I laughed to see a pudden...

 crawl...

Was it the two medium sized firkins of Chile’s finest I wonder, or maybe just to be out footloose and Mr.Kipling’s iced fancy... free?  Anyway I digress, or even perish the thought... deviate!

As we sat in Ludlow’s answer to a proper pub, onto the table himself laid his hands in the manner of a medium about to call up passing spirits. He could so easily have magicked up the oiuja board from the back of his creepy cloak.  Magic was in the air.  Tears sprung to my eyes, not driven by fear sadly. Terror coursing through the sluggish veins has got to be good  for the blood pressure of a woman of a certain age.  Dyno-Rod of a human kind, clearing crud as it sloshes and sluices all before it, by way of a stick of Semtex down a sewer of old London Town.

Merriment has always been my default position.  Himself calls me a daft tart, can’t imagine why?  I am fully aware I am not getting to the nub of the story.  So here goes...

You will have heard of Cluedo, Ludo even. Smack the rat at a push? Snap most definitely! Have you heard of the game of Splat the Mouse?  No?  I am not surprised, as its conception has taken place here in darkest Shropshire.  Here I ought to explain to my readers from far and wide that I call a blood blister under the nail, a mouse, not sure if this is my own home-grown colloquialism or maybe it is known the world over, round, down and back... dunno?  Anyway, the start of the run was the loo seat, it fell on his thumb as he was cleaning around the bend.  Why he didn’t leave it to his chum Mr Muscle I haven’t got to the bottom of?  The twins, he acquired when sorting out the double edged rat killing machine.  No rats were despatched just two more mice came into being.  Completely defeating the ruddy idea, if you ask me.

Three down, seven to go.  A royal flush?

Tipping with dinner...

plate size drops the rain is making a point...

‘Alright, alright I get it, however you haven’t factored in that my skin is actually waterproof, so I really don’t care!’  I shouted above the din of the rat-a-tat-tat on the windows.

Thor from on high replied in a mighty whisper...

‘Whatever you do LL do not go out in the buff just to score cheap points!’

The natives are restive enough so I think I will heed his warning.  Ludlow just isn’t ready, what with all this viral overload to have the added excitement of me walking the dog stark bo**ock naked so best not!

What to do next for badness is the thing?

I know those of my regular readers, alright all two of you will have seen this ‘famous’ photo of me at my last demo squillons of times before, however that is how I feel today...

REVOLTINGLY revolting!

Che Guevara in drag.

Twelve years ago...

 today we were wed.

Recycled bride and groom, the London Eye seemed the natural venue.

A ruddy revolution.  

I said I never would.  Capering around the track again?  Not for me, I ‘stoutly’ replied!  The  operative word obv.  Even on our first date I laid out my stall.  All I wanted was a man to get out of the box, for whatever the occasion demanded then smoothly without any animals being hurt in the manoeuvre gently popped back until the next assignment... simples?  Seven long years later of boxing and repacking I relented.

This morning we have both had butter on our single piece of toast by way of celebration.  Who said the art of romance was dead?

I am such a...

Tart!  There I’ve said it.

I am writing this behind Ludlow’s answer to Trump’s wall.  My writing recliner is surrounded by books of an organical kind.  That nice. Mr. Google Esq. V.S.O.P. has kindly arranged for me my very own reinstated Boeing 737 Max.  No worries it might drop out of the sky showering the local hoi polloi with hardbacks, he will have sold more first editions from his expansive library so what does he care?  Added to which these piddling delivery drones aren’t man enough to take on The Tart of the Teme and her latest needs and wants.

It’s fuelled by my latest pash. the allotment.  My first move in this operetta in three parts is to purchase a bench.  Yes, a bench, necessary for the planning stage obv.  The manservant will be instructed to nip across the road at regular intervals with silver trays of, depending on the time of day, beverages of tea, coffee, tea, Harvey’s Bristol, Gin and It and a nightcap of a stiff single malt.  All the while allowing me the time to plan. Also giving him a break from my constant ‘I want!’ whining.

I wish I could blame it on the virus instead of the Bossanova, sadly I can’t.

Calling me a daft tart, the husband is often found with his head in his hands saying 

‘What have I done?’

I hang my head in...

 shame.  The dog looks hang-dog at me, I look even more hang-dog back.  It is a sorry state of affairs.  My exquisite casseroles of a cur kind are no more.  I feel a total 100% heel, not allowing my culinary cred free rein.  Quietly I cry myself to sleep (fib) worrying.  Himself tartly says 

‘Well what’s the difference to her turning her nose up to kibble as opposed to fine dining of a canine kind?’  

