderful organic bread. One of the poussin would do for Sunday. Danny peered at the tiny baby chickens and contemplated sharing one the next evening. He swallowed and said nothing. This is a man who loves to cook and carve enormous slabs of meat. I decided to diffuse the anxiety by talking. “Don’t worry. I’ll cook. Perhaps lemon butter poussin with mini roasts. Or I’d quite like to have a go at...
read moreThe poetry of Notelet Folder makes me weep with laughter.
Quite often I buy or am given packs of greeting cards. They are a great stop gap if suddenly I need to produce a card at a moment’s notice. Years ago we had a true Picasso moment with a small pack of greeting cards that I had been given and placed in between the books on the shelves in The Rat Room. As this used to be my studio, I had a lot of reference and poetry books up there. In fact this was my core collection of books. The rest were scattered across the rest of the upstairs rooms. One day Danny was examining the shelves, spotted the...
read moreManaging the freezer: All set to learn a new craft
For years Danny and I ate traditional Sunday lunch at suppertime. A large joint with roast potatoes, vegetables, gravy and sometimes Yorkshire puddings (made by me). Sunday roast is Danny’s department. All I have to do is chose the joint and listen to the bustle in the kitchen every Sunday as the cottage slowly fills with the smell of roasting meat that I know will be cooked perfectly under his expert direction. Wonderful. But this January we decided to change everything. “We don’t even need a Sunday roast every week anymore.” I was...
read moreHow to easily propagate aconites and snowdrops in your garden
The past two dry days have meant that I have donned my thermal suit and my winter decorating outfit. I’ve started work on the outside of a lovely house, set in forty acres. Here I’ve seen a hare snatching the chance to sneak up the drive towards the vegetable garden (the Labradors were out playing golf at the time), blue pheasant nest there and bountiful feeders attract a wide range of birds. By the pond, I spotted my first Jay as I was watching the moorhens silently pick their way into the safety of the rushes. In a few weeks time...
read moreBest budget recipes for 50% or less: Sam’s perfect oven chips. Best homemade oven chips recipe
Danny has cut our potato bill from around £4 a week to 80p a week. Our cold dark barn is the perfect place to store spuds. He was horrified when he discovered how much that we were spending on potatoes. The price rose steeply last winter. The past warmer winters meant that most UK spuds were susceptible to blight – harvests were small and prices shot up. Since then he has been looking out for marked down spuds in the supermarkets. Generally he finds them for 40p for 2.5 kilos. They are hung in the dark barn in thick Hessian...
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