The Girls are here

Actually the Girls have been here for a month now but as usual the time passes and I don't put up a post.

A quick google search for 'Bantams Dorset' lead us to the Mr. Bantam of the area - he has been raising Bantams for 15 years and has 3 or 4 varieties, which gallop around in his garden and dig their way to Australia.  We could have had 'posh' show Bantams or ones that didn't quite make the grade.  As neither GW or myself see ouselves as Bantam Fanciers or whatever they are called we plumped for the rejects - after all the eggs are the same.

Mr. Bantam chose three Buff Pekins and a Buff Pekin x Wyandotte, all of whom looked perfect as far as we could see, and so off home we go, me with a cardboard box on my knees.  GW had been building a run for them (lots of drawing up of plans, trips into Bridport to purchase things, and quite a lot of thinking) so when we got home, in they went along with food and water and we sat down to think of names.

The first one was named Felicity as we got them on the Ste. Felicie (my children often named their pets after the Saints Day on which they arrived, and being half Frog ...); number 2 was named Grace as she is as courageous as Grace Darling; number 3 who is the Pekin x and totally neurotic and horribly bossy was named George after George in the Famous Five and number 4, bless her, is Bessie named after Billie Bunter's sister, as she is rather F.A.T. and tends to waddle.

As George is such a bad influence, I decided to keep them in the pen for the first few days as I could see she would organise the Great Escape.  There was much pacing and sulking.  But it allowed us time to train them to the sound of food being rattled around in the tin which meant back to HQ.  The first sortie was courageous Grace and chunky Bessie and deemed a success so the following day all four were let loose.

I no longer have a worm, a bug, or a grub in the garden.  We are now on the front line of the Somme battlefields.  My vegetable patch is as cleansed as can be - fortunately nothing is yet planted.  I  have to go and buy 50 feet of chicken wire in order to ban them from that area as time is racing on and things need to go into the ground for human consumption later in the year.  Fortunately the back garden is above the house so I can fence off access to the front of the house and the Great Escape - also when Angus arrives after his quarantine we will hopefully manage to keep Girls v. Scottish Terrier seperate ... in a running battle the Girls will not win!

The Girls are each laying their egg a day and mighty fine eggs they are too - none of this supermarket rubbish.  You have to use 2 Bantam's eggs to one chicken egg but they are rich, a deep yellow, full of taste and apparently lower in cholesterol than a hen's egg.  And much less white, which suites me.

At the moment they are shut in as a) they normally lay in the afternoon but if they can lay in a Secret Place somewhere in the garden they prefer it and b) George has been totally over the top this morning with Teach Yourself to Fly lessons into the hedge - much flapping of wings and irate shouting from one of the wrens.

Are we attached to these small and charming beasties?  Yes.  Obsessed?  Well almost.  Does GW spend half his day talking to them in Bantam Speak?  Yes.  Are we sad?  Definitely.  I might even post a picture of them later.

Have a good weekend all of you and I hope your weather is as good as it is here in fabulous West Dorset.  GW is on his way home from Brussels and tomorrow I will get him to the garden centre and purchase chicken wire and plants, then the National.  Sunday we may go racing, the last pub quiz before the summer season (don't want the holidaymakers spoiling our fun!) and then it is Pig Black Monday.  Well actually it will be a Black Sunday for the pigs but on Monday we get together to chop the porkers into bits.  Great discussions in the pub the other week as to who wanted a pig and I think that so far there will be 12 people wanting a pig each.  Endless discussions on what one can do with bits of pig and I keep throwing a fly in the ointment as having been previously married to a Frog Chef whose motto was 'if it moves, eat it' and follower of the belief that everything in a pig is edible apart from the oink, I asked whether we would have the blood to make Black Pudding, why don't we get the trotters, ears and tail make for a great soup, I want to make saucisson and not sausages, cheeks of pig are wonderful - and I think I will soon be barred from the boozer!

