‘The Bad Beekeeper’s Club’ by Bill Turnbull : a review
Bill Turnbull’s interest in honey bees was tweaked when a swarm arrived in his garden and was removed by a local beekeeper. A few years later he took a local beekeeping course and was not daunted by his first painful stings. He had arrived for a practical beekeeping session straight from a TV studio. Unaware that bees have an aversion to hair gel, he was stung twice on the head. When he finally managed to get into his bee suit he found that a bee was trapped inside the veil. But even this horror didn’t put him off beekeeping. In fact...
read moreFinally I can grow mint!
When I moved to the cottage 18 years ago, I made a cute little herb bed just beside the kitchen’s back door. The marjoram, sage and oregano thrived. But the little thyme hedge died every winter and the parsley keeled over every summer. Since then I’ve learnt that parsley likes a lot of water and this border is very dry. And you know my history when it comes to growing mint. In the end, I gave up on the thyme hedge and Danny decided to grow his two favourite herbs (parsley and thyme) in an old bath that had been discarded by one of my...
read morePerfect temporary part time job
“Can you handle live worms? That’s what the turtles eat.” My stomach churned. I generously gave Danny the delight of tipping the worms into the dog poo composter last week. “Of course I can.” Proud to the bitter end. “There are not many worms in here at the moment but don’t worry, when you come to feed them there will be plenty.” I peered into the small tin. Lots of sandy stuff and a few worms. Fine. S tossed a few into the tank and a very capacious reptile guzzled the lot. I was fascinated by her. An ‘ancient’ head and...
read moreUpdate on the flower farming project
My project to grow and sell cut flowers is now getting exciting. We sold our first bunches this week to our local village shop.
read moreDog poo wormery
We have two compost heaps and a large traditional kitchen waste composter but still need more compost than we can make. So I started looking at the possibility of investing in a worm composter. The worm casts that are made create a great compost and the wormery also collects a liquid feed that can be diluted and fed to plants and shrubs. Organic fertilisers can be very expensive. Although we are now making comfrey and nettle tea, sometimes plants need that extra boost. Then I discovered that there are wormerys that convert dog poo into...
read moreBeef and broccoli stir fry recipe with oyster mushrooms and noodles
A great beef stir-fry need not have much meat. You can pad it out with most any vegetables you have to hand. Slice your beef thinly to 2mm bites and take care to cook the veggies starting with the tougher ones that may take longer.
read moreSkirt of beef recipe stir fried with baby vegetables and red wine
Skirt of beef (also known as Flank Steak, Fajita Meat, Skirt Steak and Philadelphia Steak) is not well known in the UK. It has an excellent texture and flavour somewhere between sirloin and fillet steak. It can be used as a fried steak or here in a stir fry as well as in stews.
read moreRavenwood Hall Hotel: Review and top marks
Having given me a clean bill of health on the MS and going gaga front, the neurologist put down his pen and announced, “The next thing that I want you to do is to book a holiday.” The ensuing silence was almost squeezable. “We don’t take holidays,” Danny eventually responded. (We can’t really afford them in normal circumstances and with me having been off work for months a ‘normal’ holiday was out of the question). “But we do sometimes go to the coast for a day. It’s a great break,” Danny continued. After a pause the...
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