The British Beach, Bloody Good Fish, Bake 'Em Anywhere Scones and Emergency Jam

Monday

Simon has just gone out to watch England v France, for the second night running….  Yes, he went out last night, even though we both knew last night was Sunday, and the football was on on Monday.  Lord only knows what we’ll be like when we really start losing our marbles properly.

Beach in Looe this morning, with a visit to Pengelly’s for fresh fish.

If we were doomy gloomy types (which we sometimes are…), the beach would have been an utter nightmare.  Sitting there, with an umbrella of dark grey cloud, watching the bright blue sky over to the west - in fact, over Polperro.  And the dog beach was shut because the steps finally slipped into the oggin, so His Royal Hairiness had to be returned to the confines of the still-slightly-sick-smelling Shazmobile.

However, the girls’ sheer joy at being beside the seaside beside the sea is so friggin’ tangible that you can’t help but be swept up by it.

So, several hours, huddled in a scarf, taking the odd photo...

(including one of my foot - why?  Nobody knows...)


...and finally succumbing to slipping into my pyjamas (which I had slipped into my handbag at the last moment, justincase), slid by in no time.

Fish and chips for lunch.  Yessss.  Well, fish and chips for O & S, a pasty for M and a portion of chips with mushy peas for me.  No batter, see?  Oh to be able to eat wheat in Cornwall of all places.

Then we picked up our Pengelly’s fish, bought on the way down to the beach.  So, bearing in mind, Pengelly’s fish monger is slap bang next door to the main fish market in Looe, and they have the pick of the day’s catch, and we were there nice and early, this is some seriously good fish.  We have fresh mackerel (oh mama) for dinner tonight.  We’ll just roll the bastard in oats, grill it, and serve with samphire which will have been verrrry briefly tossed in hot butter.  Lazily, I got the monger to fillet them before he monged them to us – heh heh.  Yes, I know it’s easy but I’m on holiday.

We also have monkfish, for dinner tomorrow (except we have fallen amongst thieves and been invited out for Coddy Shack shish and fips tomorrow night with the incomparable J&G*, so monkfish will have to wait until Wednesday), to be served with streaky bacon and tomato salad, plus endless amounts of fresh mixed crab meat, cockles, mussels, tiger prawns and shrimps to take on our walk to Talland Bay tomorrow – assuming it doesn’t piss down all day, which it’s supposed to…  We shall see.

* Coddy Shack Fish and Chips – FABULOUS!!!  Go there!!!!!!  Now!!!!!!!!!!  I know, too many exclamation marks, but you will understand when you go.

So, the day is drawing to a close, and as the girls delight in their mackerel in oats with sautéed samphire, I realize that if I don’t put the following recipes down now, I will forget them.  Because in the interim, I have improvised strawberry jam and scones!

Actually, I photographed Marguerite Patten’s scone recipe from the 70s before we came down here, but there’s no scales here, so this is a recipe for scones which you can do wherever you are!

The basic measure is spoonsful, and I used dinner spoons.  Yeah, er, dessert spoons?  You know, the kind of spoons wot you eat off of, which are not soup spoons or teaspoons.

SCONES

Take 8 heaped spoonfuls of self-raising flour – I used Dove’s Farm Gluten Free, by the way, and it worked fine.

Stick this in a bowl and add a pinch of salt, a heaped spoonful (the same size as the flour spoons, including height of heapage) of butter, and two teaspoons of baking powder.  If you’re using plain flour, use double the quantity of baking powder.

Rub, or fork, the butter into the flour.  Add a heaped spoonful (blah blah as above) of sugar.

Add enough milk to form a soft dough.  If using gluten free flour, you will not be able to roll the dough out because it will be too sticky and will not hold together.  In this case, oil your hands and make scone sized lumps of dough – place them directly on the baking sheet.  If using proper flour, I dare say you could roll it out and cut shapes. 

Bake in a hot oven (my photographed instructions said 425f, but I had no idea what that means, being eddicated abroad, like, with no Imperial points of reference and no conversion chart about my person, so I did 230c) for about 10 mins.