If ever I get like my mother ...

Just back after three weeks sorting out my Mum.  A panic phone call from her saying that she hadn't eaten since Boxing Day (untrue) and that things were bad saw me on the early plane to Jersey the following morning.

She seemed fine although her short-term memory is going and although she had been eating, she wasn't eating enough which of course messes up the brain.  And as she can't remember the chaos surrounding her pills was undescribable - it seems that she would take A Pill at odd times of the day, not take the right ones and I even found the cats' worming tablets in the stash!

So I knuckled down and shopped and cooked and drove her around for three weeks; after a week she was much better, her mind was clearer and she didn't pay her daily twice in one day and she was eating.  I sorted out the pill confusion and after a visit from the doctor managed to get more efficient pills.  Told her she must get a daily dose pill box, as did the doctor, and that was when the trouble started.  She point blankly refused to use it saying that she prefers to take the pills directly from the box.  Why?

So just to annoy me she started 'forgetting' to take the pills I put out for her or hiding them.  I made out a list of her pills so that I could remember what was what, and she threw it away.  She cancelled her appointment for an endoscopy at the hospital without telling me and it was only when I rang the specialist that his secretary told me what she had done.  So I rebooked it and actually got an appointment a week earlier than originally planned, so short-circuited that trick.  The endoscopy was good, there is no cancer or anything else, just a slight inflammation.  Mum got cross as the specialist said there was no reason to give her antibiotics.  We get home and she comes down from her bedroom with 4 different types of anitbiotics and says 'Which one shall I take?'.  Goodness knows where she had been hiding them.  So we almost come to blows as I confiscate them.

So a difficult three weeks with me getting her to eat again properly, driving her around, taking the cat to the vet (as she couldn't get antibiotics, the cat had a jab of them - don't ask!) and generally just jollying her along, getting her out and about and seeing her friends again and frankly just wishing I was at home in Dorset.

And then one night towards the end of my stay I went up to bed and went to see if Mum was okay.  Normally she is either reading or watching the television - that evening she was sitting there doing neither with the saddest expression on her face.  She didn't see me and I went to bed thinking what a bitch I was complaining about her all the time.

My grandmother was a very selfish and demanding woman and with Mum we used to joke and she would say 'If ever I get like my mother, have me put down!'.  She is like her mother, I won't have her 'put down' but I fear for my future!

The BB Affair

Last Friday we go to have supper with a friend in Burton Bradstock.  Round the table is a couple who live in Pucknowle (pronounced Punnel) which is the village between us and BB.  The couple in question live up a no through road and are therefore virtually traffic free.  Thursday night around 8pm they hear a car and so look out of the window to see who it is.  A police car.  Odd.  Police car drives off but comes back twenty minutes later.  Lady of the house rings local police station to ask why there is a police car lurking in her lane as she is not too keen to go out and investigate if there is a killer on the loose.  After 5 minutes her call is transferred from Somerset and Avon to Dorchester police who tell her there is no need to worry.  Fine.  But as she was being told this, suddenly there were three police cars and a helicopter with search lights hovering over her house.  Not so fine.  And then suddenly they were gone as quickly as they appeared leaving the couple rather frightened and locking every door and window in the house!

So back to supper on Friday night.  Our chum, E, was awoken on Friday morning by the police asking if she had seen anything suspicious in BB on Thursday night.  No, she replied.  Off to work later she sees that the loos in BB are cordonned off and there is a forensic team at work.  Murder, drugs, theft - everyone was avid for information. 

News here travels very very fast so all the surrounding villages knew that 'something funny' had happened in the loos in BB.  There was Blood.  Who had been killed?  Polic cars, helicopter, forensics - it must been something Important. 

Blood samples sent off for analysis and on Saturday the results came through ... rabbit blood!  Someone had been cleaning their game in the public loos.  Don't blame them - gutting rabbits is a very smelly business!

