Volcanic fallout

Don't we live in interesting times! In the Chinese curse sense of the words, of course. 

Iceland seems surprisingly unaffected by the dramatic turn of events of recent days, and although I can't help worrying that matters may get much worse there, Icelanders themselves seem very laid back about life on an island with a very active volcano.

We, meanwhile, are almost relishing the break from media-manufactured election fever that the unpronounceably-named volcano has offered us. Television reporters drone on about empty airports and grounded planes. Awful tales of planes flying through ash clouds and losing all four engines are repeated at frequent intervals to help keep would-be travellers' frayed tempers under control. Lots of folk are stranded abroad, and for anyone trapped in an airport, that is seriously soul-destroying, and we must sympathise.

I haven't noticed many people sparing a thought for the Icelanders though. So careless of them to let all that toxic ash float into our air space! And they have another, bigger volcano that might erupt too! How thoughtless of them!

Are we really so self-obsessed and insular in our way of thinking?

I've had calls from two strandees (yes, I just made that word up). My sister Anne and brother-in-law John are stuck in Tenerife, on a cruise ship where Anne got so badly flea-bitten in the first cabin they were allocated that she had to see the ship's doctor. She described her bites as huge boils. Well, she is a drama teacher.... Their week's cruise was marred by very wet weather, with Madeira especially torrential. They can't wait to get home.

Friend Annie and her husband are stuck too, in Palma, Majorca, but in a very nice hotel, with friendly staff and a helpful rep. The weather is beautiful. Annie is making the most of her extended shopping opportunity, but clearly feels that this is an emergency situation - she could have been a drama teacher too - commenting in her phone call to me "It's like the war!"

I had to think about that one for a while. If our skies remain plane-free, and Eurostar continues to be fully booked for an extended period - or worse, if the Other Volcano decides to go off as well - can we expect the launch of a flotilla of small boats from England to Dunkirk to bring home the trapped and the stranded? Just a thought.

But planes do bring more than holidaymakers to our precious non-volcanic island. Just in case, I went down to the allotment today and made a (very late) start. So far, in the event of food shortages, I could be self-sufficient - in rhubarb and chives. Damn those Icelanders!

Strangled cries

No one warned me that knitting could be stressful or strenuous.

Or involve wrestling.

No, I know this isn't knitting....



but the results were similar.

So what was I trying to knit? Something simple, a small lap rug, nice, easy, unchallenging sort of knitting that I could do when watching tv without getting my purls and plains muddled up. (You'll see that I'm already adept at lumpiness.)

My mistake was to try it on these:

They have a life of their own, I tell you!

Never again.

Lunch in the country

Off on a jaunt today, to visit friends who live in a Northumberland village, receiving a warm welcome from their lovely dog, who I'm sure wasn't anticipating the large bone-shaped biscuit treat I'd brought him - he only put his head in my handbag to check that I'd put my keys away safely, didn't he? Does this look like cupboard love to you?

"You are going into a deeeeep sleeeeep.... you will find another bone-shaped biscuit for meeeeee....."

Then out for lunch in Meldon Park where Stewart & Co have an outpost. As we sat chatting, a pair of greater spotted woodpeckers swooped on and off the bird feeders - sadly, my photo through glass doesn't show the detail of this striking bird, but it's there on the feeder. Exciting for me to see it - I often hear a woodpecker on my allotment, but have never managed to see it.

Then back to the village and my friends' house, yet again failing to spot any of the red squirrels that cross her garden after ignoring the ropes strung across the treetops to keep them off the road. We drank tea, walked round the garden, groaning at the relentless invasion of ground elder, and had muddy sticks brought to us by the ever-hopeful dog.

The village is well-cared for by its well-heeled residents, and every Spring, organised posses of locals walk the roadsides picking up litter thrown from passing cars.

It's an opportunity to get to know each other, and the pickings are rich and varied, and good for discussion, bewilderment, horror, outrage and the occasional laugh. Empty alcohol bottles are usual, and this year someone's extensive bottle recycling collection, thoughtfully tied up in a large bin liner, was left for the village to dispose of. What possesses people, we wonder, in these days of council-provided refuse collection, recycling points and wheelie bins, to drive through quiet lanes and streets and throw quantities of their unwanted possessions out of the car as they do so?

