When son no.1 said that he would like to go to London for his 21st birthday, I pleaded with him to go this Friday so that I could go to Knit Nation, thankfully he agreed. We had a very low key celebration on the day consisting of pizza and cake before the boy raced out the door to celebrate with his pals. Mothers (and fathers) are quite superfluous to requirements at this age.

And so I waited, well actually I made lists of all the beautiful colourways that I love and counted my pennies whilst raiding my savings.

Eventually the morning dawned, I was awake at five, out of bed, breakfasted and in the shower shortly after five thirty. My excitement was palpable and I slowly woke the boys in turn for their showers. We were off just after seven and parking up at The Imperial College by nine. The boys headed off with hubby on adventures of their own and I made my way to Knit Nation. Two hours to kill was not a problem I found a wonderful group of women who I found out are as addicted to Wollmeise as myself and the time flew by.

And then the excitement really grew, those last few minutes before the doors opened were heady. I was about fifth in the queue. As you can see there was still room to move, apparently Thursday evening was very busy.

Photographs of my stash, it was very difficult to choose. Thankfully I have a reasonable stash of Wollmeise already so I had a fair idea of what I was looking for and I managed to buy most of the skeins that I desired. I could have bought more, but the boys insisted that I feed them this month.

Gratuitous shots of stash follow.

and last but by no means least.

A shot of the birthday boy with his 18 year old brother.

Where have all the years gone?

Well, what can I say, one year on, how time does fly. In between the occasional Christmas party, lunch, workshop and nattering we may have knitted the odd row or two.

It is all of you that have made the group what it is today. It is all of you that welcome new members and have made them feel comfortable right from the start. New members often tell me how apprehensive that they felt, but how wonderful it was because they were made to feel comfortable right from the start, and along with that what a lovely group we have.. I can only agree.

I will share some photo’s from today, I won’t put names to faces because.. well its the internet, you all know who you are..

And before I forget, thank the Almanack (I already have done so in person) for the lovely birthday cake, what a treat and oh so many glasses of bucks fizz, we are very lucky to have this as our home from home.

Eric crooning, “Summertime, and the the living is easy…”

“Fish are jumping, and the cotton is hiiigh,

Your Daddy’s rich and your mother’s good loooooking….

Oh Flip, they’ve caught me! Yep, yep, I’m still on mouse duty, honest govner”

Our chickens have been laying like the clappers of late, which is of course very good news and normally son no.2 hoovers up any surplus. Strangely this time he has not and the egg mountain in the kitchen was growing higher and higher. Drastic action was required. I considered my options, egg curry, omelets in various disguises, scrambled eggs etc etc, Nope nothing was calling to me that my family would entertain as they are all slightly egged out at this time of the year.

I opened the fridge and found a couple of ends of cheese, courgettes that were looking a little tired but that were still serviceable, some very ripe tomatoes, a couple of onions and a few mushrooms and a pack of bacon. (which must have got under the boys radar somehow) Bingo! Egg flan filled with yummy vegetables and bacon.

I griddled the courgettes, pan fried the onions and mushrooms and grilled the bacon until it was crispy, grated and crumbled the cheeses (cheddar and Irish Cashel Blue), having found the pastry in the freezer, (I know, but I can’t be perfect!) whisked together eggs with a little milk and seasoned well and then all there was to it was an assembly job.

Hubby brought home some fresh salad and supper was served.

One of the flans is carefully wrapped and resting in the freezer, much to the disappointment of the hungry wolves who bayed to the moon when they realised they were not going to get another piece for a midnight feast.

Tonight we are having breakfast for supper, its one way to use those eggs!

I’ve also been doing a little knitting.

This is Amaya by Marie Wallin, or should I say this is the back of Amaya. I’m knitting this in Rowan Bamboo Tape, colourway Amethyst, which I bought for a very good price from Kemps in October. I spent many hours trying to get gauge and I didn’t manage it, I am still off, but I’ve fiddled around with the pattern and I think it will be okay. Now if anyone could tell me where I’ve put a pack of Bamboo Tape in Amethyst I would be very obliged – I’ve completely forgotten.

There are strange tales of Bamboo Tape stretching and I expect that to happen, still its a fast knit and it should be finished soon to enjoy for the rest of the summer.

And now a quick preview especially for the pregnant one AKA as Carie. Because I did promise a little sneak preview.

