At the year's end - finally. Time to begin again.

 Date wise, 2020 is at last a thing of the past.  But like a bad smell, its worst characteristics will cling for a while longer.

Given the resurgence of the Covid 19 virus in North London - and the utter selfishness & stupidity of many that is behind that rise, aside of opening the front door to fetch in the milk or get a parcel delivery out of the cupboard, I haven't left the house since early December.  Howard has been noticing a marked rise in the number of ambulances on the roads since then, and is seriously worried about returning to work on Monday, even with the care & safety measures his employers have in place.  There's just too many people out & about who are not taking the virus crisis seriously enough, don't think it will happen to them, or are taken in by misinformation.  Even though I've mostly got my asthma under control, neither of us are prepared to risk our health.  I'm due to have treatment on my knee that I've been on a list for since about this time last year, but the hospital I have the appointment at is one of those with full ICU wards.  I expect it to be rearranged, and I may ask it to be even if assured it can go ahead.  After all, it took nigh on 20 years after the accident that damaged my knee to get the scan that show the extent.  After the positive & successful physiotherapy sessions I had in the late Summer & Autumn, a few more months wait for further treatment is nothing.

As ever, and this year as everyone else should have, we had a quiet Christmas.  Just us and the cat (though a neighbour's cat unexpectedly popped in briefly a few days before, following the scent of the groceries).  Neither of us are enthusiastic about sticking to the turkey & all the trimmings fare - both having memories of lacklustre versions as children. This year, partly due to not being able to get some of my favourite Scandinavian treats due to shortage of online order slots, I worked on a Spanish theme.  Northern Spain primarily, and had fun doing research into less usual, but still appropriate, dishes.

We started with something based on a traditional Galician Christmas Eve meal.  Being on the very north eastern corner of the peninsula, on the Atlantic coast, Galicia has an abundance of seafood, and the dish I found a description of is usually made with reconstituted salt cod & scallops along with cauliflower, in a creamy cheese sauce - with a scallop shell as a symbol of St James & the pilgrims to his shrine, a fitting ingredient for a sacred night.  But as with much this year, Howard could find neither, so we improvised with a very nice fillet of haddock.  To add a little colour to the dish, some strips of steamed Cavalo Nero (black kale) was added just before the sauce was poured on.

Soothing, fortifying, yet fairly light.  I guess it could be stretched or used as a main course by adding rice, pasta (I've got some squid ink vermicelli from Brindisa which would provide a contrast) or potatoes such as patatas bravas.  Definitely doing this again.

As with last year, the main course was a boneless leg of pork from our wonderful local butchers, Normans.  For this, I took inspiration from the province inland from Galicia, Asturias.  Still wild, rugged and still holding on to a celtic feel, this time with a landscape of mountains & forests instead of wild rocky coastline.  The meat was marinaded in dry cider (from Herefordshire rather than the local stuff, but still a wild, slightly lumpy region with secret celtic hotspots), then pot roasted on a bed of root vegetables & leeks, surrounded by chorizo & chestnuts sat on a "mat" of dark winter January King cabbage. To add further colour, Howard had managed to get some rather lovely looking rainbow carrots from Botany Bay farm shop, which he served glazed with butter & mead.

And finally, pudding.  Partly due to having found a box of Howard's 2018 vintage marmalade in a cupboard, we looked a little further south to Seville, with a chocolate, almond and orange steamed sponge pudding.  To describe it as lush is an understatement.  Even the cream kept to the theme, flavoured with a dash of blood orange gin.

But as with every Christmas menu, there are leftovers.  A couple of lunchtime pork & piccalilli sandwiches,and the remaining vegetables turned into a soup, with chestnuts, chorizo & chunks of pork to fortify things.

And finally, the last few slices & shreds of pork added to a Dutch style pea & ham soup.

So we managed to get several meals, and plenty of value, out of the cut of meat.

Last year, I started out with the intention to try a recipe from a different, possibly not so commonplace, cuisine.  I started last January by making a West African style chicken & peanut stew (which I really must make again some time soon) before the world went to pot.  Well, I'm going to dive back into that.  For the past few months, I've been captivated by films on Facebook of the cooking done by an Azerbaijani family on their smallholding, who live in what looks like an actual Hobbit house.  My plans for tomorrow involve food from a neighbouring former Soviet state - Georgia. But more on that another time.

Emerges, Briefly, Blinking. Retreats with a view to hibernation.

 Well, you don't need me to tell you what a strange, worrying, frustrating year this has been.

Having had a near fatal asthma attack when I was younger (fitter, etc.), I had made the decision to effectively lockdown in February, ahead of the likelihood of Covid 19 getting a foothold via people returning from Half Term jollies abroad.  I wasn't far wrong, was I?  

I briefly emerged in March, when I was called into the GP surgery for the practice nurse to give me an asthma check-up & advice session in what turned out to be the week before lockdown.  At which point my decision to retreat to my home & garden was vindicated.

Howard worked through much of lockdown, as he was deemed a key worker (with a lanyard to prove it).  As well as his usual responsibilities including delivering prescription meds to vulnerable housebound residents, he also helped Waltham Forest council with the setting up of food parcel delivery services to high risk shielding households, which he continued with until the promised extra government funding to the council to cover this was not forthcoming so they ran out of funds to cover the wages for his work.  He was on furlough for only a few weeks, going back to his usual duties from early July, and has been even busier than he was before lockdown.

All was going swimmingly for me,  spending a few yours every day in the garden & greenhouse, sowing seeds & potting on seedlings for all of Spring & into early Summer, then I had a setback - the remaining GP at the surgery decided to do a telephone review of my health, & prescribed something for the nerve pain I suffered in my damaged knee, which was waking me up in the early morning on a regular basis.  Turned out that what she prescribed me was pretty strong and had alarming potential side effects.  Yes, I was no longer woken around 4am by pulsing, stabbing pains in my knee, but I also lost much of the remaining strength in that leg - it felt as if the muscles had melted away. As I was to discover, loss of balance was a common side effect, and within a couple of days on the tablets, I had experienced three bad falls, leaving me with painful & bruised back & ribs.  So I put in an urgent call to the GP, whose response was for me to stop taking the tablets immediately, and to call the physio department at the hospital for additional help.

Well, this turned out to be the most positive move in improving my mobility in a long time, thanks to the excellent physiotherapist I've been assigned.  While the main focus has been on building strength in my leg & especially the support structure around my knee, his positivity & encouragement has had a huge impact too.  Plus he's taken my problems seriously - even taking action to get me referred to a lymphodema clinic.  I've been struggling with swollen feet & legs, especially in hot weather, for a few years, plus random skin problems in affected areas, but was told it's something that seems to affect older women & not much could be done (& to prop legs up above hips when possible, if practical).  Well, the physio took one look at my legs in the Summer heat, was shocked nothing had been done for me, and resolved to find ways to help as it was impacting my mobility.  I feel listened to & vindicated.

