After a little more packing this morning we drove over to Shelly and Ron’s in Walkford to unload some of it for storage in their home before we move.
Just around the corner from Jackie’s sister and brother-in-law, the ashes of her much-loved mother lie buried in Woodland Burial Ground.
The Walkford site is one of many ever more popular resting places for the remains of loved ones. Here people’s bodies are interred; or their ashes are either buried or scattered. Careful records are kept for posterity.
The regulations are such that nothing more than the small identification plates are put in place at the time of burial, and no flowers other than those expected to be found naturally in woodlands are to be planted to mark the spot. Bodies are buried in open spaces, and indigenous trees are planted by the plates. The ash burials are in already established copses. Mourners may set woodland flowers around those areas. Cultivated roses will be removed, although cultivated daffodils seem to be acceptable.
The idea is that the whole plantation eventually reverts to natural woodland.
The remains of Veronica Mancell Rivett lie beneath rich soil in the Pine Copse. Although bird droppings may be considered to keep the explanatory notice ‘as nature intended’, Jackie cleaned them off her mother’s marker. 
As she tenderly stroked the daffodils she had, along with the primroses soon to bloom, herself planted, her mother’s ring was displayed. This opal ring, which Jackie always wears, was first worn on our wedding day in 1968.
There was a funeral going on when we arrived, so we had to park at the far end of the designated area. 
This alerted me to the presence of a lake of which I had been previously unaware, where muscovy drake enjoyed the company of a number of mallards.
It is now three full working days since Penyards Winchester office manager undertook to investigate the recorded phone conversations I had had with his staff, and get back to me. I have heard no more from him. This morning I posted at first class rate a letter to him repeating the details of the saga, stating that we regarded our tenancy as ending on 1st April, and that I had cancelled the standing order for rent payment with effect from 31st. March. By the same post I wrote to my bank instructing the cancellation.
This evening I e-mailed a copy of the Penyards letter to the addressee.
We dined on superb sausage casserole (recipe), mashed potato, carrots and green beans. And jolly good it was too. I drank Valle del Rapel Chilean Merlot 2012.
Tag: recipe
Averting A Disaster
Daffodil buds Jackie bought at Ferndene Farm Shop opened out beautifully overnight, and looked resplendent in the morning sunshine. The Belleek vase was given to us by Elizabeth a couple of Christmases ago. As one of the television commentators on the England versus Wales rugby match said this afternoon: ‘the sky couldn’t be bluer’. As it was at Twickenham, where the game took place, so it was in the New Forest all day. This contest was by far the most intriguing of the weekend’s internationals. Not just because England won by a comfortable margin, but because one always felt their opponents could catch them up, particularly if the home side continued to give away penalties. Both kickers had an afternoon of 100% success. Leigh Halfpenny scored all Wales’s points with his six attempts, and was later found to have dislocated his shoulder making a try-saving tackle on Luther Burrell. I won’t explain the points system, for rugby fanatics will know it, and those not interested can easily skip this bit. Incidentally, a number of international rugby players are now sporting full beards, vying with each other in length. One of the Irish players yesterday, had he been quite a lot smaller, could have passed for a leprechaun. Jackie tells me this is because ‘real men wear beards’. We needed to replace a few light bulbs which don’t seem to last very long here, so, well in time for the kick-off, we decided to visit the New Milton Tesco, where we bought some. Well, it was a good excuse for Jackie to drive us past the house that will be ours at the end of the month. It is still in situ. Continuing to Milford on Sea we had another look at that. As we emerged from Newtown to turn left into Forest Road, we encountered some congestion caused by a car parked up on the verge. The vehicle was surrounded by ponies. The driver and passenger had their windows open and were feeding the animals, which were displaying an unusual amount of energy as they imitated customers on the first day of a Harrod’s sale. 
The more patient ones stood back, no doubt awaiting their turn. Never having been one to enter such a free-for-all, I identified with these three. At children’s parties I would always wait until the gannets had had their fill. It’s so undignified not to. In the supermarket I went in search of the bulbs whilst Jackie picked up a few other items. For one young lady it is probably just as well I did.
