This gallery contains 8 photos.
I have to say, the garden wildlife is taking the whatsits round here. The local critters really need to remember whose garden this is. Earlier in the year I simply gave up on the troughs of cut-and-come-again salad after the … Continue reading
This pair of horses seemed a little reluctant to wade into the North Sea at Duhnen, pulling the hefty, high-wheeled ‘Wattwagen‘ cart that was to take us to the island of Neuwerk across a quite daunting mudflat with the tide not quite all the way out!
I snapped them as the chestnut was leaning up its mate for comfort; it looked as if he was saying “Please don’t make me go”! They (and the driver) did a great job and got us there and back without mishap, I have to say.
I happened to have a large print of this to hand when a request came in to the camera club a while ago, so I put it, entitled Les amis, into an art & craft exhibition in France, as the only other prints I had ready at the time were even more idiosyncratic! The event was postponed due to the bad weather in the early summer, and a club and twinning association member kindly took some prints over with him last week, doing sterling (and lone) duty in a tent over a chilly weekend.
He rang yesterday to say my print had sold, which surprised and pleased me no end, as I had quite forgotten about it. The money won’t exactly change my life (!) but those few euros have cheered me greatly; it’s the first actual print I’ve sold, though I’ve had money for some calendar shots and sold the odd digital image, and it pleases me greatly to think that someone else liked my two equine pals enough to hang them on their wall. Thank you, whoever you are!
I always think there’s a bit of an irony in the volunteer work that I do for the local Wildlife Trust and the Biological Records Centre. I am surrounded by people with great expertise, sometimes in very specialised fields, sometimes across an amazing range, and whilst I think I have a reasonable lay knowledge of the natural world,and know a fair bit about mammals and reptiles, I realise it’s still quite limited and I remain absolutely appalling at identification of bird, plant and insect/bug life, though I am slowly assimilating snippets of new knowledge.
I was never any good at the shoot-em-up aerial warfare computer games my husband loves,and am more than likely to ensure that passing pilots on my side are the victim of friendly fire – for the same reasons that I can’t tell my buzzard silhouettes from my red kites. Or at least, I can, with the book there, but I can’t retain the information.
I tease my husband for his rather minimal plant classification system (tree-plants, flower-plants…) but in all honesty, am not much better myself, particularly when it comes to tree-plants – sorry, trees! The bad pun in the title is not quite accurate, though, in that I can at least tell elder when it has flowers or berries, but that’s about the limit of my arboreal expertise.
Having said that, two or three small successes and pleasures have accrued today and yesterday. I took a phone call at the records office and though the memory failed to dredge up the name of the caterpillar I’d been looking up last week for someone else, I could at least find it quickly again and tell the lady that the rather hefty, hairy but pretty critter she’d found was a Pale Tussock moth larva. It isn’t really a great feat as it’s a fairly distinctive chap with its toothbrush tufts and the perky red tailpiece, but I was pleased with this small success nonetheless!
A colleague took a second call which involved another monster creature and had workmen downing tools at a site where they’d found some very large spiders inside a manhole. She decided it was probably the European cave spider and we managed to confirm this and elicit pretty quickly that the workmen were safe to continue their work without fear of arachnid attack. It was quite satisfying to realise that whilst my ID skills might not be great, my information handling ain’t bad still. (We did get confirmation from a real expert, in case you are worried!)
The other pleasure was at a meeting of the Trust last night, when a number of volunteers were presented with “Wild Service Awards” in recognition of their work, in many cases over decades, and often involving the sort of expertise and experience I referred to above. I was surprised and pleased to receive one for the rather different sort of work that I do, currently updating parts of the website, helping out with some online tasks, taking stock photos and previously helping with office work. I’ve always been more a backstage person by inclination and find this sort of thing a bit embarrassing, but have finally decided ‘what the heck; just enjoy it’ and accept gratefully in the spirit intended. It was a pleasure to have efforts acknowledged and a privilege to be included among all those experts!
Chairman Graham Martin presents Wild Service Award to Ruth Bourne
Photo by Stewart Bourne
The evening ended with a talk by Mike Averill, recipient of the Worcestershire Wildlife Medal for his conservation work over many years.He is undoubtedly the Dragonfly king, but his talk “Water for Life” took a rather different slant with only a few dragon-y detours, and was an excellent and thought-provoking end to the day.
This gallery contains 10 photos.
Just a little celebration of autumnal colour. We may not rival New England in the fall, but there are some wonderful splashes of colour to be seen…
Pause for thought – if you’re not too b**y?
We hear it all the time. Chances are we say it all the time.
I swear (hah!) it’s the curse of our era.
What’s up with you?
Busy
How’s work?
Busy
How are the kids?
Busy
What was your vacation like?
Busy
What’s next week like for you?
Busy
Ack!
We are busy, pulled in so many directions that we don’t have words powerful enough to describe how time starved we feel. Swamped, hectic, rushed, hurried, slammed, or crazy busy can’t come close.
I suspect that we aren’t busier, in terms of obligations using up our time, than someone our age might have been 100 years ago. Chances are those folks kept the house warm with coal shoveled into a furnace; worked long hours for poor pay in factories, mines, slaughterhouses or worse; traveled at low speeds to get where they were going; struggled to stay healthy in a…
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This gallery contains 9 photos.
I wanted a traditional German Pflaumenkuchen recipe for the OH’s birthday last week when we had people coming to supper, and came across this one from ‘Sunday Hotpants’, complete with its own charming tale. It’s come via New Zealand, so it’s … Continue reading
This gallery contains 8 photos.
