birthdays

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As a child I always knew my age down to the month. Birthdays were a longed for day, even if we didn’t have big celebrations, because there was often something we could do when we reached the magic age. I was told I could grow my hair long when I reached ten (though of course I’d gone off the idea by then) and for some reason I imagined that when I reached seventeen I’d suddenly turn into a glamorous person frequenting sophisticated parties (which didn’t happen). But after the milestones of being old enough to drive, to vote and drink, followed by a birthday bash for reaching 21, the significance of birthdays seemed to fade. For ten years, I thought I was still 22 so it was always a bit of a shock when I worked out my real age. I still have to work it out now, though if I reach 100 I’m sure I’ll be only too happy to tell everyone what a great age I am.

rhubarb jelly

The result of this lack of enthusiasm means that nowadays we don’t celebrate birthdays in our house beyond having birthday cake and jelly, unless of course it’s an important 0 birthday. The cake is always home-made and each of us has our favourite; I’ve made coca cola cake, a multitude of chocolate cakes, cakes decorated with sweets, a cake in the shape of a pig’s head and my favourite coffee cake.

It was Bill’s birthday this week so we celebrated with Rhubarb Crumble Cake and Rhubarb Jelly (we know how to live!), which was a good combination because the rhubarb was used for the cake and the juice for the jelly. Luckily Bill likes rhubarb.

a spring day

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Is it spring? Or has it been and gone?

We seem to be in a cycle of one glorious sunny day followed by a few grey dismal days. Everything in the garden is behind. Winter clothes that were put away for the summer have gradually been slipped back on. In the evenings we sit shivering until we relent and light the fire.

But there are signs of spring; the apple trees in the garden are a froth of blossom, the petals littering the grass like confetti.

We have tadpoles! A sure sign of spring. We saw a lone tadpole or two swimming gamely along the edge of the pond, but then noticed that this bucket, which had been blown into the pond (and I’ve been meaning to retrieve for the past week) was just a mass of tadpoles. I’m not sure how many will get eaten by the ducks, but with luck some will survive.

And apropos of nothing, this traction engine chugged past the end of the farm entrance this afternoon. A slightly bizarre sight.

oh I do like to be beside the seaside

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If ever you want to go walking in England, choose a fine, sunny day in May when everything is gloriously green and verdant, when wildflowers poke through the grass, arable crops outstrip the weeds, birds sing above and there seems to be a new smell at every turn from the unmistakable tang of the sea, the scent of bluebells in woodland to the glorious sweet coconut fragrance of the gorse flowers. Should you be undecided about which walk to take, although my favourite walk is the Greenwich Meridian Trail, I can wholeheartedly recommend the Norfolk Coast Path, if only because it’s so easy to jump onto a Coast Hopper bus at the beginning or end of the day’s walk.

Cley next the Sea

Having completed the first section of the Norfolk Coast Path, we returned to Wells next the Sea, and headed for Blakeney along the edge of the salt marsh, threading our way along paths that cut between gorse bushes. After a quick stop for lunch, we walked along the top of the sea bank as it curved out seawards and then inland to the village of Cley next the Sea where bird watchers massed, standing with eyes and binoculars to the skies.

We headed for the beach and hoped our boots were waterproof as dipped our hands in the sea and walked along the sand, then trudged through the shingle. Boy was that hard work. We walked one side of the shingle bank, then on top, then the other side but whichever route we took it was a slog and I was more than happy to cut across the fields to Salthouse. One of the delights of a walk through villages of pretty flint cobbled cottages is that the resultant tourists mean there’s usually somewhere to buy food and drink so that the walk soon became punctuated with an ice cream here and a drink there. At Salthouse we ate Cromer crab and stocked up with local fudge tucked into the rucksack for Ron (later on).

Next morning we waited for the first Coast Hopper bus of the day with a crowd of who all seemed to know one another; some were going on a jolly to Hunstanton while one couple were on a booze cruise, planning to go to the far end of the bus route and work their way back on the bus, stopping at every village for a drink. It was standing room only as we travelled west, with no space to pick up passengers waiting at the bus stops, much to their obvious discontent. Most of those waiting seemed to be friends of people already on the bus and there was much cheering and waving as we passed them, followed by phone calls to arrange a meeting place when they finally managed to catch a bus.

Jumping off the bus at Weybourne we walked down to the beach, the shingle (thankfully) gave way to grassy clifftop and the ground rose steadily as we walked towards Sheringham, a steam train passing by en route.