In order fully to understand the scene that met my eyes as I turned one corner, it is necessary to study this photograph of the shelves. Note that, after the event, the blue drink containers labelled KX have one missing from their pack. Note also the gap between the Indian tonic water and the Roses lime juice on the very top shelf. When these shelves came into my view an elderly woman making her uncertain way towards them was pointing up at the KX drinks that occupied the now empty space, in an endeavour to engage the assistance of a younger female. Had the more aged person had a straighter posture she would have been a bit taller. Even with an upright back, her helper was not as tall as the lady in need of help. She was very short. And very rotund. So much so that when she mounted the packs of Coca Cola on the pallet she had to stretch her arms up to their full length to slide her fingertips under her quarry. She teetered on the edge of the cokes, like a stunt person in a thriller movie making her way along a ledge outside a high building. She struggled to gain purchase on the slippery plastic that wrapped the consignment. She drew them towards herself. She rocked on the Cokes. The batch of KX slid forward on the edge of the shelf. Aiming, it seemed, for a dive. Approaching from behind, I reached over her shoulder and relieved her of her burden. She most certainly was relieved. Meeting her further on in the store, she gave me a pleasant smile. I thought it politic to explain to Jackie how I’d earned it. This evening’s dinner was a delectable liver and bacon casserole with which I drank a little more of the Bergerac. As with most of Jackie’s meals they are always variable in production. We therefore present today’s version, to which, once the method has been understood, you will no doubt make your own amendments. Method: Slices of lamb’s liver, including any blood in the packaging, from the Ferndene Farm Shop are ideal. If you cannot get to that outlet that is your misfortune, but I am sure you will find another good source. To that is added Sainsbury’s cooking bacon. Both, with a Knorr lamb stock cube and enough water to cover them are cooked for about five minutes in a pressure cooker. If you don’t possess such an implement, cook them in the casserole until tender. Quantities are up to you, as is the balance between liver and bacon. 
Fry four medium onions in the casserole dish. Jackie didn’t use garlic today, but it is an option. A sprig of dried rosemary, and a couple of bay leaves, with the meat and its fluid are then added. We had supplementary red peppers and carrots because they match the dish they were cooked in. There are endless such variations according to the colour of your pot, or just to your taste. Slosh in enough red wine to cover everything and simmer gently until tender. Half an hour whilst you prepare the veg should be enough. 
It looks pretty good on the plate, and is very flavoursome.
Confusing Exchange
Here is one I made earlier.
I forgot to post this Upper Drive shot yesterday. Trees in the New Forest don’t just fall down. They grow into all kinds of unusual shapes, such as this one forming a perfect arch through which one can glimpse the A31.
Last night I began reading Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel ‘The House of the Seven Gables’.
After an early lunch today Jackie drove me to Donna-Marie’s in Poulner where I was given my quarterly haircut. Fortunately the weather is a little warmer at the moment. We then went on to Lidl in Totton for a shop. As is not unusual, although we had only gone there for milk, a trolley was requested. We managed to fill it.
As is well known a coin is required to free the supermarket trolley from its chain of companions. Inserting your £1 into the slot pushes out the locking key and you may take your wheeled contraption into the store. Having made your purchases and loaded your car you push your key into the last trolley in the line, out pops your £1, and the key remains in the other basket on wheels until someone else inserts another £1, and so on ad infinitum. Until, that is, one customer has difficulty understanding what he must do to obtain his trolley, consequently holds up the proceedings, and the person waiting to return his and collect £1, decides to confuse the issue even more, by suggesting that he swaps his trolley for the other gentleman’s £1.
Today, I was that helpful stranger. It seemed quite straightforward to me. But not to the struggling newcomer. He grasped my trolley, clearly wondering what was in the transaction for my benefit. Perhaps this was because he was more than reluctant to hand over his coin. There he was, one fist wrapped around the trolley handle, and the fingers and thumb of his other hand gripping £1 as if he had a wrench attached to his arm.
