Dinner

I realised yesterday that since I returned from Istanbul and was sufficiently over the food poisoning, everything I had cooked had been from scratch. For a few days now? This is a new record; I have previously proclaimed genetic inability to cook and stuck to frozen curries and inistant pizzas. Then on Sunday I realised it was 6pm, and every shop within a 50 mile radius was shut, so I scoured through the fridge, stuck things into Supercook found some delicous meal ideas.. and then remembered I still had a pan of nettle soup to finish. yum. It looks like I’ve liquidised the Hulk.

So tonight I picked up a few things from Market Town, and cooked a very simple pasta with halloumi – onion, garlic, halloumi and tomato, all gently fried and mixed in with a bit of balsamic. You’ll notice the original recipe calls for other stuff I don’t have, so I left them out. I’m good at improvising like that. Also,  I added balsamic vinegar because I’m middle class. As if eating halloumi and downloading recipes off the BBC wasn’t enough.

MEANWHILE at work today I couldn’t stop thinking about the garden, so when I got home one of the first things I did was to change into rough clothes, pick up a spade and a sack and head into the woods at the back of the garden. There, I dug up a load of wood sorrel to transplant under the sycamores in the border. I then went online and bought £30 worth of English Bluebell, Aconite and Lily-of-the-Valley bulbs, as recommended in my “Gardening For Wildlife” book; it’s easy to shop locally – yes there’s a Co-op and a Tesco in Market Town, but there’s also 4 butchers, 2 fishmongers, a grocers and several very good delis (and 2 choclatiers, a spirit merchant, ice cream parlour and a Semi-chem). I’ve not found a decent garden centre yet though.

Nettles

Right then – Sorry, I was away catching the train to my brother’s wedding in Istanbul. Back now.

The first thing I do on my return, once I’d recovered fully from the food poisoning, was to head down to the garden megastore to pick up a spade, fork, hosepipe bits, axe and a hatchet, and then, this morning, to use at least a few of these digging out some nettles. I have a border along the eastern edge of my lawn which is about 25m long, divvied up by two lovely big mature sycamore trees, and bounded by a dry stone wall, on the over side of which is the main road to my house. I say road, it was probably tarmac once but is now mostly made of moss and clumps of grass.

So I start around a little patch at the southern edge of the border, where I’d planted some carrots that were now in danger of getting suffocated. I pulled out all the nettles and dug up the roots, gradually working my way back up to the first sycamore tree. This took me about an hour and a half, until I remembered that I had to nip down to Market Town to pick up some nail polish remover, as birght scarlet nails are funny on muddy hands, but will probably get me dodgy looks in the office tomorrow.

After lunch, I looked over the small section I’d de-nettled, along with the little pile of porcelain remains I’d dug up. the next section between the two trees was less sparse, and the nettles much younger. Young nettles.. reminds me of something.. aha! A  quick hunt online and I have a recipe for nettles soup – onion, potato, garlic, stock and half a carrier bag full of nettle tops and young leaves. Picking nettles in gardening gloves is impossible, so I just use my bare hands; it doesn’t hurt for very long and leaves an “interesting” tingly sensation for the rest of the day.

Nettles then thoroughly washed, everything cooked up, blended (I’ve had a blender for 12 years and I swear this is the third time I’ve used it) and holy crap, it actually tastes nice. I cooked something delicious using ingredients from my garden, a lot sooner than I ever thought I would! Brilliant. Now just waiting for the copious amounts of brambles bordering the paddock opposite to come into fruit.. any day now..

Knotty

First practical application of Ray Mears: Essential Bushcraft book: tying up the washing line.  Also explored round the back a bit more, and found the perfect spot in which to build a hide for huntin’ wabbits.

Also, a dog bit me on the arse while I was having a fairly serious conversation, so you know. Swings and roundabouts sort of day.

Furniture, plants and plans

Today was a bit of a win day, a great morning and afternoon hiking about a site not too far from home, with crazy weather that is a bit damp and humid, then there’s a gap in the clouds and it’s suddenly 30C and baking hot. So worked up a sweat.

Hopefully enough sun to enliven the Squash I planted out earlier this week; last night I finally planted some carrots and leeks in the hope there’s enough summer left to get some of those. Get me. I wasn’t sure where to put them, so scattered the carrots around a few different plots in the garden. No doubt the rabbits will eat them all before too long, I could get some chicken wire off my landlord now he’s back from his holiday. I know he is back because as I unloaded my truck, he drove past at high speed on a quad bike yelling “HI SARAAAAAH”

I was up until 11 last night questioning Dan, who lives here now but is moving out at the weekend, about what is required in order to keep a small flock of sheep. Dan’s a farmer by trade and is moving in with his girlfriend in Fife so they can keep some cows, or something. Apparently, you can keep 3 or 4 sheep per acre, so if I got 6 acres in two fields, I could grow my own hay and keep 10 ewes, or a bit more and get a couple of rams, but you have to get new rams in every couple of years. If I wanted to be in the uplands, it’d be more like 1 sheep per acre. Dan even suggested I get some Hill Radnor, as endagered breed are more practical to keep in a small hobby flock. Ah, the dreams I have.. this will probably never happen.

So that was an education. The other win of the day is that, because Dan’s moving out, I need a bit more furniture – most urgently a sofa. I had a quick look in the charity furniture shops when I was in the City earlier this week, but it wasn’t very promising, so when I stopped in Market Town to pick up cat litter from the Pets & Guns shop, I popped into ‘”Hazel’s” Antiques and Bric-a-brac’ to have a look. The quotes are Hazel’s, she evidently spells her name “Hazel”. I assume she’s the slightly unhinged Irish woman overseeing the vast warehouse piled high with an inifinte amount of rubbish. Brilliant! I love these shops. Tempted by an extremely tatty chaise lounge, but across the yard was another warehouse stacked high with sofas, the first one I saw by the door was an Ikea 3-seater sofa bed for £150. I think it’s one that retails for £600 new. Win.