Norfolk Coast Path back towards Water Hill

Looking back towards Weybourne

ahead towards Sheringham

As we climbed Skelding Hill we looked back at the curving coastline, sheltering small rural villages and ahead to the seaside towns of Sheringham and Cromer. From Sheringham the path cuts inland, past innumerable caravan parks and uphill through woodland to the highest point in Norfolk, followed by a swift descent past yet more caravan parks and into Cromer where we walked down to the beach in front of the pier, ending our 400 mile walk (albeit done in several stages) from Lyme Regis on the south coast along the Wessex Ridgeway, Ridgeway, Icknield Way, a little bit of Peddars Way and the Norfolk Coast Path to the east coast and …

The End

… well, that’s always the problem at the end of these long distance walks. There should be a brass band playing or at the very least a button you can press to play a little fanfare but there’s nothing but a bit of an anti climax. All around us, people milled about eating fish and chips, licking ice creams, sitting on benches or leaning on the railings staring out to sea. I wanted to punch the air and do a little dance but we just smiled at each other and said “we’ve done it”. Then there seemed nothing for it but to celebrate with some fish and chips and a beer. And of course, plan the next walk.

in my kitchen – May 2013

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Once again I’m joining in with Celia’s In My Kitchen where bloggers around the world link to Fig Jam and Lime Cordial to give a peek into their kitchens.

In my kitchen this May …

… hedgerow pesto made with stinging nettles, wild garlic leaves, cleavers, jack-by-the-hedge leaves, walnuts, rapeseed oil and cheddar cheese. On melba toast. Is melba toast so retro that’s it’s back in fashion? Maybe if it’s made with sourdough bread. Maybe not. Anyway, it reminds me of chicken liver pate with melba toast in the 1970s and fashionable or not, it’s easy to make by toasting a slice of bread on both sides, cutting the slice in half horizontally ie making two slices out of one, then toasting the cut sides. It keeps crisp in a tin.

In my kitchen this May …

… asparagus. I don’t mind whether the spears are short and fat or tall and spindly, so long as there’s asparagus in May. I put a saucepan of water on to boil, nip out to cut the asparagus and put it straight into the water. From garden to plate in a few minutes. We’ve only just started cutting and are still happy to eat platefuls of asparagus with melted butter but after a couple of weeks we’ll dip the spears in soft boiled duck eggs and roll them up in brown bread and butter.

In my kitchen this May …

… rhubarb. The first fruit of spring and a very welcome sight as it pushes its way through the soil. We’re never organised enough to cover the emergent stalks, so ours isn’t the gorgeous bright pink of forced rhubarb but cooks to a slightly sludgy coloured pink. Poaching rhubarb in sloe gin (or raspberry gin or bullace gin) adds to the pinkness and does away with that horrible furred up feeling on teeth.

In my kitchen this May …

… muesli biscuits made using Celia’s recipe. Sort of. George’s breakfast in a jar was confiscated by airport security on his way to work (too much liquid apparently) so I thought these biscuits would make a pleasing alternative. I started with great gusto, only to realise I was missing several ingredients. I really should learn to read through the whole recipe before I start cooking but substitutions were made (including stewed rhubarb for apple butter) and the biscuits were baked. Unfortunately for George, most of them were eaten before his next early shift but I’ve promised him that I’ll buy all the ingredients so he can make them properly.

In my kitchen this May …

… jelly moulds. I have a small collection of jelly moulds that I thought I should take down from the dresser shelf and clean up if I’m to become The Jelly Maker. The ceramic moulds have lovely patterning but it’s a pain to extricate the jelly and the larger one has sharp angled patterns, which needs a firmly set jelly rather than the voluptuously gentle wobble that I prefer. My favourite is the larger copper mould whose shape makes a rounded, quivering jelly that threatens to slowly flow off the serving plate.

In my kitchen this May …

… the view through the kitchen window. Although vegetable beds remain resolutely brown and bare, apart from the stand of rhubarb and the green tops of regrowing parsnips that I thought we’d dug up, the horse chestnut has burst into leaf and the cherry tree is flowering. A very welcome sign that spring has well and truly arrived and we can cast off our heavy coats and gloves.

What’s happening in your kitchen this month? Why not join in with Celia at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial?

Peddars Way and Norfolk Coast Path

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Our walk from Lyme Regis to the Norfolk coast stalled at Thetford for nearly a year, which seems a very long while but is mainly due to the weather. We don’t usually walk when heavy rain is forecast as I’m a bit of a fair weather walker (why plod along in driving rain with your head down if you can choose to walk on a warm, clear day when you can see the glorious landscape?) and Summer 2012 was so wet that there was always farm work to do on fine days.

