Hot Chutney

I was thinking about this blog the other day and remembering when I had exciting, big things to write about - knocking holes through walls, slating the roof, underpinning, new doors or stairs.  Now it seems to just be cushions and chutney!  Don't get me wrong, from our point of view it is wonderful to be at this stage, but I do find I'm rambling on about not very much just now, so I do apologise.

I had a couple of days off together at the beginning of last week and we had a lovely time doing bits and pieces.  We went to a woodyard at a farm in the hills not far from here that we haven't been to before and it was such a relief to find it.  Where we used to live we were quite spoilt for good woodyards which kept interesting pieces of native timber, often very locally grown too.  They knew the sort of thing we wanted and would bear us in mind when they were chopping up a tree.  Here they seem to deal mainly with fairly plain foreign timber.  We had to use French Oak for the kitchen timbers and American Ash for the staircase!  A real shame we didn't know about the farm woodyard back then.  Anyway this looks promising for timber for furniture and most of it seems fairly local.  We also did some garden jobs that we've been meaning to do for ages, but have been putting off because they're not that much fun - like weeding the hedge!  Do you know I pulled one nettle out that was as tall as me with leaves the size of my hand!  A real monster.  Anyway that was a good job done and after tea we went for a walk up the hills to a trig point where you can see all around.  On the way back we passed the village pub and, as I needed a wee, we went in for a pint.  I actually forgot to go to the loo and so, having chatted to several sets of neighbours on the way home, I was absolutely cross-legged when we got back!

The next day I made some chutney with our rhubarb (see, chutney and cushions!).  It was actually Rhubarb, Apricot and Ginger Chutney and I think it may do very well as a substitute for mango chutney with a curry the bought version of which is always way too sweet.  This has chilli flakes in and as usual I was tweeking the recipe and thought 1 teaspoon didn't seem like much so doubled the amount.  I think it might now be quite spicey-hot!  I'll let you know in a month when it is ready to try.

I did use my willow trug to go gathering produce . . . didn't
go as far as the flowery skirt and straw hat though!

Ta da!  Nine jars of chutney in next to no time.  I hope we like -
it made more than I expected!







The second, open doorway is the chicken's run.  We're
on the lookout for a little patio set and deckchairs for them!

The chickens now have their own patio which is rather posh isn't it?   I cleared the last of the logs from our early woodpile against the wall of the top barn.  We now have our new woodpile the other side of the path there and so wanted to clear this space.  Underneath was completely covered with soil, leaves, weeds and grass and so I swept up the soil and leaves and put that as a mulch on one of the borders which is almost pure clay and so needs a good bit of organic matter to loosen it up.  Then I started shovelling away at the grass and weeds to reveal the limestone pavers underneath.  At that point Bob came to help because it is quite exciting unearthing what was there before.  We had uncovered a bit of it before, but not all of it.  There is a brick gulley curving round from the doorway which I guess was useful when they were swilling out the barn.  The chickens also thought it was quite exciting because we uncovered loads of bugs and worms.  The stones are still quite muddy and it'll look better when it's cleaner, so we either need it to absolutely pash down with rain to wash them or for it to be dry and sunny and we can then sweep them clean . . . the rain would be easier, but I think I'd rather have the sun! 



So, after nice times doing stuff at home, it's been quite hard to drag myself into work.  Especially hard this weekend as I had to work until 9.30pm last night because they were doing a stocktake (well, what else would you want to do on a Saturday night?) and then in again early this morning.  Still, I have next weekend off which I'm really looking forward to, especially if Andy Murray makes it to the final at Wimbledon.

 

Time for a beer and a bit of a relax before we make tea I think - cheers!



Wild Orchids and dead weeds

Bob has finally been able to start making some furniture and has started a couple of chairs.  We had a good sort out of timber on Wednesday and have a few pieces we'd brought with us that were chair seat size, quite a few ready bent pieces for arms and bow backs and some legs and spindles.

So, here is one of them roughly knocked together.  This one is made out of Sycamore and the seat is especially nice because the timber has a ripple in it so when it is polished up it looks rippled like silk but is dead smooth to touch.  We are now waiting for the legs to dry out properly - they are the ones we put in the oven last week.  This week they have spent their evenings in front of the lounge woodburner to continue drying and I think they are just about there now. 

On Wednesday we went to the auction at Montgomery and it took us about 3 minutes to look round and decide that there really wasn't anything of interest.  There is a new antique shop in the town though so we went for a mooch in there and were looking closely at the couple of chairs they had.  I thought the poor chap was starting to think we might actually buy one and so had to stop him building his hopes by telling him Bob makes chairs.  He was really interested and asked if he would do repairs and took our number.  This morning he brought a chair round for repair!  That could be a useful contact as he has two shops and obviously deals in good quality pieces.

