Unfinished business

A friend once asked me, "Why don't you just finish one thing before starting another?" That was about thirty years ago and I still haven't resolved the issue. I always have several sewing and knitting projects on the go; there is always at least one room in the house with half-sorted bookshelves, drawers or boxes just waiting for me to find time to finish; I've been working on the family tree for several years, ditto the sorting and assembling of family photos. I could go on but I can't change the habit of a lifetime by actually finishing something!

That particular friend had the most organised house I have ever seen but I confess that her tidiness used to unnerve me. I expect she felt overwhelmed by my chaos but we got on surprisingly well together, she with her routines and order and me with my rushes of enthusiasm for trying new things.

Our resident blackbirds are rather like me. They produced four babies and as soon as they fledged they started on another clutch.  Mr Blackbird is busy feeding the first lot, while Mrs B is sitting on the nest. I'm afraid there only seem to be two fat little youngsters now, although it is hard to spot them in the undergrowth where they have taken up residence.

Yesterday one made it up onto the birdbath, so I think they will be fully independent soon and Mr B can get back to looking after his wife.

 

Meanwhile we have taken on some of his duties, providing Mrs B with a constant supply of food so that she doesn't have to leave the nest unattended for too long.

The garden is another example of my haphazard approach to life. I started with a plan; a very costly plan as I consulted an expert. We went through catalogues and design books and agreed on colours, shapes, height of plants and so on. Then my true nature took over and I have added whatever pleases me and the bees and butterflies. The garden will never be "finished" according to the plan, but I don't think I would like too much order there. Even this rose chose not to wait for one bloom to die before producing two more on the same stem:

 

Chaos reigns and I love it!

 

I am currently spending as many hours as I can in the garden, pottering about, reading and simply enjoying the abundance of life. It is an excellent way of avoiding finishing off those tasks that are waiting indoors.

One project I do plan to finish soon, though, is a quilt for baby grandson, Benjamin. Here is what I've done so far:

Twenty-four little boats, ready to be assembled. I'll have to press on because I'm already planning the next project, something for granddaughter Charlotte's first birthday in August.(Yes, Fern, I can hear you telling me to concentrate on one thing at a time. I'm sure I am better than I was thirty years ag. Oops. Perhaps not.)

A question of frogs

Granddaughter Amelia, better known as Millie, is now two and a quarter years old. Her language development is a constant source of surprise bordering on wonder to us.  I was having a telephone conversation with my daughter yesterday when we were politely interrupted:

Millie: I would like to speak to Grandma.

Mummy: All right, darling. Go ahead.

Millie: Grandma, I have a question for you.

Me: A question? What about?

Millie: I have a question about frogs, Grandma.

Me: I'm listening and I'll try to answer your question. What is it?

Millie: My question is - what colour are frogs? Are they green or brown?

Me: Mmm. That could be a tricky question but I think frogs are green.
Millie: No, Grandma. Orange!  (Giggles)
Me: You caught me out there.

Millie: Now I have a question about food for you.

Mummy: Beware, mum, she gives two options but the answer is always a third!
 
Outwitted by a two year old. What will it be like when she is fifteen or even two and three quarters?

What ho!

One of the first things we did when we bought our current home was to drop the name it had been given when it ceased to be a farmhouse. "I refuse to live in a house with an exclamation mark," I said. The house had been called Westward Ho!, now it glories in being plain number 20.

We went to visit the seaside village the house had been named after, which itself had been named after Charles Kingsley's book.  We didn't stay long, finding the place run down and rather tacky and we haven't been back in the 21 years since. Until yesterday, that is, and what a transformation: bright new seafront buildings, everywhere trim and sparkling clean, everyone friendly and helpful.

In case you think I am making up the exclamation mark in the name, here's a picture of the Post Office:

(click on picture for a clearer view)

There is a beautiful 2-mile long sandy beach:

plenty of rock pools to explore

and the pebble ridge, which protects the nearby golf course from the sea.

Until 2008 local people would gather on the beach twice a year for "potwalloping."

Everyone would gather the pebbles that had been washed down by the tides and pile them back onto the ridge. I hear there was much frivolity and local ale involved. The ending of this practice has endangered the oldest golf course in England and destroyed another local tradition.

 For those who find the sea too cold or too big, there is a very convenient beach pool.

Until yesterday, I thought that North Devon beaches lacked beach huts but Westward Ho! has a row of them. Behold:

I got really excited when I saw them. We used to have one on the beach at Eastney when we lived in Hampshire and we had great fun there when the children were small.

Up the hill, beyond the beach huts, we saw what we thought might be Bates' motel.

The closer we got, the more convinced we became so we turned back at this point.

Heading down to the esplanade again, we looked across to "our side of the bay." You can't make out our village because of the mist but the headland is Baggy Point.