Still not fully steady on my feet to risk the garden or allotment on my own, so I've had to leave that in Howard's hands for a while.  I know it's been an erratic year for many gardeners, and our allotment seems to have been discovered by at least one Muntjac deer, but what has survived has provided an adequate return for our efforts.  We did well for salad leaves during the Summer, and our potatoes, onions, garlic & shallots are still in use.  Had a better crop of beetroot than other years, early peas were good & Swiss chard as reliable as ever.  It's also been a stunning year for apples, especially our cooking apple tree.  The unblemished ones have been wrapped to store, and the damaged ones have been turned into apple puree or stewed to go with all sorts of meals.

With the Equinox, the weather seemed to switch to Autumn mode, & the colour of the leaves on the trees I can see from my window began to change.  The Field Maples I can see from my window always come into their own at this time of year, firstly darkening to a deep blue-green, and right now are a rich burgundy in hue.  It does also prompt me that it's time to get onion, garlic & shallots ordered & started for next year, along with sowing broad beans & making a new bin to gather this year's leaf mould.  Any normal year, the alliums, plus flower bulbs & a fair stash of packets of seeds for the coming year would have been acquired at the Malvern Autumn show, along with exploring another few Herefordshire villages where ancestors I'd discovered in my family tree research, but that has been put on hold, along with so much else.

Hopefully the continued physio exercises & any other therapies I have in the next few months with give me the strength & mobility to, when safe, get out again & enjoy nature, and pretty soon get back to working in the garden & at the allotment.

My Lockdown Second Home

Knowing I would be pretty high risk, health-wise, I started my C19 virus lockdown a week or so before everyone else.  It would have been longer, but the lead GP at the practice wanted me to come in for an asthma health check-up with the nurse while they were still doing face to face appointments.  More thorough than for a while, and given detailed instructions on when & how to increase inhaler use, but pleased to discover my "peak flow" put my lung capacity at 90% of what would be expected for my height & build - up from 73% the last time I was tested, so I'm clearly doing something right for a change.

I got a mini cab there & back, for speed & convenience, and to avoid get stuck in school run traffic.  The local bus route is unreliable at the best of times, but having in the past week read that one of the young nurses at the care home situated next to the nearest bus stop died of the virus recently, having been ill since mid March, it feels like a wise option.  Have previously wondered about whether other bugs that have laid me low have been picked up via contact with staff rushing to get on the same bus as me at the end of a shift.  I'd taken to wear gloves & wrapping one of my colourful Gudrun Sjoden scarves round me to cover my nose & mouth a few weeks previously.  But with the weather in February,  I didn't look too out of place among others just bundled up against the cold & wet.

Having been semi housebound due to my knee problem, I'm probably coping better than many. (The treatment of which is now on hold indefinitely. But at least the scan I'd been requesting for over a decade has shown a slight tear to the cartilage, causing the pain I experience on moving, if not the nerve damage which causes random pains, especially in the early hours of the morning.  Those problems won't be going away of their own volition, so I can start pushing for treatment as soon as the all clear sounds.)  Howard is still working, as his job has been deemed crucial to helping the vulnerable housebound - delivering prescription meds, helping the council set up & run the first few weeks of food packages for vulnerable households, plus helping with training volunteers to take over for the duration.  He's always been hyper aware of not further risking the health of those he delivers too, so upping the routine from hand gel every visit to gloves, mask, wiping down every surface, etc., has not been too much of a stretch.

He's also taken on getting ALL the shopping, as he can cycle round until he sees a shop with no queues.  And when there are queues, he can cope way better than I could.  I compile a running list for him, including magazines, as my beloved Newsstand website (that started keeping my sane when I was stuck at home with a broken ankle many years ago) seems to have been discovered by the rest of the populace, the speed many magazines are selling out.  The wonderful local bakers, Holtwhites, have really stepped up, and after getting stuck behind someone ranting about everything from David Icke, 5G, Bill Gates, vaccines etc., Howard is tempted to switch to getting our regular sourdough & pain au chocolat order delivered instead of collecting it.  But he has used those quiet Sunday morning cycle trips to forage Ramsons to augment our home grown crop from a spot nobody else frequented. With olive oil sometimes hard to come by, I've been preserving it by making a wild garlic "freezer pesto", blitzing shredded leaves in a blender with a small amount of oil & salt, then spreading the pulp in a thin layer to freeze. We've been breaking off small portions of the frozen sheets of the "pesto" to add to everything from pasta sauces & stews to being the main flavouring in a risotto.  Hopefully I can make a couple more batches before the season is over. 

The one thing I'd love him to be able to fetch me, but know is not feasible, is good seed compost.  I have enough for the moment, by mixing Dalefoot seed compost with reconstituted coir, but the order I placed for further Biochar seed compost before official lockdown was at first delayed, then when I chased it up with the Organic Gardening company, was simply cancelled.  Granted, I got a refund, but nothing in writing to tell me they had done so.  I know these are difficult times, but an email would have been nice - maybe before an entire month waiting?

So yes, part of my routine this past six weeks has been spending time in my "second home" - my little plastic greenhouse.  I've got plenty of crops underway, some of which Howard has already planted out at the allotment, and the Wall of Salad that screens our little deck seating area is back in action, the first leaves snipped last week.  I've been growing batches of mustard & cress in assorted plastic cartons. Have also had a go at doing pea shoots this way - gorgeous - I confess to having a nibble of them whilst in the greenhouse sowing other seeds.

So while I may not have ventured any further than the pavement to view the front garden (wondering how I can safely & securely incorporate edibles into it), I'm still working at getting food on the table.  My little collection of Dig For Victory books have come in useful, plus using the Moon Gardener's Almanac to plan my seed sowing routine. Whether you give the theory any credence, using the guide to provide a little order to my sowing & planting routine have been very helpful.

How long the lockdown & other restrictions will last remains to be seen, but I intend to come out the other end of it with my own cucumbers for garnishing gin & making tzatziki, salad leaves for every sandwich,  fresh, dried & pulped tomatoes, cauliflower to be wrapped in cheese sauce & fresh, frozen & mushy peas.  Plus of course enough chard to feed the street.

1st March

One of the places I've traces my family tree back to is the Herefordshire village of Dymock.  It is renowned for the wild daffodils that grow there, and nearby villages that straddle the Herefordshire/Gloucestershire border, and onwards towards Monmouthshire.

Two years ago, I was able to buy some bulbs of the local strain, from the Newent Garden Centre, as we made our traditional stop at The Nest in Trumpet for a fortifying brunch of Buck Rarebit before heading home from the Malvern Autumn show.

