Noticing, good and bad.

I'm tired. No reason, no big deal, but I am so tired this week. Still, the upside of going a little slower is that you notice things, though truthfully I am one of life's noticers anyway and have always loved to spot treasures to bring home or espy the berries ripening in hedgerows. Still, just now I am finding myself sitting on the bench or strolling around the garden when I should be hanging washing, and noticing all sorts, some good, some not so. Here are a few things I noticed today: roses...



This one is called Ballerina and flowers almost all year.




Typially I have forgotten the name of this one, but it is twining its way through the bay hedge and lighting the darker leaves with its creamy blooms outside Davey's writing room.



This one cimbs through our tangled border in the front garden



Then I notice these three chaps, for chaps they are. They are cuckoo maran chicks which we will be eventually having for the pot. I realise some may find this not to their liking, but it is best to be honest. We have reared and eaten our own ducks and hens in the past, feeling that the main point here is to ensure they have a good, well-cared for life before-hand, which they will. These arrived yesterday and have settled well so far, scratching around and scoffing as much food as they can get their beaks on. The children have no allusions as to their eventual fate and understand that this is part of the way we choose to live; I hope the notion of taking responsibilty will always be with them.



Of course, that does not mean Isabella should take it into her own head to feed the animals without being asked - how many times she has been told! I see even Tiger-Lily is doing her bit.



although it has to be said, Tiger-Lily does enjoy a ride in the doll's pushchair



Hmm, and then I noticed this all over the plum tree...yeuch!



Truly gross.



One of my daughters took this photo of my new haircut (about 6 months overdue I might add) and I notice the silver threads beginning to wend their way through...sigh.



But never mind as I am also noticing this is almost ready to quaff - my very most favourite drink ever....eldeflower champagne.



Scrumptious!


Have a lovely weekend x

Elderflowers, Allotments and a Strange Thing to Say.

It's that time of year again, a time when we are almost inundated with fermentation buckets and demi-johns full off all manner of elderflowery concoctions. As I said in a previous post, the hedgerows are just laden this year and cannot be resisted, so Isabella and I set off to gather some ready for a gallon or three of elderflower champagne as a change from the cordials we have already got underway. In fact, we are only just finishing the very last of the previous year's batch of cordial and will need to make a similarly large amount this time to see us through once more. I have put the recipe for elderflower cordial back onto my website so click if you would like to have a go.



I have such a gatherer's instinct and cannot bear empty cupboards. I positively thrive on stacking the wood away in autumn, scouring hedgerows for anything that can be made into chutneys, jams and beverages or cooked up into delicious meals. I have never been any different and have made things like this almost my entire life, yet the pleasure of it never leaves me. I am lucky in that Dave is the same and also has made wines, etc since he was young and so we share in this love of the countryside and all it offers, creating our own version of it in our garden. The mixed hedgerow in the front is overgrown and desperately in need of a sort through, yet it offers food for goldfinches and blue tits, hedgehogs and slowworms, frogs and toads - why change anything then? Tom and I sat for a brief tea break today and watched young dragonflies and shimmering damselflies of azure blue hover for a moment before darting away.



Before collecting elderflowers Isabella and I had a brief stint at the allotment, digging some new potatoes and a few other bits and bobs after sowing a bed of peas together. Man can that girl throw a long way! This is what we found today: onions



sprouts



Blackcurrants are ripening ready to be turned into ice-creams and cordials and wines, and to nestle on soft pillows of cream for a summer day's pavlova




Broad beans are almost ready and we picked a few tiny ones to add to the red and green salad leaves from the cut-and-come-again patch. I love to add chive and nasturtium flowers, mint, marjoram and rocket from our home garden too.



At home the figs are looking good again. Last year we ate some for the first time and they were just heavenly with that seductive velvetiness of the ripened fruit mingling with the syrupy juices...mmm.



You know, when I was pregnant with Isabella some poor deluded fool once said to me that I wouldn't be able to have any holidays for years now....this keeps coming back into my mind of late as it was such a bizarre thing to say to someone like me. Firstly, I couldn't see why a child would stop anyone having a holiday if they wanted one. Secondly, are holidays that important (and if so I question the homelife) and lastly, but most importantly to me - child or holidays? Abslolutely no contest as I get to do all these wonderful things every day, every year with Davey all our lovely children (even the older ones who head off all over the place and still love to come back for more, though the pic below is a few years old now as we haven't done strawberry picking for a while, but I am currently eating masses so it seemed relevant!).



Yep, no contest.


And anyway, look where we live!



Have a lovely weekend xx

Time flying by.

