Sep 08 2005
This year the lemony scent of elderflowers filled the farmyard as never before. Even after I had harvested so many flower heads the bushes looked untouched. I was given this traditional old recipe by a friend who was given it, in turn, by her grandmother years and years ago. My kitchen was filled with bowls covered with clothes for days and days and already I wish I had made more.
Aug 09 2005
Summer Again
A holiday in France in June was a rare treat for us even though the sky turned grey, the rain poured down and lightning seemed to split the heavens in two.. We left the farm in the capable hands of Bryony and drove onto the ferry in Plymouth. We travelled south to Bordeaux for a few days then up to La Rochelle and the Ile de Rai finally retracing our steps to our dear friends in Northern Brittany. I spent a glorious three days talking food, future blogs, and garden design with Evelyne. (see: Letters from Brittany) The restoration of their house is a triumph
and their joy in it all a match to the beauty of the place. We had a magnificent time. And the landscape is so strangely familiar!
Aug 08 2005
Dear Sally,
It is a long time since I wrote you my last letter. But I have to say the winter and the spring had been so dull, cold and without any interest this year, I hibernated a little bit like all the plants in my garden!
May 19 2005
Lambing has finished. Fat sturdy little lambs have moved onto the higher fields with their mothers, now I can turn my attention to the garden once more. How the years vary. I look back at this time last year and read with incredulity of a heat wave, of meals in the garden, seeds frying in the poly tunnel and fruit and vegetables racing away in the garden. As I write the rain pours down. The cairn looks out of the window and grizzles, the lurcher and the sheep dog are curled up on the blanket at my feet and the old labrador, crammed into a too-small basket like a giant brown dormouse, paws over face, is dreaming, I’m sure, “of delphiniums blue and geraniums red.” I wonder whether to switch on the fire.
Apr 08 2005
How the years vary. Last year winter flew by amidst howling gales and driving rain. This year the contrast has been striking. Up until the third week of March it was so very cold with unusually hard frosts, sun and not a drop of rain. The grass has only just begun to grow and the fields are unusually bare and brown for the time of year. We fretted and fretted that there wouldn’t be enough fresh grass for the ewes with their new lambs. Then suddenly as we reached the end of the month the temperature went up the rain came down. Warm sun followed and the whole valley burst into life.
Apr 08 2005
Traditionally Cottage Pie and Shepherds Pie were made from the leftovers of the Sunday roast. The cold meat was chopped up, mixed with the leftover gravy, put in a pie dish and topped with mashed potato and reheated in the oven. It was OK, but a bit dull!
Feb 21 2005
“Get your boots on, find the dogs, Barbery sheep’re in Bill‘s.”
I groan, put down my coffee and climb back into my green waterproof wonder suit. It’s Saturday morning and I’ve just finished my eighth day in a row in the farmyard alone as Paul languished in bed with really bad ‘flu. Today he struggled out for the first time and drove over to check our wethers in a neighbours field while I fed, watered and mucked out. I’d been dreaming about the coffee for nearly an hour.
