Women's Work

'Man may work from sun to sun, but woman's work is never done.'

When I started researching my family tree, one of things I was particularly keen to do was look at the lives of the women in my family. This turned out to be more difficult than I'd expected, bringing home just how little women were valued as people in their own right.

Both sides of my family were mostly working class, a range of agricultural, horticultural or manual labourers, servants and workers in various trades. I should add that most of my relatives were born, lived and died in the UK; more precisely, in England.

Tracking down female relatives, especially without the information available on the censuses from 1851 onwards, can be very difficult if you don't know where they lived and whom they married (because then, their surname changed), made almost impossible if there are no accessible church records, and/or if they had one or more common names.

Even with the census records, I was struck by the distinct lack of information on the work women were doing. Despite having Queen Victoria on the throne from 1837 to 1901, society was patriarchal, just as it had been for centuries. Women's place in society was to be dutiful daughters, wives and mothers, owned and ruled by men, who labelled them the fairer but weaker sex, considering them less capable, less intelligent. Daughters belonged to their fathers until they married, when they belonged to their husbands. Men were expected to work, earn and provide for their families. Those who didn't, or couldn't, experienced stigma and shame.

The 'work' entered in the occupation column of the census returns is essentially paid work, although there were contradictory and inconsistent instructions on how to classify women's work, especially if done at home. Sometimes, work such as assisting in a family business was deliberately excluded (you can't tell me that a publican's or farmer's wife didn't also work in the bar or the dairy as well as the house!). A lot of women's paid work went unrecorded. It was often piecework, part-time, casual, not considered important enough to record. Illegal work such as prostitution was of course not recorded, but some women kept their earnings secret from their husbands. Some women recorded themselves as 'wife', sometimes adding their husband's occupation, especially if he was away from home for the night of the census. This was usually struck through, not counted. Married women, and society as a whole, often considered their main function as being wives and mothers, (or just wives and housekeepers, if no children came along) and anything else as secondary to their (unpaid) work, even if doing the milking and dairy work, or being the cook, housekeeper and barmaid in the inn, unpaid, was essential to the success of their family lives. Described as 'Home Duties' on the 1921 census, at least the 1939 Register recognised that being a 'housewife' amounted to Unpaid Domestic Duties (UDD).

Schooling became compulsory from the age of five in England and Wales in 1880, with a leaving age of 10. This rose with subsequent education acts to 11 from 1893, when schooling also became free, 12 from 1899 and 14 from 1918. In the years between leaving school and their marriage, most working-class girls went to work as servants, or used skills in sewing clothing or millinery, or worked in the service sector as laundresses. Those who did not marry often stayed in the family home as housekeepers to ageing parents and any single siblings still living at home.

Work in the home involved shopping, cooking, fetching water, clearing out and making up fires, cleaning, making and mending clothing, doing the laundry, bearing and caring for the children, sometimes (literacy and numeracy allowing) also being the family social secretary, budgeting and planning. Girls learned these skills, which were transferable to their work in service or running their own households. It was all seen as 'women's work'; unpaid, unrecorded, not acknowledged as 'real' work at all.

Many men didn't know where to start when it came to looking after themselves (and justified it by dismissing it as 'women's work', unskilled, unimportant and degrading for a man to do!). There was also the issue of coming home exhausted, dirty and hungry after long working hours, then having to get clean, have something to eat, find clean clothes for the next day perhaps. Some men married two or three times so that they had a wife to supply their personal and household needs for most of their adult lives. Likewise, women who were widowed with young children often hoped to find a husband who would also accept their children and then go on to have their own family too.

With decreasing infant mortality and increasing life expectancy, but no birth control, women had no real choice about how many children they had, or when. One to three children, whilst quite usual now, was the exception; five or six was quite usual, and must have been a struggle for working class families with only the father's wage, and that was dependent on the work they could find when the hiring of labourers was often on a daily basis. Some families were very large, with nine or more children. It was also quite usual to have a widowed parent living with their son or daughter's family, and in towns and cities, to take in one or more lodgers, space permitting. Being a wife and mother before all of our modern conveniences would have supplied more than enough work to do, and having daughters to help would have been a blessing. With no labour-saving devices, it would have been a full-time job in itself. 

Some women did double duty, working and maintaining a household and children. In this respect, not a lot has changed in the past 150 years. Women in Britain still manage most of the household work, including administration, such as organising the children's school requirements and birthday parties, as well as working (it now seems impossible for families to manage on just one income, even though we now have a guaranteed minimum wage, child credits, free healthcare and other benefits).

A first cousin 4 x removed (1C4R) Elizabeth Collier/Ratcliffe, was working as a general servant by the time she was 16 in 1851. Ten years later, she'd moved from rural Buckinghamshire to London and was still working as a servant, with her husband-to-be Thomas Ratcliffe working as a footman at the same house. A few years later, they married, when she was already several months pregnant, and had four children in six years. Elizabeth and Thomas continued to work, leaving their first four children with Thomas' parents in Mansfield, as Elizabeth had found a position as a cook (better pay and status than a general servant!). They lost one of the first four, but had another four children by 1876, and had saved enough to start a coffee house, work for themselves, bring the first three children down to London and employ a servant, with the children united. Elizabeth learned cookery from her mother and passed on her knowledge of cookery to her daughters, so that they could get better positions as cooks.

The 1891 Census records the family living in Lambeth, with Thomas working as a waiter, and the youngest four children single and living at home, but all working. There were also four lodgers to look after.

Elizabeth, then 57, made her feelings known by recording her occupation - as 'general slavey to this lot!' The enumerator crossed it out, but it amused me greatly. Thank you, cousin Elizabeth, for recording in that flash of spirit what many women must have thought about their work and place in society. I admire your resilience and determination!

Elizabeth Collier/Ratcliffe, 1834 Medmenham, Buckinghamshire - 1916 Southwark, London

Servant, Cook, Coffee-House keeper and 'General Slavey'

Nostalgia or small-minded ignorance?

Facebook continues to provoke me, often to rage and thought, simultaneously and in equal measure. In this instance, it was a list titled 'Eating in the 50s', 24 comments which say more about the person(s) who put the list together than a historically accurate account of eating in the 1950s.

Admittedly, I'm a decade too young to remember it first hand, but what struck me most about the list is the narrow minded attitude; very white, English, middle-class, privileged and right-wing. Decidedly middle class, the types who sneer at the poverty of the working classes, aspiring to mix with those higher up the social ladder whilst maintaining a limited world view. It might have been created by someone who still holds these views, sharing them as some sort of nostalgia while poking fun at other nationalities. Or perhaps it was written by someone younger, to provoke an immediate 'Okay, Boomer' response? Or something to point out how much choice we have now in what we eat, but with a sarcastic tone? Either way, every time I read the list, I bristled a bit more. So, excuse the rant, so early in the new year, but I have to get something off my chest, and if not here, then where?

Let's have a look at them:

'Water came out of a tap. If someone had suggested bottling it and charging more than petrol for it, they would have become a laughing stock!' Water, mineral or otherwise, was being bottled at holy wells and springs across the UK since 1621, and was being sold at a premium as part of local, often rural economies in the 19th century, long before most people knew about petrol, and the people involved were not 'laughing stocks'.