This bulbs were planted in the refurbished tiny lawn at the front of our house along with some species crocus & grape hyacinths.  They have thrived and are putting a grand display on for passers by, perfectly timed for St David's Day.

Having suffered badly with my knee problem for a couple of months, I felt pain free enough (as in tread carefully, no sudden moves, especially sideways or twisting) to venture out & potter this afternoon.  The broad beans sown towards the end of last year are growing strongly & hopefully Howard will be able to plant them out at the allotment next week.  Same goes for the Autumn sown onions, garlic & shallots.

Spring seems to be about three weeks ahead, in spite of the storms.  The sloe bushes on the opposite side of the street are full of blossom, & earlier this evening I saw Canada Geese flying towards the lake in pairs as opposed to a flock - a sure sign Spring is rapidly approaching.

So that appointment for the ultrasound guided injection into the joint that is supposed to be the start of fixing this knee injury, a mere 20 years after the accident that caused the pain & immobility, would be most welcome.

Cold Snaps & Hot Dinners

Winter finally happened this past weekend - four consecutive frosty mornings & just below freezing nights.  Granted, in reality the night time temperatures dipping below freezing is about average for the time of year, but after such a mild (albeit damp & dull) December, it came as a bit of a shock.  Though not as much as the shock & horror when I dug out my alpaca wool wristwarmers/fingerless glove & found that clothes moths had made a meal of the right hand one.  (Also found they'd sampled a needlefelted model of a Balwen sheep I'd had for years without a sniff of them.  That's it the freezer in case there are grubs hidden deep inside that need killing off).

Of course this was the week I finally got round to booking a haircut, and to prove how much we've been hoodwinked by the so far mild winter, every customer in the hairdressers was clutching a hot drink, & every time the door to the street opened, every member of staff warmed their hands with a quick blast from their hairdryer.  Even the shop's dog - a long haired Chihuahua - had burrowed down deep into a pile of towels & blankets instead of keeping watch of the comings and goings outside.  But I'm back to feeling sleek & neat, if only above the neck.

The cold spell had been preceded midweek by Storm Brendan, which may not have caused anywhere as much of a problem as it did elsewhere, but it spelled the end for a large conifer tree on the road near the lake, and the mini greenhouse where my broad bean seedlings were housed took a sideways swipe, sending them crashing to the floor.  Despite initially looking like I was going to have to follow the instructions from the Wartime Weekend Gardener for the third week of January & sow a second batch, they had all survived - just needed the seed compost topping up and they were fine. 

The bulbs in the front garden are flowering away still.  The little Pauline irises that did so well last year that I decided to plant twice as many this year are in full flow - again a good three or four weeks in advance of last year.  Hopefully this variety will be available next Autumn too, unlike the previously stalwart Katherine Hodgkin, which seems to have disappeared from sale.  I was told at on place I looked for it that there had been a crop failure at the bulb growers, but I find it hard to believe that there would only be one source grower for such a seemingly ubiquitous variety.

Cold weather is the perfect excuse for a warming stew, so this past weekend I made a beef goulash, mixing my own combination of spices, and it lasted us three good and fortifying meals.  I've got back to meal planning lately.  Not to the point of mapping out breakfast lunch & supper for seven days just yet, but by deciding on a "big meal" for Sunday, when we both have time to prepare & cook, working backwards to decide what we need to get & do, then deciding on follow up meals for a few days.  One of the reasons I think "meatless Monday" is ill thought out is that it disregards the use of what was left from Sunday - possibly leading to more food waste.

I started with out festive meal.  As neither of us was hugely bothered this year (me miserable due to the struggles with my knee, him because he job was keeping him busy, and both of us after the disastrous election & the dreadful prospects for us & anyone not super wealthy), I didn't bother to order a bird or anything ahead of time - just the bread, as the bakers were closing for a week.  Instead, I phoned the butchers the Friday before & asked if they'd have a boneless pork joint in - they put my name on a list & I popped up there on the Monday.  I'd decided to go for a Swedish theme, having ordered a package of scandinavian food stuffs (cheese & chocolate mainly), so created a spice rub, heavy with cardamon & allspice & slathered the meat in that, covering it & letting it soak in overnight like the usual marinade.  That pork did us several meals, the final one being on New Year's Eve, when I made pyttipanna, with tiny cubes of the spiced pork and the Swedish black pudding I'd used half of to make the stuffing patties I'd serve on Christmas Day & for Boxing Day breakfast.

The first weekend of the new year, I got a boned & rolled breast of lamb.  This time I went for a North African flavour, & did a lamb & apricot tagine.  Not as adaptable as the pork in terms of leftovers, but it did us three days yet again, with the seasoning warming up day on day.

Then I did a ham hock - always a good standby at this time of year.  We stretched that to three dinners & a couple of sandwich lunches, with the last scraps going into a Dutch style pea & ham soup.  Final experiment prior to this weekend's goulash was a West African chicken & peanut stew.  That worked really well too, though I suspect my version was nowhere near as hot as the real version.  Next on my list is a Persian chicken stew -with pomegranate & crushed toasted walnuts, a traditional Polish Bigos stew.  Enjoying stepping out of the kitchen comfort zone, though there's still a time & place for a basic pasta in tomato sauce.

Remind Me - What Month Is It?

Granted, the coldest weather usually occurs late January & early February (right around Imbolc), but this does seem to have been a very mild winter, temperature wise.  A tad soggy, but nowhere near as cold as usual.  Checking back, I don't think we've woken to a frost since early December.

Even so, I was a little taken aback by how enthusiastically some of the Spring bulbs I have in pots in the front garden were sprouting.  I'd planned on augmenting, or even replanting some of those containers, but even by late November there was too much growth in them to disturb.  Have had to rustle up a few extra containers for this past Autumn's bulb purchases.  Still, it means a bit of successional planting, and I can move things in & out of sight as they flower & go over.

So this past week,  I checked things over, and saw that the pot of February Gold were all in bud - one of which opened midweek.  Given Wednesday was a dry, reasonably sunny day, I roped Howard in & we got some work done at the front.  Cut back the ornamental grass which was taking over the Belfast sink.  I plan to lift & divide that, replanting clumps elsewhere in the garden & allotment, with some at the front in a container all to itself that can be moved to hide whatever is an eyesore at any give time of year.

With that done, we set about pruning the clematis - again a month ahead of usual.  That  plant has survived being lifted from the old allotment, living in a bin bag as a pot for a while before being sunk into the classic modern house soil - solid clay & builders' rubble.  Yet it always tries to outwit me by budding & coming into growth before I can prune it for the new year.  Well I thought this year would be different, but barely into the second week of the year, a few buds had burst further along the plant than I wanted to prune it back to.  Well, I cut it back to where I needed it to be and it can regrow and catch up in due course.

