Wednesday, or is it Thursday?

 

a rose rescued from the garden

 

Our kitchen was a hive of industry this morning.  Whilst I made a spicy tagine for supper Paul was busy making bread for lunch.  When the country first went into lockdown everyone was buying flour and suddenly the supermarket shelves were bare.  The only thing left on the shelf was a bag of spelt, a type of flour we were not very familiar with, but we bought it anyway.  Spelt is a cereal grain but is different to wheat.  The wholegrain flour is apparently easier to digest than wheat and is rich in vitamins and minerals.

 

spelt loaf

Today Paul used a mix of 80% spelt and 20% ordinary bread flour to make the loaf.  It made  a denser loaf than normal but I really enjoyed the texture and nutty flavour.  We ate it with cheese, tomatoes from the greenhouse and some mixed beans with pesto.  I think I probably ate far too much.

 

Rick has been helping in the garden.  Although he is a Pyrenean Mountain Dog, a herder, he has one of the characteristics of a Pointer, a term used to describe a gun dog that points at the game it is hunting.  A couple of days ago he adopted his classic stance of freezing, with one paw raised, and his head pointing straight ahead, looking at something at the bottom of  the garden hedge.  On closer inspection we realised he had found a tiny harvest mouse, curled up in a ball.  Rick made no attempt to touch the mouse but was clearly very pleased with his discovery.  Paul managed to tempt Rick away from the terrified little creature with his favourite tennis ball.

 

harvest mouse

 

Dancing and Wine

 

My hips ache and my knees ache.  That’s what you get when you go dancing for an hour.  We are very well-behaved ladies – our individual dance square is marked off on the floor with masking tape and at the end of the session Maureen makes sure we don’t mingle and linger.  All the windows in the village hall are left open while we dance, I’m not sure how acceptable this will be in the middle of winter.  I’m just chuffed that I have finally mastered the steps to Dire Straits’ Walk of Life.

It’s been a fairly mild and sunny morning but the skies are starting to darken and I think some stormy weather might be coming our way. We still have a few apples left on the trees. On Wednesday Paul and I spent a couple of hours chopping and de-pipping a whole load of apples for our wine.  We filled a big 30 litre fermentation bucket with chopped fruit and then poured boiling water over.  It will now be left for a few days to allow the apple juice to leach out.  The apples are then removed and we add sultanas, yeast etc and a cup of tea.  Eventually we should end up with a beautiful white wine resembling a Cabernet Sauvignan.  That’s what the recipe promises anyway!

apple production line

Now I do believe you can make rosehip wine…

 

Autumn

 

Pineapple Plant

The lockdown stuff continues but life doesn’t change much in our neck of the woods.  There have been some positive cases confirmed within Kat’s squadron so she is not coming home for the time being.  Sarah had originally intended to fly home from Australia for Christmas but that’s not going to happen now.  So it’s just me, himself and the dog.

 

The weather is starting to feel more autumnal.  I’ve just harvested a load of red peppers and tomatoes from the greenhouse.  I shall roast some of the peppers and freeze the rest.  Paul has moved the raspberry canes to a more sheltered part of the garden; they got shredded to pieces by the winds this year.

 

At the weekend we racked the plum wine, in other words we siphoned the plum wine off the sediment into fresh demi-johns.  I’m pleased to report that the wine tasted slightly less like vinegar so we are hopeful that in a few months’ time it will have matured into a flavoursome wine.  It won’t be bottled until we are confident that the fermentation has completely stopped and things are progressing properly.

 

Chief Winemaker

Later this week we shall process the apples and start on the next batch of wine.  Such fun!

 

 

Data Geeks

 

I am the odd one out in my family - my husband and daughters are data geeks.  They all wear Fitbits or activity trackers.  They monitor their sleep patterns, pulse rates, cycling performance, etc.  They discuss and compare the data.  Rick and I just look at each other and sigh.

 

This morning I went to my weekly dance session at the village hall – an hour of Country Western yee-ha.  Just for a laugh Paul gave me his Fitbit to wear.  It looked like a smart wristwatch.  “Don’t panic if it vibrates, no one else will hear it or notice.”  I’m glad he warned me.

 

When I got home I handed the thing back to Paul and he showed me the results on his computer.  My heart rate looked very healthy, I had danced 6,925 steps and travelled the equivalent of 4.75 kilometres.  I hope you are impressed.

 

Moggs Eye

"Come in, the water's lovely!"

 

It’s quite a long drive to the coast from our village, about an hour and ten minutes, but yesterday we couldn’t resist the beautiful sunny weather and set out for a day at the seaside.  Kat sat at the front of the car with Paul so she was in charge of the music; she has recently discovered Classic FM so I was able to relax in the back listening to some lovely music.

 

We went to Moggs Eye, a quiet, unspoilt beach backed by grassy sand dunes with a wide sandy area sloping down towards the sea.  There were relatively few people about so we were able to relax and let Rick run free for a while.  We went for a paddle in the sea but he was more interested in sniffing the wonderful scents along the tide line.

 

 

Rick's 'chicken' legs after his swim

shell seekers

 

We had hastily grabbed some cheese and cold meats to go with a loaf that Paul had baked earlier in the morning.  A bowl of tomatoes picked from the greenhouse and a very nice bottle of Italian red wine made up a simple, but tasty picnic.  We ate in a sheltered spot by the sand dunes and then strolled along the beach.  I can never resist collecting shells as I walk along. We climbed back over the dunes and walked back along the footpath through the reed beds. We had gone further than we intended and it was easier to walk along the path than the sandy beach.

 

We had a perfect, impromptu day out and it was lovely to see Kat happy and healthy again after her accident.  I was knackered by the time we got home.

 

Kat