Desert Island Books - Part 1

I've always loved reading as far back as I can remember, I think the first book I ever owned, certainly the first I can remember, was Little Grey Rabbit's Washing Day by Alison Uttley and for that reason alone it remains one of my favourites. I possess hundreds and hundreds of books though few of them are fiction. Not that I don't read fiction but mostly it is borrowed from the library or bought in paperback and then passed on when I've read it. The books I keep are mostly to do with the things I'm interested in so I have a lot of gardening books, cookery books both old and modern, books on knitting and other crafts, books about the Home Front in WW2, books about family history and local history and country life and so it goes on. If I was banished to a desert island with only a dozen of my books I'd be very hard-pressed to choose which they would be. Among them though would be Little Grey Rabbit's Washing Day for the happy childhood memories it brings.




Also among the favoured few would be the two volumes (counting as one book!)of Meta Given's Encyclopaedia of Cookery, it fell open at the page containing my favourite recipe - Quick Apple Streusel Coffee Cake. I made that a lot when the children were young. Clicking and enlarging the picture should make it readable I think.


I've always been attracted to cookery books that give a week's or a month's menus, Meta Given went one better and did a whole year - breakfast, lunch and dinner! It's an American book published in the 1940s and I came across it by chance in a secondhand bookshop. My friend C in New Hampshire supplied a set of US cup and spoon meaures and translations of words I didn't recognize.


The Scented Garden by Eleanour Sinclair Rohde is a delight to read, there are lyrical descriptions of all the wonderful scented flowers and shrubs that grow in English gardens from the winter months then spring and summer through to autumn or as she calls it 'the afternoon of the year'. The last part of the book has the most wonderful recipes for sweet bags, pot pourri and other delights taken from old manuscripts and books such as A Queen's Delight (1664) and Delights For Ladies (1594). Finally there are plant lists which are perhaps a touch out of date as far as the names go since the book was originally published in 1931 and the botanists have been busy changing names since then - often more than once!






Letters From Compton Deverell was discovered in a secondhand bookshop near Saffron Walden about 30 years ago and was the first of my collection of books by 'BB' who was both an artist and naturalist as well as a sportsman. It is in the form of a series of letters to a young man posted abroad telling of the passing seasons in the English countryside. The year it describes happens to be my first one in this world beginning with the winter of 1946 which was one of the worst in living memory.



England Is A Village by C Henry Warren is illustrated by 'BB' and was written during the first months of WW2 and is again just about daily life in an English village - a world and way of life that no longer exists.


Another children's book now though I didn't actually read it until a few years ago. I read a magazine article about the garden of a small manor house in Huntingdonshire called Hemingford Grey. A few weeks later I was driving down to Suffolk when I spotted a signpost for Hemingford Grey and as I had time to spare I decided to detour and visit the garden. This happy spur of the moment decision opened up a magical world for me, the garden is lovely and there is a small shop which is where I discovered the Green Knowe books by Lucy Boston. I met the present owner of the house who is Lucy Boston's daughter-in-law and she told me that the house and garden are the setting for the books and that it was possible to book a tour of the house. I didn't have time that day but I bought the first of the books and a few weeks later I went back to see the house and bought the rest of the series. The house is quite magical and dates back to the 11th century, it is one of the oldest continually inhabited houses in the country. There is a wonderful collection of patchwork quilts there too as Lucy Boston was not only an author and talented gardener but also made the most beautiful quilts. During the tour I was fortunate enough to be allowed to hold the original of the little ebony mouse from the story - everyone else had to be satisfied with just seeing it:)
This seems to be turning into another of my novels so I'll do the other 6 books in a seperate post.

Thank You!

I have several 'thank you's' to say,some of them, regrettably, well overdue. Some time ago Julie Marie of Celtic Woman nominated me for the Blogger Reflection award that is now on my sidebar. I've also been given the 'Nice Matters' award by Lynda at Hedgerow Hollow, Kim at Ragged Roses and Sandra of Shropshire Girl and that also is now on my sidebar. The delay was partly the problems I had with my computer and partly that I've been waiting for my RCE (Resident Comuter Expert) to put them there for me. The delay doesn't mean any lack of appreciation for these awards, I'm both grateful and flattered to receive them - thank you so much all of you:)

Finally a huge 'Thank you' to Kim at Ragged Roses for the wonderful parcel that arrived this morning - she did a giveaway for her 50th post that I was fortunate enough to win and fortunate is certainly the word! As soon as I opened the box I was enveloped in the wonderful fragrance of lavender which was a pleasure in itself. Exploring the contents I found all these really lovely lavender bags, a piece of lavender gingham with which to try my own rather inexpert hand at making a lavender bag, a lovely corsage, a pretty posy, three little business cards that are so pretty I shall use them as bookmarks and finally a big bar of orange and geranium chocolate. The only reason that the chocolate made it as far as the photograph is that tonight is what my daughter describes as 'Fat Club' and we have to go and be weighed!! I rather doubt that it will survive until tomorrow morning - in my future I see a sofa, a good book and a lot of chocolate:) This was a more than generous parcel Kim, and opening it was like having an extra birthday, it gave me an enormous amount of pleasure.

