Extreme lazyness

I've been a bit quiet of late mainly because I am once again in the UK getting a bit of extra dosh and I felt a bit sulky about it to be honest but I've got over myself now. It's lucky that I can do it and that I have a brother who will pick me up at the airport and put me up in his spare room for the price of a couple of bars of French chocolate with raspberry bits in.

TS is at home looking after the gang, working and doing DIY on our house in my absence. I'm in two minds on this one. Half glad that I don't have to do it and half wanting to stick my oar in because I just can't bear not to be in charge. Actually I'm at least seven eighths glad that I don't have to do it and I can offer reams of advice and guidance by e-mail anyway.

To make sure I can play my part properly on my return I have been studying Extreme Makeover. Honestly that's the only reason. I don't really want to spend hours vegging out in front of the telly eating Martin's ice cream and crying buckets over all those tales of hardship while TS does all the work. I just want to do my bit. So whatever the house looks like I will jump up and down, scream and cry and shout Oh My God.

Come to think of it that will be fine either way won't it?

Just need to look up the French for bus driver move that bus and I'm sorted

Pumpkins and stuff

The first of the pumpkin harvest and a busy cooking day.

Cornish pasties (nothing to do with pumpkins but anyway a batch of 14 for the freezer)

Butternut squash soup was the next on the list to be followed by an attempt at pumpkin pie.

The large orange pumpkins were from a volunteer plant. I didn't have a big enough, sharp enough knife to slice through one but TS came to the rescue with his wood splitting axe and split one in four for me.

We were so busy chopping up this pumpkin and turning it into puree that I accidently invented a new recipe, butternut squash and ginger mash. This involves a couple of cloves of garlic, an onion, a carrot, a potato, a teaspoon of ginger, lovage and coriander leaves, two butternut squashes and a litre of vegetable stock. Combine as if for soup ie sweating veg first in butter then adding stock then forget about it while you wrestle with an oversized pumpkin so that the stock is absorbed by the veg and the excess boils away and the vegetables will mash with a fork. But catch it just before it starts catching on the pan. Delicious! I might try making it on purpose next time.

Just waiting for the pumpkin pie to cool now. If we like it I've got another 5lbs of pumpkin puree on standby.

A lazy excuse for a post

Sunday

What's a cat to do?

A spot of fishing

or just sitting on a pole


take a nap in the back seat of the car with the dog

or just have a lie in

It's all gone quiet over here

I've not been feeling right chatty of late or internetty really. I've had a stash of novels non of which were stunning but I felt like burying myself in them anyway.

So whats been going on?

Well we've finally got the floor varnished downstairs in our house, the main job that we moved out to do. A little moment of sadness there as we discovered paw prints made by Mimo behind the kitchen shelves the time she got covered in green Hammerite. I've varnished over them so they will always be there now.

I've half painted the shutters, a rather nice shade of lavender I feel. Just as well. A stage of the Tour de Limousin will starting more or less outside our house next week. It wouldn't do to have scruffy shutters now would it and be lowering the tone.

It's been raining lots so a whole bucket of tomatoes have gone on the compost due to being blighted. But my carrots are huge and sweet and carroty and the pumpkins are looking prrrretty damn good (that's them hexed now).

Next big job is putting in the stairs leading up to the attic. We need some big strong men for that as we've been given a solid oak staircase and it weighs a ton. So if you're passing . . .

Petula Gordino is roosting with the rest of the Dinnerladies rather than going off on her own and is finally part of the gang. Now that they can roam at will with no neighbours to annoy they have turned their attention to the one place we don't want them which is in the house. We seem to be constantly shooing them away from the kitchen door. Perhaps they just want to be with us. It seems that wherever we go to up here we have 5 chickens, a cockerel, two kittens and the dog following along behind

It's like a budget production odf the Pied Piper.

Anyway me, the Dinnerladies, Stan, Eddie, Ernie and Sissy are off to get the washing in now

Sturdy sheep smell spooky

I thought I would have a pic of them before they went. They are all coming over for their heads scratching

Petula Gordino

I just realised you don't know what she looks like. She's a bit of a blur I'm afraid

Moving House is Such Hard Work

My family and other people's animals

The Breezy Household has upped sticks and moved a couple of kilometres up the road to house sit for a friend who is currently somewhere between here and Scotland with five horses, four cats and two dogs. I racked my brains for something she had three of but couldn’t come up with anything. Sorry.