Oh - and my Cephalaria gigantea (flowering time - June to October) has FIVE flower buds on it.  And the lovely deep, deep purple Iris reticulate Pauline has started flowering too.

Well I don't care what my established plants are doing, no way am I risking sowing any seeds just yet, outdoors or in.  (Not even in my heated propagator)

I'll just follow the Wartime Weekend Gardener's advice and lay down a thick mulch over the vegetable beds.

First Weekend of a New Decade

Trying hard to be positive with all that has happened - and may happen.

But more than ever, it's important to plough your own furrow.  I've kind of felt like this since June 2016, but after the disaster of the election result, looks like there will be nothing left to fall back on now.  So get on & look after yourself in whatever way you can, and in doing so, help others.

Finally had the MRI of my knee done just before the festive break - the one I've been asking for to identify the cause of the paid for nigh on a decade.  Now in the intervening years of walking on an injured knee,  and given my age, I've started to develop arthritis.  So I fully expect to be fobbed off with that as the reason & have to continue fighting to get something sorted that will allow me to be more mobile & in less pain (& to not wake up due to random flare-ups, etc.)

Even so, I intend to do all I can to be fit & mobile, in spite of what I have to deal with.  With Howard's help, I shall tackle the house, garden & allotment, getting them as ship-shape & productive as possible.  Have just ordered the first batch of Dalefoot seed compost (the peat free stuff made from composted wool & bracken) & have a propagator ready to plug in & put on a windowsill the cat rarely frequents to get a couple of weeks start on the more tender stuff like peppers & tomatoes.  The overwintering varieties of onions, garlic & shallots are doing nicely in pots in the mini greenhouse, as are the first batch of broad beans.  Hopefully the flood prevention works near the allotment a couple of years ago will have put an end to plots being under water at this time of year, but given how soggy things were in December, best to go the tried & tested route & plant them out in a month or so. 

Still not got all the tulips planted - that's a job for next weekend, once we've cleaned up pots we planted two or more years ago (& replanted any viable contents under fruit trees).  Feel bad that pain & unsteadiness on my feet has put me this far behind, but checking sowing & planting records, we were this late getting started the year Howard had his skin cancer op, so we should catch up.

I'm going to try to follow the Wartime Weekend Gardener book again, plus guidance from assorted Charles Dowding books & a planting by the moon book.  The recommended activities from 1942 included ordering seeds (done), planting Jerusalem Artichokes (will be dealt with next day Howard has off, along with pot cleaning & general space-making), forcing rhubarb (next time he gets over the allotment & has a suitable bucket or suchlike to hand), and finally, getting some early salad seeds started.  I want to use part of the kitchen windowsill to grow microgreens, so this would be the ideal opportunity.  But will mean no random spraying of white vinegar & bicarb sprays, and a handy step stool so I can reach them to harvest.

More stuff for the to do list then.

Where Did Summer Go?

Autumn has arrived, and with it, plans for the next growing season.  It's got to be better than this year.

Not a good summer for me - my painful knee has turned the dial up to agonising, leaving me effectively housebound for the past few months.  I've tried to get help from my GP, but due to government constraints, the most I can get referred to by him is physiotherapy.  First appointment with them is next week.  But at least I got to see my GP before the Home Office decided to pull the plug on his work permission due to being a Commonwealth passport holder (in spite of having been here for years, married & raised a British family).  So for the foreseeable future, the patients at our surgery are stuck with one GP with zero bedside manner and even longer waits for even shorter appointments.

In the intervening time, I've been woken up most nights by the pain - a deep, burning sensation in the middle of the joint, causing me to almost convulse in discomfort.  And if I'm not sleeping, neither are Howard or the cat.  With Howard having a job now that requires him to have his wits about him, that couldn't go on.  So on his first day off that week, we got a cab up to the Urgent Care at Chase Farm, where, after a slight meltdown in front of the triage nurse, a very understanding doctor arranged x-rays, which confirmed absolutely no damage to the bones (in fact he said they were in excellent condition & perfectly positioned), which pointed to ligament damage - possibly cruciate (which having researched, looks a pretty nasty, long term restoration prospect).  So he referred me on to the fracture & joint clinic at Barnet General, who offered me an appointment in little over a week.  Having seen them (after a 2 hour plus wait & another meltdown due to the frustration) I now await an appointment with a knee specialist.  The week after the appointment at Barnet, the letter asking me to book a physio appointment finally came through my door.  Well, I made an appointment, if only to give them an earful.

Howard has been enjoying his job as a cargo bike courier.  It can be hard, physically, and some nights he comes home beyond dog tired, but it's boosted his fitness and confidence.  How he feels about the work in the depths of Winter remains to be seen, but he's enjoying getting out & about, at times providing a vital service to the community, after over a decade in a deskbound job with a long, frustrating commute.

He's has to manage the allotment & much of the garden pretty much on his own, but as ever we've managed a decent haul of potatoes & onions, plus some salads & other greenery.  After such an abundant harvest last year, the fruit trees seem to have taken a break, but the erratic weather, all timed wrong, must have played a part in that.

This coming weekend sees us taking a break and heading out to the Malvern Autumn show.  My favourite show of the year, so I plan to make the most of it, even if I need a walking stick & regular sit downs.  We plan to take in visits to a couple more villages that feature on my family tree, plus a couple of our regular favourite haunts along the way.

So hopefully I'll return next week with renewed optimism & determination to grow as much of our own food as possible.  After all, if Brexit is as bad as we expect it to be, we will no longer be able to rely on the shops to feed us.

It's All Gone Quiet Again

Another Mid-May, another snarl up.

Over the past few years I've had a suspected mini stroke, a bullying by my boss so bad I quit my job (a bit rash, but I didn't want to face him ever again), a fall that jarred my back & left me out of action most of the Summer, and now my old knee injury (thanks Network Rail & your "wait till we're sued" station & staircase repair policy) has flared up so badly I can only comfortably walk in it 1 day in 5.  The plus side is that I've become a dab hand at applying cohesive bandage.  Have another GP appointment next week, hopefully he'll be able to get me referred to see a specialist and after 19 years of problems, finally get it fixed.

Howard now has a new job, as a cargo bike courier for an ethical, zero emissions, delivery company.  Obviously doesn't pay as well as graphic design, but at least it's something, and I get to call him a professional cyclist.  Plus the company has a contract with OrganicLea, so he gets to visit there at least once a week and look around for inspiration while he's waiting to load up (he also gets to drive an electric van for bigger loads), plus sometimes comes home with unsold items from the farmer's market.  The other week he returned with a bag of sorrel leaves, which I used with chopped onions & ransoms leaves as a bed to lightly braise some white fish on, topped with more chopped sorrel & ransoms flowers in melted butter.