I hate clever sods!  All the while thinking he has a point, added into the mix my scathing remarks of folk spoiling animals by pandering to their fanciful needs.  A large piece of humble pie for me please.

I now await some very special food recommended by a regular reader of my blog who sadly can’t comment.  Thank you Wanda for emailing me the details, the samples are on way as we speak.

This morning once again Ellie has turned her nose up and walked away.

What she doesn’t know is nobody, but nobody messes with me.  I am a hard woman, cut me in half and there for all to see is...

‘MAFIA MOMMA’

like Brighton through rock.

In a hissy fit I am...

off to the apricot shop in Hereford.  I am now unable to reply to comments on my own blog.  This has happened before and the villain of the peace is 100% me. Which seriously, like 

SERIOUSLY PI**ES ME OFT!

Do you get my drift?

Maybe not!

I am a purring puss cat all the while things are running smoothly, the nano-second I get the whiff of a problem especially of a techie-kind then the claws are out, sharpened and three laps of the ceiling are the order of the day/days/weeks/months/years/decades  By now you maybe getting the merest sensation of how  crossed I am?

I look up how to correct the problem however the very helpful replies might be in Serbian Mandarin spouted by bears crapping in the woods for all I ruddy understand of their helpfulness!

Being dim of a techno-kind is a burden I carry around in a rucksack full of Stonehenge size stones on my sorely back.  My quill pen, ink quivering in anticipation in its inkwell, seal and sealing wax have never looked so appealing.  Come back I plaintively cry, all is forgiven as forlornly the velum is splashed with my salty tears.

I’m not sure whether...

 I have gone off Google or my browser? I have always for some unknown reason had a hate/hate deeply rooted antagonism for Google.  Here is not the place to dust off the shrink’s couch and explore my little foibles. My blog is saying ‘Create a blog’ and ‘Sign ruddy In’  Gone are the ‘New post’ ‘Design’ and ‘Sign Out’in the top right hand corner.  Now here is the rub which sadly I feel comes back to me, not that I would ever admit it, mind.  Well maybe only to you.  

Since this started happening my blog perambulations aren’t as free as they used to be.  I have to totter through, like an old dear... perish the blooming thought.  My comments on other peoples’ blogs don’t always work which hacks me oft BIG TIME!

Inadvertently I have done something and for the life of me I don’t know what?

‘Hello is that Bletchley Park?’

Trouble is if Alan Turing gets on the dog and bone I won’t have the faintest idea of what he is on about...

A little light...

 shoplifting was the order of the day.  Let me explain.  Before our walk on Clee Hill we decided a trip to ‘Pets at Home’ was in order.  Ellie of late has been developing a funny tummy, going off her food, eating excessive amounts of grass and producing the most wondrous ‘Walnut Whips’ the like of which any chocolatier would be proud.

The blame I lay squarely at my door.  Being a put out to grass cheffette I like to produce food for her.  Which oddly I think isn’t agreeing with her tum.  Casseroles of white fish, minced beef and chicken, each week a different main ingredient.  Vegetables and brown rice or pasta, obviously no onions or veg on the not suitable for hounds list.  I do draw the line at chalking on the wall plat du jour obviously!  In the main because although she is an extremely intelligent collie with a huge vocabulary she hasn’t as yet learnt to read.  This morning her breakfast was left untouched, so we thought after consulting that well known veterinarian Dr. Google that a hypo-howsyourfather might be required.  In order to give Ellie the experience of shopping in a superstore in we all trolled.  With us in deepest conversation and considering to the enth degree the ins and outs of a gnats arse or to be more exact Ellie’s, we were completely oblivious to the fact she had helped herself to a tennis ball.  Having paid and just about to leave the shop she decided that as she didn’t have a recipe for making a cake with a file in it, added to which as already explained even if she did, she couldn’t read the thing.  She obviously thought before they get their collars felt I had best drop my swag and put my paws up.

I potter that is...

what I do. I don’t actually work!

Looking back over my life pottering is about all I have actually done.  I pottered through school having too much fun messing about to apply myself to boring stuff like rainfall in Guatemala’n’stuff.  I’ve pottered through a husband or two, one child was enough, far too much work!  Potter isn’t as far as I know a job description and the careers I cruised through you wouldn’t believe?  The last interesting ‘job’ I had as a chef was a fascinating time potter wise in the household of important people, well in their view!  That I must confess took my potter persona to a whole new level.  My reputation as a ‘That’ll do School of Cookery’ chef was a source of amusement to the rest of the staff.  My telling the man of the house where to hop off also was legion in a household where deference was very much the order of the day.  Just call me a Professor of Potter, you may forgo the curtesy.