Furthermore, even in the 1950s, water did not come out of a household tap for everyone. There were still people in slum housing who were using standpipes, and those in more rural districts who were still not on mains water and used a pump or well.  What's different now is that spring or mineral water is often sold by the litre or more in plastic bottles, production in smaller glass bottles is more costly, and potable water is widely available from kitchen taps.

'Crisps were plain; the only choice we had was whether to put the salt on or not.' Ah, the enduring thing for binary, all-or-nothing choices! The little blue bags of salt meant you could decide how much salt you wanted on your crisps, if any. So they didn't come in other flavours yet, you could still drop a pickled egg in the bag, if that took your fancy? Or is that too working-class for you?

'Healthy food consisted of anything edible'; 'Sugar enjoyed a good press in those days and was regarded as being white gold. Cubed sugar was regarded as posh.' Of course sugar was regarded with joy, it only came off the ration in 1953. Rationing severely restricted the availability and quantity of food available in Britain for most people, and unavailability of some items became worse after the war. Meat and any other foods which were still restricted came off-ration in 1954.

'Fish didn't have fingers.' There was a reference to fish fingers dating to 1900, though they started to appear more after WWII. However, fish cakes, as a way to use up leftover fish and cold potatoes, were a thing since the 19th century and much more likely to be made by thrifty housewives or sold at the fish and chip shop.

'A takeaway was a mathematical problem'. No, it was called subtraction then, just as now, except then, you did it in your head or on paper, not with a calculator. Of course, food-to-go was available, just limited by how to wrap the food. Fish and chips or pie and chips were traditional, and could be wrapped in newspaper. Cornish Pasties had their own wrapping of pastry.

'People who didn't peel potatoes were regarded as lazy.' Really? Potatoes then weren't washed by suppliers, they came covered in soil, which helped them not to go green or mouldy quite as quickly as they seem to these days when washed and packaged in transparent plastic. Potatoes baked in their jackets were another street food, although of course eating on the street was viewed as a low-class thing to do.

A working-class equivalent of take-out was eating at a food stall, where you could (for example) get a very good hot pork pie, mushy peas and mint sauce in Bradford's Rawson Market to keep the wind out, in a bowl and eaten at the stall.

'Brown bread was something only poor people ate.' Brown bread was widely available and eaten, but after WWII, there was something of a backlash, a demand for soft, white bread after the gritty, hard, wholemeal 'national loaf'. It's not the only example on the list of something perceived as being eaten only by the poor.

'Pasta was not eaten'; 'A pizza was something to do with a leaning tower'; 'Oil was for lubricating, fat was for cooking'. Pasta, and pizza, were of course eaten, but largely made at home by Italian immigrant families, not available to the wider public unless they could afford to eat out at an Italian restaurant. Most food was home cooked, few could afford to eat at a restaurant except on a very special occasion. Most vegetable oil was used for making margarine, so of course lard, suet, bacon fat, margarine and butter were more readily available.

'Rice was only eaten as a milk pudding.' Short grain rice was grown and used in Europe since medieval times, and came to England (for the rich) in the Tudor period, traditionally as a pudding (with ingredients such as beef broth), because given the above, you wouldn't care about any foreign muck like risotto, would you?

'Curry was a  surname'; 'Indian restaurants were only found in India.' Curry was then and is still a colonial European name for various spicy dishes from the Indian subcontinent and beyond. Curry and rice had become popular specialities in some restaurants around London's Piccadilly by the late 1700s. The first Indian restaurant was a coffee house, in Mayfair, London in 1810. The popularity for all things Indian took a knock after the 1857 revolt, but Queen Victoria's fascination for India revived interest and there were a handful of restaurants in London. The arrival of Bangladeshi immigrants in the 1970s brought a surge of 'curry houses', often open very late to catch those suffering from the munchies when the pubs closed (been there, done that. If the place had a number of locals from the Indian subcontinent also enjoying some food, you knew it was going to be all right. The first time I went to an 'Indian Restaurant' where there were tablecloths and cutlery and only white British customers was a bit of a culture shock, I was so used to tearing off a bit of chapatti and eating with my fingers!)

'Kebab was not even a word, never mind a food.' Spit or skewer-roasted food is nothing new, even in England. The word 'kebab' has been used in England since the late 17th Century. The food may only have been popularised here since the 1970s, but the word existed, and so did the food. 

'None of us had ever heard of yoghurt; surprisingly, muesli was readily available, it was called cattle feed'.  Cattle were grass fed, not fed muesli or anything like, and I wonder what the Swiss would make of this idea. Although neither you nor the people around you had heard of yogurt, I'm sure even in England, there were those who had, and perhaps even made it!

'Seaweed was not a recognised food'. Not in your small world, maybe, but Laverbread (from the seaweed Porphyria) has long been a food in Wales.

'Prunes were medicinal'. I've always liked prunes. Brandy was often described as 'medicinal' too. Of course, the French  recognised the benefits of prunes and brandy (as well as many other fine foods) a long time ago, well before Béchamp and his 'food is medicine' and Terrain Theory, so much derided by Pasteur and his Germ Theory. Guess what, boys, you were both partly right. Another instance of black and white thinking. Alors, plus ça change, plus c'est  la même chose. 

'Eating raw fish was called poverty not sushi'. You're just displaying your ignorance now. Raw fish isn't sushi, it's sashimi, in Japan, but other countries have their equivalents. I'm sure the Great British upper classes enjoyed the occasional Gravad Lax. So where did this idea that eating raw fish implied poverty come from?

'Cooking outside was called camping'. And wasn't it fun, enjoyed by hordes of girl guides and boy scouts. Oh, you mean, barbecues were still only a thing in the USA, like burger bars?

'A big mac was what we wore when it was raining'. Yes, but you were probably aware of Wimpy burger bars opening from 1954, even if you felt it beneath you to visit one.

'Tea was made in a teapot using leaves and never green.' I'm sure there were people who made herb teas, just as now, and black tea can still be made with tea leaves in a pot, if you so choose. This is one where I can't work out if it's really a complaint about the availability of tea bags and green tea, or not. 

'And the things that we never ever had on our table in the 50s and 60s: elbows or phones!' Come off it, most houses in the 1950s didn't have phones, and even in the 1960s, they were limited to a front room or hallway within reach of the GPO socket into which their lead was wired! At the time, the discussion was about whether newspapers and books should be allowed at the table. Okay, so seeing a group of people scrolling on their phones while eating rather than interacting with each other might annoy you. If they are in your home, impose your own rules, otherwise mind your own business and stop making judgements! 

Finished whining about how things aren't like the good old days yet? That was then, this is now, things have changed, and largely for the better (exceptions include the extinction of the hot pie and peas stall, and of Rawson Market itself, as was).

My need to comment on this probably says a lot about me, not least that the writer's apparent pride in their own, small experience, and their scorn and derision of the poor and anything foreign, was more than I could stand.

Back in 2001, the then Foreign Secretary Robin Cook made a great speech (which you can read here) arguing that the idea of a homogenous white, Anglo-Saxon British identity wasn't and isn't true, nor was/is the idea that, due to immigration and multi-culturalism, British identity was under siege and in terminal decline. Then, chicken tikka masala had recently been voted the favourite national dish, and Robin Cook upheld this as a 'perfect illustration of the way Britain absorbs and adapts external influences', because the masala sauce reflected the British liking for meat to be served in gravy. It's a rather British-centric view; my thought was that it's a perfect illustration of the way that immigrants in Britain find food a good way to integrate into and adapt to British life.