JAM.

Take one punnet of strawberries, top them, and slice into four or five slices each, straight into a hot saucepan.  Add a couple of teaspoons of elderflower cordial (recipe to follow - or did I already post it - anyway, recipe on here somewhere) and a splash of balsamic vinegar, plus about 3 or 4 teaspoons of soft brown sugar.  Bring to a rolling boil and keep it there for 5 minutes without stirring.  Turn the electric ring (gaaaaaah!!!) off, and stir occasionally as it cools down over the next 10 minutes or so.  If using a proper hob (i.e. gas – sorry, but really?  Electric?  For proper cooking?!) just take it down so it’s not bubbling crazily any more, then lower the temp every couple of minutes over the next 10 minutes.  Pour into a teacup and allow to cool.

Yes, you could sterilize a jar and do all that stuff, but let’s face it, if you just made the scones, too, it’s not going to last long enough to go off, is it?  In fact, I have to stop writing now because I need to wrestle the teacup off the two children, one of whom abhors jam in all its forms…  Or not any more, it seems.

Remote Blogging, and why Plan AA is normally the best plan.

Remote Blogging, and why Plan AA is normally the best plan.

So here we are in Polperro.  Hurrah.  Hang on, more emphasis required - HURRAH!!!

That’s better.


I'm writing this now but will have to post it many days hence, as we are luddite-like in our technological isolation, here.

It’s raining absolute cats and dogs, and right at this minute, I’m very glad I’m not one of the seagulls who live on the very tall, exposed chimney stack which I’m keeping an eye on out of the kitchen window, but I’m also feeling almost as content as it’s possible to get.

We arrived two days ago, after what could be described as one of the worst journeys we’ve ever had.  

We were allowed in the cottage from 3pm.  Working backwards, we figured out that we should leave home by about 12ish, maybe 11.30, to allow for stopping at the butcher’s in Tideford (Paul Bray & Son, if you happen to be passing) on the way here.  I further figured out that this would allow me to teach my Friday morning Zumba class, get home, shower, and head on down.  Timing could not be more perfect – tight, but perfect.  So we got the packing mainly done on Thursday, and while I sloped off to teach on Friday morning, Simon heroically loaded the car, in the sure and certain knowledge that no doubt I would arrive home from class and criticise his loading.  I know.  Unreasonable.  What can I say?  I never claimed to be an angel.

So I raced home from the village hall, showered in double quick time and packed the last few bits I couldn’t pack earlier (shampoo, conditioner, hairbrush, sweaty Zumba gear for washing!), made myself a sandwich to go with the ones Simon had made for the girls, and we all - me, Simon, girls and His Royal Hairiness - leapt in the car with a loud hurrah and general shouting of “WE’RE OFF!”, well on schedule and gagging for a week’s R&R in beloved Cornwall.

Which is when problem 1 reared its ugly head.  The.  Car.  Would.  Not.  Start.

I know, right?!  HiLARious.  We thought so, too, as you can imagine.  Totally dead.  Not even the slim ray of hope of the sad chug-chugging, which eventually dies out, anyway.  Nothing.  No-thing.  Not a thing.

So began an entirely grown up and relaxed (was it BOLLOCKS!) discussion about how to approach a solution to this shitty problem. 

Clearly, it was a dead battery. 

Various options swum into view, and swum on by. 

As it happens, we have a fresh, new car battery (long story, but to cut it short, thanks, Dad – wouldn’t it have been perfect if that had been the solution!?) sitting in the hall at present.  Did we know how to attach it?  No, we didn’t.  Arses.  So although it was probably fairly straightforward, we decided that this particular moment of crisis and extreme tension was probably not the time to get our CSE in Basic Car Maintenance. 

Luckily, despite many other areas of things having gone west of late, we still have AA membership.  Without any further ado, I went back in the house, looked up the number (yeah, it should be on my phone, I know), and rang the very nice men up.  I explained the predicament, with a bit of giggling and wringing of hands, followed up by a slight break in the voice – you’d have liked it, I promise – possibly my finest performance to date – and the very nice man said that he’d send on of his very nice colleagues along, and he’d be here within 45 minutes.