His companion, who had readily agreed to the exchange, tactfully informed me that he would not be happy until I tried to put the £1 he had given me into the slot occupied by my original coin. Of course it wouldn’t budge. I think it then became clear to him that what we were actually doing was swapping coins and when he had finished shopping, he would be able to receive his part of the bargain and collect my £1. Whether or not this was so, he released the coin he had been hanging on to, and allowed me to dash off with it before he changed his mind.
Just writing this out is doing my head in. Goodness knows what the encounter did to his. Or the reading to yours.
On our return down Upper Drive we witnessed the unusual sight of three donkeys foraging where I had wandered yesterday. 
Even ponies and deer are rare visitors to this small section of forest, so it was quite a surprise to see donkeys there.
Early this evening I took a clamber around the outside perimeter of the grounds. I have written before that the garden is surrounded by its own trees and shrubbery merged into the forest and bounded by a strong wire fence. The house having been built high up on the site of an Iron Age hill fort, the land beyond the fence drops sharply. I followed a path trodden by surer footed creatures than me, who did not have to travel hand over hand clinging to the fence on the left or leaning on a tree to the right taking a clockwise direction. Only once did I slither, slide, and career down the bank coming to an abrupt halt as my outstretched palms eagerly slapped into a welcome forest giant.
Reaching a point from which I could progress no further, I discovered where the deer gain ingress and egress. 
Overgrown rhododendrons and fallen trees have brought the boundary wire down to a level which perhaps I could, in my distant days as a second row forward, have leapt. When we next enjoy a clear morning light, I will make a photo shoot.
Finishing by circumperambulating the lawns I watched the sun sink behind the building. 
The first daffodils are coming into bloom.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s delicious chicken jalfrezi (recipe), with spicy wild rice (turmeric, green cardamoms, cloves, cinnamon and garam masala added to the boiled version). I drank Wolf Blass cabernet sauvignon 2013 and the chef didn’t.
At Least Wells Garage Can Be Relied Upon
Once more, yesterday’s planned exchange of contracts on the house purchase didn’t take place. To compound the issue, the date for completion has been postponed by the seller’s solicitors who aren’t very good at answering their phone or responding to messages, meaning that we would need to put furniture into storage with the consequent additional removal fee. Our preparations were based on a completion date given by them. When not actually doing anything else, I have therefore spent the day expressing our frustrations about this and urging people to honour previous undertakings. I can’t be bothered to detail all the to-ing and fro-ing, except to say that no promised phone calls were received after 3 p.m., which means nothing probably happened today either. And now we have the weekend………
Early this morning we drove back to Hordle Beach to deliver the photograph taken two days ago to Richard. He was not at his hut, so, as advised, I placed the print in a box inside a clear plastic recycle bag and stuck it behind the decking lodged at the front of the hut.
As is clear from the shingle still piled up around neighbouring huts, Richard has done a magnificent job since we left him. The structure at the front of the building provides a platform over the pebbles when it is occupied, and a protective shield when it isn’t.
The incoming waves continued to push the shingle uphill as they struck home and climbed over the wall they had created. 
Further along the coast it was easy to see, from the spray bouncing off the breakwaters, how the banks holding the higher huts had crumbled.
It was only today that I realised that Auntie Gwen is responsible for my desire to make good pictures of incoming waves. I remembered that my godmother had one painting which wasn’t a devotional one, like The Sacred Heart.
This was a large, long, seascape that fascinated me because of the iridescence captured by the skilful painter. The picture held pride of place when Gwen still occupied rooms in her parents’ now demolished house at 18 South Park Road, Wimbledon. I don’t recall seeing it after she moved to Latimer Road.
As we were preparing to return home in the courtesy car supplied by Wells Garage, I received a call to say that Jackie’s Modus was ready for collection. We therefore diverted to Ringwood and swapped cars. The garage have done their usual thorough job at marginally less than the quoted price; fixed the passenger door without charge; and quoted a nominal fee for the loan of their vehicle. As usual when they do a job for us, they gave the car a thorough clean as well. It is good to know that someone at least sticks to the time quoted and doesn’t bump up expenses.