As the chutney-in-the-making photo in the last blog was a bit dubious to say the least, I thought I’d ferret out a few of the more finished products from recent bouts of domesticity. I think it’s an atavistic urge, like … Continue reading
Cooking spicy plum chutney.
I clearly have yet to find a way of making a pan of chutney look appealing!
I wanted to make some chutney to keep my husband happy as he is a lifelong hater of all things raisin-y, including currants & sultanas, which he charmingly refers to as ‘rabbits’ (think about it… currants, mainly…).
I used Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s ‘Glutney’ recipe as a basis for quantities & method, with a few tweaks to suit taste and what was in the store cupboard. I’ll tell you if it worked in November when we have the ceremonial opening! Unfortunately, we aren’t River Cottage, so the economy aspect of this recipe was limited, though I managed some bargain cooking apples from a resident of Lacock earlier this week, where they charmingly leave flowers (and fruit and books) on the doorsteps with an exhortation to drop £1 for charity through the letterbox. Less quaintly, I had several packs of bargain plums from Waitrose, which I thought would make a change from the usual tomato base.
I made it in two half-batches, with slightly differing spicing for each, one rather more sinus-clearingly spicy with the addition of some rather vicious hot smoked paprika. The optional items for the 2nd version are listed (in brackets).
I was feeling distinctly under the weather tonight, but had to make it as the bargain plums were not going to keep too much longer, so I hold out no great hopes for the outcome being a Masterchef contender. Having said that, the OH did test it straight from the pan and proclaim it a success, even in its unnmatured state. Job done.
Seriously spicy plum Glutney
1kg courgettes, unpeeled, cut into 1cm dice
1kg plums, stoned and chopped
1kg cooking or eating apples, peeled and diced (fairly small)
500g red onions, peeled and diced
500g chopped dates
500g dark muscovado sugar
750ml (pickling) malt vinegar, made up to 1 litre with water
1-2 tsp sweet smoked paprika
(1-2 tsp hot smoked paprika)
(1 tsp of ground coriander)
(1 tsp dried powdered ginger)
1 tsp salt
For the spice bag
1 thumb-sized nugget of fresh ginger, roughly chopped
A few black peppercorns
6-8 cardamom pods, split open to reveal the seeds
A generous grating of nutmeg
Cinnamon stick
(1 tsp yellow mustard seeds)
(1 tsp black mustard seeds)
Put the vegetables and fruit in a large, heavy-based pan with the dates, sugar, vinegar and water, smoked paprika (and optional other dried powdered spices) and salt.
Make up the spice bag by tying all the other listed spices in a square of muslin or cotton. Add the spice bag to the pan, pushing it into the middle.
Heat the mixture gently, stirring occasionally to dissolve the sugar, and bring slowly to the boil. Simmer for 2-3 hours, uncovered, stirring regularly to ensure (well, try to ensure!) it does not burn on the bottom of the pan. The chutney is ready when it is rich, thick and reduced, and parts to reveal the base of the pan when a wooden spoon is dragged through it. If it starts to dry out before this stage is reached, add a little boiling water. (I had to add quite a bit, particularly in the wider, shallower pan in which evaporation was more rapid.)
Pot up the chutney while still warm (but not boiling hot) in sterilised jars with plastic-coated screw-top lids (essential to stop the vinegar interacting with the metal). Leave to mature for at least two weeks – ideally two months – before serving.
This morning we went to an Odeon “Senior Screen” session (£4 a head for the luxury seats, coffee and biscuits!). Oh, the excitement we pensioners have to contend with…
Man of Steel was showing, and though I know our friendly not-exactly-neighbourhood critic gave it a “meh” rating, I did actually quite enjoy it, as a fairly decent attempt to return to a darker style. The over-emphasis on the mayhem, violence and destruction actually slowed the story somewhat; much of that was, I assume, designed to keep the 3D audiences happy (we watched in 2D). Despite the niggle, though, it was an enjoyable bit of comic-book hokum in which to immerse ourselves for a couple of hours, though the additional sound track was a real nuisance.
What additional sound track, you ask?
Well, I’ve ranted with the best against the constant texting, twittering, tweeting and talking of teenagers (I probably include anyone under 50 in that designation these days!) in the cinema, and their tendency to practise percussion skills on the cardboard cups or popcorn boxes having previously rattled, crackled, slurped and chomped the contents loudly during the tenderest moments of the drama.
Given a cinema fairly full of apparently respectable citizens of ‘a certain age’, I had expected a civilised experience, being able to view the film with others, sharing the odd gasp, laugh or indrawn breath, but otherwise without that sort of extraneous noise.
I was so wrong.
A gaggle of giggly septuagenarians at the back left maintained the fine tradition of kids at the back of the class everywhere, thus kindly providing distraction, should I get bored with the story. Behind me on the right-hand side of the aisle was a trio of women (though I am sure they would say ladies) who chatted loudly and volubly throughout most of the film, kindly balancing the noise levels in each ear for me. I was particularly impressed by the way they managed to co-ordinate their louder bits of conversation with the gigglers and crescendo wonderfully together into the (fairly few, to be fair!) quieter and more dramatic moments of the film.
This was all wonderfully counterpointed by the extended and repeated crackle of cellophane from somewhere in front, which I could only assume accompanied the opening and consumption of copious quantities of Werther’s Originals along at least a whole row of pensioners.
Please, cinemagoers of all ages, remember that you are not alone in that auditorium. It is the cinema, not your living room. We have all paid to see & enjoy the film rather than to hear your ongoing commentary, or worse, your gossip. And, to the Senior Screen cohort – you really are old enough to know better!
An interesting revisit by Bryony Holden of an old favourite by (and with) Sandy Denny…
Random Thoughts 