Good.

Meanwhile, I had thought that we would try using Car B and some jump leads to start the battery of Car A, and if we got it started, we could ring and cancel the very nice man. 

This was clearly a good and sensible plan.  However, meanwhile, gorgeous husband had had the bad and senseless plan of trying to bump start the car on the drive, which, although (in his defence) is quite steep, is also (in blatant attack) about 2m longer than the car – i.e. by no stretch of the imagination long enough to get a bump start.   This daring plan had therefore resulted in Car A being half way across the road, and diagonally across the drive, absolutely buggering up any chance of getting Car B close enough to the bonnet of Car A to attach the relatively short jump leads.

Sigh.

Back to Plan AA. 

I was supposed to drop off a key with my lovely friend A on the way to Cornwall, so I rang to explain our delay, so that she wouldn’t think we’d buggered off without dropping it off.  Very kindly, she offered to come and give us a jump start.  Who were we to refuse?  So she whizzed up, we got the cables connected with just about enough space for a careful car to pass us up the lane, and followed all the instructions.  Nothing.  Either the battery had had it, or the jump leads were SHIT.

Back to Plan AA.

Right, girls, out of the car, come on, bring HRH, we’re going to go and eat our sandwiches in the kitchen instead of the car. 

So this we did, in bizarre suspended world, bit of cricket on the telly, trying not to get the kitchen all crumby for coming home to.

Meanwhile various other friends, and bless you all, offered their services and the services of their faithful car batteries for jump starting, but we were by now too fearful of failure to waste anyone else’s time.

At 43 minutes after the original phone call to the AA, Gorgeous Husband started commenting that it would be nice if the world could actually surprise us for a change and someone could fucking well turn up on time.  I was quietly (well, I say quietly…) rolling my eyes and sighing at this, as the tirade continued until about 10 seconds before the deadline when – knock knock knock woof woof woof!  YES!  AA Man.  Bang on time.

Girls!  LOO, NOW!  CAR, NOW!  Chug chug chug, vroom vroom vroom, ooh, that WAS flat, don’t stop for petrol for 45 minutes, give it a good chance to charge up, thank you very much – girls, wave goodbye to INCREDIBLY nice man and HURRAH!  WE’RE OFF!!!!

Goodbye home!

M3, A303, hello, Little Chef – whoosh – hello Popham little planes – whoosh!  Oh oh… helllllllooooo sssslllllooooowwww ttttrrrraaaafffffffiiiicccc.  Oh bugger.  Crawling crawling crawling.  From well before Amesbury for hours…  Hhhheeeellllloooooo, Ssssttttoooonnnnneeeeehhhheeeeennnnngggggggeeeee….  And so it went on, for HOURS.  And we tried swapping the A303 for an early leap onto the M5, but within a mile we’d hit another jam.  It was uncanny.  Wherever we went, so did everyone else.

In order for this blog not to end up as long and boring as the journey, I am going to cut it short.  Suffice it to say that it DID take hours, Littl’un eventually gave up and threw up volubly all over the back of the car, including dog bed, golf clubs, colouring in book, Gorgeous Husband’s hat, seats, carpet blah blah blah bleugh bleugh bleughed. 

We had meanwhile realized several things.

1)   We were going to get to Tideford well after the butcher closed, leaving us with nothing for dinner.  This problem was easily solved thanks to Steve Jobs’s Excellent iPhone invention.  Googled the butcher (which is illegal in 99 states) and rang the order through, arranging to collect it from the pub if they’d all gone home.

2)   Slightly more worryingly, we remembered that the key for the cottage is housed in a tiny key safe screwed to the front door.  We hadn’t been given the combination for said safe.  VERY safe, in that case, no?  Further googling, however, produced a number for the owner.  Who didn’t answer.  So we spent most of the (long) journey somewhat concerned that we would arrive and not be able to unload and get in, and as our phones don’t work in the village, we’d be bleddy stuck, m’loves.  In the event, we got the number at the eleventh hour, but it was a bit sticky for a mo.