Thinking of expenses, given that we are already paying income and purchase tax, the amount of stamp duty and VAT for services that has been added to the cost of both the house purchase and car repair seems exorbitant to me.
One illustration to my post of 26th was of the ingredients of a vegetable base for soups. Today’s lunchtime chicken and vegetable soup put that to good use. Here we present the method of creating it:
If you have frozen your pre-cooked vegetable base don’t forget to defrost it in good time.
Stir-fry your chopped chicken pieces, onion and garlic. In the meantime poach, in chicken and vegetable (one cube of each) stock, any previously uncooked vegetables you may wish to add. Today’s additions were carrots, mushrooms and, in the absence of lentils, chana dal. Finally, add the thick vegetable base, thinning it with the stock, and simmer for a while. When you feel like it toss in the left-over vegetables from last night’s meal, making sure to bring them to the boil. Ours were red cabbage and brussels sprouts. Please yourselves as to quantity. You may add pepper, but if you have used stock cubes they usually contain enough salt.
If, like us, you have enough prepared for the next day or two, you may care to add further superfluous vegetables from subsequent meals. You never know what you’ll have by the end of it. I can assure you this already wholesome fare improves with keeping.
Moving on to our evening meal, we enjoyed a delicious sausage casserole (recipe), crisp vegetables and swede, potato and onion mash. I drank Languedoc reserve 2012, and Jackie imbibed Roc St Vincent sauvignon blanc of the same vintage. It is worth mentioning that both this Languedoc and the Bergerac of a couple of days ago come from the French Connection Classics sold by Morrison’s. And very good they are too.
Like Shovelling Water Or Coal In A Bunker
Jackie is very keen on keeping our flat clean and tidy. Glancing at the fireplace surround since 11th/12th February when Sam and Orlaith made a surprise visit, one would not think so. 
You see, when she came to dust this area my housekeeper couldn’t bring herself to do it. It bore a set of podgy little footprints that are still causing amused delight.
Yesterday, when explaining the frustrations of the English system for buying and selling houses, I didn’t describe the exchange of contracts and completion of sales. I can only tell you what we have to do. I cannot quite fathom the reason. Nothing is at all binding until contracts have been exchanged. Anyone can pull out at any time and leave the other party in trouble. In order to proceed to completion, contracts must first be exchanged with the payment of a 10% deposit. Reneging on the deal after this results in forfeiture of the deposit by the buyer, or, I have been told by the agent, a similar figure from the seller must be paid to the disappointed purchaser.
The solicitors want the money up front at each stage. Yesterday’s transfer was of the deposit. We had been told the exchange has been agreed and should take place today. The completion date was still to be negotiated, but in anticipation that it will soon be arrived at, we drove into Ringwood once again and transferred the balance of the money into the solicitor’s client account this morning. Exchange did not happen today. It is now to be tomorrow, with completion on 12th March.
Afterwards, although it was a very mild day, we lunched on one of Jackie’s delicious warming soups. This was bacon and lentils. A precise recipe is impossible. What she does is keep a vegetable puree base that consists of left-overs, including such as cauliflower leaves and onion skins. This, which I believe is known as compost soup, is divided and frozen in ice cream tubs. When the time comes she defrosts a portion and adds whatever takes her fancy. Today it was chopped up left over gammon steak, fresh lentils and a few extra carrots. She believes that somewhere along the line it must have had onions in it. This must suffice as a recipe. Here is a picture of the ingredients of the next compost soup base, to which brussels sprouts superfluous to this evening’s meal were later added: 
This afternoon, as an excuse to drive past The Old Post House, we visited Hordle Beach near Milford on Sea. 
We looked down onto the heaped shingle and the foaming sea, watching walkers along the shoreline, and, buffeted by the wind, walked down a set of still stable wooden steps, onto the shifting heaps of pebbles. The woman in the red jacket above put me in mind of two women I had seen alongside Southampton Water on 14th October 2012. She was doing a fast walk. They had been running.