Summer Afternoon

The weather has finally been warm and sunny during the last week or so and Mr Baggins and I have enjoyed some pleasant walks. I realised when I looked at the photos from this particular outing up the Limb valley that he doesn't appear on a single one of them, most of the time he was out of sight. I can't leave him out altogether as it was really his walk so the photo above was taken on another walk in the same place.


I thought this made a really attractive picture. I'm not sure what the plant is, though it's one of the huge parsley family - I suspect it may be ground elder, should have looked more closely at it, didn't think at the time!


A Comma butterfly (I think) on the bracken, it was there only for a moment or two so I only had the one chance at photographing it. It has the ragged edge to its wings that a Comma has but it's much paler - I'm hopeless at butterfly identification so I could well be wrong about it.


A wooden bridge over one of the many little moorland streams.


The aforementioned stream.


The rowanberries are already ripe, they are always the first berries to colour and signal that autumn is just around the corner.


Eventually the woodland ends and opens out into fields, Mr Baggins is always on a lead at this point until I've checked whether there are sheep grazing up there. He's a sheep chaser unfortunately so I have to be really careful. All was well though so he was allowed off to run again and I discovered this lovely patch of harebells just over a style. The photograph doesn't do them justice, it has faded the colour which is actually a beautiful sky blue. This is one of my favourite wildflowers



Another wild flower that was plentiful was yarrow, a wild herb with great healing properties. It is said that Achilles used it to staunch the wounds of his warriors afetr the Battle of Troy hence its Latin name of achillea. It was used by the Anglo Saxons for the same purpose. Here it has a more peaceful role as a supply of nectar for a Gatekeeper butterfly and its companion. You will probably need to click on the photo to spot it.


This is a lovely walk to do on a really hot day as much of it is in the dappled shade of the beech trees. It takes us about two and a half hours at a fairly leisurely pace to walk up to the fields at Ringinglow and then back down to Whirlow again. The name Ringinglow indicates that this was originally the site of a burial mound.

Salmagundi

I'm here again with a brand new laptop - my last one was erasing everything I wrote which is why no-one has heard from me recently. Hopefully normal service will be resumed from today. The picture at the top is Gabriel who is now known as Mr Giggles - I caught this one just right. The one below is his 'Can you please take that camera away Granny!' look. It really made me laugh:)


He looks very disapproving doesn't he?


Of course I wasn't able to post anything at Lammas but J and I took the dogs up on the moors and as we walked down the lane we passed a herd of Herefords with several new calves, one was still very unsteady on its feet. This one is just as attractive as the newborn one but mum was keeping a close eye on our activities.



I'd tucked a couple of plastic bags in my little rucksack in the hopes that we would be able to gather some of the first fruits of the harvest to celebrate Lammas and my hopes were fulfilled - enough bilberries for a decent size crumble:) Bilberries are a moorland fruit and have different names in different parts of the country, they have been one of my favourite fruits since I was a child. Picking them is hard work, they are small and hidden away under the leaves and getting enough for a pie is a time-consuming occupation done with the assistance of what seems like thousands of enthusiastic flies! By the time you get to eat the pie you have earned every mouthful.


Growing among the bilberry bushes in places was this rather beautiful red-berried shrub - the same kind of low growing evergreen plant. I wish I knew what it is, does anyone know?


More first fruits - gooseberries from the garden this time.



Gooseberry Pie.....


....and the left over pastry made a dozen cheese and onion tartlets.


Kaitlyn - waiting for lunch to appear and ready to supervise the filling of the pastry cases. I've just bought a new high chair and hadn't quite figured out the straps at this point. They are a bit more secure now!



My garden has a new guardian - my summer Green Man. There is an autumn version of this plaque too and he will be appearing due course.

And Salmagundi? It's a 17th/18th Century salad made from cooked chicken,hard boiled eggs, anchovies and all kinds of salad leaves, vegetables and herbs. These are beautifully arranged on a large platter and the finished dish is quite something. But basically it's a mixture of all sorts of things:) It's great to be back blogging.

Seven Random Facts

African Sunrise - White River, Mpumalanga


This is just a fill in post while I wait for inspiration to strike. Patty from Morning Ramble tagged me ages ago to post seven random facts about myself so here they are. Incidentally White River is where my son and daughter-in-law lived for 3 years. The photo is there simply because I love it, it's about the best I've ever taken.