He summed up with: 'Tolerance is important, but it is not enough. We should celebrate the enormous contribution of the many communities in Britain to strengthening our economy, to supporting our public services, and to enriching our culture and cuisine. And we should recognise that its diversity is part of the reason why Britain is a great place to live.'

The popularity of other cultures' foods has increased in the past 20 years, with an ever-wider choice available from restaurants, take-aways, supermarkets and food fairs.

Sadly, at the same time, the clamp-downs on immigration, the Windrush scandal and (sorry) Brexit have all shown that far from decreasing, there is still a racism or xenophobia driven by a perception of a homogenous, white, Christian/protestant British identity and idea of a 'sovereign nation' under threat from other cultures. 

The real takeaway from that list has to be a renewed awareness of changes which aren't improvements. Unseasonal, unsustainable foods, litter from takeaways, single-use plastics, too much sugar, salt, palm oil, highly processed foods and a pervasive, racist worldview of which the British should be extremely ashamed.

Enjoy your food and drink, be thankful of the diversity we enjoy, make the best choices you can in terms of health, packaging, food miles and sustainability, and recognise that we all need to eat, drink and have somewhere we can call home.

Two-of-everything ratatouille recipe

My first experience of ratatouille was not a happy one. While I was living in Paris, I treated myself to lunch at a little cheap and cheerful café in the Latin Quarter. Served with fresh bread, it was a bowl of acidic, over-salted mush in which the individual vegetables were unidentifiable. Not nice. It completely put me off even the idea of trying it again.

Some years later, when I started growing my own vegetables and had a sudden glut of tomatoes, aubergines and courgettes, I had a go at making it myself, using a few different recipes, until I settled on my version, which has become one of my comfort foods.

Recipe

You will need:

2 onions (I prefer red onions, but whatever you've got)

2 fat cloves of garlic, crushed

2 sweet/bell peppers (I like to go for different colours)

2 courgettes

2 aubergines

2 cans of chopped tomatoes

2 heaped teaspoons vegetable stock (bouillon) powder

A couple of big pinches of dried mixed herbs/herbes de Provence (or a small sprig each of fresh, thyme, rosemary, oregano, sage)

A couple of good glugs of olive oil

salt and ground black pepper to taste.

I  prefer to use one of my Dutch oven pans, heavy, broad-based and deep enough to add all the veg, water to cover (and more if I want it soupier) and not spit broth all over the stove when I lift the lid to give it a stir.

Chop the onions, peppers, aubergines and courgettes into roughly 1"/2.5 cm pieces.

Start cooking the onions and peppers in the olive oil, and add the garlic as they start to colour.

Add the courgettes and aubergines so that they start to cook and soak up the oil.

When the pan looks dry and the vegetables start to catch and colour, add the canned tomatoes. Rinse out the tins with hot water, adding this to the pan so that the vegetables are covered.

Add the herbs and vegetable stock, give it all a good stir, cover and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally if needed to stop it catching on the bottom of the pan.

It may need longer; the vegetables should be soft and melting but still retain their shape.

Serve and enjoy. Fresh baguette or crusty roll, glass of red wine ... or over a baked potato. Or on its own if you are aiming to cut the carbs.

Notes

I find it best to keep the vegetables in proportion, so all medium-sized or all large (hopefully without the aubergines and courgettes being woolly and full of seeds).

Modern aubergine varieties often do not need salting to remove bitter juices, but if you've grown your own and they've been water stressed at all, it can still be a good idea, and do the courgettes at the same time.

It freezes and reheats well, so I wouldn't bother trying to make a small portion with small-sized vegetables, as two cans of tomatoes will be too much, although two big beefsteak tomatoes could work.

I don't know how many this will feed, because I invariably have a second helping, but it usually lasts me at least two days.

If you're feeding a horde you can double the quantities of ingredients.

You can stretch the definition of ratatouille and stretch this further by adding a couple of potatoes cut into 1"/2.5 cm chunks, or stretch it even further by adding more water so that it's more like a soup. Or just go mad and use it as a basis for a big vegetable stew by adding a can of chickpeas or cannellini beans, sweetcorn, chunks of butternut or other squash, increasing and tweaking the seasoning as needed.

Pandemic Pandemonium

Predictably - I wonder what odds the bookies were offering? - the outbreak of the novel Coronavirus  Covid-19 has been declared a pandemic, and all hell has broken out in the UK. Not only is it a public health emergency, it is also an economic emergency, with international markets in free-fall and people already losing their jobs as firms scale back and shut down.

Even before the UK had many cases, people started panic buying, noticeably toilet roll! Not that the infection causes problems with the gut, but because apparently that's what people can't do without. Hand sanitiser gel was also a must-buy. Supermarkets were slow to impose limits, because families come in different sizes and people may be shopping for others, but surely, surely, people could be sensible, given that there aren't shortages with stock coming in all the time? But no, you can't fix stupid, and people, especially when scared, will be greedy and selfish too.

The last time I went shopping, some of the shelves of a large supermarket were looking very empty. No toilet roll, very few canned goods, no pasta, hardly anything left by way of pasta sauces. I went past one couple loading Pot Noodles into their trolley, discussing how many they should have of which ones, dithering and debating because they didn't normally eat them (although I don't blame them for that!). I saw other couples, discussing numbers and needs as they loaded their individual trolleys, although I expect only one of them normally shops for their families. But, for all I know, maybe one of them was doing the family shop and the other shopping for a parent. Short of seeing someone steering a few trolleys piled high with toilet rolls and hand sanitiser, is it really possible to spot the difference between someone panic buying/stockpiling and someone getting supplies in for their family and older neighbours? Without leaping to assumptions, no. It's a tricky one.

There was lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, and I bought a lovely piece of fish from the wet fish counter to put in the freezer, not because I'm stocking up the freezer, but because it looked so good and I already had that day's meal planned. (I'm currently addicted to ratatouille with a baked potato as comfort food.)

There weren't queues at the tills, as there were plenty of cashiers. I had a cheerful chat with the cashier as I put my things through. Apparently the limits she had were a bit higher than those shown in notices on the shelves, and the shelves were restocked regularly, but emptied almost as soon as they were filled. I shall be annoyed if I cannot find what I want as and when I want to replenish what's in my own cupboards (especially toilet roll!) and that's the thing. Even those like me who don't panic buy and hoard supplies, when threatened with the possibility of not finding what we want and feel we need, we're more likely to buy the items, in multiples, when we do see them. Also, when you think that maybe we will all be under movement restrictions soon, and you and yours may be self-isolating for protection because someone in the household is in the high-risk group, or you may go into isolation because you or someone in the household show symptoms, then it makes sense to have some supplies in and a regular online order so you can top up if you can't go out. It becomes both cause and effect.