There may be bobbles involved. (And before you start clicking I have not put any information that will give you any clue into the title of the photograph!! – although I only just remembered not to do that – LOL)

You get extra brownie points if you can guess the yarn.

It would have been the week of The Royal Show this week, so we organised a little social with some friends of ours. Whilst listening to the sound of leather against willow we merrily discussed how dreadfully wrong RASE had got it again.

One of our friends who has connections (his wife plays horsey with a few of the Royals) couldn’t believe how desperately quiet it was at the new event The Royal Festival of the Horse. The grandstands were practically empty, which was hardly suprising when RASE were charging twenty pounds to sit in the covered grandstands after you had already paid twenty pounds for a one day entrance to the showground. I am sure there were many there who could easily afford such an extravagance but equally at The Royal Show there were many in this agricultural part of the world who came for a family day out.

Last year when it was announced that the Royal Show was to close and that there was going to be a horse show in its place there was disbelief all around. After all both events had run quite nicely together for some years. And if you can’t make a profit when forty thousand people a day are streaming through your gates along with over a thousand stall holders, your not going to make a profit from stream lining it into a horsey only event.

In 2008 RASE cancelled The Town and Country Festival because they wanted to transform it into another show. They left that August bank holiday completely empty, then wondered why they didn’t get the large turnout they needed the next year for the newly transformed Country Festival. Not surprisingly The Country Festival 2010 has been canceled.

One can only wonder what they will do next.

I’ll leave you with the independents view.

The Independent

I know it has been a while since I’ve been up to the plot, as does a dearest hubby, so these wonderful fruits and vegetables are due mostly to him. Although I did have a good patch were I was able to do the planting of the seeds, since then I’ve had one flair up after another, I am still in the throes of another flair up which involves maximum pain killers and a sleeping habit that is rotating from four hours a day for a few days which then shifts for a few days to a twelve hour deep sleep that I absolutely need. Grumble, grumble, moan, moan, hey ho!

I have a deep philosophy that there are always people that are worse off than me and I am blessed with a good man, two sons who will if asked if they are wandering about to make me a cup of tea at the dead of night and often will stay a while to chatter about their day, which often involves good, hearty male humour which I find very amusing. We often have the best of chats at midnight even to the point that I have to ask them to go to bed, fearing that they won’t be their best in the morning.

I am seeing my rheumatologist next week, I think we will be looking at a shift in medication, he was looking to change it two months ago, but I asked for one last try, even though the blood tests had revealed that the eight or is it ten month try (I’ve completely forgotten) on methotrexate wasn’t working.

I’ve always said that this blog should be about the best of Mandycharlie, not about her moans and groans but I just wanted to explain about my absence from the plot this year..

So, onto the allotment we shall go, it is still an interest of mine as much of our conversations are about the plot so although I am not there in body I am there through hubby and his endeavors.

Firstly the greenhouse, the tomatoes are looking fine, I’m not sure what we are going to do with all these surplus plants, I think we will be trying them outside in this hot and dry summer to see how they fair.

Remember the globe artichokes that I started from seed a couple of years ago. They are making substantial plants, I am thinking of recipes involving char grilling the hearts, olive oil and garlic.

The runner beans are climbing as we speak. They desperately need rain.

Raspberry canes doing what they do so well. I’ve never regretted planting them they require so little work. A tidy up in the autumn and off they go.

Hubby helped me pick these, he’s bought cream on the way home, they are his very favourite fruit. These fruits are very small compared to previous years, we need rain.

Last of the peas, we only planted one double row this year, (due to all of the above) last year we had three double rows… They are lovely.

Last of the broad beans, we did not get many of the plants, I am putting this down to the very dry weather.

First of the new potatoes,

See how easy they are to peel, just rub them with your thumb when they are this fresh. Which is a good tip when buying them from a market or green grocers/grocers. If the skin doesn’t rub off easily they are not very fresh.

Hubby dug up our shallots, which are not as big as I would have liked, again not enough rain, but they will be sweet and delicious.

These are now stored in wire baskets to continue to dry out. Hints and tips, whenever I end up a the tip (desperately trying to think of the modern name, refuse recyling!) one of my very favourite places, – just call me Stig, (Stig of the Dump, a childrens novel) I look for things that could possibly be of interest. One of these items that are so casually thrown away are wire baskets that people use inside of their fridge. So I open up the old fridges and take the wire baskets and ask how much? Often only pennies but they do such a good job of drying out your shallots and onions.