On his days off, Howard has worked hard to keep the allotment chugging along on time.  All the potatoes, onion, garlic & shallots for the year are planted, and he's getting other seedlings planted as & when ready.

Not been the greatest year for seed sowing, due to the various cold snaps putting a check on growth.  A mouse got into the mini greenhouse where my peas & broad beans were, and had a feast.  Pumpkin cat went to look for it, but to have a staring match rather than actually catch it.  I've got another batch sown, plus the few surviving peas planted around a tripod in a container in the back garden, so we will have some in due course.

The wall of salad when first planted up

After the mini heatwave in February, I thought I'd risk starting off my tomatoes & peppers in the first half of March, rather than the last week.  Hardly anything germinated, then the back-up sowing I did in early April got hit by the cold snap after Easter.  A few things have germinated now, but I'm annoyed at the wasted time, effort & materials on the whole.  Galling that out of a whole tray, I have just one Gardeners' Delight seedling, for instance.  But at least that's something I can buy as a plant fairly easily.

We've been harvesting salad leaves with great regularity though.  I used the large vertical plant stand we bought from Ikea a couple of years back and filled it with pots of salad leaf mixes, plus a couple of pots each of spring onions & radishes.  With Howard taking a packed lunch with him four days a week, we've been snipping leaves early every morning to go in salads or sandwiches.  Probably getting through the equivalent of three or four bags of salad during weekdays, let alone weekends.  Then you factor in grown in peat free (Dalefoot) growing media, raised organically, food metres rather than miles, plus being a matter of minutes from harvest to table (or a couple of hours for the packed lunches) and no single use plastic whatsoever, and it's wins all round.

The bulbs we planted in pots in the front garden one icy November day have put on a wonderful display and are now dying back until next year (bar one pot that has stuff that should flower until July), and the perennial bed we relaid in February is coming to the fore.  The wallflowers are still providing bursts of bronze & peach, but the main colour at present is purple - centaurea & trailing verbena, plus the foliage of my penstemon echoing the colour of the flowers peaking right now.  My cephelaria gigantea is romping away again, with plenty of buds, as is the clematis, once again seemingly thriving on neglect or is it just growing at a pace we can barely keep up with tying it in to keep us on our toes?

Brown Sugar - my favourite tulip

Not Just a Flower

Nature moves fast in Spring.

We had that blip in February when we had a few days when it was as warm as would normally be expected in May, but this patch of London hasn't had the sudden cold snaps, snow or flooding seen elsewhere.  A bit chilly, but nothing an extra layer or two can't fight off.

As March turned into April, grape hyacinths took centre stage in the tiny lawn in the front garden.  Last year, the grass was getting a little scruffy, not helped by the appearance of self-sown salsify in it, from I know not where.  Pretty pink flowers maybe, but not what I intended.  So in October, we took up the old turf, landscaped the area so it didn't slope down towards the house wall, got the soil in better order & replaced the lawn.  Before we put a new roll of turf down, we planted some bulbs.  Orange flowered crocus, the aforementioned grape hyacinths and a small native narcissus.

Not just any old narcissus, but the strain of native daffodil found in Herefordshire & the borders, most famously around the village of Dymock.  These are the same variety Monty Don has planted in his garden, which I think is a little further north west in the county.  Not sure where he got his from, but we bought ours from the Newent Garden Centre on our now habitual afternoon tea at The Nest, Ledbury on our way home from our weekend visiting the area for the Malvern Autumn show.

Getting those bulbs was a way to have something that kept alive my connection to the area - a tiny nod towards my heritage.  On researching my family tree, I was able to trace once branch back to the villages of Much Marcle & Dymock itself during the mid to late 1500's.  Having that little daffodil in place, ready to show up every spring, is a great reminder.

How Did We Get To Here?

Years ago, when I was working for a music publishers, one of the regular visitors to the company offices was a typical music biz chancer of the time, always on the look for a gimmick that would be a quick way to a hit.  One of the acts he managed wrote a UK Euro entry (One Step Closer - Bardo), which nearly came a cropper because the song had already been released in Japan on the b-side of the original band's single.  A business bigwig got wind of this, but it was all hushed up because our chancer had some knowledge about the other guy that he hinted would get into the press if he went to the authorities, so that all went quiet.  A few months later, he was looking for a 30's/40's novelty song for another set of charges (another washed-up formerly faux mod band, trying to reinvent themselves as all-round entertainers).  As my job required much time in the sheet & recorded music archive, I found the perfect song for them, and it was a bona fide hit.  Unfortunately, the song was so old & obscure, my employers' rights to the copyright had lapsed and no-one had seen any point in renewing them. 

A few years after the music publishers closed down, and I was well out of the music business, I saw the old chancer on TV.  He was claiming to have found film of the Americans undertaking an autopsy of those on board a UFO.  Obviously, this was pretty soon exposed as a complete scam, but the incident was made into a film.  What a let down - to have part of the story of your life on the silver screen, only for your part to be played by Ant.  Or was it Dec?

Why am I reminded of this?  Well, one Christmas, as I wrote my Christmas cards for my colleagues, I found among my Woolies selection the perfect card for him.  Two little cartoon mice, playing ten pin bowling, but using holly berries as bowling balls.  A little bit of customisation of the card and it was perfect for him, and went down a storm in the office: a little word bubble, stating "Keep going - If you throw enough of these at the wall, some of them will stick".

Unless she is genuinely deluded, I have a feeling that the sentiment of that little card sums up the Prime Minister's EU vote strategy.

I despair.

Chugging Along

Off on errands shortly - I've run out of seed compost!  (Crisis level - not quite teabags, but at this time of year above bread shortage). 

I've started using Dalefoot compost this year.  One of the local garden centres (two bus rides away as opposed to a train & cab or wait till we hire a van) started stocking it, so having heard good word about it, thought I'd give it a try.  It's made from composted bracken and waste sheep's wool, so no peat, and more consistent ingredients than green waste based composts.  It's got a nice light texture and so far we've had good germination, even though we've used the general purpose version rather than dedicated seed compost.

So yes, I have been getting busy between the rain & snow with the seed sowing.  We've even started cutting the first batch of salad leaves (micro greens, to be precise, but still a joy to have some fresh greenery from the garden), and the Ramsons are getting into full leaf, so there have been assorted garlic tinged dishes to liven up breakfasts of late.  My pots of herb are springing back to life, so there will be fresh mint & oregano for use in the kitchen pretty soon.  The salad burnet is doing really well, so I'm starting to use that for a slightly bitter cucumber taste.  I fear that despite all my efforts the lemon verbena plants didn't make it, so I'll be on the lookout for replacements in the next month or so.