In the less sophisticated warfare of centuries gone by soldiers lined up for battle in serried ranks, one tier behind the other. The front line copped the brunt of the enemy fire, and the next one clambered over dead bodies to take their places. It was those beach huts here that had been in the vanguard that had caught the full force of the recent storms, with devastating effect. One section of the cliff had fallen away, rendering difficult access to huts teetering precariously on the new edge.
Many holiday hideaways had been reduced to timber ripe for 
reclamation, and debris lay where it had been washed up. Some belongings were probably now nowhere near their former homes. Council notices warned that specific buildings and land surfaces were unsafe.
A defiant message from the owners of the pile of scrap that had once stood on plot 267 aroused our admiration.
One man had been working for two days at fixing up his hut and shovelling away the shingle. This was Richard, who explained that the pebbles hurled to the front of his and other huts had, in fact, provided a protecting wall which had saved his property from the worst of the devastation. He pointed out a gap in the line where a row of huts, as if a giant had scooped them up in the night, had simply disappeared. He described his task of shovelling shifting pebbles as trying to scoop water out of a bowl, because they kept falling back in again.
His much more apt simile, later in the conversation, was of getting in the coal for his Mum when he was a boy. Anyone who is old enough to have done that will know that as you scraped your shovel along the cellar or bunker floor, lifting one load, another slid down and filled the space you had just created.
Sadly, whilst we were conversing with this man, a group of young men started chucking some of the flotsam around and making off with other pieces. When we arrived back at the car park we could see them smashing it up and abandoning shattered scraps. A woman on a bicycle reached them before I did. She must have remonstrated successfully, for they began to pick up the broken pieces. As I approached they threw the last pieces into the car and, like Starsky and Hutch, jumped in and drove off as the doors were closing.
Back home in Minstead we dined on tender heart casserole, crisp vegetables, and potato and onion mash. Jackie achieves such tenderness in this meat with a tendency towards toughness by pre-cooking it ‘for a long time in a pressure cooker’. I drank some Bergerac reserve red wine from 2012.
Now We Are Sixty And A Grandmother
My baby sister reached the age of sixty today.
And she has recently become a grandmother to Jasper.
Before we left for a weekend at The Firs, Jackie made a bread and butter pudding to take there for the assembled company.
Here is the method: (Barbara, please note this is not the one referred to as ‘spicy bread pudding’)
First of all, please yourself as to quantities.
Take a variety of bread on the stale side (it absorbs the liquid). Butter the bread and the dish or tin. You will also need sultanas, brown sugar and ( 1/2 teaspoon here) nutmeg. This dish has about five slices of bread, 4 eggs and 3/4 litre of semi-skimmed milk with sloshes of evaporated for flavour. Full cream milk is good, but has a less rich taste and more calories.
First whisk up the eggs, milk, and nutmeg. Then sprinkle a few sultanas on the bottom of the greased dish. Place the first layer of bread over this and sprinkle brown sugar over it with a quantity of the milk. Repeat layering until full. Finally sprinkle nutmeg over the top. If you do the same with sultanas as in this example they may burn.
For 45 minutes cook in oven on lowest heat (gas mark 1). For another 20 increase heat to gas mark 3 or whatever is the electrical equivalent.
Finally, and most importantly, if you wish to photograph this creation for posterity, do so as soon as it comes out of the oven, for the impressively puffy surface sinks rapidly and flattens out almost immediately.
The plan was that people came and went during the day. Adam, Thea, & Jasper were not expected, but turned up as a lovely surprise just after noon. I think her grandson would have been enough for Elizabeth, but various friends, Jacqueline and Mum made up the complement for the lunch that Danni had artistically arrayed on the table. Paul and Maisie were first there. The chequerboards must in themselves have been very carefully produced.
This afternoon Elizabeth, her friends Mary and Cathy, and our sister Jacqueline went for a walk in Manor Farm Country Park near Hamble. It was rather wet and muddy, the water running down the sloping gravelled paths.