She has got three sheep but they are still here waiting for their new owner to pick them up. We don’t really have a clue about sheep but we are armed with a telephone number of someone who does. Anyway they don’t look too fragile. In fact they are the sturdiest sheep I’ve ever seen. They seem happy enough with a bit of fresh bedding and water and are just getting on with doing sheep stuff round the back.

We seem to have inherited Stan the cockerel and Mrs Stan who in keeping with the Dinnerladies theme is now Petula Gordino. She is keeping her distance from the Dinnerladies and roosts in one of the barns. Stan obviously has an eye for quantity over quality and roosts with our girls but goes running off every morning as soon as we let him out to search for his free spirited wife. I was entertaining thoughts of Warren x Maran chicks running around the place but judging by Stan’s behaviour I think not. He’s very good at the virile poses and the cock-a-doodle-doing but that’s as far as it goes. His love for the Dinnerladies and Petula is a pure courtly kind of love. He’ll defend them from the kittens to the death but there won’t be any of the other kind of nonsense thank you very much.

Eddie and Ernie are having the time of their lives stalking the Dinnerladies and being chased by Stan, playing at jungle warfare in the valerian, climbing trees and exploring the dark depths of the yew hedge. We no longer hear the thunder of tiny kitten feet while we are trying to get to sleep at night just have two exhausted little bundles curled up on the bed.

Now that Sissy is convinced that the two dogs, four cats, five horses are no longer about she has stopped going to sit in the car and is happily ambling around the place. The sheep are a bit scary though so she never ventures round the back of the house unaccompanied.

TS is off somewhere with a bill hook hacking through brambles exploring and looking for evidence of the fish farm that was once supposed to be here.
I’m missing my garden, especially since my replacement fork from Spear and Jackson was delivered yesterday. Still it’s only down the road. Failing that there is fifty acres to go at here.

Just pottering

I'm having a slow start today. With no need to charge off and do anything in particular I'm having a quick wander round everyone's blogs seeing what they've all been up to. Moonroot has been talking about creativity and how the Summer brings it out in her and also about the battery hens she has rescued. Read their stories I guarantee it will bring a tear to your eye.

Last year I so wanted to get everything just right and do everything that I had read about or seen on tv about self sufficiency. I spent lots of time running round in circles and I used up loads of energy worrying about how to do things instead of just getting on with it. This year I've calmed down a bit I'm the new chilled out me. I stay chilled out for oh hours at a time. With only slight episodes of veg plot envy and wishing for a finished house.

And low and behold

We have a wider range of potential food in the garden.

I'm using the food because it gets picked and I get on and make something with it.

I'm using up all the groceries I buy because I just get on and do something with them.

I have made

Redcurrant jelly - and used it with duck and in desserts

Apricot jam - with just enough apricots to make three jars instead of a boat load that put me under pressure to use them all.

Roast Aubergine and Tomato Quiche and Roast Aubergine and Tomato Soup I didn't think I liked aubergines

Beetroot Soup - a delicious surprise, who would of thought that would taste great?

oh and many curries and cornish pasties to fill up the freezer and make quick meals for working days and lots of other stuff.

Today I'm going to work in the garden till lunchtime when it gets too hot. Then cook up yesterday's shopping and whatever I get out of the garden this morning.

So sorry but I just have to get on now because next door has far more stuff growing than me.

Spear and Jackson You are great

My favourite gardening thing is my Spear and Jackson border fork. It was my treat, a really good fork stainless steel with a wooden handle all traditional looking. It made me feel like a proper gardener. At least it did till TS managed to break the handle.

I have looked in vain for a replacement handle and of course every English person I mention it to says "Ah fork handles! The Two Ronnies!". So this morning I decided to look at their web site. I e-mailed them to ask if they had a stockist near Limoges or someone who could supply one mail order to France, mentioning to TS that they were in Sheffield so were bound to be nice folks.

Well they were. I had an e mail back today to say if I supplied them with my address and an image of the fork they would send me a replacement fork under guarantee. I am amazed and delighted

For those of you who don't immediately think of the Two Ronnies whenever fork handles are mentioned