But with the recent fine weather and farm work up to date, we found our walking boots, dusted off the maps and set forth to explore Peddars Way, which runs north from the end of the Icknield Way to join the Norfolk Coast Path. We usually drive to the start, walk for the day and then catch a bus back to the start, but searching the bus timetables I became despondent. Either the search returned a “no option available” or there was no bus after midday or the twenty mile journey involved a variety of buses and trains and a four hour travelling time. So we cheated. We did some circular walks that involved sections of Peddars Way, we drove along some of the many road sections and one day we abandoned Peddars Way altogether to visit a Whisky Distillery.

Day 1 Holme Next the Sea to Burnham Overy Staithe (13½ miles)

Holme next the Sea

Peddars Way behind us, we joined the Norfolk Coast Path at Holme next the Sea feeling a little like characters from an Enid Blyton story, with our rucksacks packed with pork pie, fruit cake and bottles of ginger beer – OK, water not ginger beer – as we strode off towards the beach at Holme next the Sea.

walking inland near Thornham – turning back to look out to sea

The sea becomes more distant as the path veers behind the dunes, through a nature reserve and then turns inland with a bit of road walking.

lunch under the trees

Leaving the road, with a break for lunch sitting in the shade of the trees, we followed the track alongside fields, crossing sandswept roads, turning back towards the sea as we headed into Brancaster. We skirted Brancaster Marsh along a boardwalk, which must have cost a fortune to install, but made easy walking over wet ground, giving us a good view of the toads wallowing in the water alongside.

Brancaster Staithe

We lingered a little at Brancaster Staithe, debated whether to stop at the pub for a drink but decided to push on to Burnham Overy Staithe and get something there instead. The path runs along the sea bank, which was a bit windswept but sunny, though after a couple of miles got a bit boring. Eventually the rooftops of Burnham Overy Staithe appeared ahead. Phew, I thought. Nearly there. But then the sea bank does an enormous U-turn, which was a bit disappointing. Eventually we made it to Burnham Overy Staithe, only to find the pub was closed, the shop that sells drinks was closed and we had an hour to kill before the Coasthopper bus was due. We had an interesting conversation with a man of 93, who used to walk six miles and swim in the sea every day until he fell off his bike a few weeks ago and cracked some ribs and told us the village wasn’t what it used to be, we ate the rest of our lunch and sat on a wall kicking our heels until the bus arrived.

Day 2 – Burnham Overy Staithe to Wells Next the Sea (6½ miles)

Holkham Bay

Suitably breakfasted the next day, we opted for a morning walk rather than a whole day, so that we could explore a little of North Norfolk away from the path. So, back to the sea bank with saltings on one side and reclaimed grazing and arable land on the other until we reached the beach where we walked, switching between beach, dunes and woodland path for a little variety, until we left the beach at Holkham Gap.

Wells-next-the-Sea

The quiet and isolated path through the trees soon gave way to hoards of dog walkers, cyclists and pushchairs as we emerged near a boating lake and then suddenly found ourselves at the seaside, which was a bit of a shock. Beach Road was thronging with walkers and cyclists enjoying the sunshine as we made our way into Wells-next-the-Sea and the end of our morning’s walk.

glasshouse at Holkham Hall

On the way home we stopped at Holkham Hall. This was just one section of the glasshouses in a 6½ acre walled garden. Mightily impressive.

violet syrup

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We’ve had a long wait for spring this year and now as the sun shines, the desire for rich warming casseroles and hearty pies diminishes and we lighten the food a little. The stinging nettles have provided us with a nettle pesto to stir into pasta made with duck eggs, a few Jack by the Hedge leaves are mixed into salads to eat with a spoonful of unctuous mayonnaise made with the freshest eggs with their bright yellow yolks (yeah, yeah I know about raw eggs but we’re not very old or very young so we’ll take the risk).

And we have violets. I adore the flowers and all things related like parma violet sweets or violet scented perfume; give me a box of violet and rose cream chocolates and I’ll keep creeping back to the box, lifting the lid when nobody’s looking to sneak another and another. Last year I made Violet Liqueur, which was delicious in a cocktail but this year I decided to make Violet Syrup, which looks like meths but smells much better. [Recipe here] Every year I try to bottle all the delicate scents and flavours of spring, so that I can eat or drink them through the winter, but that’s not actually what I want in the winter when instead, I crave spices like cinnamon and cloves on cold, dark days. Consequently, I’ve vowed only to make small quantities that I can use within a few weeks and have already finished the first batch of violet syrup. Some of it I’ve mixed with soda water and a squirt of lemon juice to make a cordial to drink outside while the sun’s shining (think parma violets mixed with sherbet and water) and I used the remainder in a violet jelly.