And lastly a photograph of our second plot. Which hubby has spent hours on tidying up recently, you can just about see the sweetcorn and courgettes growing in the distance.

We do need rain, its desperately dry up at the plot. Its been about six weeks now, vegetables are going to be very expensive if this continues.

I am in an experimental type of mood, which is not always good, because when one is cooking or growing to eat, depending on the day this might be a good thing, or not so good. One generally has to eat one’s experiments with good grace.

I remember eating broad beans as a child, and I probably ate them quite happily at the start of the season, but all I really remember was the toughest of leathery skins on rather old broad beans, that maybe shouldn’t have been served but they were because they had been grown by my Grandad so the waste not want not attitude came into play.

Fortunately when we first got the plot hubby had the same memory of broad beans as myself and we quickly discarded the growing of them. (his father had a veg patch and so he knew about the waste not want not attitude and the tough broad beans) But as ever I am always listening to others and always at the start of the year I have listened to many people wax lyrical about the tenderness of the broad bean.

I was hesitant, along with being hesitant, we only had the one plot which was always chock a block, so didn’t really have room to spare to try this loathed by the both of us vegetable. But this year we have two plots to plant up. So in between the bout of pneumonia and the very wet chest infection I managed to start a few in my greenhouse and hubby planted them out for me.

The first pickings.

And here are the beautiful baby broad beans, which I boiled in salted water for a few minutes, and they were delicious, which was a complete shock to us and I am glad that so many people have talked about them. I am looking forward to trying the lovely recipes for broad beans that I have become aware of over the years.

Next on the experimental list, was to try and master the bread maker. I bought a bread maker many years ago for the making of gluten free bread, it was never successful, so as it was kept under the stairs. Occasionally I go on a bread jag and make lots of bread, I’ve been making bread for a long time and I never weigh or measure I just look at a bag of flour, I know its this amount of flour to this amount of water and if it rises quickly I may have added a little too much yeast, but hey ho,, and off we go.. I can turn out loaves that are pretty nice most of the time.

But, bread making can be a bit hard on my joints and muscles (without going into too many details) so I thought I would reinvestigate the bread maker. Well, I had failure after failure and it was at this point that I had to take a serious look at everything I was doing. Although my texture was right with the amount of flour and water I was adding, I found out my yeast was out by 1/2 a teaspoon. I corrected it, and since then I’ve been turning out loaves that are okay to me, but abhorred by my family, the reason being, they are wholemeal and not white.

Even when I tried making a white loaf, it was never good enough for the clan. So being the sneaky person that I am, I thought of favored ingredients, and these were sun dried tomatoes, olives and oregano so I made a loaf out of them. And I waited to see what the reaction might be.

At long last, Success. Son no.1 had the first slice and at the very moment he took his first bite the guttural cry of “mmmm…mmmm…” resounded from him.

The hungry hoardes took their lead from him and the loaf practically disappeared within minutes, I asked whether I should bake some more for packed lunches the next day, which was met with a resounding Yes. Oh how that made me smile. And off course it was so easy because all I had to do was chop a few olives and sun dried tomatoes and let the machine do the work. It was a good job done. (although I did have to stay up till eleven o’clock at night to take the bread out of the machine- a woman’s work is never done!)

And yet more experiments.

Once upon a time when I was pregnant with son no.2, it was our first summer in this house and hubby’s parents came to stay for a while. During this time we went strawberry picking (as you do) and we picked far too many strawberries, (it all became a bit competitive !) and we had far too many strawberries. So that afternoon on a very hot summers day in June hubby’s mum and I decided we would make strawberry jam. Knowing that I had a preserving pan, (bearing in mind they had bought it on request from me, and I’ve loved it so) we set forth.

What started well became a nightmare, and eventually we gave up, bottled our jam which was not properly set, and started the evening meal. Then studied what we had done wrong, and set forth the next day and got it right and the jam set beautifully. You would agree that it wasn’t something I wanted to repeat, the memory of being exhausted whilst looking after guests and being pregnant, well it didn’t leave me.

During the last eighteen years I must have made a small batch of strawberry jam because even though I can’t quite remember doing this son no.2 has asked me to make it recently because he remembers the taste or was it the jam fumes that he smelt whilst being safely in my tummy, I don’t know.