Where is the time going? I can't seem to keep up with the children, the seasons, the world....ah well, let's have a glass of something nice and let it all flow past. Here is me and my nose (sigh) enjoying a glass of elderflower champagne on the wet and windy day that was the solstice.





Our champagne has a slight problem this year in that it is making so much fizz it disperses almost as soon as it is poured into the glass leaving a faint tinge of disappointment. It starts well as can be seen in the picture below, but just doesn't last - such a shame as the taste is just unbelievable: nothing like the elderflower cordial (still time to make some people and our recipe is here), it's a different, deeper, just beautiful flavour that fills the mouth with gorgeousness. Oh I can't explain it but it is just the best. Well, apart from the disappearing bubbles which are so violent that they burst our pressurised beer barrel - we don't make anything in small amounts here and had to fill a couple of kegs with the stuff! We will work out the problem and how to resolve it and in the meantime just sip away.






The weather this weekend was appalling: rain, dull, grey and dull again. The sun did make an appearance on Sunday for a while, but I was glued to the sewing machine and was unable to take advantage of it unlike Mr Dave and the children who popped off to the allotment. The grass there was rather long and so Dave tackled that while Elias and Lucy sowed seeds of various vegetables which they forgot to write the names of - they'll have great fun guessing what they are as they grow. I, meanwhile, felt a great sense of satisfaction at boxing up this little lot of lovelies before starting work on the next wholesale order...phew!





The garden is going through a change with agapanthus flowers just beginning to break, loosestrife and margeurites vying for attention and hot pink lychnis peeping in and out of the greenery. The posy at the top is composed of chive flowers, alchemilla mollis, yellow loosestrife and feverfew; not the best photo as the light was so poor, but a burst of colour nonetheless. The redcurrants are ready for picking - in fact I think I have missed some already - and look just wonderful; I like to use them on pavlovas or on top of cakes as a decoration, but I might freeze some to use with berries later on in the autumn in a mixed berry cordial.





That's it for today. Have a lovely rest of Wednesday everyone xx

Elderfower magic.

Yesterday afternoon I decided I had finally had enough of feeling like rubbish - great grammar there. Sick of feeling that I was on a merry-go-round of problems and worries with no control; in other words, I felt I had become someone life happens to rather than someone who makes life happen and it doesn't suit me. Maybe I am a bit of a control freak, but I find this a scary way to live, always wondering what the next 'thing' will be or dreading collecting the post/ answering the phone for fear of more bad news. This is not living as I know it and yesterday I had enough.





I collected Sam and Lucy from school and drove to pretty Mylor Bridge (yes, I have mentioned it a before as I love it so). This pretty creek village has a post office right on the water and I needed to collect car tax, so a trip seemed worth the short drive. I think with hindsight - that wonderous thing - that I probably felt the need to be soothed and feel a bit safe, for want of a better word, and Mylor has always been that place for me. Anyway, the children sat in the car watching the boats bob on the high tide and the kids playing football in the field on the opposite bank until I returned and then it hit me: we go on a harvesting fest! Nothing better than a spot of gathering when you feel a bit blue, so we drove home, collected Mr Dave (who was miraculously early for once) and headed back to the lanes of Mylor.





It was such fun, more so because I expected Sam to say he would stay at home as he is 18 now and has done this for most of his life, but he practically leapt into the car and brought a smile to his mamma's face with his eagerness to participate - bless him. Jolly handy too as his 6ft plus height could reach far higher than either me or Dave.





We walked, we drove, stopping the car whenever we spotted another cluster of bushes (and I am talking lanes that probably see a tractor a few times a year not busy side lanes here). It was such fun watching everybody clutching their bags of the gorgeous creamy flowers with that magical perfume you either love or loathe rather like Marmite. Finally we headed for home where dinner was eaten, baby bathed and put to bed and the elderflowers counted - 110 flower umbels in all! Good grief! And just in case anyone is worried here, we made sure we left plenty on each plant and there were still plenty to come (hurray, elderberry wine/cordial/jelly...).





So here's what we made - two vats of elderflower cordial and one huge batch of elderflower champagne which unfortunately doesn't keep too long and will have to be drunk rather quickly to avoid wastage...oh dear! In all we made gallons of the stuff, but more importantly we had such a grat time doing it.





And do I feel more like me? Yes I do. Will it last? Probably not but
it's a start, and there's always the champagne when the going gets tough! So my thought for all those feeling blue today is to get thee out into some countryside if at all possible and pick these beautiful flowers. Cordial can also be made with dried flowers so town dwellers can still join in and if the bushes in your area aren't flowering yet then you can still go out to earmark the ones you will be using.





P.S. Thank you all so much for the good wishes; it means a lot x

PPS. We've also been making ginger beer, but I'll save that for another day! xx