  We couldn't see any evidence of the shabby seaside resort of twenty years ago. The ice cream van, a stall selling shell fish from Lundy Island and a couple of cafes provide the seafront refreshments.

and we didn't have to have fish and chips, we sat outside at a bistro, enjoying the sea view and a very pleasant lunch.

Having wasted twenty years, thinking Westward Ho! was a place to be avoided at all costs, we fell in love with it. Should we move to one of the seafront apartments? Or perhaps this would suit our taste and pocket more:

I would still find it difficult to live in a place with an exclamation mark, though!!

In the garden

May is the best month in my garden and we had some lovely sunny weather to encourage outdoor living. It has been lovely to have all our meals outside; to watch the blackbirds busy foraging for their hungry babies; to sit and knit while the bees were busy among the flowers.

Already everything is beginning to look straggly. I spent this morning trimming back the honeysuckle, ivy and shrubs that threatened to block the paths. The bluebells look decidedly grey now and the white lilac blossom is turning brown. Fortunately I remembered to take my camera out with me on several occasions so here is a brief summary of the garden in May:

The first of the poppies to open

with lots more buds waiting.

First strawberries

Helping the blackbirds out with meal worms

Completed cardigan for granddaughter Charlotte

and one for Millie.

Columbine invading the herb garden - not an unwelcome intruder

weigela florida

And what could be better than afternoon tea in the garden with scones made from one of Nan's recipes?

It is a long time since I mentioned the books I have been reading. I'll save those for another day.

Home

My daughter is moving into her new house today. It is a huge undertaking with an active toddler and a new baby, so I hope the day goes smoothly. The new house has a large garden with a pond, fruit trees, a vegetable plot and plenty of room for the children to play. The beehives will soon be on their way from London and I'm looking forward to comparing Oxfordshire honey with the London honey we've enjoyed for several years.

I'm sure the house will be a home very soon. This poem sums up what my home is to me (except for the reference to the cat) and I can't wish for anything better for my daughter and her family:

I've come to know a place I can call home:

It walls me gently round, it gives me space,

It offers me stillness, it contains my fears,

It roofs me safely under, gifts me grace,

It is both books and art, colour and light,

It shelves and stacks me, my life storage space;

It's work and love and dust and green growing things,

It's laughter, friends and food, it's cat's own place,

It is so full of me and all I am,

I've come to know a home, a sacred space.

Rosie Miles

A miracle of deliverance

"A miracle of deliverance" is how Winston Churchill described the evacuation of British and French troops from the beaches of Dunkirk between 26 May and 4 June 1940. More than 330,000 men were stranded, driven back to the coast by the advancing German army.  Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay  masterminded Operation Dynamo, a plan to rescue as many men as possible.

A fleet of cargo ships, passenger ferries, barges and coasters was assembled at Dover and Southampton, with Royal Navy minesweepers, corvettes and destroyers for protection. However, the shallow slope of the beaches of Dunkirk prevented the ships from getting close to the shore, so smaller craft would be needed to ferry the soldiers from the beaches out to the ships waiting a mile off shore. 800 pleasure boats, lifeboats, Thames barges, tugs and fishing boats set off with volunteer crews, many of whom had never sailed outside coastal waters. Under attack from German fighter planes and bombers, dodging mines and submarines and under fire from coastal defences, they picked up soldiers from the beaches, took them to the waiting ships and went back for more.

 

 About 338,000 British troops were rescued and, on the last night, some 26,000 of the French rearguard were picked up by British, French ,Belgian and Dutch vessels.

 The 70th anniversary is being commemorated by a smaller fleet of small boats  making that same journey under very different circumstances. Many of them took part in Operation Dynamo and have been proudly restored for this occasion. Sometimes I am very proud to be British!

Merry month of May

There are twelve months in all the year,

As I hear many men say,

But the merriest month in all the year

Is the merry month of May.

(Oxford Book of Ballads)

We are certainly enjoying some perfect May weather with the temperature in the shadiest part of the garden reaching 27C(81F). It is so nice to be able to eat in the garden, starting with an early breakfast while watching the blackbirds zooming in and out of the garage with breakfast for their noisy babies. I managed to get this shot of one little open beak but Mr Blackbird soon hustled me out:

 We think there are four little ones in there but it is difficult to get a good look.

Whether it's Shakespeare or H.E Bates, I can't help thinking of the darling buds of May as I look around the garden. My brother has asked me to refrain from posting lots of photos as they take too long to download, so I'll restrict myself to this peony:

"perfick" as Pop Larkin might say.

At lunchtime we watched the blackbirds still zooming around gathering food for their little ones while we ate some gorgeous local asparagus with hollandaise sauce accompanied by a perfectly chilled Chablis.  I wish Mr Blackbird could have joined us but his only rest is a brief time perching on the lilac outside the garage, ensuring that no-one is following him into the nursery.

The garden ought to be declared a hard hat area as the birds skim our heads at high speed. I know that parenting is hard work but I don't think I was ever so busy as these blackbirds. 

