Confessions of an errant housewife

I’m in a spot of bother…
When we moved to our corner of Wiltshire we always seemed to be away for the village show and failed to appreciate what an important part of the social calendar it is. However there came a year when we were able to attend. We were amazed at the size, intricacy, variation and popularity of the things to see, but the bit that got me going was the exhibits in the marquee.
The range and beauty of the Horticultural entries was astonishing. The talent of the competitors in the Industrial section was terrific. Wandering around admiring the items on display and chatting to other viewers it became clear that the competition is fierce, and the rivalry in some areas apparently famous. I was hooked: next year I’d join in! Each year I encourage my family to join me.
Each year they decide they’ve nothing suitable or good enough. In vain do I state that it’s the taking part – no I don’t really believe that either. I am quite certain I’m not the only person who thinks at some point “How did that win?” or “I could do better than that”. We are competitive by nature!
Anyway, my point was that this year Husband too would enter some of his veg. There was talk of potatoes, runner beans, onions, courgettes and tomatoes. As we got nearer to the day of entering there were doubts about the tomatoes as there was little chance of ripening before Saturday, but the rest were duly written on the entry form.
As I baked brownies the morning before the Big Day there was some muttering about how to display onions and what they were supposed to look like. I suggested the internet, fountain of all knowledge, with the view that there was bound to be some film footage of how to wrap string around stems. Later the onions were beautifully strung and there were a pair of courgettes that would be suitable. The potatoes were apparently underweight and a bit marked, not perfect white, and whether they would be entered was touch and go, but the nub of my story is those beans.
Produce from the allotment comes home in old supermarket bags, ice-cream cartons and trugs and is generally left as an offering on the kitchen table. Midweek, with a little time to spare and a glut of runners, I set to stringing and blanching for the freezer, and this, Loyal Reader, is where I came undone. The beans had been sorted, some were for eating, but some were for consideration in finding the best, straightest, uniform set for entry in the Show. They are all now frozen.

Next year we will have an advance plan of organisation – the internet advice went further than advising on display… it said we should be growing things specially: nurturing and protecting the special produce. Clearly we haven’t yet taken the whole thing seriously enough.



Footnote: I am much relieved to report that those onions won first prize!

Produce

I’m a bit busy, and a bit excited. We are hosting a supper party tonight, in part to welcome old friends who moved into ‘our’ village last week. So I’m cleaning the parts of the house that show and preparing the meal.

Husband has, as ever, provided the cook with a few challenges from the allotment: I am the delighted owner of five marrows, five pumpkins and several kilos of green (and a few red) tomatoes, not to mention a freezer full of beetroot, raspberries and blackberries. This is lovely of course, but it does require thought and work so as not to waste it.
Thus, tonight’s supper, featuring a smoked salmon salad starter with beetroot, a chicken casserole cooked in a pumpkin and a blackberry ice-cream with a raspberry compôt should help reduce the glut.
Many moons ago, when we were first married, Husband, a confident chap, was unexpectedly reduced to nerves by the arrival as his new boss of someone who had bullied him as his superior when a young officer. I proposed a campaign! We invited the bully and his wife to supper with a gang of our most presentable friends (who were warned) and I cooked the supper of my life. The centre piece, recommended by one of said friends as what to cook when you needed to impress, was Prize Pumpkin. It is a Josceline Dimbleby recipe that is perfectly simple to make, but brings gasps of surprise from guests. It is now a staple in this house: if you come to supper when pumpkins are in season it’s what you get! I don’t suppose it was the only reason the bully turned out not to be a problem, but he was effusive in his praise on the occasion, and Husband was much relieved.

So that is exciting, but the real reason is that Eldest has given permission for us to visit her. We are to take her out to lunch on Sunday.

Lucky me

My week started as usual with Pilates and helping in school. My boy has been reading during the holidays for the first time and as a result has not forgotten everything he learnt last year. We have been able to whiz through his reading and spelling and then share a chapter of Horrid Henry (which he loves, so I tolerate). My girl has not apparently done any 'work' at home so, as ever, we seem to be back at square one and she doesn’t really want to spend time with me. Persuading her to stay on task is fraught.
At upholstery I have now managed to get three more dining chairs redone; only two more to complete the set and I can play with something more interesting. I’ve got several pieces needing work...