Anyway.  Whatever.  We got here in the end, and the chippy, which threatened to close while we were in the pub, actually stayed open until we finished, so we had fresh hot chips with our gorgeous Cornish steaks and salad.  So that's enough moaning from me - there was other stuff, but with a tummy full of excellent steak, a glass full of good quaffing wine and a snootful of good Cornish sea-air, me old love pops, I'm now, frankly, beyond caring.

Night night.

The Unexpected Trout, and How To Approach It

As I mentioned in my last post, my good friend S was kind enough to phone me up and offer me a spare, VERY freshly caught, trout.  Even more kindly, she actually delivered the glorious offering!  It was fresh as.  Still stiff as a board, clear and bright of eye, and in need of very little in the way of being buggered about with.

Being an entirely unexpected trout, I also didn't have obvious in the cupboard with which to tart it up - which was very good news as I may otherwise have been tempted.

So here, in a nutshell, is what I did with it.  I pass this information on in case you, too, should ever be the recipient of an unexpected, but by no means unwelcome, trout.

First, you will need to gut your fish.  This is neither difficult nor unpleasant.  I know that may come as a surprise, but provided that your fish is nice and fresh, fish guts just aren't that smelly.  Disappointing, eh?!

So, incision down its front, hand in, guts out.  They'll be attached to the fish up the top end, so you can snip them out with scissors, or just slice with a knife (but mind you don't nick your knuckles - it's a bit tricky to see what you're doing up in there, if you don't want to ruin your fish).

Clean out the fish by giving it a bit of a wipe with a clean cloth or some kitchen towel.  It shouldn't need more than that.  Remember, fish guts: Disappointingly unsmelly.

I would recommend bagging them up, though, and tying the bag firmly before binning, as although they're not that smelly yet, once they've sat in your dustbin in the sunshine for a couple of days, they will MING!  I hate smelly dustbins, so if there's a bit of a wait until bin day, I tend to freeze anything potentially ghastly, and chuck it straight out on bin day.  At least, that's the theory.  In practise, I regularly stumble across bags of frozen fish guts, chicken skin, old bones...  But anyway, I digress (makes a change... or not).

At this point, I put the oven on (about 180c) and Maddy and I took a stroll up the garden.  We're not in full flow yet, but there's still plenty of fresh stuff growing out there to be going on with.  We picked flat-leaf parsley, chives, fennel tops and wild garlic.  Together with a whole sliced lemon and a knob of butter, these filled our fish very nicely.  A rummage in the fridge produced some celery, so that got chopped up and scattered about, too.

Then it's the papillote bit, which sounds complicated.  Here's how.  Greaseproof paper on to baking tray, fish on to greaseproof paper.  Slide fish down to bottom half of paper, bring top half over fish and roll the two edges together like a Cornish pasty.  Thassit!  If you don't have enough paper, it won't hold, and if you've got too much it's liable to come unfurled, so make sure you've got about 3 - 4 times as much paper as fish - one to sit it on, one to bring over the top and one full one (i.e. two, because it's doubled) to roll up.  See, now I've made it sound more complicated than it is - don't worry about it.  Just do it.

Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes.

Remove.

Eat every last bit, including the herbs you stuffed it with, and the cheeks, which are particularly delicious.

Fish.  Board.  Knife.

Incision.

Guts.

Guts coming out.

Nice clean fishy.

Stuffed.

Greaseproof paper.

Papillote.

Unwrap.

Eat.

Keep eating 'til all gone.

The Merry Old Month of May

Another large gap in the blogposts.  Tut.  Well, what can I say?  Fits and starts, my loves, fits and starts.

The weather, as you may have noticed, went through a long patch of ghastliness.  In fact, until this week, it has been an absolute shower in every sense of the word, since The Worm Post.  Curiously, despite the non-stop month or six weeks of rain, two days of sunshine has already produced cracked ground.  Just goes to show, they boooys at Met Office don't tell no looooys.