Well, well, well

I don't have the time to write much at the moment - suffice to say I won the curry cook off at the pub on Sunday!  Well done me!  Fought off 15 other contenders so I have won a Sunday lunch for two.  I am so chuffed as I never win anything.

During the week I will tell you about the mystery in the loos in Burton Bradstock which has rocked the community to its core!  Heavens above, it is all happening here and the bush telegraph works faster than the internet ...

Weekend Widow

How quiet it is at the cottage.  GW left at 3.30 am on Friday to deliver English groceries to the suffering expat Brits in Brussels who order on line from us at http://theinternetgrocer.com.  The 'theme' of the deliveries this week was of course haggis and all things Scottish for those in Brussels who are celebrating Burns Night this coming week.  I must admit that haggis and neeps are not my most favourite of food but then I am not Scottish so maybe it just isn't in my blood ... I don't even like whisky!

The weather here is bright and sunny but the wind has moved into the north east so it is bitterly cold outside.  I am itching to get started on the garden but in this weather there is not much I can do.  As we only moved to the cottage at the end of September I dare not rush out and start digging the beds as I have no idea what is lurking under the surface.  The snowdrops and daffodils are starting to show signs of life and there are some valiant primroses that have flowered throughout the Great Freeze but apart from that not much is happening.  In the vegetable garden the kale and the spinach have come through the bad weather pretty well and the parsley is showing signs of new shoots.  Unfortunately it is frizzy parsley which I find tasteless compared to the flat-leaved variety.  So I will just hug the Aga and plan the garden in my head for the moment.

You have until the 24th January to sign into http://worldbooknight.org which I think is a great idea.  Do go and have a look at the site.  I have signed up but won't tell which book I've chosen although having been in the food business most of my life, there is an obvious choice!

And talking of food - our local pub which as you now know is the centre of the village life here has come up with a great idea to pull the crowds during the winter.  On the 30th January there will be a curry competition.  The rules are simple - you provide, anonymously, a curry for 4 people.  The pub provides rice, chutney and poppadums.  If you don't enter the competiton then you pay £2 to be part of the judging team and get to taste all the curries on offer.  The best curry wins a Sunday lunch for two at the pub (which are super).  Although I am a good cook, curry is not on my repetoire.  I admit to buying the ready to cook sauces and adding chicken and a few spices.  However  I made a vegetarian curry the other week which was lovely and I think that with some chicken added to the mix, I might be in with a chance.

And finally, it's marmalade time again and I am so happy to be in England and able to source Seville oranges in large quantites.  They are sitting in my larder waiting to be dealt with so after giving the cottage a well earned clean and lighting the fire in the sitting room as it is now getting seriously cold I shall brave the elements to find the jam jars in the garage and mess up the kitchen with sticky jam pans everywhere.  If you want my marmalade recipe that I nicked from the Sunday Times last year here is the link.  It is so easy and the marmalade is perfect, even though I say it myself - but hurry as Seville orange time is coming to an end and I read today that all the major stores are running out of them - sales are up 30% on last year.

A Jimmy Riddle anyone?

Well at last December is out of the way.  The village was effectively cut off from the Rest of the World for two weeks, the only access to civilisation was down the already dangerous lane to Burton Bradstock - add a couple of inches of ice and it really wasn't worth going out.  Then of course Christmas arrived and it would appear that England stopped for two weeks - I have completely lost time of days of the week, dates, the month and when the rubbish is collected.  I religiously put out my rubbish last week congratulating myself on being the first in the lane to do so and it didn't get collected.  Obviously as newcomers there is some secret about rubbish collection to which we are not yet initiated.  When inquiring if and when it would be collected there were shouts of 'Go and look at the website - all the collection days are published there' - so you see we may live in the middle of the most glorious nowhere but we are hi-tech down here!