As usual, I've been using the Planting By The Moon book as a guide as to what to sow when.  Not in terms of adhering to biodynamic practices (too rigid, too much hassle for my brain), but more as a way of keeping some sort of order.  For instance, as yesterday was a "flower" day, I got more summer flowering bulbs, corms & tubers started (freesias, gladioli & dahlias), to be planted out at the allotment once the weather is closer to dry and warm.  Also sowed plenty of flower seed.  Some to go with the bulbs & so forth in a cutting garden patch, others to be dotted around the vegetable beds to attract beneficial insects & repel others.  Tomorrow is a "leaf" day, so once I have stuff to fill the trays, I'll get the next batch of salads started, then over the weekend "fruits", such as peas, beans and the last batch of tomatoes can be dealt with.  If we can work out a way of moving them without the expense of a hire van, some of my fruit tree purchases may get planted at the allotment too.

All but a couple of trays of onions, garlic & shallots we started in modules have been planted out at the allotment, as have first and second early potatoes.  The rhubarb is sprouting, so in a few weeks we can start eating that (along with some of the sweet cicely which is looking particularly good among my herb pots.

I lost so much time after my fall last year that, since I started getting mobile again late last September, I've determined to make full use of my time to garden.  Of course this year Spring has been slow to start, so I've been able to pace myself.  But there is still a inclination to make use of every shaft of sunlight.

I just have to remember when we have another cold or rainy spell and I can't get outside for a few days (still using a picnic table on the deck as a potting bench - must get a new shed this year), or the ground is too sodden to work, that even if a bit late in sowing or planting out, the plants will catch up.

Cabin Fever - Slight Return

Well, this has been the coldest Winter for some years here on the northern reaches of London.

We're in the midst of our third bout of snow, with more due later today.

Good thing I got busy with seed sowing ahead of time.  I have plenty of trays safely tucked under cover in my mini greenhouses, plus trays & pots of onions, garlic & shallots stashed outside to allow the cols snap to kick start them into growth before planting them out at the allotment as soon as the soil is ready to take them.

The cold and wet has meant it is slow going at the allotment, but as we are switching to no-dig, it should get easier.  Even so, Howard has been busy making a new set of compost bins (as per an old Lawrence Hills book I found), and every time a batch of wood chip arrives has been layer down some as paths between the beds, which makes everything look neater, as well as easier to walk on.

I finally got out of the house without using my walking stick as an aid.  Was tiring, but I felt able to handle things OK.  I think having both hands free was a great help.  Now the cold is back it feels a bit sore, and I shan't risk the ice for fear of tipping over.

Instead, I shall take advantage of this enforced indoors time to catch up on the Civilisations TV series, and sketch out planting plans for the fruit beds.  Spring is just a matter of days away, and the sap is well & truly rising!

Oops! No Plums!

Late last year, I took the decision to cash in my smallest workplace pension.  Partly to take some pressure off Howard in terms of household finances, but also as there were some big purchases I needed to make if I planned to put more effort into growing our food.

One of the things on my list was more fruit trees.  We'd lost a couple of pear trees then the allotment flooded a few years ago, and having rethought the layout last year while I was laid up unable to actually do any gardening, I had a section of the plot to dedicate to fruit growing.

So in the Autumn I took advantage of an offer Deacons nursery had for half price bare root top fruit trees, and ordered assorted apples, pears and other fruit trees.

The order arrived late last week, but not having transport to get to the allotment this weekend, we had to heel them in until we can plant them in the new fruit area in the back garden.  Saturday it rained all day, so much thumb twiddling took place.  Finally Sunday morning dawned damp, but not actually raining.  Unfortunately, by the time we were both ready & got outside to the garden, it was raining lightly, but we were determined to get the job done - opening the packages, bagging up the straw used to protect the trees, sorting through the trees, then planting them,  in batches of 5 or so, temporarily in spent compost in the potato planting bags, so they would be easy to transport to the allotment next time we hire a van.

Of course in the time it took to get all this done, the temperature dropped further, and the rain turned to sleet, then to snow.  But it was a job that needed completing, didn't require walking on soil or disturbing it in any other way, so we persevered.  As the snow once again morphed into sleet and then rain, the job was completed, and the trees were neatly placed in a sheltered but light patch.  I then ticked them off against my order - a selection of eating apples to crop & keep from late Summer through to early Spring, cooking apples to crop & store through Autumn & Winter, a small selection of cider apples to experiment with, a couple of pears to replace what we lost to flooding, a peach, a nectarine and a cherry to grow in the sunniest patch of the garden at the house, a damson and a greengage. 

Somehow I had forgotten to get any new plum trees.

Still, having done a scale plan of the fruit area, I reckon there's space for a couple more trees (as well as raspberries, gooseberries & assorted currants), so time to study the lists again.

Where did that year go?

So - my last post was on 5th May - full of optimism for the growing season ahead.

Three days later, I tripped and fell as I was politely stepping out of someone's way.  At the time, I was more worried about bits of gravel embedded in my hand, but the next morning I woke, and was barely able to move without incredible pain. Hospital was certain it was sciatica, gave me an injection and sent me home.  But for the next couple of weeks I was virtually bedbound, progressing to housebound, through to unable to get out & about unaided, and on to my current unsteady on her feet & unable to climb stairs in comfort.

After assorted blood tests, x-rays, & scans, I was told I had deterioration to my lower spine, which was pretty worrying, so I got sent (eventually) to a specialist physiotherapist.  Finally got my first appointment in early December, at which she reviewed the reports & scans, to tell me that there was nothing wrong with my spine - the "deterioration" was just normal wear & tear.  All the weeks being extra careful not to inflict further damage had been pointless.  Guess this is what happens when the scans are farmed out to private companies who want to justify charging the NHS exhorbitant rates.

What I had suffered was muscle and ligament strain, and once the initial inflammation (which caused the original pain) had gone down, my body was tensing up as if expecting another fall.  So my muscles were tighter, hence making it harder to get mobile.

So I'm now on a slow arc to recovery - lots of gentle exercise, much stretching, plenty of walking, as I build up confidence to face the outside world without a walking stick.

Though the stick comes in handy when you want the bus to stop for you.

The Past Calls You

During the spells of inclement weather this past Bank Holiday weekend, I took advantage of the free access to certain records on the Find My Past website.

I've been taking advantage of free access to records weekends on Ancestry since Easter 2015, and have actually built the family tree on that site, but sometimes looking at another website helps verify information, or provides records not available elsewhere.

Now, I've always believed that I'm half Welsh (on my mother's side), and going back three or four generations that is the case.  But so far every branch of that side of the family seems to have arrived in the valleys of South Wales in the 1870's & 80's - when the coal mining boom was in full flow.  When it comes to the origin of my maternal great grandparents, one branch came from the West Midlands, having been chainmakers and nail makers for several generations in Shropshire & Worcestershire.  I've yet to get back prior to the Industrial Revolution with this branch - this is the one that could actually trace back to the right side of the border, I'm told.  My maternal grandfather's mother was born in Devon, but the family moved to the Valleys prior to the 1881 census.  Before that, the generations I've traced were farm labourers in various villages between the Eastern edge  of Exmoor and the western slopes of Somerset's Quantock Hills.