SO!  What have I been doing during this spate of non-blogginess.  Well, there was a frenzied spate of needle-felting, for the craft stall at the school fair:

Needle-felted brooches

Which resulted in a gush of creativity, and pins everywhere, which resulted in:

Pincushion

And led to iPad cover production:

I have also spent no small amount of time laughing at my daughters.  I mean "with", of course.  The post script of this, in particular, made me guffaw.  It is from our 7 year old daughter, inviting us to the Brownie Jubilee celebration:

Cooking wise, I am minded to enter our local farmshop's amateur chef competition.  I think I will, but am dithering over my menu.  It has to be two courses, including as much local produce as possible.  Of course, truffles feature very highly in my ideal choices of dishes - but will the truffles cooperate?  Will there be truffles by July?  Nobody knows.  In 2010 you couldn't move for truffles by May, but in 2011 they didn't put in an appearance until August.  Dicey.  Equally, I can't make my mind up over starters or puddings (a main course is compulsory).  Oh decisions, decisions.

Meanwhile, my friend S has just popped over with a large, freshly caught trout.  What an absolute treat - I can't wait to cook the chap.  Or chapess - how does one sex a trout?  Only remains to see if we can wait until dinner time, or scarf it down for our lunch (*update - didn't have it for lunch - decided not to rush at it with fork in hand).  Mmmmm.  Am picturing it stuffed with wild garlic flowers, and baked en papillote with lemon and butter, but something else may spring to mind.  Oh, hmm.  The fennel is just coming up beautifully frondy.  Damn.  Hmm.  And damn and hmm again.

The Players' Summer Play (performances to take place tomorrow night and Saturday, complete with barbecue and Pimms tent) has also been taking up no small portion of my time and attention.  We are all still finding the play and each other very funny, so are all rather concerned that unscripted giggling may be a problem during performances.  We have also only just started rehearsing with real liquid in our glasses, so are constantly sloshing Dandelion and Burdock all over ourselves, each other and the set.  I think I might rethink my costume, and wear a cheaper, machine-washable dress...

Set building

Set built!

And now to the real, proper stuff!  The Veg Patch!


Everything in the greenhouse has been going swimmingly.  Rather too swimmingly, in fact, given the state of the weather outside and the fact that nothing has been able to go out until now.  Or at least, I have not been tempted to get outside with a spade, in wellies, raincoat, hat etc.  But things have moved on while the weather stopped person progress.  The courgettes are covered in flowers and buds, although I can't see any bulgy bits behind any of them, so I am concerned that they may all be boy-flowers.  There could be a lot of courgette-flower fritters coming our way.  I've never tried these, but this could be the year.  I think you're meant to stuff them with ricotta, which I've always found to be an almost entirely flavourless thing, so I'm tempted to go for a spiced paneer, instead.  I'll let you know... (must stop ending sentences and indeed paragraphs with three little dots - sometimes a full stop just seems too final, though.  See what I mean?!).  I'm looking forward to letting some of the courgettes go over into marrow status, and stuffing them with eastern spiced minced lamb, too.  Stuffed marrow sounds so utterly pedestrian, but is so utterly divine if you stuff it with something sufficiently flavoursome.  But first I need courgettes.  I have read that you take the boy-flowers and rub their pistils on the stamens of the girl-flowers.  Good GRIEF!  The sheer, unadulterated sexuality of it all!  No wonder the Victorians preferred ferns.

Which reminds me - look at this fab fern just getting ready to uncurl its fronds - isn't it GORGEOUS?!

The runner beans were also doing too well in the greenhouse, with the result that they were all twined around one another and rambling all over the place, risking their tender little tips being trodden on.

Strawberries are on their way nicely - I do wish they'd talk amongst themselves, however, and all try to ripen around the same time so we can get a full pudding out of them!

I always find the tomatoes peculiarly satisfying.  Perhaps it's because they are expensive in the shops, and very easy to grow.  Perhaps it's because they justify the greenhouse all by their little round, red selves.  Or the profusion of varieties.  Maybe it's the MASSIVE glut of tomatoes from August, resulting in endless salads, meals of roast tomatoes all melting with olive oil, and fresh bread, and the sheer stupid luxury of being able - no, HAVING - to make your own tomato ketchup before they all go off.  It could also be the gentle contentment of usually still being able to pick the last stragglers well into November.  Either way, as soon as it's cool enough to work in the greenhouse (there's no pleasing some people, is there!?), they will be put into their final growing spaces.  Magic!

