CORFU CAPERS

We took the opportunity of having a week in Corfu. The rest of the year will be busy and so some sunshine and new pastures fitted the bill perfectly. We chose an hotel close to but not in, Corfu Town and were able to access the town easily for 90 cents on the bus. We climbed to the top of the Old Fort, shown here. Later we climbed to the top of the Venetian Fort as well. The place was well fortified over the centuries!The views from the top were grand. The clouds passed by for one day. The stormy weather stayed for another but the rest of the time was hot and sunny with brilliant blue sea and skies. The best coffee I have had since leaving Melbourne was to be had at the "Europe Cafe" in Eleftherias with the old cricket pitch in the park beside it. This grand old street is paved with marble and specialises in cafes.

We trod the streets all over town. Many parts must date back centuries and there has been a tradition of patching up and building a bit more on so that many areas are a pastiche of eras, styles and uses.

This could be one of the oldest basketball courts in the world, or it could have been put up yesterday on an empty space.

The sea is in the background of everything. We stayed at an hotel with its own beach as well as all the rest and watched three or four cruise ships arrive and leave the port a kilometre away each day. This one is catching the setting sun as it sails past the hotel gardens. It is blocking your view of Albania. Day trips to Albania can be got for a mere 60 euros but are titled "Albanian Adventure" so that you don't expect too much comfort. Talking about comfort... if we return we shall try the Corfu Palace Hotel in town. We snuck in for a sticky beak and were mightily awed.

The epic building of supermarkets around the corner from us continued while we were away. The new Bishop Auckland Football Club is nearly ready for its first match and a giant Sainsbury's and a Tesco Extra are competing to see which will open first. They are across the road from one another, will offer all the same things and petrol and have caused havoc to the traffic for weeks while roundabouts and new roads are emplaced. The bus routes will be changed and teams of builders, electricians, plumbers, gas workers and JCB drivers are working around the clock to be the first store to open. Vast quantities of material have to be removed from the site while new utilities are put in place and then all the material will have to be returned to fill in the gaping holes and landscape them. All I want is some decent bread within walking distance.
Cheers Gillian

FURTHER FORAGING FORAYS

We recently returned from a walk around Forcett with a carrier bag full of potatoes. This was the loot from a trudge across a recently harvested potato field . False and unfair are the accusations heaped upon us by RH, of potato rustling on a major scale in the north and blaming us for shortages in the south and so causing the near starvation of thousands of children!!! Let them eat chips, we say!)
Unfortunately the potatoes only taste good because they were free and have lashings of butter on them. That's a shame for us but a bigger one for you because you are probably going to be paying for their big brothers in a supermarket near you all winter.
The blackberries and elderberries are now dealt with for this year and our fingers are returning to their normal colour.
So we took ourselves off to Saltburn on the train. A grand day out for £6.30 each return. Some fish and chips and a ride on the cliff lift. Yes and no. The lift is closed until Easter so we walked down and up again.

The tide was well out and there was a lot of weed washed up, so the coalmen had to scrape it aside to forage the seacoal which they shovel up into sacks. This couple happily filled a few carriers as well. Our foraging nature has led us to enquire how it can be used at home. Can we make our own "Saltburn Nuts"? When we were young the coalman delivered "Welsh Nuts" to our home to keep the hot water boiler burning, because London in living required the smokeless fuel of the anthracite coal from south Wales.

We have seen this seacoal gathered commercially to be used in the furnaces in the steel works on Teesside but how can it be used domestically?

The weather is starting to change and cooler temperatures are here. Such a supply of fuel could be very welcome.

Cheers Gillian

HEDGEROW HARVEST

A quick and easy bike ride for us, is along the bridle path, a short way up Brusselton Hill. There is the remains of a derelict garden beside the path and although it is very overgrown, raspberries, blackberries and apples are to be found. Also, not far from us near the village of Gainford, the footpaths are lined with blackberry bushes and near Headlam Hall, "unclaimed" apple trees can easily be accessed.
So to work! A blackberry and apple crumble was made for that day. Blackberries were washed and dried and frozen. Then raspberries from the freezer, fresh blackberries and scrumped apples were boiled till good and mushy and then strained through muslin.

Then the juice was boiled up with sugar to make Hedgerow Jelly.

The apples were then peeled and cut up into two batches of chutney. One with green tomatoes and one with spices and chillies.

DJ made some smart labels and now all the jars are looking for homes. We shall use plenty ourselves, but this xmas will provide an opportunity for emptying the cupboard a bit.

The elderberries were just ripening and looked so pretty in the sunshine that I'm tempted to harvest some of them and make stuff....but what? Any ideas or recipes?