Elsewhere, fights have broken out, and cashiers are subjected to insults and threats if they challenge the numbers of items people are taking. A friend who was on a course (only the first day of the planned three; it was cut short) reported that the tutor had stopped off at a supermarket for hand sanitiser (makes sense to have it if you're giving a course and you don't know what the facilities are like). She found the last bottle at the back of a bottom shelf, and an older woman saw her and knocked her over. The other woman's husband remonstrated with her and she grumbled that the tutor had beaten her to the last bottle (like that's an excuse for her bad behaviour).
In the USA, there are queues at gun stores, as people buy weapons and ammunition. It seems that they are preparing for a breakdown in law and order (whether they will be causing it or defending themselves from it) and possibly also a zombie apocalypse. I'm glad, once again, not to live in the USA.

Not that living in the UK is much less worrying. The government position last week was 'carry on as normal, no-one is immune, wash your hands, catch your coughs, best we just let the virus go through the community and build herd immunity that way. Some of you will die, especially the oldies, but most will be okay.' Cue outrage at the idea of having the Coronavirus version of a Chicken Pox party for UK citizens, the apparent disposability of our at-risk citizens and that this could potentially be a great saving in terms of benefits and a load off the NHS. We are used to the idea that herd immunity is created after a programme of vaccinations, not, as used to be, just leaving a disease to spread through the population and rely on people recovering and becoming immune. Diphtheria, smallpox, polio, whooping cough, measles, German measles (rubella) - all used to be like this. Perhaps the British are less fatalistic, stoical and stiff-upper-lip than we used to be, but some things are just not acceptable now.

Then there was something of a U turn; people were advised to work from home if they can and avoid going out unless necessary, especially to pubs, clubs, cinemas, theatres etc. A raft of financial support measures were announced, but there were still obvious holes. You might take a mortgage holiday, but still no help for renters. Your employer should pay you statutory sick pay (SSP, which is less than £100 per week, not a lot) but with only an advisory for people to stay away from leisure venues, the owners and managers of said venues cannot claim for loss of income on their insurance. Many will go under unless there are government safety nets in place. The self-isolating should be paid SSP from day one, but many employers aren't being flexible enough and still want a doctor's note, at a time when most surgeries are stopping face to face appointments. There is a proposal to make new claims for universal credit easier in an attempt to provide some support for the self-employed, so that will be good, if they can work it out.

Now the schools are due to close at the end of the week, and exams have been cancelled, all adding to the general confusion and anxiety.

One of the scariest things is that, being a new virus, there are so many unknowns. You can have it but be presymptomatic (not showing symptoms yet) or asymptomatic (not have symptoms at all). The incubation period is still up for debate, from three weeks to three days. Many people apparently can have quite mild symptoms and recover, but there are no numbers on this, as only those who are hospitalised with severe symptoms are being tested (much to the annoyance of health care workers and medical professionals, who would like to know if they are positive since they are on the front line of receiving the virus and passing it on, so knowing could limit the spread, even if it takes them out of the much needed workforce for a week or two, and even if clear, they might need to be tested on a weekly or fortnightly basis). It is still not known whether someone who has had it and recovered is immune, and since you can have something like it without knowing whether you've just got some unspecific, horrible fluey cough or whether it's Covid-19, you can't be sure of anything. Except that you are still alive, which is not something to be sneezed at (sorry, couldn't resist it!).

I do worry about my (high risk group) parents, over 200 miles away, although my brother is with them. All this worry and uncertainty leads to high anxiety, and I found this from Anxiety UK very inspirational:

APPLE
Acknowledge: notice and acknowledge the uncertainty as it comes to mind

Pause: Don't react as you normally do. Don't react at all. Pause and breathe

Pull back: Tell yourself this is just the worry* talking, and this apparent need for certainty is not helpful or necessary. (* or anger, annoyance, however you are feeling). It is only a thought or feeling. Don't believe everything you think. Thoughts are not statements or facts.

Let go: let go of the thought or feeling. It will pass. You do not have to respond to them. Imagine them floating away on a cloud or in a bubble.

Explore: Explore the present moment, because right now, in this moment, all is well. Notice your breathing and the sensations of your breathing. Notice the ground beneath you. Look around and notice what you see, what you hear, what you can touch, what you can smell. Right now. Then shift your focus of attention to something else - on what you need to do, on what you were doing before you noticed the worry, or do something else - mindfully with your full attention.

I observed to a friend that, given a computer with internet connection (tick), craft supplies (tick), books (tick) and food deliveries (cross), I can hole up and entertain myself for weeks without feeling the need to be with people face to face. I'm lucky, I also have a garden to potter in, and live on my own in a house with a few rooms to choose from, so I wouldn't feel too claustrophobic.

Although I've let the people from my gentle exercise class know I can pick up shopping for them if necessary, I have no confidence that I could actually find what they need. With that in mind, I wondered what delivery slots might be available (given that you can book a slot up to three weeks in advance and amend your order until the night before delivery). My local Tesco has no delivery slots for the three weeks you can book. Click and collect slots are only available at the end of the three week period. A quick look for toilet roll showed only small packs of a couple of brands in stock. So much for regular deliveries and no shortages. I went in this morning and there was no toilet roll (apparently only people queuing up when the doors opened at 7.00 am got some!), and among other things, still no pasta, and even the fresh veg was looking a bit bare, with few potatoes left and no onions! Customers were limited to a maximum of three of any one thing.

There have been comparisons to being at war, so if I have to self-isolate I shall use it as an opportunity to make do and mend, and dig for victory.

Remember, coughs and sneezes spread diseases, so catch your coughs in a hanky and wash your hands. Don't Panic! Keep calm and carry on!


Earworms, a suggested playlist, in no particular order: Don't Stand So Close to me (The Police), Toxic (Britney Spears), Mad World (Gary Jules), Shake It Off (Taylor Swift), U Can't Touch This (MC Hammer), Stayin' Alive (The Bee Gees), Survivor (Destiny's Child), I Will Survive (Gloria Gaynor), It's the End of the World (as we know it) (REM), We've Gotta Get Out of this Place (The Animals),

Hang the Diet!

Saturday lunchtime, I took my bleary, scruffy Saturday self off to Milford to buy a few everyday basics (milk, coffee, bin bags …). There seemed to be a lot of traffic, so I followed it (out of curiosity)  down to the docks and found a food festival on Mackerel Quay. It turned out to be the Welsh heat of the British Street Food Awards. The place was absolutely heaving with people (and lots of dogs on leads!) but I found a (free) parking space easily enough. Having skipped breakfast (no coffee in the house!), my tummy was growling at all the delicious smells wafting around. Free entry. Oh yeah, hang the diet, let's eat!

With 15 or so stalls, including a beer tent, there was plenty to choose from. My first stop was for a vegetable Malay curry, sweet and fragrant with coconut rice. A sign for squid attracted me, but I went for their monkfish taco with a charred sweetcorn salsa and mojito dressing, which was superb. I finished my three course lunch with a very gooey brownie, which was described as chocolate and laver (the seaweed), but I couldn't detect any trace of the latter. It did contain pistachios, which I love, but I didn't like the extreme gooeyness.

I spent more time chatting than eating. There were deckchairs (including three giant ones facing the waterway, which the kids were loving to clamber onto and sit three abreast!) and benches in the centre of the stalls and it was a very relaxed atmosphere, despite the lack of sunshine. It's perfectly normal here to fall into conversation with complete strangers, and have other people join in. The general consensus was that the event should be held every year, or perhaps even have just local producers every month.