Last year's best and most-discussed find was a full bottle of rum and a pornographic video; this year my friend found a heap of soft-porn magazines in the ditch, but more mysteriously, a large number of packets - of laxative pills. Work that one out.....

Cure-all

Thank you, dear Commenters. I'm going to listen to all of your advice, even though I think some of you may be as daft as I am, and use it to make up my own cough cure. 

As follows:

Take one dollop each of:

• chicken soup
• chocolate
• creosote
• honey
• eucalyptus oil
• Covonia  (my mother's favourite cough mixture, incidentally - and as a lifelong smoker, she had a prize-winning cough)
• 2" square of shredded fish and chip paper
• goose fat
• assorted cough sweets
• leftover antibiotics from the pet meds box (use by date 1997)
• a couple of the dog's cough capsules
• chilli powder
• balsamic vinegar (the very expensive one that tastes like Veno's)
• tea tree oil

Put in food blender and blend like fury. 

Strain through muslin, add whatever alcohol is still left over from various Christmases past (Grand Marnier, gin, something unpleasantly gluhweinish that no one will touch, and that cheap cherry brandy from Lidl), and a splash of Angostura Bitters to add sophistication. 

Bottle. Label. 

Invite people (friends, neighbours, Commenters) round to share the delights of Dr Slow Lane's Efficacious Mixture. Serve them first. 

Don't say anything

Don't speak to me! I'm too well brought up to ignore you. I will have to answer, and then I will cough. That's mostly what I do these days: cough. In the night, first thing in the morning (horribly, with nose-blowing; be glad you aren't staying in my house), and at any time through the day if I have to speak. It's a common after-effect of a virus, apparently.

It's also very irritating - to my throat, to me and to everyone around me. Not the cats and the dog - they don't mind at all, and in fact Hamish and the dog sometimes join in. The dog has a gloomy-sounding hacking cough, like an undertaker with a cold; she has medication for it if it goes on for long enough, because, as for many Yorkies, tracheal collapse is a possibility. Hamish has a genteel, breathy little "huf! huf!" cough, which he makes with his eyes shut and his tongue protruding slightly.

Lottie coughs too, but in a productive sort of way that I'd rather not talk about.

I've tested the results of the research into chocolate as a cough suppressant, and it really does work - so long as I don't say more than a few sentences at a time - but I can't face another square of Easter present chocolate now. Or a mini-rabbit made of chocolate. Or a little chicken made of chocolate. Or a spotted egg made of chocolate. No more! My teeth have chosen life.

Cough, cough.....

High days and holidays....

There'll be none of those for me this year. A roof devours money like nothing else, except dentistry.

But it's done, and I can wander across the road any time I like and gaze up admiringly at all the new lead, instead of going on holiday. Or going anywhere, really.

The Something Dreadful

As you asked....

Some slates at the front of the roof have, at some time in the dim and distant past, when cowboy roofers roamed the world, been fixed with screws. Screws!! Not galvanised roofing nails. Some of the laths that hold them have rotted. When the screwed-down slates are removed, they and many of their neighbours crumble, like flaky pastry, and produce a constant shower of debris to the garden and pavement below. They are over 100 years old, and are on the sunny side of the house. Salvaged slates have had to be found elsewhere.

Billy the roofer has run out of replacements, so must come back tomorrow to finish the work and trim the leadwork. We will also revise the final bill, although Billy gets twitchy and uncomfortable when discussing money. But, given the hidden horrors, extra work and materials required, and the favour he did me some months ago by painting the dormer window, I need to pay him properly, and not just in extra sugary tea and cake.

If I had been intending to stay in this house for another 28 years, I would have been better off having a new roof instead of this challenging refurbishment, but I'm not, so I shan't. Just as well, as I couldn't afford it anyway.

Next project: the front path. And the back yard wall. And the front door. And the planters. And the..... oh hell, it's all dreadful, and it's all too much. I'm going to bed.

Muggins here....

I really love tea. Ceylon tea in particular, medium strong, just a dash of milk, thank you. Nothing with added soap perfume, nothing herbal unless I have no other choice; good coffee only rarely, and never ever from Starbucks.

A love of tea goes together with a love of mugs, teapots, tea sets, assorted cups and saucers, and nice little things to nibble alongside.

I have far too many mugs and cups, some of which I never use myself, but are kept for visitors, who often have their own favourite. The kettle is always on in this house. Had I been around in WWII, I'd have been out there somewhere in the bombed ruins, dispensing tea from a huge urn, confident that this was essential to the preservation of life.....