When Bill’s family have their big get together on Boxing Day, it’s always been the tradition that the “girls” take along a pudding. As the years have gone by, everyone else has developed a speciality, so that we knew there’d be a fruit salad, apple pie, sticky toffee pudding, pavlova and something random from me because I didn’t have a speciality. As I quite often make a jelly (because they’re easy to make and quite frankly you can make a jelly of pretty much any flavour) I announced to my family that I was going to be the One Who Makes Jelly for family gatherings. Oh, how they laughed. They instantly dubbed me Mrs Wibbly Wobbly, the Jelly Maker and their father Mr William Wibbly Wobbly, the Jelly Maker’s Husband. Well, so be it. Already this spring I’ve made my Spring Jelly using elderflower cordial with primroses and violets layered through it and at the weekend, we had Violet Jelly with syllabub atop. Long live Mrs Wibbly Wobbly.

a virtual cabinet of curiosities

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My virtual Cabinet of Curiosities is still rather bare, so some additions for April.

On the nature shelf

is a celebration of the arrival of spring with flowers and leaves from the garden.

On the shelf from abroad,

I give you The Remarkables from Kangaroo Island because they are truly remarkable. Balanced on top of a granite outcrop, these granite boulders have been eroded by wind and rain so that they resemble an enormous Henry Moore type sculpture on a plinth.

On the miscellaneous shelf,

The Barley Barn that stands near the entrance to our farmyard. We believe the oldest part of this barn was built in the sixteenth century and that at the turn of the eighteenth century the rest of the barn was joined to it, using bits from earlier buildings including fourteenth century posts and Tudor bricks. It’s a beautiful barn but, as it’s no use for modern agriculture, it’s due to be renovated so it can be used as an art gallery and exhibition space. Work should start this summer, so it would be good to put the barn, in its current rather ramshackle state, into the virtual cabinet.

On the blogging shelf,

(this is virtual, so I can have anything I like) I wonder if I should put some blogs I enjoy reading. When I first discovered this blogging lark, I used my blogroll to check when blogs were updated, so I edited the list regularly, deleting those that went into terminal decline or moved. Then I started to use email notifications and WordPress Reader and I forgot to edit, so there were blogs on the list that hadn’t been updated for months and others that I’d lost interest in, while new blogs that I’d started to read weren’t added. It was no longer a reflection of what I was reading and instead of editing, I took the easy route and deleted the whole thing, choosing to link from posts to blogs that inspire me, which at least gives the reader some clue to what they’re going to find, rather than a random name in a list. But maybe I should reinstate my blogroll. Do you look down blogrolls and click to find out more? How do you decide who to include on yours? Or have blogrolls had their day?

spring greens

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It seems that spring is here, at last. In the last week the colour palette has shifted to bright green as the wheat and grass grow taller and the oilseed rape leaves form green stripes across the brown field. White blossom is breaking out on the hedges and in the buffer strips around the fields tiny violets and pale yellow primrose flowers compete with the varying green shades of shiny ivy leaves, cleavers, cow parsley plants and many more, including of course stinging nettles.

Stinging nettles, loved by butterflies but the scourge of the bare legged and bare bottomed (I once bobbed down for an al fresco pee without looking around quite as carefully as I should have done). Brush against a stinging nettle and your skin prickles for ages, yet once they’re cooked the sting disappears.

So, now’s the time to go out collecting stinging nettles, armed with a pair of scissors in one hand and a gardening glove on the other unless you really believe that you won’t get stung if you grasp a stinging nettle firmly enough. You just need the top few leaves, the tender tops, not the coarser base leaves. Later in the year when they start to flower, stinging nettles shouldn’t be eaten as they’re too coarse and fibrous but if they’re cut back you can have another go at the fresh new growth.

At the moment the stinging nettles are only a few inches tall with soft fresh leaves that are ready to pick and cook. Free spring greens and probably the most widely available wild plant to everyone in this country because they grow anywhere and everywhere. First of all, to remind the family that stinging nettles are fine to eat, I made baked nettles and potatoes (from Edible Wild Plants & Herbs by Pamela Michael) using layers of nettle, onion and sliced potatoes, topped with milk and baked in the oven to make a sort of everyday potato dauphinois.

making stinging nettle soup

nettle soup

Then a Nettle Soup, to eat with fresh baked sourdough bread using some of our wheat. To make Nettle Soup, snip off the tops of the plants; if the stem is young it can be used with the leaves.