Yes, it really was that grey. I hung around for a bit, waiting for the doughnut stall to reopen. It's difficult to see on the photo, but there is a long queue. Their light, fluffy doughnuts were worth the wait, but they were having serious difficulty meeting demand.

Something I should have filmed was the rather surreal effect of disembodied masts slowly moving past the back of the stalls at the end of the quay, as yachts moved through the lock between the marina and the Haven. With the weather becoming increasingly drizzly, I decided to go, stopping to shop (coffee!) on the way home.

The Sunday was a little brighter, so I fetched a friend from Haverfordwest for a spontaneous spot of 'Sunday lunch'. I had a barley and bean 'risotto' (overpowering herbs!) while my friend had sausages in a bun (but what sausages, with onions and sauce, I was almost tempted myself!) and I treated myself to sweet chilli squid. We finished with a luscious ice cream and a cuppa back in the chaos of my place (so my friend can feel better about the state of her flat, because it's tidy compared to mine. It's all relative.) My cats proved, once again, that they are antisocial little furbags.

I could so easily have missed this event. I don't generally get the local papers, Facebook frequently doesn't bring up the local stuff I might be interested in, and I often only find out about things after the event. Overloaded with information, it's often only by looking for something specific that I catch what's on. I made a pact with myself to make an effort to get out to some more cheap or free and fun things to do. Which, I've a feeling, is something far easier said than done!

The word of the month begins with D ....

I've suddenly become totally dissatisfied and utterly fed up with my baggy body and frankly ridiculous belly. There. I've said written it. I'm not sure what happened; I still believe in body-positivity, but just feel that for me, enough is enough. Time for things to change, starting with my diet (again).

The last time I made major changes was in 2012-3, when I was awaiting an operation on my foot and the osteoarthritis in my knees was in full flare. I stopped eating meat, swapped a whole load of foods for lower fat, lower sugar versions, really concentrated on salads and seasonal, healthy eating. I did lose a little weight, despite times of frustration when I couldn't seem to shift the scales or get much done outside.

I kept a spreadsheet of the weight loss, and it shows I lost 8.3 kg in 2013. Mind you, half of that was in the last week, when I was ill. My habit of being ill before Christmas means that I start each recorded year at Yule a couple of kilos lighter than I might otherwise be, and then start the new calendar year having put a couple of kilos back on! Thus it was in January 2014, then, despite best intentions, things went sort of pear-shaped, before becoming positively more rotund with the stress of moving house in 2015. At the time I moved house, I was at my heaviest ever - all those take-outs and comfort-eating of chocolate!

I'm now 8 kilos lighter than I was 3 years ago, and 4 kilos lighter than at the start of this year. It's better than nothing, but too little, too slow! My weight bobs around like a cork. I lose 0.6, then 0.7, gain 0.9, lose 0.1. gain 0.4, lose 0.2, gain 0.6, lose 0.3 (bringing me back to where I started). Aaargh, pass me the chocolate ice-cream! Seriously though, it just means that my healthy eating is fine for maintaining my current weight, not losing it!

With a couple of friends now a shadow of their former selves and another couple singing the praises of the Keto Diet, I decided that some positive action was necessary. I remembered a conversation I had with someone years ago, about my craving for (addiction to?) carbohydrates. She suggested that my craving stemmed from an inability to process gluten properly. At the time, I didn't pay too much attention because I love bread and it doesn't cause me bloating, stomach pains, tiredness or any of the other symptoms usually quoted for gluten intolerance. Since then, I've discovered that it may be more to do with an inability to process carbohydrates effectively, so reducing my carbohydrate intake would certainly do no harm.

Rather out of character for me, I signed up for the 'Low Carb Program', endorsed by Diabetes.co.uk, mostly for the recipes and inspiration. I'm going to ease myself into this rather than charging headlong into their meal plans, as the vegetarian 40 day challenge involves eating an average of 3 eggs per day just in the first week, and shopping for over 70 items. I haven't costed it out precisely, but I'm pretty sure it would blow my budget to smithereens, not to mention the impact on the fuel bills (and time!) for all the extra cooking involved. Some things look tempting, so I'll begin to experiment and be a lot more mindful of the carbohydrate content and portion sizes.

It's good that the warmer weather is here and I can indulge in salads.

Salad Days: Watermelon and Feta Salad

During a trip to St David's while my parents were here, we had lunch at a hotel and I had a Watermelon and Feta salad. It was rather too heavy on raw red onion and rocket for my taste, and over-priced, but I was surprised how well the watermelon went with feta cheese. So here's my version:

Onto my usual base of lettuce (iceberg in this case), cucumber and tomato I've tossed some cubes of feta and watermelon (about a sixth of the melon, but I'll leave quantities up to you.)

It's that simple, and luscious.

Garden Goodies

Despite the ravaging hordes of slugs and snails (not to mention flea beetle and various caterpillars), the garden is producing food.

The few cloves of garlic I planted have made small bulbs and are ready to dig up. I became ridiculously excited over the small squashes appearing on the butternut plants and I've had to remind myself not to get my hopes up. There's a ripe chilli on one of the (bought-in) chilli plants and some tomatoes which are still green and struggling to ripen.
The courgettes are proving irresistible to the marauders, but I've managed to get a couple of small ones. There are still a few broad beans to be had, the runner and French beans have started producing succulent pods, and the peas have started to produce enough ready pods that I can pick a handful for the kitchen, probably thanks to the amount of rain we've had recently. I harvested the few carrots which escaped the gluttonous molluscs. And although one block of the sweet peas seems reluctant to flower, the 'Cupani' plants are doing okay and I've been picking some every few days to enjoy their luscious scent in the kitchen.

The bounty has given rise to my new favourite thing, a sort of pasta-with-whatever vegetables happen to be ready. This started the day I harvested the carrots. They hadn't made much growth, and there were only a handful. I also picked over the peas, beans, sweet peas and found a small yellow courgette.
I podded the broad beans, topped, tailed and sliced the runner and some of the French beans, washed and sliced the carrots and added them all to some pasta which had already had some minutes in boiling water.
In a frying pan with a little olive oil, I cooked some sliced onion and the sliced courgette, then podded the peas and added them to the pasta pan. When the pasta was done, I drained it and the veg, added the onion and courgette to the main pan and stirred in a heaped spoonful of garlic and herb soft cheese until it melted and coated the contents. So easy and delicious.

Of course it would be possible to do this with shop bought veg, and it would be great for using up other bits and pieces; half a pepper and a few mushrooms lying around in the fridge? Bung them in! Pesto instead of soft cheese? Why not?

But the flavour of the carrots was amazing, the beans so juicy, the peas so sweet, and the knowledge that I had prepared the soil and grown these from seed made the whole thing utterly satisfying. I know Monty Don waxes lyrical about this regularly on Gardener's World, but he is absolutely right. There's nothing like goodies from your own garden to make you feel that life is wonderful, even if the weather isn't.

Garden Plans - Still on the Drawing Board

I haven't drawn out neat plans for the garden yet, but had formed some definite ideas about the way the front and back gardens might look. The wisdom of living in and with your space has asserted itself recently, as my ideas have changed.