I’ve been for a soul walk (rather than a dog walk you understand) around the village this morning, but not along the permissive footpath as the route was padlocked and the field full of horses doing trials. I don’t know anything about horses - or trials - but as we have new horsier neighbours at the farm I guess we’ll see more of this.
One night (Husband did the ballet run) I went to a Jamie (Oliver) at Home party in the village - in the olden days it would have been Tupperware. I went with Coffeeneighbour and we were the oldest people present, something we demonstrated by being the first to leave (and by knowing about Tupperware I expect). There was wine and beautiful nibbles, a DVD of Jamie welcoming us and thanking our lovely hostess, a quiz about Jamie and food (in which I did badly), and lots of chat. It was all very jolly. (I am a little cynical about this enterprise, but Jamie, like Delia and Nigella is, of course, a saint.)
I've also been to a Coffee Morning hosted by Gardeningneighbour. They are a circulating, weekly event which started life as a mothers' and toddlers' group, but is now firmly retired ladies of a certain age: there, I am young! It is not a club, you do not have to go, but it is a chatty, supportive forum. I was taken by Gardeningneighbour on only my third day in the village – the alternative, on a dark January day, was cleaning my cold, and, as yet unfurnished house. The ladies were extremely welcoming and full of useful information about the area. I met Brown Owl, the Gardening Club Chair, and the leader of the WI, found out whom to ask for an allotment, and what they thought about all matters village. It is not competitive coffee, the hostess supplies bought biscuits and instant coffee and we all contribute to a fund. This week however we were raising money for Macmillan so there was an exchange of cake. (Obviously I only ate some to show my support.)
Both outings were social occasions: with one group I am about 10 years too old, with the other 10 years too young… I suspect this means I should be doing something else at my stage of life, but, do you know, I like it just as it is!

Rain altered plans

I’ve little to report from my corner of Wiltshire, busy but not blog-inspiring.

The village fete was a great fundraiser but not quite the party it usually is – apparently the first time it had rained on the night in 30 years! Since then I’ve been sorting leftovers and thanking helpers and trying to make headway in the house- and garden-tidying stakes: both somewhat neglected in favour of fete business, and I had friends coming to supper on the patio on Saturday evening.
I like planning ‘proper’ food. It’s not that I don’t make from scratch for the family, it’s that they all have their own particular likes and dislikes so that the variety of cooking required (or that I can be bothered with) is dull… I like thinking about what’s in season, what I can serve for free from the allotment, and what will go together nicely without anyone feeling hungry or over-stuffed at the end of the evening. Cooking for the family is also seasonal, but by the time Youngest's objected to vegetables, Husband to lack of joined up meat and Eldest to sauce that isn't ketchup....
We went with Plan B since, as last weekend, it rained. We ate indoors surrounded by still dripping flowers retrieved from the garden. It was fun!


So, in the absence of words I bring you highlights from My Garden:

Not marmalade

A consequence of the enforced long holiday may be that I have missed the Seville orange window. We ran out of marmalade weeks ago – actually I had to buy it in November I think. My very loyal Husband insists on home made and is kind about its varying quality. His mother used to make it, and luckily I dabbled in such things long before I had a family to consider because it was something my Granny did too. So I don’t resent the requirement. Apart from anything else, preserve making of any sort is a darn sight more satisfying than cleaning... ‘Though if whatever I’m cleaning is REALLY dirty, so that you can tell I’ve done it, I’d admit to a sort of pleasure.

So this isn’t the marmalade that I’d planned to make today after Sainsbury’s delivered the oranges, because they didn't. It is Delia’s Spiced Pickled Runner Beans, a delicious concoction that uses up the runners when your family really can’t face another and your husband is still bringing them home from the allotment. It seemed pretty easy this time largely because I'd chopped up the beans as they came in from the field and put them in the freezer. It will be interresting to see if it tastes any different. Still have another batch to make: the church fete will have that.