I'm heading back for the garden now: my husband has fired up the barbecue and he is cooking supper. Perfick!

Household gadgets

Jodi, of Curious Acorn, has a most fascinating job as a living historian and today she has posted about the cookery demonstrations she gives in the kitchen of 1790. There are photos of the simple utensils that were used and lots of information about how people lived then. I love to visit this kind of museum and always head for the kitchen because it gives a clear insight into the daily lives of people of all classes.

In the days before mechanical and electronic labour-saving devices were available, the kitchens of rich and poor were probably similarly equipped, differing only in the size of room, the quantity of spoons, bowls and pots and, more significantly, the distribution of labour! The farm labourer's wife with a brood of 8 children to feed and clothe would have spent all of her waking hours in the kitchen, while the farmer's wife would have had a couple of girls to help her and the squire's wife probably had a housekeeper, cook and a host of servants.

How different today's kitchens:  light, airy and clean and crammed with utensils, gadgets and machines. My cottage is about 350 years old and I've been looking around the kitchen to see what would have to go if I were to try to live like the original inhabitant. Goodbye Aga and gas hob; farewell washing machine, tumble dryer and dishwasher; out with the steam iron, food processor, Kenwood Chef, microwave oven, centrifugal juicer, citrus juicer, electric toaster; then we have the cupboards and drawers filled with smaller gadgets: whisks, apple corers, peelers, presses and all manner of handy little tools that would have mystified my grandmother.

These are some of the things I found in a drawer. They have probably been there for years, I can't remember how they got there. Can you guess what they are?  One is a Tea Drip Catcher, one a SqueezeEase 'ideal for most types of tube' and I had to open the other item to discover its purpose:

Well, who doesn't need a set of labels for their cheese board?

I can remember the day that my mother got her first washing machine and later on a vacuum cleaner and what a difference they made to her life. I would hate to be without those items and I have serious withdrawal symptoms when I'm away from the Aga:

But I could probably get by without most of things I currently think of as essential. How about you? What is your most treasured or essential gadget and what is the most useless or trivial thing in your kitchen?

Boxty

Boxty on the griddle,

Boxty in the pan.

If you can't make boxty,

You'll never get a man.

I'm not actually looking for a new man in my life but I decided to make some boxty at the weekend anyway. There are many different recipes for this traditional Irish potato pancake and I suppose everyone's grandmother's was the best. I sort of made this one up from a mixture of childhood memory and guesswork:

Ingredients

8oz raw potato, grated

8oz mashed potato

4oz plain flour (US all-purpose)

1 egg, beaten

1 tablespoon chopped wild garlic stems or spring onions (scallions)

Milk or buttermilk to mix

Method

Mix the grated and mashed potato together. Stir in the flour and garlic/onion and season with salt and pepper. Add the beaten egg and enough milk to make a batter that will drop from the spoon. Cook on a griddle or shallow fry for about 3 minutes on each side, until golden brown. Serve with bacon and eggs.

The best place to eat boxty and other traditional Irish dishes is at Gallagher's Boxty House in Dublin. Mine didn't match their high standard but we all enjoyed it. If you have a different recipe for boxty, I'd love to hear it.

Tiger cub

An email from my daughter this morning brought this picture of Millie. Who wouldn't welcome this tiger to tea?

Knitted yoke

Over the weekend, I tried out a new (to me) knitting technique: a yoke for a little jacket. It looked tricky but turned out to be much easier than I expected:

Here is the short-sleeved jacket, knitted in cashmerino aran yarn.

I'll be posting it off to Millie today, together with a little summer dress. I hope the sunshine returns soon so that she can wear them!

As I was working on the yoke, I couldn't help thinking of a certain lace collar in Cranford. Thank goodness I have no cat!

Bring us a Trollopian Prime Minister

".... He should have rank, and intellect, and parliamentary habits, by which to bind him to the service of his country; and he should also have unblemished, unextinguishable, inexhaustible love of country ... as the ruling principle of his life; and it should so rule him that all other things should be made to give way to it.... " 

I wish!

Just M

I'm sure that I will soon be longing for the sounds of hectic life which have filled my days for the past months but right now I am enjoying a little tranquillity. I have had a week of catching up with chores in the house and garden and I've even read a book that wasn't written by Julia Donaldson. I haven't been Mum or Grandma - just M.

While I wasn't paying attention, the garden has been turning blue. The pinks and reds of magnolia and camellia have been replaced by the blues of ceanothus, wisteria, Spanish bluebells and some Heavenly Blue lithodora in the neglected rockery.

With no visitors to cater for, I put away the tablecloths and got out the everyday place mats that a friend made for us more than thirty years ago. How threadbare and shabby they looked:

time to put the sewing machine into action again.  My former needlework teacher would surely find many faults but I am pleased with my new double-sided mats. I can have a yellow or blue themed table, or even mix them!

The me-centred interval will soon pall but just for a little while longer I will enjoy being just M.