Anyhow, before the forced hiberation of December, GW and I went and visited the Piddle Brewery.  People snigger at its name but the brewery is on the Piddle river in Piddlehinton, so it is very aptly named.   This micro brewery was started in February 2008 by Rob and Paul and met with immediate success - so much so that in 2009 they won the much acclaimed Taste of Dorset award for the Best Drinks Supplier.  I'm not a beer drinker myself but am assured by GW that it is good stuff.  The sacrifices that we have to make to find good produce to put on http://www.theinternetgrocer.com!

If you follow this link you can see the video on how the beer is made and giggle at the names of their different beers!  GW was given a beany so has been walking around in the cold weather with it and the slogan 'Piddle on my head' across his forehead - don't say we don't do class down here.

After our welcoming visit to the brewery, it was magically lunchtime and our thoughts turned to yet more beer and food.  Blandford Forum is just up the road from Piddlehinton, so off we set.  GW didn't know Blandford and that day he knew it even less - thick fog, cold and grim.  As we arrive in the town I see a Piddle pub, so the car is quickly parked and we stride rapidly and purposefully up the street to the Dolphin.  A real pub, a good pub, a pub with a fire, a pub with friendly staff, a pub with locals, a pub with good honest food, and a Piddle pub.  What more do you want on a dull and cold day in Blandford?  I had what must have been the worlds' largest BLT sandwich and GW gobbled down a huge plate of homemade terrine, aided by Piddle. 

Whilst we sat there, I thought that probably my father and my brothers must have surely drunk in this pub, albeit before the days of the Piddle beer.  They used to drink scrumpy until legless and the masters used to drive round picking them out of the ditches on their way back to school - not just my family I hasten to add, although I'm sure that when they left school the takings in the local pubs probably took a turn for the worse!

So if you are down around Blandford, do go and have a drink and some food at the Dolphin and for my Belgian clients who can't enjoy the experience, we can bring some Piddle to your doorstep!

Humbug

Started a post last week about the fabulous hand-dived scallops to be found in Lyme Bay and a wonderful micro-brewery called The Piddle - named after the river where the brewery is to be found; however the snow fell and the temperatures have remained firmly below zero, getting in and out of the village is virtually impossible and so we have slipped into hiberation/Christmas mode.  GW has courageously got out the motor to slither to Bridport to do a bit of shopping while I do something with the turkey.

The original plan was that my two children and one small grandson would come over for Christmas from Brussels so I ordered a small free range turkey locally.  We have all been following the weather forecast constantly, together with all the problems that the snow/ice has caused in England with the result that one day they would be coming, the next they weren't; yesterday looked positive and GW was going to do a round trip today and collect them.  The weather has gone downhill rapidly in Brussels where they have had a huge amount of snow and here is not much better so we decided to call the whole thing off and wait for the weather to improve.

But I have a turkey!  There is no way we are going to eat it in one go even with a greedy husband.  And I am not a fan of turkey, and even less of a fan of leftover turkey.  So I have just carried out major surgery, taking off the legs and the wings and tomorrow we will cook the crown traditionally.  We then have the rest that we can do things with in a proper way, rather than eating rather recycled turkey that becomes drier by the day!  So the giblets are stewing away quietly on the Aga ready for the gravy for tomorrow and I have put the carcasse in the oven to roast - a wonderful trick I learnt in the Perigord when I lived there years ago where the carcasse is left to go all crispy in the oven and then you rip off the bits of skin and meat with your fingers - lovely.  All I have to do now is make some stuffing, roast potatoes and brussel sprouts and that is it!  And cook the turkey crown of course.

This evening we will slither down to the pub for a Christmas Eve drink and listen to some live music and then struggle home again - I think there is a carol concert in the church and midnight mass but heathens as we are, the pub will win.

So a bit of a sad Christmas without my favourite children (and my dog) but at least we are all safe - the thought of all my loved ones on the road tonight would have been too worrying.

I hope you all have a lovely Christmas and from freezing, darkest Dorset I send you all the very best of everything for the New Year.