We met and spoke to two Hampshire Council workmen wielding shovels, their Wellington boots deep in a ditch full of dark ochre coloured water. 
Their task was draining the land, which meant unclogging the numerous channels blocked with detritus. They were cheerful enough.
While the walkers were out Danni, Jackie and Andy prepared a do it yourself prawn cocktail and an excellent sausage casserole to precede the bread and butter pudding and chocolate cake for our evening meal at which there were twelve diners. Red, white, and pink wines were imbibed.
We stayed overnight at The Firs.
For today’s title I have borrowed and combined that of an ever-popular children’s book and an immortal phrase from Margaret Thatcher in 1989. The book is A.A. Milne’s ‘Now we are six’, and the quotation, on the birth of the then Prime Minister’s grandchild, ‘We have become a grandmother’.
‘You Do Get About Don’t You?’
Although still rather windy, the morning after the storm dawned bright and sunny. On a springlike day rooks cawed on the wing and smaller birds sang in the trees or squabbled, flapping, in the bushes as the females fled the males. Water still poured off the fields and trickled down the gullies or roared into ditches as I walked the two fords ampersand.
A Highway Maintenance team had just finished patching the pitted tarmac at Seamans Corner.
They agreed they were very busy at the moment. The rest of the team declined to be photographed and left the youngest member to face the camera.
Clear streams rolled off the fields onto the lanes of Minstead. Two odd gloves and a banana skin nestling in one of the pools must have a story to tell.
Rivulets crossing the fords were still swollen, so much so that when I stood in the water to photograph the torrent, my socks were soaked.
The telephone box at Newtown bears a notice informing us that coins are not accepted. Since there is nothing inside I wonder who might be considering a donation.
Sheep were out in the field again.
Two women thanked me for photographing them in their horse drawn vehicle. I don’t think the teeth marks left on a tree by a stream came from their steed.
I have mentioned before that post is delivered throughout the area from a little red van. I often exchange waves with the bearded driver. Today our paths crossed on numerous occasions. As he parked up and approached a house clutching a couple of letters he quipped that he should have given me some and I could have delivered them for him. ‘You do get about, don’t you?’, he said.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s delicious chicken jalfrezi and special fried rice, with which I drank Cobra and she chose Hoegaarden. For the method of cooking the curry readers are referred to that for the lamb version described on 22nd January. In this case the chicken is not pre-cooked, but added at the same time as was the lamb. The richness of this particular sauce is obtained by adding up to half a pint of water as required and bubbling the pot on hob mark one for up to a couple of hours. Have a look at it, give it a stir, and see what you think.
Again, on the 22nd January, pilau rice has been described. Jackie has transformed this into what the restaurants call special fried rice with the addition of an egg.
Do not chuck the egg in straight from the shell, otherwise you will just bind all the rice together. Make a small single egg omelette, chop it up, and scatter the pieces into the mixture when it is virtually cooked. Stir it in. We said before that anything you wish can go into the rice. Today’s variation was peppers of three different colours.
Bon appétit.
Piquant Cauliflower Cheese
This morning I finished reading the preface to Madame Bovary. I hadn’t realised that Flaubert’s now acclaimed novel once enjoyed the limelight, like ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ by D.H. Lawrence, more than a century later, of an indecency trial before being published in book form. Lawrence’s mediocre novel was first published privately in Venice in 1928. Not until the obscenity trial of 1960 could it be published in UK. Naturally the trial’s publicity boosted Penguin’s sales enormously.
The day began dry, but dull and blustery. It soon brightened. I walked through London Minstead to Shave Wood where Jackie met me and drove us to New Milton’s Lidl for a shop, then to Milford on Sea for lunch at The Needles Eye cafe, after which we returned home via Bolderwood.
A black terrier who lives on Seamans Lane, the self-appointed guardian of his home usually menaces me with savagery when I walk past. Today; either he lost interest in leaping up and down, barking, and showing his fangs; or he has become accustomed to my presence, because he suddenly relaxed, stuck his head through the wire fence, and gazed calmly down the road.