Nettle Soup
I colander full of young stinging nettle leaves
I medium onion finely chopped
I stick celery finely chopped
Knob of butter
400 ml chicken stock
100 ml milk
Nutmeg
Salt & pepper
Chives – small bunch

Wash the nettle leaves well and drain.
Meanwhile, melt the butter in a large pan and add the onion and celery, cooking until soft.
Stir in the nettle leaves, turning them over in the pan until they start to wilt.
Add the stock, season, bring to the boil and leave to simmer for about ten minutes.
Liquidise or whizz in the food processor.
Stir in the milk and finely chopped chives, reheat the soup and add a good grating of nutmeg before serving.

So green it must be good for you!

ice

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Years ago, I saw a picture in a magazine of a beautiful bowl made from flowers and leaves encased in ice. But beautiful as it was, it seemed fairly unusable. Surely it would melt too quickly leaving a soggy mess. Then I found pictures of ethereal ice glasses with delicate flowers suspended in a ghostly sheath, but I thought if the ice was too thin they’d leak and supposing they were so cold that your lips stuck to the ice. Ouch. Instead, I made ice cubes with flowers in them and with raspberries or thin strips of lemon peel but still the idea of ice bowls and glasses hovered.

Of course in the end, as spring flowers start to appear along with thoughts of languorous summer days ahead, I had to try making ice glasses. I put a little water into the bottom of a glass and froze it, to make the base. Then I put a slightly smaller glass inside, poked flowers down the sides, filled the gap with water and froze again before releasing the glasses with hot water to leave an ice shaped glass. But they’re very slippery and very cold and hopelessly impractical.

Using plastic glasses might work for a small party if the outer plastic glass was left in place to make it more comfortable to hold. They could be made well in advance, would look pretty and drinks would be ready iced.

Far more practical though is a decorated ice block. To quote Dorcas Lane, my one weakness is … a gin and tonic before Sunday dinner. I’m fussy though. I have preferences for certain gins and don’t like flat or diet tonic water. Most importantly, a good gin and tonic needs plenty of ice. My father in law didn’t add ice because he thought it diluted the drink and when I once asked my mother in law if she had some ice, she thought someone had sprained something and I was looking for an ice pack. But use plenty of ice and drink fast enough and dilution isn’t a problem. A silicone fairy cake mould is ideal for making a good sized ice block (or hot chocolate block) and a much better use for these wretched things than baking when they twist and bulge and produce odd shaped cakes. A flower or slice of lemon dropped into the water makes them look decorative and as they’re large, the blocks take ages to melt. Altogether more practical than an ice glass, though not quite so beautiful or fragile looking.

spring?

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We’ve just had two whole days of sunshine. Has spring arrived? The daffodils are blooming, the first of the primroses alongside the bridleway are flowering and I found violets nestled in the undergrowth. Maybe, just maybe, it’s spring time.

Over the weekend, Bill was busy on the tractor (rolling the wheat, spraying and fertiliser spreading) and everyone else was away so yesterday I had the day to myself. A little sunshine is wonderfully galvanising.

The dogs were walked though it’s not very relaxing as I’ve been dog sitting so have three extra dogs to stay; two of them run off into the distance, one keeps reasonably close and the other, Maud a short and stout Jack Russell looking rather like Queen Victoria, walks at a snail’s pace. Then a quick clean of the chicken shed, though a contretemps with a broom handle and the nesting box as I climbed over a small partition resulted in my feet staying firmly on the ground one side of the partition while my top half carried forward. As I pivoted on my shins and headed face down to the floor, the thought that flashed through my mind was that at least I’d just cleaned that side. Brushed down, with one slightly twisted knee and thankful that nobody was looking, I decided to retreat inside for more ladylike pastimes and with no-one to roll their eyes or mutter under their breath “too much time on your hands”, I baked and played about with flowers and leaves.

Above, a spring lemon cake with white leaves. Alas my domestic goddess frivolities were broken when Bill returned. We have problems with pigeons eating the oilseed rape and added to that, now have people driving across the fields to steal the gas cylinders from the scarers. Sometimes it all gets a little depressing and when Bill challenged me to guess what he’d found in the field, I was a little wary. Well, he could have given me a hundred guesses and I still wouldn’t have got it right, because there was a rhea in the field! Yes, a rhea, wandering around the fields of Essex. I wonder if they eat pigeons.

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