Having never grown enough surplus strawberries at the plot for the likes of jam I was overjoyed to see my high class grocer beginning with W selling their stock of strawberries off at 75p for 400grams,.. Well, I was giddy, it was within days that son no. 2 had begged me for strawberry jam and so I looked carefully at what they had to offer. The fruit was in perfect condition but the more I looked the more I realised that they were from different producers and there were at least at least 5 different varieties to look at. Which was shocking actually because they were just piled up together. But then thinking about it, you would have to approach more than one supplier to be able to produce all that you need for those few days of your offer.. (the offer was an half price offer before they were reduced)

Now if there is one thing that allotment growing has taught me, its to look at variety. For instance, I am addicted to Piccolo tomatoes, when buying cherry tomatoes, my heart quickens if I see those, I actively look them out and am sad if they are not there..

So, I stopped and listened to myself, and then carefully picked up each different variety and slightly, very gently squeezed the carton, so as not to bruise the fruit but just enough to allow a puff of air to escape out of the holes on the top of the tub, and sniffed.. There were varieties that are very pretty, look nice, keep their shape, etc, Elegance for one, but have no flavour.. After a little deduction I settled on Sweet Eve, the fragrance wafted out so strongly that they are on my to grow list and bought many tubs of them.

Just as an aside, there were many women that were shopping whilst I was conducting my little experiment and all wanted to gain as much as they could from this offer. Experienced women, family type women, in the middle of the day, not stressed working type women, sadly not one ‘sniffed’ or even realised that that there were various varieties on offer.. They just looked, murmured between each other and chose, some talked about the various attributes between a small and a large strawberry and on some previous memory chose, which is all we have sometimes. I wonder how much the supermarkets rely on this, I wonder how much the supermarkets rely on the fact that they have taught us to shop for fresh vegetables and fruit through plastic bags and tubs. As long as it looks nice, we will buy.

So later that day,

I quickly prepared the strawberries, whilst son no.2 was preparing the jars. I was working on the premise that as he wanted the jam he could help. (good thinking, no?!)

This was when the sugar had finally dissolved, I used lemon juice as my pectin, I would recommend a sugar thermometer you need to bring the jam up to 104 C and with that important piece of kit, you realise just how slowly it takes to come up to temperature with a pan full of jam.

But eventually you get this, lots of pots of yummy strawberry jam.

Just as another aside,,, hubby had to go out late last night just to buy croissants, just so that he could eat copious amounts of strawberry jam. Its that good..

It’s even too hot to knit. But knitting I am, because babies don’t wait!

So I wish to record that I have been knitting on the hottest day of the year so far and this day that we lost a football match to Germany – although when that was happening I was wandering around a nearly deserted John Lewis in Solihull looking at Wool and Kenwood Chefs. Sadly my Kenwood which has seen continuous service since 1953 seems to be on its last legs, its losing oil regularly which apparently is a very bad thing (hubby did explain it to me in detail a few weeks ago, but I am female and not in any way an engineer, the details have long since flown out of my head) so I keep teasing myself by looking at new models and then gasping for air at the price.

I did buy some lovely Rowan Extra Fine Merino DK in colours that I adore, and, you know I said that I wasn’t to buy much this year, well hubby paid! (I’m not quite sure how I managed that one, but I’m still smiling about it)

Getting back to the knitting, I can’t give too many clues away, as the mum to be is a regular reader of my blog, I might photograph a tiny piece soon just to tease her with it….

I’ve also managed to finish son no.2 size thirteen UK feet which are very wide. We would have called them the size of dustbin lids, I expect that saying will age me as these days we use recycling bins.

These are knit in Wollmeise 100% Merino Superwash in the colourway Amazonas. I cast on 68 stitches and knit with 2.5mm needles.

I actually knit them far too long and pulled them back again, but I’m still not sure that they are absolutely right, they could be just a little bit long.

Although when the boy stands up, you can see how his feet spread, (the previous two photographs were taken when he was sitting down) and that seems to take up the excess.

He loves them.

Oh, and the Strawberry Sprite seems to have found his way back to my home, I must have looked after him very well last year. He has been leaving me little gifts of fragrant strawberries still warm from the plot.

Sometimes in life you just have the most wonderful day when you are least expecting it. Unfortunately there are no photographs of this day, so your just going to have to rely on my narration – which to be honest often leaves a lot to be desired, but I’ll try my best.