My Welsh Nan's family also arrived in the Valleys some time in the 1870's - from Bristol and the Forest of Dean.  I have managed to trace the Forest of Dean branch of the family back to the 1530's - effectively the start of written records for anyone other than gentry - to Much Marcle, in the heart of Herefordshire cider making country. It's an area of the country I love and know well.  Whenever we go to the Malvern shows, rather than stay near the show ground, we usually stay on the outskirts of Hereford, then explore the area the days either side of the show.  I've always felt comfortable round there, almost "at home".  Now I know why.  This branch of the family also contains what seems to be our only brush with fame.  My great-great grandmother's birth name was Meek, and it appears I share ancestors with the famed record producer Joe Meek.  Cousins several times removed - our lines branch off around the time of the Civil War.

My father's family tree has been a little harder to research.  His mother was 12 when she lost her father in World War I, and seems to have been informally adopted by an uncle, whose name appeared in records of her marriage, and sent me looking in the wrong direction for a while.  Here also I found evidence of the lost inheritance I'd heard talk of as a child. Not a huge amount, but a great great grandfather remarried late in life, and left everything to his second wife.  I've also managed to trace one of my great great grandmother's lines on this side back to 17th Century Essex, and 16th Century Norfolk.

His father's side of the tree has seen me try to break through a few dead ends - one great great great grandfather is listed on parish wedding records as a Mariner on a Victuallery vessel - I guess that means a merchant ship carrying food & drink, though whether that just sailed around Britain, or plied the international waters I don't know.  This past weekend I have found out there are records of him at Trinity House, likely parenateg, a birth date (some 16 years earlier than the wife who appears in my family tree), and what looks like a previous marriage, though as yet no death details for either wife.  Did the first wife join him on board and die overseas?  Was he a bigamist, keeping two marriages going in separate ports?

This side is where I have found the only (so far) illegitimate ancestor - I can only speculate as to whether the man his mother married a few years after his birth was his father.  But I have been able to trace this ancestor's mother's family back from his birthplace of Ware, several generations back to villages just north of the town.  According to census entries, this ancestor was, during his time in Ware (before he married and lived in Uxbridge) a maltster.  I've been through Ware countless times - usually on the way to the plant nursery Hopleys in Much Hadham.  The church is set back slightly from the High Street, and just outside is a statue of man leaning on a large shovel, with a cat at his side.  This statue celebrates the maltmaking industry that thrived in this area two centuries ago.  And those villages?  Well, they're on the road that leads to Much Hadham, and I have passed through them almost as many times as I've been through Ware.  I have always had the urge to stop & explore, and I guess now I realise why.  These places, in countryside I love, are part of my history, and are waiting for me to tread where previous generations tended the fields.

For those who work from home

A Poem

I must stop drinking tea
It does this thing to me
'cos every time I have a cup
I need to have a pee!

Working on the next verse, which will be about how every time I go to the kitchen to put the kettle on, the cat expects me to make toast, so she can lick the drips of melted butter off the plate.

More soon.

The Moment Has Arrived

The sun is shining, the birds are singing, it's dry, and almost warm!

The Equinox is over a week away, but Spring has well and truly sprung, and I'm finally confident enough to sow seeds.

This has been the coldest Winter for a few years.  Whilst there were no days when snow stopped everything, at least a little fell.  We had more heavy frosts than the past couple of years put together.  We had a couple of instances of consecutive heavy frosts, when the ice on the pond stayed solid for a few days in a row.  The downside of this was that I had to eventually fish out a dead frog that was a little over eager to get back under water and stake their spot for the breeding season. Fortunately, other frogs were a little more sensible, and for the past couple of weeks I've seen other frogs in the pond.

My little snowdrop collection has put on a great show, from the delicate Wasp to the big & bumptious Rev.Hailstone, and so many in between.  Once the last flowers have gone over, I'll start dividing and repotting them.  The frost has damaged quite a few pots, so it will be a pretty comprehensive job this year.  This year the double white Hellebore has been the most vigorous of my collection.  At the moment my favourite one, the yellow, is looking a little weedy, so I may have to work on the soil in that patch.

But Spring has arrived, as usual very slowly at first, then suddenly over the past few days my crocuses and daffodils have burst into flower, as have some of the plants in the shade bed apart from Hellebores - the Brunnera Jack Frost is in flower, the dark flowered Scopolia is in bud and colouring up, and the dwarf Celandine plants are leafing up.  On an edible note, I picked my first batch of Ransoms (wild Garlic) leaves for the year.

Not that was the first harvest of the year.  In January, I was able to pick a few flowers from the trough of Saffron crocus I'd planted at end at Summer.  I extracted the stamens and set them to dry, and by February was able to use them in a risotto.  I've sown little pots of salad microgreens which sit on the kitchen windowsill and get snipped and added to sandwiches, salads and scrambled eggs.  At the allotment, we had kale to pick throughout the coldest of days, when all other crops gave up the ghost.  Ignore the tarring by the brush of earnest health charlatans, Kale is reliable, versatile and tasty.  It survives the worst that Winter can throw at it.  Grow it for that reason.

In fact, just last week I started the kale crops that will see us through next Winter.  At the weekend I sowed more salads and the first batch of peas & beans.  This morning I planted the first potatoes for the year, in potato planting backs, to be grown in the back garden for extra early cropping.  Hopefully this week will be dry enough to get started with planting the rest at the allotment before the month is out.

Despite the doom and chaos in the outside world, what I can organise myself is looking positive.

Doing things ever so slightly differently

Valentines Day again.  Never been the biggest fan, maybe because I never got any cards from secret admirers.  Howard and I have never been hung up on it, unless we see a particularly daft card.  Always a good excuse for chocolate though - I spent the afternoon making some - a selection of orange and lemon flavoured white chocolate cups.  Still at the experimental stage - the lemon flavoured ones turned out fine, but the moment I added a few drops of red colouring to the orange ones, the texture of the melted chocolate changed.  Happened to both the rose and mont flavoured chocolates I made for Christmas too.  It turns them almost fudge like - fine to eat, but a pain to divide into paper cases.

The menu planning is going well.  Certainly makes day to day cooking easier.  We hardly have any leftovers now, except what is planned to turn into lunch, and grocery shopping is much easier now.  Tonight I'm cooking smoked haddock - poached in a splash of milk, and served with potatoes and broad beans.  Not something you'd want to take into work & reheat (sadly any fish or brassica dish does not smell office friendly), so tomorrow Howard will take one of the soups I made by pureeing the remains of one of our casseroles & freezing it.  Hopefully if he chooses one and takes it out of the freezer tonight, it will have defrosted in time for him to cook & eat it tomorrow - the last one too two days to defrost!