I worked pretty much full-time last week, so haven't really done much here, but I did finish knitted cushion number two.  This one has red flowers with tiny buttons for the middles.  Now I need to look at the other settee and decide what cushioning is required there.  Do you know, I was looking through the Guardian magazine at work last weekend and they showed a cushion which was made from Harris Tweed or something, but was absolutely plain and square, no decoration at all and would take about 7 minutes to make. It was about £345!!!  How can anyone get away with charging that much?  And who on earth buys them  . . . . . does anyone buy them?   I'm thinking it may be worth getting into you know!  Apart from cushioning, I did some pointing on the outside of the house on Friday.  At one point I was doing it in the rain . . . then blazing sun . . . . then a bitterly cold wind and so on.

This afternoon we went to see how the orchids are doing at the place where we saw Peregrines last year.  No sign of the Peregrines, but the orchids are lovely.

This is a Butterfly Orchid - we only saw about
three of these.

 

But there were loads of these which are very pretty
and quite tall this year.  All the wild plants seem to have
gone mad this year and we've had huge dandelions about
three feet tall with massive leaves, cowslips with loads and
loads of flowers on and likewise with the primroses.

 

These should be even more impressive in a week or so as
there are still lots ready to come out.

And so from the beautiful carpet of wild orchids to our sickly-looking garden.  That Roundup is good stuff you know, but it does look horrible at the moment.  We're telling everyone there's been a very bad drought just here!



 

The garden's not all bad though and the roses round the
kitchen door look lovely with loads of buds on.  The one this
side of the door is not quite so good due to its early pruning
by rabbits, but it has lots of buds too . . . just much lower down!

As well as roses, we have baby birds flourishing in the garden this week (apart from the baby Great Tit that flew into the lounge window this afternoon and is now having a 'little sleep').  If you stand still out there the trees are teeming with fluffy little birds darting all over the place, chirruping and tweeting and the poor parents are looking very bedraggled.  We had a Great Tit on the feeder that had a completely bald head - new species the Great Vulture Tit - it did look very funny.  You've got to feel sorry for them though, they have to work so hard just now I guess new feathers just aren't high on the list of priorities.

A two-fire-night!

Ooooh! Yesterday was sooooo cold, wet and miserable that we lit both fires.  It was lovely and cosy then, but in the middle of June we shouldn't really have to should we?  Especially after last weekend.  We do miss it when the kitchen woodburner isn't lit because it does so many other things at the same time - heats water and the room of course, but also the radiator upstairs so our towels are toasty, dries the teatowel downstairs, warms the plates for tea, cooks the rice and . . . . . .

. . . . . you can dry chair parts in the oven as it cools!

Workshop chicken

Well, the Roundup is definitely working and the whole garden now has a sickly yellowy tinge to it and the nettles are drooping.  There are some little oasises/oasii/oasises (what is the plural of oasis?) of rampant bright green which I obviously missed with the sprayer, so a job for another evening.  We have to shut the chickens up early before we spray as they do like their greens and they probably shouldn't be having a roundup dressing on them.  Trouble is we can't shut them up too early at the moment as their house is a bit toxic just now. 
Bob has re-creosoted the inside as a measure to prevent red mite infestation (doing that once a year seems to be the only thing that really works).  The chickens don't seem to mind the fumes, but we don't want them feeling woozy and dizzy!  One of the chickens has taken a liking to Bob's workshop and makes a beeline for the back corner of the shelf under the bench and settles herself down nicely.  The other day Bob looked underneath and heard a 'donk' and there was a egg . . . . with a flattened end where it had fallen on the hard surface!

We now have a proper lounge door instead of the chipboard temporary thing we've had since we first moved here.  We had to take the old doorframe out so we could clean it up properly and attach new bits to the bottom where it had rotted.  There was also a separate piece of wood across the top which was more like balsa wood than anything solid which we have replaced.  It was a bit awkward to get all the old stuff out as it had been built in quite well, but with a lot of wiggling we managed it and no major stones or bricks fell out, so that was all good.  The bricks are now re-pointed and patched up so it all looks much more solid.  From this photo, it looks as though we'd better seal the bricks with our turps and linseed mix - it does bring them to life as you can see.

Here's the door frame back in place - just look how bent it is at the bottom!  Luckily, the hinge side is much straighter otherwise we would have had real trouble getting it to open and shut properly.  There is now a new arch-shape piece of oak above the frame, so it all looks tidy.  The holes for the bolts into the walls are all plugged except one at the bottom.  Graham, my brother-in-law, gave me an old sixpence ages ago and the plan was to wedge it into the crooked oak beer bench in the garden.  All very logical to my mind . . . my thinking was along the lines of the old nursery rhyme about the crooked sixpence and the crooked stile.  However, I never got round to wedging the sixpence into the bench which is actually probably quite good because bits keep crumbling off it (it is made of ancient roof timbers), so I would probably have lost the sixpence.  So, Plan B = put the sixpence into one of the bolt holes and it was an exact fit, so that's where it'll stay.  We'll have to see if anyone notices it!