My allotment and knitting pal Marie was having a little party at her plot on the allotments of which I attended rather late, having the knitting group and a hubby to look after. (hubby is a poorly boy, nothing terribly serious just an odd temperature and a course of antibiotics) I wandered up to the plots thinking, ‘well Marie has probably gone home’, but Marie was just wandering down the main path with a group of women, some of which already knew me, some of which I was introduced as P’s daughter, so they know me now. *wink* (Mum line dances twice a week – it was foremost a party for the line dancers)

Having spent a lovely morning with my knitting group I was already in a very relaxed state of mind, so wandering up to her plot and this on such a balmy day was absolutely blissful.

We had tea and home made asparagus and cheese quiche and slices of a home made sausage roll (which was incredible because it had cheese in and lots of other ingredients, I’ve been promised the recipe) and lots of other treats, including freshly picked (as in just picked off the plant, I watched Marie pick them) strawberries dipped in a cold rose wine.

I got there just before two and I eventually departed at seven, five hours of contented bliss, with nibbles and tea and wine sat under a Pussy Willow looking outwards to a well tended plot engaged in good conversation. When I say good conversation you know it will mean chatter about plots, plants, muck, homemade compost and knitting! Well of course there was also chatter about children and grandchildren, husbands, parents, places we have lived and of course many other topics that women engage in. It was absolutely blissful.

Highlights of the day (allotmenteers will understand this) giggling over the pee bucket and using it, – hers is much taller than mine, it’s made me rethink my pee bucket which is rather low, the story about how the frogs had died in Marie’s pond due to the very harsh winter and her (in vivid detail) sorting this out.. I won’t repeat this it was far too graphic, but let us say I was rockin’ and rollin’ in my chair from laughter… stories were exchanged about how we both run away from the chap(s) that are very keen to know us.. (females are still quite rare on the plots) and best of all was when Marie showed me photographs of her previous plot in Birmingham, I was in awe, such a lovely place to be, it had everything including a beautiful, large, building that people could meet in, it would be so lovely to have that.

As I say, this was the best of days.

Meet Boswell,

Boswell is a beautiful cat (if a little grumpy) and came to us as a stray nearly ten years ago when had been found wandering in Birmingham. We loved him so and he was happy with us for a couple of years but the old lady a few doors away decided that she loved Boswell too and called him Sandy. Now the old lady had a history of kidnapping or should I say catnapping peoples pussy cats and then leaving them in distress when they became old and sick so I wasn’t best pleased when she took a liking to Boswell. I tried to talk to her, its very difficult to talk to someone that looks and acts like she is in the throes of senile dementia. I spoke to her daughter at length and asked her to ask her mother to stop feeding our cat and to stop the carers buying cat food. It all fell on deaf ears, Boswell became fatter and fatter and it wasn’t us doing the feeding. It made us upset but what could we do without taking some sort of legal action, I then phoned a solicitor who specialises in dogs and the law and we both agreed that taking a very old lady who was senile to court wasn’t the best plan in the world.

I even put a collar on him with his name and phone number and on the back it read. Do Not Feed, Diabetic Cat. It was completely ignored.

So although I saw Boswell occasionally and when I could grabbed a hold of him to throw worming tablets down his throat and douse him with flea spray there wasn’t very much more we could do.

I often wondered what would happen when the lady became too old to look after Boswell, because all things being equal I knew he would probably still need caring for, well I have found out what these caring people chose to do about his care all these years on.

They abandoned him.

Hubby saw an ambulance at the old lady’s home over a week ago and sure enough within 48 hours I notice Boswell is wandering around our home looking lost and lonely. The next day I enticed him in and opened a tin of special ‘just in case you need it and you won’t eat dried food’ cat food. It was like the return of the prodigal son and killing the fatted calf. And what was once a huge weighty cat has turned into skin and bone. (I know the photographs look like he still is a large cat but that is his long fur) Who knows how long he hadn’t been cared for. I worry that they will have an attack of the guilts and decide to take him to the nearest rescue centre. He is micro chipped in our name so I am hoping that he would come back to us. Should I write a letter to them? and saying what exactly? It all fell on deaf ears before, would it spur them on to do something like that. Its all very confusing.

But he is home, he was incredibly dirty, ate a tin and a half of cat food within an hour then slept for 24 hours. I am glad to see him home and Boswell seems to be glad to be home too, we are a few days in and he’s accepting the new whipper snappers also known as Eric and Florence and they are accepting him. Although they don’t quite understand why Boswell is on the tinned food because they would rather like that..