Cheers Gillian

The Tale of Two Brollies

We have just come back from a week in Brittany. Fabulous food, plentiful drink, beautiful scenery and great company. The weather was gorgeous too. One day my sister went out on the boat with her charming, red parasol.
She showed me it later and said that she didn't know where it had come from but she thought it might be mine. We visit one another and have been known to leave belongings behind.
"Oh Yes!" I cried, "it is mine. In fact it is the red umbrella which is the picture I use on my Blog Title". DJ was not so sure. He couldn't work out how it could have travelled so far without us remembering. He was sure he had seen mine very recently at home.
My sister handed it over and we returned to England with it. DJ accepted a £5 wager with me, that it was indeed mine. It was so distinctive and rare, it could only be my precious red umbrella.
The first thinjg I did on returning home was check the umbrella hook......

I am now £5 poorer but have two identical red umbrellas. My sister is happy that one day she will get the other one back. But it isn't hers. She admits she doesn't know where it came from. Mine is the one on the right but how can I tell?

Has anyone out there lost a red umbrella? Can you explain how it got into my sister's house in Dorset? Why do both of us have the same favourite umbrella? Has anyone else got one just like this?
Cheers Gillian

So This Is How They Do It!

On a bike ride across Brusselton Hill, to assess the ripeness of the blackberries we spotted this. Hay-making! These days it involves a lot of machinery and few people. The tractor was just dumping a black-plastic covered hay bale. There were five tractors operating in the fieldOne was raking up the hay into long piles. Another was sucking the piles up into a baler and spitting out big round rolls of hay. Two were bringing the bales to the black plastic binding machine, from each end of the field and the last one was attached to the black plastic wrapping thingy. But this is how they do it! The bale rolls around and around and up and down and is thoroughly bandaged by the gadget on the back of the tractor. It then dumps it off the end like a great roll of glad-wrapped/cling-filmed left overs.The blackberries are not really ripe enough yet.
Cheers Gillian

Bobbins and Blankets

The weather has been so dismally unpredictable, that during the gloomy, humid spells I have resorted to some winter hobbies. We did manage a lovely walk along the cliffs yesterday clambered down steep steps to a sun-drenched cove backed by tall cliffs where we sat on the rocks and had a picnic. All on our own!
But today it is wet and grey so I continue to trade in lace-making bobbins. These are some well used and hand decorated plain sticks but they have very old buttons and bone beads as spangles, which I find more fascinating than some of the newer sparkling rhinestones I frogged a UFO and rewound the wools in order to knit squares for a blanket. They were the wools I had spun and dyed while I was in Staindrop and the yellows and greens are from the plants in that original "Walled Garden". Not enough for a garment and not regular in thickness, they are perfect for patchwork squares. The colours vary according to the type of plant, the part of the plant and the mordant used.

The stitches vary according to whether I'm watching the test match or the recent programme on the miners' strikes, "Strike: When Britain Went To War". That required concentration on the subject matter and so stocking stitch predominated. I was in Oz for the Thatcher era and much of the news footage used was new to me. I was astounded at the way the police force was manipulated and used. I was also astounded at the clear arrogance of Scargill and his petty vanity.

We walk in beautiful scenery today. The scars of the coal-mining industry have been obliterated and local knowledge is needed to point out the vestiges of the gigantic eyesores that were the pits.

I reckon there are enough squares here for a third of a throw. If the weather continues, it may not take long to complete. Time then to get the spinning wheel turning again.

Cheers Gillian

Sweet Success

It's difficult to fit a good "yorkshire" on the plate!
In days gone by, the yorkshire pudding was served as a starter with a load of gravy on it. This was to reduce everyone's appetite before the expensive roast meat was dished up. As children we were given yorkshire pudding as a dessert with syrup on it. This was also an economy measure.
DJ has mastered the new stove and has settled on a particular baking dish and a two egg batter mix which he now "throws together" at the drop of a hat. This time it was to accompany the Barnsley chops (two loin chops joined at the bone like a wing), mash, greens and sweetcorn. A jug of mushroom gravy awaits on the table.

Not to be outdone, the next day I bought some puff pastry. First of all I made a chicken pie. The problem with a round pie dish is that there is a strip of left over pastry from the ready-made oblong block.Left over puff pastry has to remain in its layers, so I just rolled it out flat, put it in a baking dish, pinched up the edges to make a tart and filled it with thin slices of marzipan (from a left-over xmas block at the back of the cupboard), then a layer of apple, then scattered it with currants, sprinkled it with spice and drizzled it with honey. Then baked it.

Yum, we even had the left overs for breakfast the next day with the rest of the custard.

Off now for another long walk along the prom at Seaton Carew for calorie counterwork.

Cheers Gillian