Experimenting with reseeding the lawn
This lovely hot summer and the pile of rocks that I dug out of the herbaceous borders have connived to wreck the lawn in the herbaceous garden. The grass paths in the kitchen garden aren’t too bad as they have been watered with the overspill from the borders. But when we peek out of the back door we saw a desert of cracked mud and yellowing grass. Even during cooler summers the pounding of tiny Min Pin paws always results in a long grass free dried mud path down the garden. This year I was determined to crack this problem. Sensible...
read moreThis past year
Three years ago when I explained my first “save money blog challenge” to my mum – not to buy cut flowers for a year – her response was immediate. “But this is terrible. You love flowers. Why would you want to stop buying them?” This was the toughest challenge. Far harder than cutting our weekly shopping bills by 50%. I did plant extra perennials in the garden and gradually came to love the gentle look of these. Home grown flowers have far more life and charm than the rather stiff offerings from florists and supermarkets....
read moreA new coleslaw dressing recipe
I’m a big mustard fan. I always make fresh English mustard (Colman’s) from powder when we are having steak. I also have a passion for French’s mustard – with sausages ideally. I like the little sombrero hat that acts as a lid and the funny windy, squishy sound when you squeeze the pack. In fact one day when we were preparing lunch one day – soup and sandwiches – I thought Danny’s table matters had really gone downhill. When I heard that sound I thought that he was sampling the soup rather than adding some zing to the...
read moreEgg and bacon pie recipe
As a child egg and bacon pie was a traditional picnic dish and I loved it. This is not a quiche. The eggs are unbroken and the texture and flavour of the combination of short crust pastry, floury egg yolks, silky egg whites and thick cut bacon is out of this world. I had forgotten all about this pie until The Chicken Lady served it when we went the Hampton Court Flower Show two years ago. I could have guzzled the entire pie but politeness made me hold back and only accept two slices. Since then I have dreamt about it, on and off. Faced with...
read moreAlastair Sawday’s Eat Slow Britain: a review
I first discovered Alastair Sawday’s books when I picked up a copy of Special Places to Stay. It was referred to constantly by the travelling consultants in the company where I was working at the time. Up until then I had always felt a bit sorry for them – always being booked into B&Bs. The book introduced me to some of the wonderful B&Bs available throughout the UK. They were indeed very special places to stay and a far cry from the soulless hotel chains. Since then Sawday has steadily increased the reach and depth of his guides...
read moreUpdate on the dog poo/poop wormery
We’ve had our dog poo wormery for a month now. Finally the worms have got up to speed and are digesting all three Min Pin’s daily poo. The trick is to build up slowly – initially just adding small amounts as needed and disposing of the rest of the poo in the usual way. Despite being small dogs our three Min Pins produce a surprisingly large amount of poo – probably the equivalent to one large dog or two medium sized dogs. I was lucky that I discovered a wormery that came with 1500 worms (most are supplied with just 500) so we...
read moreThe potpourri project: How to make a simple solar drier
Rose petals are an important ingredient in many potpourri mixtures. You can buy rose petals online at around £15.00 for 500g. That seemed like an awful lot of money until I started drying our own rose petals. I large rose weighing 150g produces approximately 10g of dried petals. I’ve also found these – 2 Ltrs of rose petals but am not sure how much 2 litres of rose petals actually weighs. Luckily, even though we dug up our long rose walk there were a lot of other roses dotted about the garden. Mainly French, climbing and...
read moreRecipe to add zest to boiled rice, frittata and other dishes
Simple boiled rice, such as good basmati, or a dish like frittata can be a joy, especially if you add a little something to lift it above the ordinary. In my wilder years, I learned to cook by trial and error after accepting a position in a Chelsea, London household even though I did not have the foggiest idea of even how to boil an egg. Nowadays I would probably be summarily fired after Day Two but this couple were exceptionally kind people. On this blog I call them Smart Wife and Kind Husband. In England, the term Smart means relatively...
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