Where that all came from I have no idea?  Probably when I spoke yesterday with the lady whose allotment I am taking over.  I offered to help her do whatever she wanted in readiness for the big hand over.

Very clearly and with quiet authority she said

‘No thank you I am a potterer, I much prefer to work alone, doing not very much...just pottering in my own way!’

Well you could have knocked me down with a feather.  A woman of my own heart to take over from.  A patch of heaven to carry on her years of work towards her Masters degree in potterage.

‘I hereby name this allotment... my Potager!’

Me in Goudhurst.

The allotment has...

landed! 

Ellie started barking, I peered around the corner of the Wrenery and there at the gate were the bearers of good news.  The minute I clapped eyes on them I knew.  My cheeks puffed out as if a shot of helium had been judicially applied to my left lug.

‘Come in, coffee, tea, cake, thirty pieces of silver?  Is it what I think it is?’

With a gentle nod of the head they indicated that yes, indeed it was exactly that.

Coffee was duly brewed, generous lemon drizzle portions were cut with me all the while thinking how pleased I was to have homemade cake to offer.  The normal offerings would be a stale digestive biscuit, overlooked and unloved lurking in the biscuit tin.

Regally sitting in my King’s chair I awaited the proclamation. A lady had definitely decided to give up her full size allotment, it was mine if I so desired.

If I so desired?

Desire was coursing through my bod the rate of which reminded me of the good innocent old days of lust!

Waiting with not a small degree of impatience as the ritual of cake coffee and small talk was adhered to, we were duly escorted there to walk the plot.  I watched in wonder as the key was slipped into the lock of the gate in the ancient wall and through into the magical allotment world beyond.

Well to say I was pleased was the ruddy understatement.  The plot was all and more I could have wished for.  The sort of higgeldy-piggeldy planting I love so much.  A shed, a tree, raspberries, rhubarb, compost bins-a-go-go.  Insect friendly flowers, the whole kit-kaboodle. 

Now I wait, for an email from the lady to decide on her timetable and hopefully her accepting my offer to help her to tidy up in readiness of the official hand over.  She, I sense is a kindred spirit and will be happy for me to carry on her allotment.

Watch this space...

My garden in Goudhurst

“Have another...

‘Be patient’ tablet LL!” he said.

Chuntering quietly to myself, I do try to ‘Chill man, chill!’

With the thought of the allotment on the back burner-ish(?) Saturday morning has found me having a lovely time pottering in the garden, mixing the wonderful home made compost from the hot bin with some spent compost, grit and Perlite, call me a witch I don’t care!  I have been planting tulip bulbs and potting on home grown winter flowering violas.  My greenhouse is a place of solace in these strange times.

The electrician came to quote for the Edison effect of the burbling, bubbling water feature millstone nicked from the local flour mill.  Is it any wonder there is a shortage of flour these days? 

‘While you’re here fannying around with all things volts, amps, mega watts’n’stuff could you put a light in the greenhouse, so the night shift can work without miners helmets, Davy lamps and canaries?’

’

He looked at me weirdly, was it the word ‘fannying’ that offended I idly wondered?

I’m nearing the top...

would crampons and an oxygen bottle be in order?  I have a very real  feeling of a fairy on the top of a Christmas tree as I await my turn on the allotment list.

The allure of an allotment advances.  Could it be the order for a funky red wheelbarrow draws ever closer?  I have until now resisted the temptation to inquire as I had the distinct impression that the Allotment FOC every time he saw me hoving to, ran and hid in the cupboard under the stairs.  The other day with him lulled into a false sense of security as not a word had issued out of my rosebuds for many a long month I gently enquired...

‘Should I be ordering my wheelbarrow just yet?’  

Winded and quite taken out of his comfort zone he replied that the word on the street was yes indeed there might, just might be a chance. As next year could possible see me planting my flag on my very own piece of Shropshire sod.

Smiling, hardly able to hold my happiness in check I said

‘I promise not to ask again!’

He I am sure breathed a huge sigh of relief as did the spiders, brooms and bog rolls residing in the under stairs cupboard.