I put a couple of trays of broad beans, peas and mangetouts (I suspect I get rather too much fun out of referring to these as "the legooooooms") outside the greenhouse to harden off.  In the event, this was more of a case of chucking them in at the deep end, as they never went back in the greenhouse overnight, and pretty much had to learn to fend for themselves from day one Out In The Cold.  The pea and mangetout contingent had followed the runner beans' examples (they must have been peering through the glass at night) and were all cuddling and twined around each other like the teenagers they had clearly become.  One even had a pod on.  Stop it.

Legoooooms in their so-called hardening off position

and broad beans in their proper place.

Anyway, this sudden bout of decent weather (26 degrees centigrade - yesssssssss!), out of the blue (clear blue skies, that is), has obviously led to some phrenetic heavy gardening.

This is what the near end of the veg patch looked like on Monday morning:

This is what it looked like on Tuesday night:

Impressive, eh?

Yes.  I am knackered.  My hamstrings are like bowstrings (not bowed, TIGHT), and don't even talk to me about my back.  It is stiff and sore and SUNBURNT!  Damn it.  Hence skulking inside blogging on a sunny day.  I can only thank my lucky stars for Zumba.  It has kept my muscles moving.  Without it, I think I would have convinced even a decent coroner that rigor mortis had set in, today.

My lovely husband heroically dug the area over, but obviously it then needed breaking up, and several bucket loads (no, I am not exaggerating, I promise you) of DEVIL'S GUTS (see a previous post) roots needed pulling up, digging up, teasing out and generally removing.  I think it was actually four buckets full by the time I had finished, and when I dug the trench for the beans, another bucket load came out.  Initially, I figured I must have missed these first time 'round, and was tutting at my lack of care.  It was hard, however, to see how I COULD have missed the bastards - there were just so many.  So a second, rather more worrying, hypothesis posed itself:  The bastards (yes, I know that's two bastards in two lines, but they ARE bastards - oh, now that's four bastards in three lines - oops, five) (where was I?) - oh yes - the bastards (six) had Grown Overnight!  Hoping I'm wrong on this, or I'll never beat the ... bastards (shhh, seven).

SO, anyway, this large patch of ground then needed breaking up.  The fork works to a certain extent for this, but in my experience, it still leaves clumps too big to actually plant small plants in.  The best way, again, in my experience, is to break it up with a cultivator.

The patch which needed breaking up measured about 2m x 8m.

This is The Cultivator:






















This is the blister caused by the shotgun wedding of the Large Patch and the Small Cultivator:

















In my experience, the best way of breaking up a large patch of ground is NOT a bloody tiny little cultivator.  I shall try to improve my experience and report back.  Some kind of large mechanical device or Some Staff, I suspect, would be better.  Where's that bloody lottery ticket gone?

Anyway - here's how it was looking this morning, before it was too sunny for me to haul my crimson body outside:

Peas:

Runners:

I tell you, if slugs get any of this lot, the repercussions will be severe.  Pleasant boozy death by slug pub:  No.  It will be scissors for the sods.  And then, curtains.  Not in a nice, soft-furnishings kind of way.

Oh... and I've put in a bid on a hen house on eBay...  Shhhh and watch this space.........!


p.s.  God Save The Queen!

Rainfall and the Deluded Ambitions of Worms

I love earthworms, I really do.  I don't know why, exactly.  Possibly because they are so entirely defenceless, and so hugely beneficial to the garden.  I find them utterly charming.  The much vaunted New Zealand Flatworm invasion of a decade or so ago put the wind RIGHT up me, I can tell you.  I saw a film of one ingesting an earthworm which makes me shudder to this very day.  Ugh!