1. I've visited Dracula's castle in Transylvania. It's called Bran Castle and it's a lovely place perched on top of a hill just like a castle in a fairytale. In spite of its reputation it has no unpleasant atmosphere at all - quite the reverse in fact.




2. I love Reeses chocolate peanut butter cups and saltwater taffy.




3. My favourite wild animal is the wolf. In spite of all the bad press they undeservedly get I have always felt a strong attraction to them. I sponsor one called Madadh at a sanctuary in Herefordshire, I've visited her and her companions and been up close to them.They aren't tame but one or two of them are sufficiently socialized with humans to be strokable. It was a wonderful experience to do that. I've also been wolf watching in Romania though we got much closer to bears than wolves there.



4. I can't stand salad cream or mayonnaise so this is an image of saltwater taffy instead:)




5. I'm really scared of lightning, I came close to being struck a few years ago and have never quite got over it. Thunder doesn't bother me at all though. The image is not mine - I wish it was.




6. I am a really bad sailor! Lord Nelson of the Battle of Trafalgar fame was too, so at least I'm in good company.




7. I was in Kruger National Park when a really large herd of elephants with lots of babies crossed right in front of our car. I raised my lovely new digital camera to take photographs and got the message 'Battery Empty' - and I didn't know enough then to carry spares! So those pictures are all in my mind but not anywhere else unfortunately. The buffalo is pretty good though isn't he?

I've been having problems with my computer this week, it keeps having periods of erasing everything I write so if there are no posts or I'm not commenting or answering e-mails that will be the reason why.

The Tudor Stillroom

There are quite a number of words in the English language that I find very evocative, two of them are Tudor and stillroom - put them together and I am transported to another world filled with the scents of roses, herbs and spices, where gentlewomen and their maids used skills and recipes learned over centuries and passed on from one generation to the next. I think that monasteries were the first places to have herb gardens where they grew herbs which were used to prepare medicines for treating the sick and they had dispensaries and stillrooms. Readers of Ellis Peters' Cadfael novels will be familiar with this. With the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII in 1546 this free medical service disappeared and the Lady of the Manor began to take on the task of preparing medicines for her household. The stillroom would already have been in use for distilling aromatic waters, preserving, making cosmetics (some of which were pretty lethal!), drying herbs for winter use and for strewing herbs which were used for pest control. To this was now added the preparation of ointments, cough linctus, rubbing oils for rheumatic joints and so on.
The photo at the top is of Tina, our tutor, gathering herbs in the garden at Bayleaf Tudor farmstead.


The results of her labours - by no means all herbs would be grown in the garden of course, many would be gathered from the lanes around the village - elder, hawthorn, cleavers, nettles, cowslips among them. Gathering herbs is such a pleasurable occupation, so many of them have wonderfuls scents, roses, various mints, lemon balm, rosemary, southernwood(opinions differ here, I love southernwood but not everyone does, it has a slightly musky edge to the lemon scent). Then there are the beautiful colours of the roses, pot marigolds, hyssop, borage and many others.



The contents of the basket were added to the herbs that Tina had gathered and brought from her own garden. One thing I've realised is that a simple jug filled with a mixture of herbs is a very attractive sight, perfect for a kitchen windowsill or anywhere else for that matter.



The start of a healing ointment - extra virgin olive oil with a selection of herbs including ribwort plantain, pot marigold petals, thyme, marshmallow, scarlet pimpernel and fumitory. This is put to heat gently for 3 or 4 hours then strained and melted beeswax added. At this point speed is required to pour it into small dark glass jars as it starts to set incredibly quickly.



If you don't have any muslin to strain it through no problem - you go out and gather a large bunch of cleavers, make two circles put one on top of the other lying in opposite directions and hey presto! or abracadabra or whatever you wish to say:) It works extremely well too.



Not everything that is made in the stillroom is purely for usefulness, some are decorative such as the various flower sugars. This is one of the ladies taking a turn at pounding marigold petals into sugar - quantities are simple,one cup of petals to one cup of sugar. I have to say that one or two members of the class, including this lady had obviously not used a mortar and pestle before. It requires a rather more robust action than this I'm afraid :)


We also used rose petals and this is the rose sugar spread out on greaseproof paper to dry. When it's dry you store it in an airtight glass jar and use it to decorate cakes - and very pretty too. The sugar retains the scent of the roses so has a wonderful flavour as well as a pretty colour.


These are the flowers of rosa gallica officinalis otherwise known as the Apothecary's Rose. The scent is divine and the uses are surprisingly varied - rose petal jelly, the rose sugar, candied rose petals, rosewater, rose honey and, of course, pot pourri.