In York I worked for...

for a time as a buyer in a whole food bakery.  It was a co-operative that paid very low wages and employed people with special needs.  I loved it.  It was a time in my life when after a disastrous love affair and a move from my magical life in the Highlands I needed a new chapter of carefree living.  This so neatly fitted the bill. I was the oldest in my early thirties.  The others were in the main fresh out of university.  Me, well I was feeling fresh out of life.  This was exactly what I needed, to get my bright and bubbly  usual self back into the human race.  I wore rolled up denim dungarees, well you did in those days, frilly lawn blouses, fishnet tights, red ankle socks and clumpy brogues... well you did in those days, or at least I did!  On occasions I would be known to go into the bake house stand on a large box and say...

‘I’m bored!’  

Oddly not one person took one jot of notice!

Carl our head baker who always played classical music at high volume to enable his bread to rise would grunt and change the CD to another Wagnerian bodice ripping, guts seeping out aria, from no doubt a huge breasted heroine in a horned hat singing her boobs out of her breastplate.  What chance did I have against such a formidable foe?

Where exactly is this going LL?

  You might well wonder? 

When after a couple of years I decided to leave, I was presented by amongst other things the most wonderful willy and attendant baps of a hairy kind all made in bread. The bakehouse broom never did recover after the plucking of its bristles!

This memory triggered by Cro’s blog.

National Trust personage...

‘Hello, hello, hello, what’s going on ‘ere?  Not only has your card not got a bar code it hasn’t got an expiry date!’

‘Err excuse me sir!’  Nothing if not polite is the old man.

‘It is after all a Lifetime Membership Card and although I can definitely show proof of my identity I have sadly (even in these strange times) no idea as to my ETD (expected time of death)!’

It seems the Scottish National Trust don’t seem to operate a similar system to the English.

On our last skirmish with the National Trust heavies, the husband did phone up the Scottish HQ who sent him packing with a Scottish flea in the ear.

Two weeks later, this morning we found ourselves running through the same treacle track to nowhere.  With a different bloke this time admittedly.  Now I am sure the husband’s parents didn’t envisage this merry dance when they purchased this once in a lifetime gift?  However this is where we’re at.  I wouldn’t mind but we always purchase things like cappuccinos, slabs of bread pudding, Kendal Mint Cake even though we are ruddy miles away from the Lake District!  It is me feeling guilty as we breeze in without paying.  It is only that, you do understand don’t you?  Greed doesn’t come into it!

What is it about...

Toast?

I love my one piece most mornings.

The act of toasting bread brings such a transformation, not only in the bread, but the pulsing fibre of every molecule in my bod.  It is my go to food, if I am feeling poorly I weakly murmur 

‘I think I’ll have a piece of toast!’

polishing it off in the style of a dictator shovelling down steroids.

Coursing through my body the toast has magical properties reaching the parts a poofy pain au chocolate can only dream of.  Nonchalantly I stroll to my witches cupboard of spells, potions, jam and condiments of a cunning kind.

‘What shall I anoint my staff of life with today I idly wonder as I survey the serried ranks of preserves?  Will it be Marmite, peanut butter or Bovril of the beefy kind? Damson, plum and cinnamon, greengage all of the above of the scrumped kind?  Marmalade: Seville through to Dundee and back on the Cordon bleu Orient Express. 

Bullace jam for a touch of sophistication? 

Butter a must; margarine go cry your artificial eyes out on the lab bench of Dr. Flora Crippen. 

What is it about toast... 

a combustible of culinary passion out of proportion to its humbleness?  Only asking? 

I feel a tad peculiar...

 This morning I woke up with a headache, all day it has been there accompanying me on my pottering and pootling. One reluctantly taken tablet later, still it persists.  

Surely it can’t be, can it?  

My limbs are starting to ache, my face feels flushed, my shoulders and back are sore.  

Surely it can’t be can it?

My usual MO is to work through these minor aches and pains, today has been no different.  I have enjoyed rearranging the greenhouse, sowing seeds, planting herbs and pottering, like you do?  I have printed on fabric my message for Hope’s birthday card.  A productive day all round.  The only thing I haven’t done is to address my people and tell them there is nothing to be afraid of... now where did I put my Elnett hairspray?

The tail of...

 Ratty.

