The Rat Room
This is a three bedroom cottage. The smallest one is only accessible through our bedroom. It is not the standard Pink or Blue Room found in so many country houses. The name alone sets ours miles apart from any other bedroom. We tend to forget this when we casually refer to this room. I’ve spotted the nervous glances. Perhaps our visitors imagine that they’ll be sleeping in a room lined with cages and a thousand bright eyes sparkling though the gloom. My sister lived here for a few months, between houses and this was her bedroom....
read moreLemon Gin Recipe.
I went to New Zealand for the first time over 30 years ago and Lemon Gin was the pre dinner tipple in one of the houses that we visited. It came in gallon jars and was served neat in small tumblers. This was the first time I’d seen anyone pouring out drinks from such a large container. In this particular house the lemon gin jar doubled as a doorstop in the kitchen during the day. I forgot all about lemon gin until my sister and I got into making sloe gin. We had made a heady investment of a case of gin and, after picking a vast sack full...
read moreNew fridge magnets for the cottage
I’ve just bought some more magnetic letters for the fridge to replace the ones that Inca guzzled last week. We play with these a lot, leaving jokey messages for each other. The alphabet letters are also a major means of communication between Danny and My Mother, who has been know to dash into Newmarket and buy another pack just to finish a sentence. I had what can only be described as a mottled education. I enjoyed primary school and the set up was perfect for me. I loved the signs that were papered across every inanimate item in my...
read moreApple Chutney recipe
I’m not surprised that the fruit that tempted Eve was an apple. It is such a useful fruit. From sweet apple puree to flagons of frothy cider, the apple plays a major role in our lives. It always troubles me when I see apples left unpicked on trees. We’ve had a great cooking apple harvest this year. Danny and I have spent the morning picking apples from the old trees in our tiny orchard. We are going to make cider this year and have a go at apple wine. So we left a great pile of them on the garden table to soften in the frosts. If...
read moreGardening gloves
I used to think that gardening gloves were a waste of time. I’d pull on sturdy leather gloves for pulling out brambles but generally I liked the feel of mud between the fingers. The problem was removing the mud at the end of a stint in the garden. This took ages and somehow a feint residue of ground in dirt always remained. I tried pretty cotton gloves and found that the mud soaked through. The Homebase rubber gloves, with cotton backs, were too big. Marigold washing up gloves got clammy after a while. Everywhere I looked people were...
read moreJocelyn’s Baked Garlic recipe
Our friends Jocelyn and Miles have a house in France. They worked there for years and have kept it on as a retreat. Like the French, they love to eat out and one of their favourite local restaurants is run by a gloomy individual called Monsieur Misère. I was intrigued to meet this fellow who bobbed and smiled as we crossed his restaurant threshold. When he realised that our French wasn’t quite as fluent as our friends’, we were relegated to fourth division and tolerated with that polite distance, usually reserved for unruly...
read moreGreat Aunt Daisy Beatyl
When my mother is on holiday or ill in bed, Daisy Beatyl comes to stay. Last year she lived here for nearly six months, enjoying the freedom of the garden through winter, spring and into the summer. As my mother’s house has an ordered routine, it’s quite a sea change coming here. You can see from her portrait that she has to put up with the complex soap opera lives of three busy Min Pins and endless late nights. The Contessa gives her a hard time. She studiously ignores this, however assiduous the attack. As Contessa shrieks and...
read moreWinter Celery soup recipe: oven baked
Nothing beats the intense flavour of Winter Celery. We lament the fact that the season is so short. Just six weeks, from mid November to New Years Day. Winter Celery is grown in the dark soil of East Anglian Fens, just a few miles from our cottage, so we can always find it at its freshest and best. When I spotted it in the shops on Saturday I was so pleased to find my old friend again. I returned home with a couple of heads and one purpose in mind: Winter Celery begs to be made into this superb winter soup. If you are feeling naughty reserve...
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