The two heaps of sold timber lying on the forest verge at Hazel Hill would seem to be still awaiting collection.
There was a little difficulty in obtaining a shopping trolley at Lidl. As anyone familiar with these devices will know, you have to press a £1 coin into a slot to release a metal tag entering the mechanism through the other side to enable you to pull out your chosen steed from a string of others. Someone had jammed a coin into ours and it wouldn’t budge. We could neither withdraw it nor put a new one in. So we had to move to another set of trolleys and successfully try our luck there. When I reported the problem to an attendant, his manner, although polite enough, suggested he thought I had inserted the dodgy bit of currency.
We didn’t stay long on the sea front at Milford on Sea. I swear even the seagulls were shivering on the shingle and the sea wall, not fancying any encounter with the winds and the waves. Those that did attempt to fly didn’t stay long in the air.
The waves hurled themselves and buckets of shingle at and over the wall and created pools on the walkways with their myriad drops of spray. A couple of times whilst attempting to photograph the scene I was required to take evasive action, and a deposit of salt was encrusted on my viewfinder by the time I had finished.
Our return journey took us alongside the Rhinefield Ornamental Drive near where a 
number of very large trees had been ripped from their shallow roots and lay waiting to be dealt with by The Forestry Commission’s clearance crews.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s beautifully blended smoked haddock and cauliflower cheese meal. I believe the splendid special piquancy of this dish comes from the cheese sauce.
Its method of preparation is this:
To make enough sauce to cover quite a small cauliflower take: approx. 1 ounce of butter; 3 ounces of strong Cheddar cheese, cubed; a little less than 3/4 pint of semi skimmed milk; 1 3/4 oz plain flour; 1 teaspoonful of made up English mustard (for colour and piquancy).
Consistency 1
Consistency 2
Consistency 3
Consistency 4
Place a small saucepan containing all but the milk over a high heat and stir constantly, adding the milk a little at a time once the butter has melted and is absorbed into the flour. The cheese will slowly melt into the mixture. Once consistency 4 is reached you can use it to dress the cauliflower, having lightly boiled that along the way.
Then add grated cheese and pop it in the oven to bubble away until it browns.
Today’s mashed potato included swede and onion. With it we shared the last of the Nobilo. Afterwards we ate jam tart and lemon meringue pie.
Prawn Risotto
When I was a child in the 1940s and ’50s, we regularly had two posts a day. By this I mean two deliveries of mail by a postman (I don’t think women were delivering letters in those days). This is a different kind of post and I only deliver two when I press Publish prematurely, as I did this afternoon.
So, in order not to disappoint those who wish to know what we had for dinner, here is today’s second post.
We enjoyed glistening prawn risotto with which I drank La Patrie Cahors 2012 and Jackie Nobilo Limited Reserve sauvignon blanc 2013 from Marlborough, New Zealand.
Not having made this before, it was something of an experiment to which our chef would make some amendments next time. Having every confidence in them (ratio of stock to wine, and addition of black pepper) I will present the meal with the projected changes included.
To my mind there was nothing awry with the consumed version, but I bow to Jackie’s discernment.
To serve six generous portions:
Take 3 medium chopped onions; 2 fat crushed cloves of garlic; 50 gm of butter and a little olive oil; 1 litre hot vegetable stock containing half a dozen good shakes of Maggi liquid seasoning; 1 large glass of white wine (and one for yourself – Jackie’s choice was the Nobilo mentioned above); juice of 1 lemon; 2 tbsp chopped fresh basil if available, if not, 1tbsp dried softened in boiling water; 400 gm of Italian risotto rice; most of a packet of frozen peas; 300gm packet of Sainsbury’s basic frozen prawns (any prawns will do, even kings – if fresh they need less cooking, just until they go pink). Black pepper seasoning.
A garnish of grated parmesan cheese is optional. We tried each in turn. I preferred mine without; Jackie didn’t mind which.
Method: Cooked in a wok.
Begin by frying the onions and garlic in the oil and butter until soft. Then throw in the rice and stir for about 5 minutes then add the wine until it bubbles. Then gradually, add the stock one dollop (strange word for liquid, but that’s what she said) at a time, stirring each one in until it is absorbed.