Before using the petals they need to have the white heel at the base cut off and then to be washed and dried. Here they are spread out on muslin to dry.


This is another use for the rose and marigold sugars - people in Tudor times loved sweet things and the shape was made using the sugars mixed with rosewater and gum tragican. The rose and marigold are done individually, rolled into thin sausage shapes and then plaited together. After this they are sliced into rounds and left to dry out and the finished product looks very pretty.

Finally I have to bring to your attention Peppermint Liqueur. I can only say that if you have never tasted this you haven't lived!! It is so simple to make and the result is out of this world but unfortunately you have to wait two years for it to mature properly:( This is Tina Stapeley's recipe from her lovely book Herbcraft Naturally. You need 1 bottle of brandy, a cup of roughly chopped or torn peppermint leaves, a cup of roughly chopped or torn lemon balm leaves, 1/2 tspn of dill seeds and 1/2 tspn of cinnamon. Use only perfect undamaged leaves, wash and dry them and add them to the brandy. The leaves don't need to be chopped that small, you are simply trying to release the flavour. Pound the dill seeds in a mortar, grind enough of a cinnamon stick to produce 1/2 tspn of powder and add them to the brandy and herbs. Screw on the top of the bottle or jar tightly, give a good shake then store it in a warm,dark place for 6 weeks, give it a gentle shake each day. After 6 weeks filter it through a paper coffee filter into a clean bottle or jar and add about a cup of sugar. The exact amount varies according to personal taste. Now comes the hard bit - put it away in a cupboard and forget about it for at least 18 months, preferably 2 years. The wait will be worth it. It's medicinal too as it's a good remedy for indigestion! Only a liqueur glassful at a time please:)

Well Dressing

This week is the annual Well Dressing in my village, it is one of many that will take place over the summer months from May to around the end of August. It is an ancient custom that is restricted almost entirely to villages in the county of Derbyshire, though there is one place in Staffordshire and one on Gloucestershire also I believe. I would imagine that in the mists of history the dressing of springs and wells was probably much more widespread though. Our village dresses two wells, above is the main one. Many of the present day Dressings are modern revivals but there are a few villages, including Tissington, that have an unbroken tradition going back for centuries.


This is the spring below the picture. The dressing of wells and springs has pagan origins of course, as a thanksgiving to the various water spirits and goddesses for the gift of water and in the hope of continued supplies. As with so many other things it has become Christianized - I often wonder how many people actually realise that they are taking part in a pagan ceremony when the wells are blessed by the local vicar :) You can see the coins which have been thrown into the stone basin 'for luck'.


This is the whole picture, the spring is on the edge of the village green. The pictures are made in a wooden frame which is filled with clay between 1/2" and 1" thick. Salt is added to the clay to keep it moist and prevent it cracking when it is exposed to the elements. Each village chooses a different theme each year and the design is drawn on paper which is laid over the clay and the design is pricked through with an awl or other sharp tool. The paper is then removed and the outline of the design is defined by using alder cones or holly or rowan berries. Then the picture is filled in using only natural materials - mosses, lichens, bark, leaves and flower petals. They take several days to complete and are the combined effort of many people. The results sometimes are absolutely stunning.


This is the spring which is dressed each year by the local guides - as in scouts and guides not taking you on a tour guides :) I think they've done a great job. I'll try and get to some of the other local villages and take photographs during the summer. The one that is usually best has already gone by unfortunately, Ashford-in-the -Water dresses 5 wells and they are always really beautiful.
Clicking on the photos will hopefully enlarge them so that you can see more detail.

The Best Laid Plans

There was going to be a proper post today. After spending the morning doing domestic goddess stuff, packing, then reading and commenting on other blogs I planned to do a post this afternoon. Then guess who turned up?:) And looking at that photo perhaps I should add that the dark patches are shadow in the pile of the carpet, not dirt!! Really they are:)



Miss Kaitlyn started walking last week and came to demonstrate her new skills to granny and grandad (who appeared singularly unimpressed!) and when Miss Kaitlyn went home granny no longer had any energy left for blogging having had more exercise this afternoon than all the rest of the week put together:) Had to laugh at her as her trousers spent more time round her ankles than her waist which hindered things a bit:) Since I am off to Sussex again early tomorrow a proper post will have to wait until I come back. It's still pitching down with rain so I'm not sure whether I shall be driving or sailing back home to Sheffield at the weekend:) Steve and Hannah are close to the flooded areas and were on an island for a while with Catcliffe at one side and the River Rother on the other. Their house was OK but three days without power put paid to the contents of the freezer. Could have been much worse but fortunately they live at the top of a hill. I feel so sorry for all those people who have been flooded though. There isn't much sign of those lazy, hazy days of summer in the UK at the moment I'm afraid.