The Cottage Smallholder

I much prefer New Year to Christmas. It’s a heady time. I’m always happy to send the Old Year to bed at 23.59. It is 365 days old after all, and getting a bit grumpy and scuffed around the edges. At midnight, I fling open the window to hear the bells and the New Year Read More »

Our hens, being elderly maidensof three years old, stopped laying at the end of October. They started to moult, and when their combs changed gradually from red to pink I knew that egg laying would cease until the days started to get longer. December 21 is starred on our calendar. Not just the winter solstice Read More »

Whenever I make mashed potatoes I make a double amount so as to have enough left over to make potato cakes. Usually, my potato loving partner sniffs out the remains, however carefully I have hidden them. It’s my fault entirely. I tend not to announce future culinary plots and plans. But this week I did. Read More »

It’s that dreaded time of year when I have to accompany my faded friend to the Volvo garage in Bury St Edmunds. It’s like attending the Oscars and realising, too late, that you’re wearing muddy Wellingtons. Gleaming cars purr smugly past us as we make a five point kangaroo turn into the service bay. Jalopy Read More »

French partridge are such pretty birds. I see quite a few when I’m driving around the villages. These are busy, sociable birds that move about in small groups. They rush to hide in the hedgerows with quick neat steps and beaks held high as Jalopy thunders past. Some friends of mine reckon that they mate Read More »

Many years ago, whilst on honeymoon in Bali, my ex husband and I met a runaway. I often think of him. He was in his forties. His plan was to rent a boat, sail to the cluster of uninhabited islands off the coast of Bali and just disappear. We treated him to supper and now Read More »

Just before I met Danny, I went to Ireland for the first time to attend a bread making course at the Ballymaloe Cookery School. For the duration of the course my sister and I stayed at the Shanagarry Guest House which was walking distance from the school, although I think we drove the 200 yards Read More »

One Christmas, my mother took us to Hamley’s in London’s Regent Street. This vast toyshop on six floors was overwhelming. A massive leap from Eden Lily’s toy department in Cambridge. I was about four years old and had my Christmas money to spend. I planned to buy something very special.. The magic department was enormous, with Read More »

A Cottage Smallholder Christmas tradition is pot roast pheasant on Christmas Eve. Partly because it’s in season and is a treat but mainly because it’s bunged in the oven for a good hour an a half whilst I get on with another task such as helping Father Christmas with packing the stockings for the household. Read More »

I love marzipan. The homemade kind is the most delicious and it’s a cinch to make. My mum used to announce that she’d made it with such a sonorous trumpeting that, for years, I imagined it was a complex procedure. I made it in a matter of minutes and rang her just in case I’d Read More »