Climate Change

According to the blogosphere today is the day to take action and write about climate change. To do this properly you have to sign up with e-mails and passwords and things. Since this space at the bottom of the bottom drawer in the filing cabinet belongs to me I didn’t want to sign, and I couldn’t make them give me a badge. I’m just not techi enough.
Thought I could think about what we do and don’t do all on my lonesome; I can confess without fear of ridicule.
It used to be that only hippies and earth mothers were into growing their own food and making things for themselves. Now the allotments have waiting lists, crafts (particularly knitting) are the thing to be seen to do, and the whole recycling movement is the fashion for all. The march away from free plastic bags has brought a revolution in alternative bags. So, in our bid to be fashionable, and maybe save the planet from climate change while we’re at it, this is what our family is doing:

• Husband has an allotment and grows more and more of the family’s food. I use his produce for our meals but am also getting better at finding ways to prolong our use of those gluts. Lots of pickle, jelly and jam, but also best ways to freeze things for later.
• We choose local in goods and services when possible, then Wiltshire, then England and so on.
• We re-use plastic bags when we get them, and carry a hessian bag in order to turn down the offer of plastic as much as possible.
• The girls go to and from school on a bus. Our rural idyll means my taxi service for after school clubs is busy most nights, but I try to save other errands to be done on the same outing. Sainsburys deliver my weekly groceries.
• As they’ve needed replacing we’ve swapped to low energy light bulbs - despite their size and poor ambient light.
• I’ve made a portion of my own clothes since I was eleven, and I mend too. I keep looking at the Re-Fashion and Make pledge and will investigate again.
• I line dry in summer and tumble in poor weather. Love the smell of line dried laundry but get complaints from the family about softness. Tumble drying means I don’t need to use fabric softener, and I console myself that I rarely iron anything. Washing is sorted by colour and temperature and only washed when there is a full load.
• We ought to save more water. There’s only one water butt, and though I save washing-up water, vegetable cleaning water and the condenser tumble dryer water for the garden in dry weather I haven’t yet found a use for grey water otherwise… Most of us bath or shower daily and we have no plans to stop. The water is softened so at least we don’t use much product to get things clean.
• Wiltshire collects our paper, glass, clothes, shoes and tins. We compost food waste, cardboard and garden waste. We can’t fill our ordinary wheely bin. But we fail to save and recycle plastic. Could do better.
• We save envelopes, cards, postage stamps, wrapping paper, string and ribbons and anything else we think might prove useful. I haven't yet turned into my grandmother: a clever woman of slender means and thrifty habits it was perfectly normal to receive on your birthday the front half of a used card with her greeting on the back sent in a re-used envelope that the postman must have enjoyed deciphering!

I'm off to see what other people have been writing about in the hope that someone will have succeeded in being funny. It may be important, but the post is dull!

End of an era

We have been to our last military 'do'. Husband leaves the army today after 30 years, 19 of which I have been with him. The end of an era as they say. Most of his uniform has been returned, and what is left he paid for and can thus keep but never wear. Apparently they have to return the uniform because ex-soldiers were going out on the streets begging in their uniforms giving the state a bad name! In the beautiful mess kit hinted at in my photo there's no chance anyone would put money in a begging bowl! The green is a Thai silk long frock made using a Vogue pattern to go to a dinner night in Dartmouth last year and with which I have been very pleased (despite the plunging neckline).

This parting meal was not a grand occasion by military standards, but we drank cocktails in one of the Mess bars, ate 3 courses served in the dining-room surrounded by portraits of military alumni and silver, drank the Queen's health in port, and ate cheese and biscuits and drank coffee back in the bar afterwards. He was one of 3 leaving the organisation and the boss gave a fluent and supportive speech to say farewell to them all. They each gave a short reply. A pleasant evening rather than a blast, but very kind of them to mark the 'end'.

Next week Husband becomes a student: a year in which he talks of growing his hair, living in casual clothes and perfecting his allotment. We'll see! Life looks like it may be very different.