I wish I knew what it is about rain that gets the worms all fired up.  It's possibly as simple as the fact that the ground is a lot slipperier than usual.  Whatever it is, come a good downpour, all the worms in the world seem to feel an insurmountable urge to take on epic journeys above ground.  This morning's ghastly shower prompted just such a pilgrimage-yen in the local worm population.  The particular walk I took His Royal Hairiness on this morning includes a bridleway which is reasonably well travelled by dogwalkers, cyclists, horses and deer.  It therefore definitely does not constitute a safe place for a young worm to saunter about.

For as long as I can remember, the sight of worms above ground, desperately attempting to get from A to B, has provoked an insuperable reaction in me.  I have to help them.  They seem so earnest in their desire to get somewhere else, and I can't bear the thought of them being crushed under foot, paw, wheel, hoof etc.  And I'm always worried they'll drown.  There are few sadder sights on the average dog walk than a drowned worm, all white, swollen and flaccid.

Sometimes you don't get there in time.

Rivalled only by a worm who has dried out in the sun.  Tragic, I tell 'ee.  I do accept that I may be on my own here....

I don't want to come across all grandiose, chaps, but I have long suspected that I am probably some kind of vermicular goddess, hailed by worms as their saviour in troubled times, fabled, whispered about after dark, and used to frighten little worms when they're not eating all their soil up.

This morning alone, I potentially saved the lives of over 40 worms.  Yes.  I know *smiles serenely, and, admittedly, a little self-satisfiedly.*  I will allow you time to digest this truly awesome information, as I know it's a lot to take on board in one go.  While you're digesting, I'm going to take a couple of bows and soak up the applause.

What?  You're not impressed?!

Oh.  Well, it really IS just me, then.

If you are the one person out there who IS impressed, and who would like to join me in being a worm god or goddess, here are some things to bear in mind when Rescuing Worms.  You do, after all, want to be a force for good and not for evil.

First, ascertain that you are indeed looking at a worm:

Beware of imposters - in this case, sticks.

Next, when you have espied what does indeed prove to be a worm in a vulnerable position - such as worming its way across an expose path or marooned on an island of mud in the middle of a puddle - do not just jump in and thoughtlessly hurl it into the bushes.

Stop.  Observe.  Think.

Which way is the worm heading?!  AHA!  You see how easy it would be to become the scourge of the worm world, rather than the saviour?  You want to cause conversations like this:

"Hey, Barney - you'll never guess what!  I was in a bit of trouble out in The Open earlier.  It was a lot further to The Other Place than I thought, and there were seas forming all around me.  I'd already narrowly avoided being trampled by some big 'uge thing - no idea what it was - and I could 'ear something thumping towards me.  Well, blow me, I was suddenly 'oisted into the air!  I thought my number was up, mate, I won't lie to you, and was expecting the cruel chomp of a sharp beak any second, but the next thing I knew, I'd been set down PRECISELY where I had been trying to go!  I know, BRILLIANT, eh?  Must 'ave been some kinda Worm Goddess, or something, I reckon!"

(I suspect that most worms have trouble with their aspirants, by the way)

Rather than like this:

"Ere, did you 'ear what 'appened to Marilyn?!  She was doing the old Journey, you know the one, and she'd ALMOST made it, when some ruddy great big mysterious force come down and plonked 'er RIGHT back where she started!  Back to square one!  So she 'ad to start all over again, and 'alf way across second time 'round, she only bleedin' went and drowned, poor cow."

Worm heading East

Worm heading West

Another possible worm conversation to bear in mind is"

"Terrible what happened to Alistair, wasn't it?  Oh, you didn't hear?  He was doing His Journey, when something Moved him.  Celestine said he was left right out in the open and before he had chance to get to cover, a sodding great blackbird had swooped down and whisked him away.  Mind you, did you hear about the time when Ginger got Moved?  He was left right up on top of a dandelion!  Gave him dreadful vertigo and he threw his earth up everywhere before he managed to wriggle his way off."

So, put the worm a) where the worm wants to be, b) under cover and c) on the ground.

Worms everywhere will thank you.  The very earth itself will thank you.