Normally around this time of year, I would have attended the first RHS Flower show at their HQ in Westminster.  In fact, it was on today.  But this year I decided not to.  Firstly, my knee is causing too much pain at the moment, so I didn't want to be out alone for too long.  Secondly, with just the one income at the moment, we need to buy just the plants we need to grow, and not be distracted.  I have a plant and crop list, and I'm doing my utmost to stick to it.  But most of all, the RHS have decided to charge for entry to the shows, even for members.  As far as I am concerned, free entry to these small shows is part of being a member.  In fact, I'm pretty certain it was stated as included on their website at the time I paid my subs for the year.  We are told it is to help them pay for a garden apprentice scheme, though I think it could well be to allow for a shortfall if the new show at Chatsworth House doesn't pull in the crowds.  All in all, I think it's as badly thought out a move as selling their main hall to Westminster School - a private, for profit school, then having to pay rent to use it about three times a year.  We'll have to see if they back down.

I also missed the Myddleton House Snowdrop sale this year.  Always held at the end of January, this is fairly local to me.  Just a couple of bus rides and a walk in fact.  It's a fun event, with everyone queueing up, and then a 15 minute frenzy when the gates open.  I've bought some lovely snowdrops there, but have not gone as mad as some.  I set myself a budget, and for last year's sale, I even compiled a strict wants list.  Some of the more obsessive collectors spent hundreds (I've never seen so many £50 notes in one place).  Granted, some of the more collectable plants had prices around or over three figures, but I am quite happy with my collection.  It lacks a few "classic" plants, but I have a good mix of small, tall, double, green marked, yellow marked, robust and dainty. I have them in pots dotted along the path from the back door, and they brighten what can be a shady part of the garden.  Even during the fog and snow of the past couple of weeks, the differing plants brightened the way and encouraged me to get organised for the new growing year.

In fact on the weekend of the snowdrop sale, we ended up taking a journey to a nearby garden centre to get at least a few seed potatoes.  Again, I'd put together a list of exactly what I wanted.  I had looked online and couldn't get every variety I wanted from just one place, so was getting frustrated.  As it turned out, the garden centre had more varieties than the one they advertised as having in stock, so I was able to get all on my list.

So now all I need is for the weather to warm up slightly and I can get going on preparing to plant for the new year.

Almost cut my hair (and how we came upon a bundle of fluff)

I trim my fringe every few weeks - especially during hayfever season, and when he can't find the time to arrange an appointment (more often than not), I cut Howard's hair.  I even bought proper hairdressing scissors a couple of years ago, so there was no longer an issue with the kitchen scissors being coated in hair conditioner.

Last night I trimmed my hair too.  Not much - just and inch or so, then thinned the ends.  For so little work, the difference is amazing - doesn't feel so straggly any more, and I don't feel compelled to tie it back to keep it tidy.

I WILL get a proper haircut at some point soon, but with funds being tight, it was well worth the effort.

Our local hairdressers are great - it was after all, how we came to adopt Pumpkin cat.

Flashback to November 2014 - How Pumpkin came to live with us.

She at the time belonged to the family who lived upstairs from the salon, and were tenants of the shop owner.  During the Autumn of 2014, staff noticed a can kept coming in & sleeping under where the towels were stored - a nice cosy place.  On further investigation, turned out it was owned by the flat upstairs, but spent its days in the cold, dingy concrete yard at the back of the shop, as the mother of the family didn't want it in the house during the day.  My hairdresser spoke to her tenants, and said if they really, didn't want to look after the cat, she would arrange for it to be rehomed.

It just so happened that I had booked an appointment for the Saturday morning.  While my hair was being cut, I talked about how we had lost Sheba cat to old age & illness in February, and given the mouse problem we'd had of late, decided we couldn't live without a cat much longer. So she mentioned that the upstairs tenants had a cat that needed rehoming, that it was most likely in the yard, but it was "a bit wild" and usually ran away when spotted.

So, once my hair was styled and dry, we popped out to have a look.  A first, there was no sign.  From the description, I was half expecting to see a battle-scarred tom cat, but then, on the top of the lean-to roof, huddled in the corner, I spotted a small, fluffy black cat.  I proffered my usual new cat greeting - held out my hand and said "Hello baby" - and it trotted towards me and sniffed my hand and face.  My hairdresser was amazed, said it had never reacted like that before.  We stayed in the yard a little while longer, and I was filled in on what info she had about the cat - female, neutered, about two years old (but tiny for that age).  I said I was interested, but would have to speak to Howard.

He was unsure, but popped down the next day to have a look.  Overnight, being 1st November and a Saturday, there had been fireworks, and later torrential rain.  So when he went to see her in the yard, she was cold & soggy, and not in the mood to socialise.  He didn't tell me at the time (spent the next few days asking me if I was sure what I had agreed to) but then and there decided we needed to take her on.

So I phoned and confirmed we would adopt her, but needed a little time to make a secure indoor space for her while she settled in.  Two Sundays later, we came along with a clean new pet carrier, to collect her from the family.  We had sprayed about half the contents of a bottle of Feliway cat calming spray on us ready for the journey home and what was expected to be a fractious afternoon.  With the exception of the daughter, it was clear nobody in the family paid any attention to the cat, and even she seemed to be more interested in her new goldfish.  So after a slight struggle to get her in the carrier (which she still hates), we collected her and set off home.

Her original name was Lucky, which given her circumstances, that felt almost sarcastic.  I decided that, as I had first met with her the morning after Halloween, and she had been sitting all folorn near someone's doorway, I would call her Pumpkin.

We had decided to set up space for her in the back bedroom, which we had turned into an office.  The think was that this was quieter than the front of the house, had a big window that looked out onto the gardens, so she could get a look at her territory before she was ready to venture out, and it was easy to keep that door closed while we got on with our day.  It also had the ensuite shower room, when we could have a litter tray for her which could be emptied and cleaned without having to go to the kitchen or the main bathroom (which actually had less floorspace).

When we arrived and let her out of the carrier, she bolted for the darkest corner of the bookcases, and watched use the computer.  In the evening, Howard made a supper of pasta with venison meatballs.  We sat down to eat in the office room, so she could get use to us & our voices.  Within a minute or two, she emerged from her cat cave, and sat near Howard, attracted by the smells coming from his plate.  He allowed her a couple of meaty morsels.  Later, she followed him into the ensuite, where she was introduced to the litter tray and used it immediately.  That night, Howard made himself a bed on the floor by the desk and in the morning she was curled up by his feet.

Pumpkin had arrived home.