Don’t be frightened if the mixture looks too watery. This rice is very absorbent and soon swells out. I should know, for I did some of the agitation.
With the last addition, (large spoonful, I’d say), add the peas, prawns, basil, and lemon juice and stir for a few minutes until the frozen ingredients are cooked right through. At some stage season with the black pepper.
When I’ve posted this, we will watch episode 1 of the third series of ‘Call the Midwife’, on BBC iPlayer.
Through The Underpass
This morning I decided to walk through the Malwood Farm underpass and see how far I 
got before I gave up on what I expected to be a rather soggy terrain. It probably would have been a better idea to have stayed on the roads, or at least worn Wellingtons instead of walking shoes.
Even before I’d left our garden, I could see that more trees had come down, and the steep downhill track leading to the underpass confirmed this, so I was not surprised to see the extent of the damage wrought by the winds, once I ventured into the forest itself.
The large shrub that has fallen in the garden lies across the stump of the recently deceased cherry tree. I think it is a buddleia.
This is just one of the recent falls on the short stretch to the underpass.
The sight of Malwood Farm in sunlight at the end of the tunnel was welcoming, and the promised return of the wet, windy, weather did not materialise until this afternoon.
The terrain, however, was rather less inviting. It was indeed soggy. Pools lay, and new streams flowed, everywhere. Mud patches inhaled deeply in an attempt to snatch my shoes.
It would have been unprofitable to have tried to pick out one of last year’s safe paths. The way would be blocked by either a quagmire or newly fallen trees, or both. As is usual in these circumstances, I followed pony trails.
The animals are at least a little likely to attempt to avoid the suction underfoot, although I would not have been surprised to find one or two stranded in the mud.
I had thought to take a rain check on the sandbagged ford before deciding on whether to cross it or not. Forget that. I didn’t even venture across the mud bath leading to the sandbags. It seemed politic to stay on our side of the winding stream I call Malwood.
I walked along it for a while, then retraced my steps and returned home.
Walking back through the forest to the side of the farm fences, I noticed much beautifully shaped pastel coloured lichen clinging to fallen twigs featherbedded by a mulch of deep dark brown autumn leaves.
My share of the five-egg mushroom omelette with toast that was for lunch, went down very well.
This afternoon I finished reading Voltaire’s story ‘Le Taureau Blanc’. Here the philosopher, in advocating the search for human wisdom and happiness, is having an ironic pop at the fantasy of the Old Testament. At least, that is the sense I make of this fabulous tale.
This evening we dined on succulent sausage casserole with creamy mashed potato, crisp runner beans and cauliflower, followed by creme caramel. I drank more of the Bergerac.
Jackie’s sausage casserole has an interesting provenance. What she has done is perfect my adaptation from Delia Smith. This is the tops.
For four to six servings:
Take 12 sausages; lots of shallots; plenty of button mushrooms; a packet of Sainsbury’s cooking bacon, chopped into bite sized pieces; 3 big cloves of garlic; 5-6 bay leaves; 1 heaped teaspoonful of dried thyme; 3/4 pint of pork stock (if pork sausages – today’s were Milton Gate pork and apple from Lidl which provide a touch of sweetness); enough red wine to cover the contents of the dish.
Red peppers provide a bit of colour, but are not essential. Similarly thickening with the help of gravy granules or cornflower may be required.
Method:
Fry the sausages until browned on all sides and set aside. In the casserole dish then fry the bacon and shallots with the crushed garlic. Add the stock and wine; bring to the boil, turn down the heat, add the bay leaves and thyme, pop the sausages back in and simmer for 3/4 hour. (The simmering refers to the cooking heat. It doesn’t mean you have to adopt a suppressed emotional stance).
Then add the mushrooms and simmer for further 20-30 minutes.
Jackie cooks this dish without a lid until the sauce looks rich enough, if necessary adding one of the thickening agents.
The final touch of the peppers may be added in the last few minutes.