Trials and Tribulations

The Gitten - so christened by the children because she is a kitten AND a git - is on very thin ice indeed.  And I am considering taking a sledgehammer to the millimetre of ice upon which she is currently performing her own special feline version of Torville and Dean's Bolero with a degree of insouciance previously unsuspected.

Despite the relentless ghastliness of the rain, drip plop dripping from the skies with deep concentration, I have just been out to check on the veg patch (because I loff heeeem) and the greenhouse (because I loff heeeem, too).  Having watered the seedlings and plantlets in the greenhouse, which always feels odd when it's tipping down, I went outside in order to eye up, moodily, the fire-deformed waterbutt - of which, more later.  I then turned around to see how the radishes were faring under their new wire pigeon-proof (hopefully) net.  And that's when I saw it.  She - hang on, are you sitting down?  Good.  She has actually taken an actual crap on my actual carrots.  I know, right!?  Look! (or skip down a bit if you're feeling queasy):

The Actual Crap in the Actual Carrots

(small photo - you don't want this in close-up)

And of course, being a cat, not only has she done this grisly deed, but she's dug up half the bloody carrots to do it.  And then, when I came inside to hunt her down in order to work out what is the best angle from which to throttle the little bugger, I found her like this:

Butter Wouldn't Melt

Little SOD!  The worst thing is that it's actually put me off my carrots-to-be.  And the other worst thing is that she made that thoroughly endearing chirrupy noise when she saw me, which put me right off my murderous stride.  Grrrrr.  Anyway.  So how do you go about sewing up a cat's bum?  Answers on a postcard, please...

To add to all of this joy, when I checked further to see how the broad beans are getting along, this is what I found:

Not looking good, is it?  Something's clearly munching on the poor bastard.  Time I ordered me some nematodes.  I tried the other day, but the Green Gardener's website went berserk and tried to assassinate my laptop, so I need to find another source.  Not going THERE again.  Scary.  And something's nibbled one of the runners in the greenhouse, too, so I shall be out there in dead of night with a torch and a pair of hobnailed boots tonight.  Or I might just fashion a slug pub, if I can find some beer...

On the up side, the water butt situation is good.  The pre-fire greenhouse had two water butts connected to it - one for each side of the roof.  These were kept nicely filled by our great British weather, and have been most useful on many an occasion.  However, the people who installed the new greenhouse said that two water butts on a greenhouse of this size was unnecessary, or some such.  This puzzled me at the time, and I should probably have queried it then, but I was so excited about the new greenhouse that I just ignored it.  I figured that they would rig the guttering so that both sides of the roof fed into the same water butt.  What they actually did was rig it so that one side feeds into one water butt, and the other side just trickles on to the path.  Hmm.  I do HATE wasting anything, so I'd put a bucket under the drainpipe, which has been collecting a lot of water.  I'd then try to pour this brimming bucket into the top of the unconnected (and slightly deformed by the fire but still watertight I hope) water butt, but usually end up drenched and wasting half of the water.  The main reason for which I'd get drenched is that I stupidly forgot that the top of the water butt is not fixed, but easily removed.  So I've been trying to pour a heavy bucket full of water, at head height, into a hole the size of a small mug.  Hmmm.  Not very bright.  Anyway.  I've been hunting through the remaining fire wreckage to try to find a piece of pipe the right length to divert the water into the water butt.  This morning (pre Crapgate), I finally remembered that Mum and I had taken a few bits of the old greenhouse guttering around the side of the house when we rigged up the guttering on the bike shed.  Sure enough, the absolutely perfect sized piece (in fact, the original piece from before the fire - yesss!) was there, so all that lovely rain water is now no longer being squandered on the path, but being collected ready for use in the (please, please) hot, dry summer months.

Tadaaaa!  It's not the tidiest job, but it's too horrible out there to spend time doing it nicely, and as my Dad always says, if a job's worth doing, it's worth doing badly for the time being.

Happy St George's Day, everyone - hope the weather's better where you are.  I'm off to practise the violin.  At least it'll SOUND like I'm strangling the cat... some small consolation.