 

And here's the door.  This was an old door of Phil and Ann's which we had stripped.  Originally we were going to use it outside for the lean-to door, but that will be painted and so can be made using new softwood which would be far too bright and white for inside.  It is harder to get the much warmer, mellow colour of old wood and so we thought this one would be better inside.  Luckily, we had to cut some off the bottom which meant we got rid of most of the rotten wood and a dab of wood stabiliser on the remaining bit has it sorted.  It is strange the amount of difference a proper door makes.

 

 

Now that those bricks have been pointed, Bob has been able to put our corner cupboard up.  This is a cupboard Bob made ages before we moved from a lovely, burry piece of Elm from a village called Shelton (our surname, so very apt and the woodyard man saved it specially for us).  This was supposed to be a spice cupboard for the kitchen of our cottage.  Trouble is, at that point we hadn't seen the cottage we were going to live in let alone the kitchen.  As it turns out, the kitchen doesn't actually have any corners where you could mount the cupboard . . . . . in fact, there aren't really any suitable corners in the whole house and, believe me we have wandered all over trying the cupboard in place!  So, this is the only place we could think of.  We will put some triangle shelves underneath, graduating in size, which should settle it into its corner better.  Not sure what we'll keep in the cupboard (it's not an ideal place for the spices really!), but you can't have enough little spaces to hide things away.

 

We had a lovely weekend off last week. F-A-N-T-A-S-T-I-C weather!  It was like Summer - go on you remember them don't you?  Now, you won't believe this, but I actually dug out a  skirt and some flip-flops and wore them for a whole day, right from getting up to going to bed.  It felt really, really strange - almost like a normal person!  I never thought I'd ever be able to wear flip-flops again!  So, anyway, we're back to Winter again now, socks and a jumper and I think I'll be lighting the woodburner shortly - ho-hum.

 

Look, we have things growing in our raised bed!  We just turned
around and these lettuces had sprung up as if by magic . . .
 . . . well, OK, not really - Phil and Ann had a couple of spares
and gave them to us.

 



Chillies and cushion covers . . . . and weeds!

Well, we had a curry with our homemade chillies - whew . . . . hot, hot, hot.  I was on the phone when Bob cut them up and tried eating a piece raw!  Oh, it did make me laugh as he leapt around the kitchen with his tongue hanging out!  Is a huge gulp of wine the best way to cool down or would milk would have been more sensible - he opted for wine!  Anyway, the curry was very tasty.  The next two chillies are half red now, so I expect we'll have another curry at the weekend.  Talking of which, next weekend is my first one of my new contract at work which menas I have every other weekend off.  Wooo-hooo - whole weekends!  Try as we might, we haven't been able to treat my Tuesday/Wednesday off as a weekend and do proper weekend things, so it will be good to have occasional proper weekends.  We might actually get round to going for walks and exploring the area a bit.

We have now had all our scheduled visitors for a while finishing with Bob's sister and her chap last Sunday.  They stayed until Monday and we had a lovely time because the weather was just lovely - almost too hot for a beer on the beer bench!  Then Jan, Bob's stepmum, came later on the Monday and stayed over. 

So, while the visitors were here, the garden took off and everything has grown in double-quick time.  The nettles have gone from tiny things to a 3' tall mass ready to seed in just about three weeks!  As well as the weeds, the wanted plants have also shot up as though they are making up for lost time.

So, here is our weed garden!  Oh my, its quite daunting.
This year though we've given in and bought a big bottle of
Roundup.  The other evening I sprayed all of this and now we
have to wait a few weeks to see if it has any effect and in the
meantime resist the urge to pull anything up.

Both little apple trees have loads of blossom which is just
lovely.  Apparently a good apple crop is predicted this year
as all the apple trees are blossoming at once instead of weeks
apart so they should cross-pollinate well.  The plums and damsons
don't look so prolific which is a shame.

We have moved on to the next stage of our life here and have
made our first raised bed.  It is the first of a series of three down
this slope.  To start with we'll just put rabbit wire round this one
but eventually we'll fence round the whole area and have it as a
business like vegetable garden.  We have leeks growing in pots
which will be the first inhabitants of this bed when they are big enough.

This is a Grizzled Skipper in our garden - quite a rare butterfly and one of the rare
species found in the quarry.  We have never seen one before as we
weren't too sure what they look like, but it is very distinctive because
it is really, really tiny. 

Bob's workshop is now connected and he has running water! 
there is also an outside tap on the workshop which will be
handy for the veggies. 

and here it is tiled.  It did look far too posh for a workshop
when I'd just done it (we just happened to have enough tiles
left from the utility room to do this).  It does look better now
Bob has messed it up with junk!

And finally here are the cushions.  Bob's sister manages
a home interiors and gifts shop in a posh little town in Rutland
and she said she could easily sell the knitted cushion in her shop.
Very 'on trend' is what she said!  Don't think I'm a quick enough
knitter to make much of a profit though!!