Sunday 21 October 2012

keep watching the skies

It would appear that acorns are going to be in short supply (as are apples) this year. Evidently that means lucky so-and-sos with gardens may see jays turning up looking for food. As our garden is so tiny, we'll not be blessed but I did see one fly in front of the car yesterday crossing from an oak tree on one side of the road to one on the other side. Always a pleasure to see.

Despite it being a beautiful autumnal day yesterday, the rain settled in during the early evening.  Today's a particularly dreary one.  We should be on half term break this week but for some reason there's still another week to go. Mrs Dave and I got married in the October half term break so we usually get to celebrate our anniversary during that week - obviously not this year. Thirty years is a long time* and every single one before this has been during half term break. It's a bit weird. Anyway, we'll obviously be celebrating it a week later this year. A few days in London and an opportunity to go to the Pre-Raphaelite exhibition at the Tate and we've finally got tickets for War Horse so it should be fun.


A path on Trimley Marshes
 A friend has just dropped a bag of quinces off so I need to decide what to do with them - they need a little longer to ripen fully so I've got plenty of time to think about it. Last week we were foraging for sloes.  We managed to find some really ripe ones at Trimley Marshes (TM 274358). Mrs Dave soon had them in a litre of gin and another bottle of sloe gin begins its unique journey. I, however, found hundreds of rosehips so made another load of rosehip syrup. I'm quite enjoying getting out and foraging for foodstuffs - I think I'll book onto a course next year. I still have no plans to eat really disgusting looking fungi. I mean, whoever thought that something that looks like that might be edible?  "Hmm, I'm really starving hungry. I wonder if that clump of disgusting-looking jelly fungus will taste nice?" Actually, I often wonder what on earth some people were thinking when they decided to try eating some of the things that are (supposedly) edible. Snails, for example.

I was off ill for a couple of days last week - I went home feeling awful and went straight to bed. I had a couple of days off which allowed me to catch up on some reading. More of that another time.  I began to feel a bit better and decided to go for a walk by the sea to "get a bit of colour in my cheeks" as my dear old mum used to say. When I got to the front I stood by a sign and looked both ways:




So from exactly the same spot I had the hyperreal beauty of Maxfield Parrish to my left and the apocalyptic horror of John Martin to my right. It was a strange week. It didn't actually rain but it was a very foreboding sky. It was very much like the storm on the mainland here. Well, without the possibility of jumping into a swimming pool and getting sunburnt, of course.

Anyway, I'd better go and do some cooking or something useful. For a change.

* thank you, yes, I know that's bleeding obvious

4 comments:

Andy Wright said...

Beautiful photos Dave. Very atmospheric. By the way Congratulations on your Wedding Anniversary. 35 years for us next month..........35 years!!
I hope what ever you cook tonight is a triumph for you and Mrs Dave. I am trying out a clay pot that Mrs. W bought me a couple of weeks ago. My reserach shows that it is necessary to soak the pot in cold water for twenty minutes before placing the chosen food therein (it's chicken for me, not very original,I know but I've added some lemon,garlic, leeks and carrots so we shall see how that turns out) and then placing in a NON PREHEATED oven at 200C for 90 mins. Feels a bit like waiting for a child to be born.......well not really but you get my drift.
Got the number 54 as user verification bit of nonsense to post this post.....how strange is that?
Anyway, have a good evening and by the way, Ms Denny has never been far from my ears for the last couple of weeks......

Dave Leeke said...

Andy,

Great to hear from you. Your reply has suggested a few responses from me. Here goes:

Thank you very much. Your 35 years together, I'm sure, has not always been necessarily plain sailing. I know our's hasn't but we persevere, don't we? That's how we have managed to get this far.

Your Wedding Day is a biding memory for me not least because of the memory of Hugh who's own Wedding seemed to be the most memorable I've ever been to. His always reminds me of one from "Four Weddings and A Funeral" - come on, even the vicar was drunk! The kilts! The bagpipes! The lack of food!! God bless him - I still miss him . . .

However, yours was a drunken revelry full of beautiful ladies lloads of laughter.

Your earthenware pot sounds suspiciously like a tagine. I made a fish tagine on Saturday night for Mrs D and me - I tend to only use it for serving food up in - to be honest, it's not that good for cooking in. The meal sounds good, though.

Tinight, we had a spatchcocked chicken with garlic butter shoved up its skin and cooked over a bed of (8)rosemary sprigs fresh from the garden.

I'm not sure about waiting for children to be born - do you mean it took 9 months to cook? That slow-cooked stuff can take a while!

Hmm . . . 54. I wonder why that number keeps cropping up?

I'm listening to the Declan Sinnot album I mentioned in the last post - but Sandy is never far from my thoughts. In fact . . .

Dave Leeke said...

Okay, so here are the corrections:

"beautiful ladies and loads of laughter"

"Tonight we had . . . "

. . . and a glass of Auchentoshen single malt to finish with ( a present from second born) . . .

Andy Wright said...

As you say 'not always been necessarily plain sailing' but to quote Mr Young on 4 Way Street...'We've had our ups and downs..but we're still playing together!'
Incidentally, although I was always a disappointment to my Dad for not being a whiskey drinker, it is probably for the best as I doubt I could pronounce the names of the majority of single malts you and my not so little brother enjoy! Have a good week.