In the back garden, I had an idea for a second path curving from the left side of the patio up to the shed, which sits two-thirds of the way up the garden on the right, and branching off to (eventually) a greenhouse on the left mirroring the placement of the shed. A perspective path, it would start wider than it finished, hopefully fooling the eye into thinking the garden is longer than it actually is. However, it would have required a potager-style arrangement for the vegetable growing, and I was having difficulty envisaging how to place the fruit. Once I started sowing and planting out the vegetables, I remembered how practical it is to have fixed, rectangular beds, maximising the space to plant in blocks or rows (considering that I want lots of veg, not just the odd item here and there) and facilitating rotation and soil preparation. I couldn't make that work with a path curving through the space.

Then I became quite fascinated by the internal geometries in the garden space. The garden (excluding the patio) is approximately 9.35 x 14 metres, which is about half a standard allotment plot. The length is about 1.5 times the width, and I decided that I would divide the space into thirds; the first for the shrubs, flowers and herbs, the middle section for the veg, and the end for the shed, compost, greenhouse, and fruit (although the latter may spread slightly into the other sections). The area for the veg is going to be roughly 5.4 x 4.6 metres or approximately 24.75 square metres.  I'll need 6 beds for rotation, (1.4 x 1.7 metres to allow for narrow paths between, or perhaps 3 strips 1.4 m wide x 3.8 long, with a virtual divide halfway up each bed?)

I haven't changed my mind about having herbs close to the house, arranged in two quarter circles either side of the path. Mints, lemon balm, parsley, chives and Welsh onion on the right, where the south-side fence and the side extension cast some shade. A couple of friends have reminded me to ensure I plant the mints in a sunken pot to constrain them, but I haven't had a mint patch yet which supplies as much as I can use when I start making mint tea, tzatziki and various salads. The area is currently covered by membrane and gravel, so I hope there is soil under there, and not concrete a few inches down. On the left, in an arc around the washing line, will be the herbs which like better drainage. The heavy soil has been improved in the past as there is lots of top-dressing gravel in the soil, but it will need more grit and some horticultural sand, and probably a top-dressing of grit too.

One of the most difficult things will be choosing what to plant by way of shrubs and flowers, due to limited space. Looking at my notes, I see recurrent themes:

• sensory (primarily scent, but also colour, sound, textures, taste)
• a 'twilight/moonlight' area close to the house using white and pastel shades which reflect light and with night-scented flowers such as stocks
• richer shades between the mints and the lilac
• roses and more roses
• perhaps some dye plants?
• buddleias for the butterflies
• other food plants for insects (although when it comes to larval food plants for the butterflies and moths, it gets a bit difficult - but some sacrificial flowers such as nasturtiums might distract from the brassicas!)

Actually, that doesn't narrow things down very much, if at all! There are plants which aren't scented, which I really want to include, and excuse them on the basis of texture in terms of contrasting leaf shapes and colours, or because they attract pollinators. Things like Stachys lanata, with the silvery, furry leaves (definitely by the path in the 'moonlight' section). And although once the lime green, frothy heads are past their best and flop untidily everywhere, Alchemilla mollis (lady's mantle) is a must because of the way moisture beads and collects on the leaves - irresistible! And aquilegias, polemonium, Siberian iris, bugle, any type of poppies, cottage garden annuals such as cornflowers and nigella (love-in-a-mist). And foxgloves, Verbena bonariensis, and I might need something to continue the colour into autumn. I have lots of primulas and grape hyacinths in spring, just because they seem to like it here, but currently I have nothing for winter, scented or otherwise. I shall have to think about that. Can I make space for a small pond somewhere too?

In the front garden, I wanted to create something scented, bright and colourful which would lift the spirits of passers-by. Originally, I was inspired by Monty and Sarah Don's Jewel Garden, and envisaged bright and jewel colours (not just greening grey Britain but splashing it with multi-coloured paint!). It's quite a small space, approximately 5.3 x 4.5 metres, surrounded by a low wall on three sides and the house on the fourth side. (I've just done a double-take at those figures - it's almost the size of the veg patch!) Anyway, I thought that a rainbow mix of colour might be a bit much in the space, so decided to go with mainly shades of yellow, orange, blue, purple. Mainly, that is, because there's a crimson rose one one side of the door, which I shall pick up with a scarlet oriental poppy on the other side, and I suspect some red monarda will find its way into the planting (though I intend to keep pinks to the back garden!). A path needs to carry on across the front of the house, to the gas meter, but after that, I'll need a pathway which will give a little space and working access to the planting without being too fussy. Something based on a quarter circle, an echo of the herb arcs, considering this is almost the same size as one of the thirds of the back garden? Another thing to think about, as well as ensuring the planting has something of interest for autumn and winter.

After all the recent coverage of Chelsea and Chatsworth's show gardens, it's easy to think of gardens as things which are created, springing into being over a matter of weeks so that you can just enjoy the space and maintain it a bit, like mowing the lawn. Indeed, that's possible if you throw money and a team of landscape gardeners at the project. But, as Monty Don reminded us in this week's Gardener's World, gardening is a process. Working on my own and with next to no budget, it's going to be a long process, but between working in the garden, enjoying its produce, planning and dreaming, it will also be hugely pleasurable and fulfilling one!

Too Much and Not Enough

A drier and sunnier than average April (although only slightly warmer, and it didn't feel like it!) gave way to a drier and sunnier (and slightly warmer) than average May.  I have a 'farmer's tan' - forearms, face and V neck. I love it when my face goes freckly!

I'm still removing the blasted brambles. The patch I'd cleared about a month ago for the main lot of broad beans and peas showed a new bramble shoot the other day, so I dug it out. It was at least a foot long! I was sure I'd got all the roots out of that area, but at least it was easier to remove from the worked ground than the stuff which is coming up through grass, the shoots only noticeable when they scratch me as I walk through. I  fold and squash the bramble into and old compost bag, and then weigh it down with a brick so that the top isn't open to light and moisture. The bag is now full, because it doesn't die easily, even when it's been left to dry and wilt in the sun. Thank goodness for my big hide gauntlets!

The cats have loved the sunny, dry weather, sprawling in the grass, on bare soil, on the patio in the sun and then in the shade under the swing seat. Greebo has been poorly; he came in limping one day at the end of April, the right hind swollen and hot. He was uncomfortable rather than in pain, but I ended up taking him to the vet just in case, after he transferred the limp over the following couple of days to his left hind, then left fore, then left hind, then right hind, then left hind again. He had anti-inflammatories, and I discouraged him from jumping anywhere for a week, but he seemed happy enough limping around the place. No sooner had the limp disappeared, than he came in one morning, threw up and a couple of hours later, was miserable with abdominal pain, lethargic and growly (always a bad sign when he growls at me and won't eat!). A dash to the vets the same afternoon saw him pumped full of painkillers, anti-emetic and broad-spectrum antibiotic, in the hope we were dealing with enteritis and not something potentially nastier. A follow-up appointment the next morning saw him still a bit lethargic, but eating, drinking and purring again, so he had a week's antibiotics. He was very good about the tiny, 'palatable' tablets, daintily taking them from my fingers as if they were sweets. One morning, I was a bit slow about getting the tablet out of the blister pack and he miaowed impatiently at me. He seems fine now, although I think his old injury of his left hind when he was young (a subluxed hip and/or knee) has led to osteoarthritis, as he now sits and lies unevenly, favouring that leg.

