Thursday 29 June 2017

A nice new recipe

Every so often I am inspired to create an amazing new dish, like my  Thrice baked lemon meringue pie. This happened again yesterday.

Specially mixed Mediterranean vegetables:
1. Toss sliced peppers, courgettes, red onions and cherry tomatoes in herbs, seasoning and olive oil.
2. Roast in a hot oven for about forty minutes.
3. Carefully remove the tin with the cooked vegetables.
4. Upend the tin onto the floor. Ensure all the vegetable have fallen out. There should be a big oily pool of grease with the veg scattered about in it.
5. Using a large fish slice, scoop all the veg back into the tin. By this time, they will be well mixed.
6. Serve.

Cook's note: this doesn't work so well if the floor is carpeted. It also helps if the floor is clean (ish).


Monday 26 June 2017

Warning - this post could cause offence

This made me laugh, I'm afraid. Aren't children just the sweetest? Hmm....

Wednesday 21 June 2017

Adrian would have known



When you flew in through the window
You were very cross
And buzzy.
I helped you to leave
But you weren't grateful at all.
I googled hornet,
Just in case.
But you are bombus lapidarius,
And a queen, at that.
Do you sting?
I suspect that you do.
This is one for Adrian, I thought.
(I also thought,
Is this a poem?
Probably not.
But I've read
Worse
Verse.)

Tuesday 20 June 2017

A rant to X

I can't really say this to her; it would be infantile. I need to be very grown-up when I confront her. So I shall rant here. Feel free to ignore a very angry post.

"X - what right did you think you had to walk into my horse's box and cut, yes CUT, his mane? You don't work at the yard; nobody asked you to do this. But you took it upon  your interfering self to mutilate MY horse. The mane looks TERRIBLE. It looks as though a child has been at it with a pair of blunt scissors. You know full well that a mane should never, ever, be cut. It should be pulled*. You have always considered yourself to be something of an expert, so you should know this. Blue has (had) a lovely mane. It didn't need anything done to it. I am furious (I rarely get very angry, but this time I am).

"I didn't know what to do with all this anger, so I'm spilling it out onto my blog, which I'm quite sure you've  never even heard of, never mind read. When I see you, I shall try very hard to be civilised, but you will sulk, which is what you always do if anyone annoys you. But I don't do the sulking thing because it's childish. I shall be the bigger person (I actually am the bigger person, being several inches taller than you). I shall try to control myself as best I can. And hope very much that you can find some explanation for your extraordinary behaviour. (What I would really like to do is go into your horse's box and cut his mane OFF. But I shan't. Sadly.)"

I shall probably see X tomorrow. I'll let you know how adult/ sensible I manage to be....

*Anyone in the know will know that a horse's mane is never cut; the hair is pulled out in such a way as to leave a natural looking line. This does not hurt the horse!

Saturday 17 June 2017

Of blackbirds

We have a pair of blackbirds nesting in our courtyard. We are trying to be very quiet, as the last pair a couple of years ago deserted, because, I suppose, we were making too much noise. I've been watching them flying to and fro,with beakfuls of insects, and it set me thinking. Do they plan, or is it all instinct? Do two blackbirds get together and decide to build a nest, or do they decide to put a twig in a hedge, then another, then another etc until lo! a nest is formed?

And the eggs. Do they know there's a baby in each egg, or does that, too, happen in instinctive stage by instinctive stage? Are they surprised when each egg hatches? Pleased? Proud? And do they feed these babies instinctively, or do they have feelings for them?

I'm not looking for answers here, because I feel we humans have to have an answer for everything (eg 'a bird sings because its marking its territory.' Why can't a bird be singing just because it's a lovely day and it feels like it?), and I'm sure we're often wrong.

But I'm glad we have the blackbirds sharing our tiny courtyard. It feels like a privilege. And I shall go on watching them and keeping very, very quiet.....

Monday 12 June 2017

Bee orchids


At this time of year, when I'm riding, I like to visit the wild orchids which grow in abundance on the Pewsey downs. Today, three of us went in search of bee orchids, which only seem to grow in one area. These fascinating plants have always intrigued me, but it's years since I saw any, before we discovered a small scattering of them last year.

That's all. (The horses were not permitted to eat them.)



Thursday 8 June 2017

Thoughts of my grandmother

As I struggle with things computer-related, my thoughts sometimes turn to my grandmother (above with my cousin on her knee). For I finally understand how she felt about phone boxes.

If we tried to coax Granny into a phone box, she would back away as though it were full of ravaging beasts. Press Button A? Button B? She couldn't. She just couldn't. I know now that that familiar mist so well known to me was descending before her eyes, and she knew that she couldn't deal with anything so complicated.

Brought up in a house full of servants, where people wrote letters, real letters, that arrived the same day, and in a world of horses and carts, she lived through two world wars ( she spent the second one hiding under the piano).She successfully mastered the wireless and the telephone, and would watch other people's televisions. Phone boxes were a step too far.

She spent her later years, widowed and  alone, sleeping in a bed which has two items under it: a chamber pot and a truncheon. How she proposed to reach, never mind wield, a truncheon in the event of an intruder I have no idea. I'm not sure how she even managed the chamber pot (Granny was not small, living on bread and cheese and sweet milky coffee). Now I shall never know.

But I finally understand about the phone box. I just wish I had understood at the time.

(I may have posted about this before, but no matter...)