The new mug will be one of my favourites, being pail-shaped and large, not too thick and clonky, with a comfortable handle. Here it is again, Fran, to give you a sense of its size. See, perfectly manageable!

Billy the roofer is back; much tea is being made (strong Typhoo for him and his mate, in sturdy mugs, lots of sugar added, with sugary nibbles on the side). This is the third day of his miraculous return, flaking slates replaced and a new lead gutter installed - and hopefully my ancient roof will be finished today.

Except that he's just found Something Dreadful..... I'm off to put the kettle on again now.

An unbirthday present

To me. From me. Today.

Nice, innit?

This is not me!

A slightly defensive message: some people have emailed me recently for information, but have not followed up on my response. And then I've wondered if my reply reached them. I always reply promptly to emails, so wouldn't like to be thought of as a rude or careless creature who couldn't be bothered to respond.

I have just heard from a friend that some long-awaited photographs I sent seem to have ended up in her spam folder, where she rarely thinks to look. So, if you think you should have heard from me before now, and wonder if I just haven't bothered to pass on the info you requested, check your spam/junk folder, because I might be hiding in there!

Prickly over-reactive person signing off now......

Egg & spoon tragedy

Millie loves birdwatching. She keeps watch over the rooftops and chimney pots.

She sits in neighbours' backyard trees and watches anything that moves.

She also likes to explore a territory that's larger than I feel easy about, wandering beyond the brick and paved streets around us, to the greenery and trees near the church.

I'm learning more about this lively, spirited little cat than I care to know. Her hunting instincts seem to have developed recently: a small rat, a Scotch egg, a chicken breast. And now, more.

This little egg is what she brought home today. I picked up the larger fragments of shell from amidst the spatters of yolk on the kitchen floor, and set them beside a teaspoon to give a sense of scale - nothing culinary intended.

I think it's a robin's egg, but am not sure. Is it? Whatever it is, it isn't any more, and I, for one, am very sorry.

Millie, on the other hand, is rather pleased with herself. We have had a Serious Talk.

At your own risk, of course!

For those foolhardy brave folk who asked for a recipe.....

Send me your email and I'll happily send you details of how I make: 

cheese scones 

pear and ginger cake

and other things.

But perhaps not the

charcoal doorstop cake*. Now that requires real skill and artistry!

(*AKA quick test of every smoke alarm in the house)

Now for the awful truth....

         

I hope you all enjoyed the chocolate-fest of yesterday? Good; I'm pleased for you. I had hardly any. A feat of will power? No.... the shocking truth is that chocolate leaves me, if not exactly cold, then verging on tepid. I'm just not very enthusiastic about most chocolate, or even this, my childhood favourite, in any quantity. 

Yes, I can have an occasional moment of yearning, like when you really want a very particular thing - "I could just fancy a curry/hot cross bun/roast beef sandwich/cheese scone...", that if gratified, may not occur again for a long time. (Notice that my taste leans towards the rather ordinary....)

Most of the chocolate I buy for Easter is a gift for other people, and as almost everyone I know is following some kind of dietary regime or other (low-cal, low-carb, wheat-free, sugar-free, pleasure-free), I have bought less this year than usual, and indeed, neighbour Sandra's family of hollow-legged boys got a large home made batch of their favourite mocha-chocolate ice cream instead of Easter eggs.

 

But as yesterday was the first time in over a week that I didn't feel pathetically ill (did I tell you I've been ill??), I did have a little splurge - that chicken, for example, amusingly described by one of you as a French Fancy with a face.... and some tiny Lindor eggs, unwrapped under the encouraging gaze of the cats, who love a bit of foil to chase and drop into their water bowl. And the remainder can wait till the occasional yearning (or a visitor who hasn't put themselves off chocolate for ever) occurs again.

What I really like, though, is home baking......

Cheese scones and butter

Lemon drizzle cake

Black Forest cupcakes

Rhubarb and ginger 

Pear, black treacle and ginger

And will power doesn't feature at all there either!

PS Photos from the archives, not today's reality, honest.

Oh, ok then.....

Better now?

Happy Easter!

Faberge 1914. For details, look here.

Must be getting better...

....could manage a little chocolate.....

('The Convalescent' by Tavik Frantisek Simon. For more see here)

Cough cough....