I meant to record butterflies, but forgot, and just enjoyed seeing the first, fresh large whites, female orange tips and once, a small copper, gleaming in the sunlight. This was sometime in mid-May, I think. Since then, they have been conspicuously absent. I have also not done any moth recording. A poplar hawkmoth came into the bedroom one night, and the cats went mad trying to catch it before I managed to get it back out of the window.

The Bunyard's Exhibition and Express broad beans are flowering and are being visited by at least 2 different species of bumble bees, neither of which are Early Bees. There are plenty of those too, working over the various flowers including the thug campanula. They're not nesting in the compost heaps this year, but presumably there's another nest around somewhere.

I wrestled my bird feeder stand out of the shed several weeks ago and set it up near the pile of hedge prunings, more in order to provide a dish of water for the birds in the dry weather than to feed them (although the feed dish has been a handy receptacle for soil pests, heh heh! There you go birdies, grub up!) I put out my last net of peanuts and fat balls, more to support the nesting parents. The blackbirds didn't nest in my hedge, nor in next door's shrubbery. Mr Blackbird seemed to disappear off to a tree somewhere in the vicinity of the garages at the north end of the terrace. Mrs Blackbird was very much more elusive. Wherever the blackbirds were nesting, they came back into the garden to feed and preen, shouting at the cats if they were around. Still, Mr Blackbird is now using the hedge and the lilac as a home base to feed 2 chicks, and presumably Mrs has a chick to feed too, somewhere. The net of food didn't last long; a few of the rooks found it and one tried very hard to unhook it, pulling it up and then standing on the end to pull some more with his beak, turning and yanking it to try to get it off, but I'd made sure it would be hard to remove. The jackdaws in my chimney have fledged in the past week too. The house sparrows beat everyone to it; their first chicks must be at least a month old now. The alpha male was strutting around importantly for about a week, while guiding the chicks around. I was quite worried for him, as he was so pumped up that he almost had no fear of me or the cats, and sat cheeping with his wings spread and tail cocked, at arms length from me as I worked in the garden.  I've seen him taking bits to the nest in the corner of my roof today, so I take it there are more chicks on the way.

The buddleias from under the washing line survived their move, as did one which had grown down into the gravel bed and then fallen over, breaking its root. One of the fuchsias has still got its leaves and is putting on new growth and I thought the others had had it, but another two have sprouted strongly from the base. I'm still trying to get the washing line to stand upright. despite wedging the spike in with bits of rubble, it somehow works loose and the line itself ends up listing. It's driving me mad. No wonder people set the spikes in concrete, I might have to do the same!

The compost (presumably my own rather than the shop-bought) has volunteered some tomato seedlings and they have been growing away strongly. I've no idea what they will be, bush or indeterminate, cherry or beefsteak, but they look happy and healthy plants so apparently they're happy outdoors. There is a tray of tomato seedlings in the growhouse, but none of the various pepper seeds have germinated. I didn't really expect the older seed to germinate, but the new little tester packs of mixed sweet peppers and a couple of different chillies should have been okay. Maybe the temperature in the growhouse is a bit too variable. Too late to resow now, as peppers really need a long growing season; I might have to buy in a couple of plants. The germination rate on the runner beans was low too, but that's okay, the germination rate on the French beans (bush and a few climbing from older seed) was great. The maincrop peas also completely failed. The seed was Hurst Greenshaft from 2 years ago, and it should still have been viable, but it just rotted, so I had to buy some more seed, (Ambassador and Vivado, since the local garden centre had sold out of Hurst) and the second sowing is just sprouting now. The earlier peas have some flowers on. The courgettes, bush and climbing beans and sweetcorn are all hardened off and waiting for me to clear some more ground, the brassicas ready to grow on, and there's the problem. The monster freestanding compost heap is at least a metre high, everything is growing like mad and the longer it takes me to dig the over the space, the more compostable material there is. Soon there will be nowhere to put it. Until, of course, it has rotted down to a beautiful rich loamy soil, and then there won't be enough of it!

As is traditional for the late May bank holiday, it poured with rain. A couple of days later, there was more rain, and spectacular thunderstorms. I lay in bed, cats snuggled against me, watching the light show outside while watching the lightning strikes appearing real time on a map (courtesy of LightningMaps.org). Since then I've only managed another couple of gardening sessions (although one was really just trying to get more bramble out rather than clearing space), it's been too wet to work. Then, last Monday's torrential rain (two inches in 24 hours!) gave way to a yellow warning of high winds on Tuesday (5-6 June), since when it's back to a spot of unsettled weather. The occasional fine half-day isn't enough to dry the soil enough to be able to work it. We needed the rain, but it's a bit all-or-nothing!

Compared to what I was used to, this space feels really small, so I shall need to get smarter about interplanting and catch-cropping. However small it feels, it's taking me forever to clear and prepare the soil. I think I've managed to clear a third of the veg area so far (because I'm also attacking the area for the flowers and herbs, which is roughly the same size, plus a 2 metre wide strip which is currently a gravel bed)

A good digging session will see about a square metre cleared; the turf taken off the top, deeper weeds dug out, hard pan broken up a bit and the various stones and bits of glass, plastic and other rubbish (most recently, the remains of a shoe!) taken out. On average, I think I manage about half a square metre at a time. But I shall clear the area, half a square metre at a time if needs be! Hopefully, it will stop raining for long enough for the soil to dry a bit and allow some more digging time!

Too much and not enough seems to be a theme at the moment. Not enough rain, then downpours. An area to clear which seems enormous, until the plants go in and eat up the space. Too much compostable material, taking a long time to create compost which will disappear across the space in no time at all. Even the cut-and-come-again salad crop doesn't come again fast enough, but I have really enjoyed being able to add my own crops, including some herbs and radishes, to my salad bowl, and love adding a mixed handful of home-grown chard, spinach and rocket to wilt down with pasta.

First garden salad of 2017, 25 May

Not Meant To Be

I'm something of a believer in whether things are meant to be, or not. Whether you attribute it to the mysterious movings of the universe, serendipity, coincidence, fate, karma, predestiny, messages from God or the angels, there are times when you get the feeling that things are conspiring against a course of action. Then you have a choice; fight on and try to make it happen, or accept that some things are not meant to be. Of course, you may not believe in this and consider it a defeatist attitude, that you can make anything happen and do anything if you want it badly enough. I agree that some things are worth giving your all, but some are not. Pick your battles!

Last week I planned to treat myself to a somatics workshop. It's so long since I went up to Penpynfarch and I live even further away now, but the application of what I've learned in previous workshops has shown some subtle but positive results, both in dance and in managing the osteoarthritis.

Knowing I would hit the local rush hour, I gave myself an extra half an hour on the journey time suggested by the AA. The weather forecast was not good; Barney, the second of the Met Office/Met Eireann named storms was due. It would make for a horrible journey home, with a yellow warning for high winds starting from mid afternoon, but I reckoned if I stuck to main roads once out of Llandysul, it would be okay.