Rats   4

Humans   0

Thinking about it the rats live in a Trump/Boris free world.  Virus free as well, as far as we know?  So absolutely no worries, they live a life of casual sex, rearing the resultant offspring, looking for food, developing along the way a rich and varied diet of fast food, healthy nuts, seeds and fruit.  They munch their way through the seasons, birth control they don’t have a care about, paedophilia, incest and just about every dictator flexing their muscles across the modern world are completely outside of their understanding.  I ought to say all animals other than the human kind are in this innocent state.  Sadly many are endangered by the hand of man who should know better? The rats have seen an opportunity and gone for it and who can blame them?  Survival is the name of the game and they are winning paws down. My admiration is growing as they stroll nonchalantly through the Wrenery every evening.  We have tried the eucalyptus oil deterrent, that was met with barely a whisker twitch.  

Rats  1

Us  0

The all singing all dancing tunnel of love with a peanut butter appetiser

Rats  2

Us   0

The mega Miss Whiplash approved, contraption the husband couldn’t set, too much of a wuss, went back.

Rats   3

Us    0

The far more gentle chocolate fountain of youth (or should say death) approach sits forlornly with tempting nuggets of Snickers.  Who could resist that temptation?  Not I for one!

Rats  4

Us   0

I am just about to go out and throw myself on the Snickers... freaking knickers trap and end it all.

The samovar,..

 the dried sourdough starter, 

and...

the waiting to be fitted water feature.

A snapshot of my rackety life!

I watch Gardeners’ World and think I ought to garden, I get hugely fired up.  Come Saturday morning the desire has wilted like        Ash Die Back.

I watched last night the wonderful programme on Alexander McQueen and yes you’ve guessed it I got fired up to sew!  Come this morning with the card for Hope my granddaughter’s birthday sitting beside my chair, I hardly have the energy to pick up the needle.

All my life I have gone at everything in similar vein to a bull at a high wire compound fence. Until now, when I have hit the buffers of life... BIG TIME.  Is it me or the world we find ourselves in, I idly wonder?

And other ruddy thing can anyone tell me why out of the blue the size of ‘my pearls of wisdom’ prose jumps in size between me previewing the post and it actually flying live into the ether?

Steampunk Samovar...

 from the window it winked. I was abroad in Ludlow late, all of 5pm. My mission was to go to the corner shop for supplies; you know the sort of thing, asses milk to fill my bath, canapés to fill my tum, ‘Country Living’ to fill my wild imaginings of a bucolic life in the undulating hills of A.E. Housman and Sir Edward William Elgar.  Oh, and not forgetting the Euro Millions ticket to make it all happen!?!  That was the plan anyhow! My life was steamrollered to a halt by this, for want of a better word... contraption.  The charity shop was closed, Garfield like I hung on the window, the drool of desire making me stick.

I want it and I want it Now!

Groceries forgotten, steam gently escaping in puffs of indecent desire.  I bowled down the hill and home, landing in a heap of overheatedness.  Himself having heard it all before listened with the resigned air of ‘Oh no, not again!’ type of thing! Suggesting that the best thing, nay the very best thing was to set the alarm and go up at sparrow fart and wait for the shop to open.  Obviously being at the head of an orderly queue of folk all wanting, nay needing to get their mitts on this most wondrous of Teasmade.  And that dear reader is how I got my latest thing of wonderment and fulfilment.

Don’t you just love it?

The end result...

 I am happy!

How my idea has proved correct is amazing.  I now have bread than once again tastes of sourdough.  The old starter was giving me bread of a close and more heavy texture. I am now in a place of wondering whether to discard the old starter and carry on with son of?  You sourdough aficionados might have a suggestion?  Please! 

Samovar story to follow...

Let me tell you about

a slumbering Sleeping Beauty of a sourdough starter.

In the early days of my sourdough journey I had discovered that you could dry some of the excess.

I carefully did the deed, storing in a plastic sealed box.

Recently my bread has lost a lot of its open, holey texture which to me was what I loved about sourdough.  I decided to reactivate ‘the always the bridesmaid, never the bride’ sitting waiting forlornly in the cupboard for the love of its life to come along and sweep it off its snoozing feet.  A couple of days ago I did just that.  With a pestle and mortar I gently whacked it over the head. Alright not the kiss it was hoping for from the brave knight in shining armour admittedly.  I weighed it and into the jar put an equal amount of spring water to gently rouse it from its dreams of a better life.

It sat glaring out of the jar for a day with zilch happening.  I gave it a pep talk by way of a rigorous stir, and a little food to CPR it into life.  Over the next couple of days I administered to its needs, and without so much of a gentle fart nothing seemed to stir it from its vegetative state. Until this morning when surprise, surprise it had sprung into life!

Suddenly we are cooking on gas!