I set off on time and had only gone a couple of miles when I joined a queue of traffic into Haverfordwest. It took me all of my spare half hour to get past the town (normally a ten minute drive!), with red lights all the way. It was pouring with rain, blustery wind dumping bucketfuls onto the windscreens and roads. Drivers sensibly slowed down, but I got to a point on a road without a good place to overtake where I was behind a laden cattle truck grinding away at 20 miles an hour.  Each time we came to a junction, I was muttering 'please turn off', but no, it looked like it was going my way. I could see a tailback in my rear view mirror, and I bet those drivers were muttering something too.

By the time I had been driving for over an hour and a half, I had made 25 miles - half way - and had a splitting headache. I stopped at a garage for a toilet break and a drink of water. If I carried on in this worsening weather, I would get there in time for lunch, but feel compelled to set off early to avoid the worst of the weather. And I would hardly be able to move after driving for so long. Feeling like a complete and utter wimp, I decided to turn around and go back. Back up over the Preselis, through a pea-soup of low cloud and lashing rain. The cattle grid at Bwlch Gwynt was underwater, and the rain ran in rivulets down the roads to pool in the dips.

It took me nearly an hour and a half to get back home, too; a round trip of 50 plus miles in 3 hours. Knees stiff from driving, I dragged myself upstairs to email an apology, then into the kitchen to make a vegetable and bean stew, one of my ideal winter comfort foods.

I was waiting for a call to let me know the results of a job interview the previous day, but didn't get the call until a week later. It was a 'no', but at least they called with feedback, reinforcing my feeling that they would have been a good company to work for. Another thing that wasn't meant to be.

As I was writing this, I checked my email for a reply to another application, which seemed to be taking a long time. Sure enough, I had an email at last ... and it was a 'no'. It left me wondering what it takes, since I was sure I'd effectively ticked every skill and attribute in the job and personnel description. I can only hope that the two friends I know who were after the same job at least get an interview.

I've been pouring energy into trying to find employment, searching job sites, updating CVs, sending applications, reading around companies and skills in preparation for interviews which hardly ever happen. At a time when class numbers and commitment are low, and nobody seems to have money for anything which they consider non-essential (including proofreading!) I had hoped that employment would give me some money and security. Perhaps that's not meant to be.

Time to look again at my Plan B, and see what it would take to make it (or something like it) work. It will probably be a case of fighting to make it happen, but I would like to think that this time next year, things will be different.

House Stuff

I'm still awaiting the conveyancing/searches pack (because the solicitor still hasn't received the results of the local searches). I have been to measure up and need to decide what furniture to take and where it will go. There were no nasty surprises in the survey although there are plenty of issues consistent with an older property (in fact, it's a 1950s 'Wimpey No Fines' concrete house). In the meantime, I've started packing because we have the luxury of no chain, and oh dear, I have so much stuff! My ex and I never did sort through and separate everything, so there are boxes in store to go through. They have been stored on palettes in the back of the silage shed, currently not very accessible, as it is used to store some of a neighbouring farmer's off-season equipment. I'm going to have to move the sheep shower to get to some things. Although the furniture and boxes have been kept relatively dry and at least partly covered, the store area is under the owl box, so is covered in droppings, cat spray, mouse wee, cobwebs, and specks of dirt, rust and dust. All I can say is, it's a good job I'm not afraid of spiders, because there have been some spectacular specimens which I've been too busy to photograph or look up. Although I'm not usually one for antibacterial products, I'm washing stuff from store in antibacterial washing up liquid; in some cases, twice.

I started sorting at Easter. I was on chicken duty while my ex (S) and his partner (H) were in France at her gite, doing some maintenance work and getting it ready for the summer season. Their chooks are so friendly that they're a bit of nuisance, but lovely nonetheless.  I can't leave the cottage doors open because they'll be inside in a flash, exploring and scratching in the cat litter. S left the door to the main house open while he was out the other day and came back to find an egg laid on his computer! My reward was a chocolate hen from the local (to the gite!) artisan chocolatier and patissier. It was so cute that, unusually for chocoholic me, I just looked at it for a day before opening it. One half white chocolate, the other half dark, tied together with ribbon and, as is traditional in France, containing a small praline-filled egg and fritures de Pâques, which are little fish and other seafood shapes in solid chocolate.

S&H are going back in July, by which time, all being well, I will have moved and will not be available for chicken duty. H remarked that for the first time since she's owned it, there are not yet enough weeks booked this year to cover costs. It's probably a sad sign of the times. So here's a shameless plug for her gite at St Julien des Landes which is marketed and bookable through Brittany Ferries. It sleeps 6, utilities are included and it's well-equipped in terms of kitchen, furnishings and so on. The Brittany Ferries price includes the ferry crossings for up to 5 people in a car, making it ideal as a family holiday. It's in the Vendée, which is a gorgeous area. I had a lovely holiday there in my 20s, touring camp sites. Fresh charentais melons and croissants for breakfast. Go on, you know you want to.

Suddenly, there is more movement on the housing market.  Having made my decision, I still have a little niggle of doubt, but I still the like the house I've gone for more than any of the other properties I've seen. I should stop looking, in case I see something which upsets me. I'm still getting emails from Rightmove and On the Market, and tend to have a quick look because I'm now starting to think about interior and garden designs, though I seldom see anything to excite me. I've gone for so long without thinking about that sort of thing, that I don't know what I want any more. My search criteria don't successfully screen out all of the holiday chalets (there are a lot for sale down here - it comes with the territory!). Normally I would delete these straight away, but one caught my attention for its interior design and I have pinned some of the photos for future reference on my SpaceTime Pinterest board. Were I looking for a chalet, I would be so tempted, but this is a first class example of how good presentation can sell something; the chalet isn't for sale with the furnishings included! Your home is what you make it.

Well, I ought to stop writing and go back to the washing, cleaning, sorting and repacking, especially as now I'm beginning not to be able to move for empty boxes. It's quite interesting, as the decisions on what to store were somewhat random. I was sympathising with a friend recently who has the same sort of issues with her partner's view that his stuff is essential and her stuff is clutter. I'm finding things I used to love, but had forgotten about. A couple of copper pans from Villedieu les Poêles are in a terrible state; I've no idea what's happened as the tinning seems to have been scratched off. They should be polishable as ornaments but probably would need to be retinned for cooking. A set of baking pans are all rusty and will need to go, but I've found my favourite salad bowl and instead of repacking it, have started using it for salads again! I'm just hoping I won't find something emotionally precious which has been ruined.

Tarted-Up Pasta alla Puttanesca

When I'm hungry and have little in the fridge, my current, favourite store-cupboard standby is pasta alla puttanesca (from the Italian puttana: whore, tart, slut, and by derivation puttanata: something or someone worthless, rubbish.)  Salty, hot and piquant, I find it satisfying and good at any time of year.

There are all sorts of stories about how this originated with, ahem, 'ladies of the night', such as the implication that they've been spending too much time with their feet up to go out to buy fresh food, or even more scandalously, that it cooks in the time it takes to serve a client! (It's very quick to make - basically the time it takes the water for pasta to come to the boil and then cook the pasta!)  However, there seems little real evidence for these sources. Wikipedia cites a story about it being whipped up by a restaurant out of store cupboard ingredients which seems far more likely..

As you might expect from the title, it's not a refined dish, although I have seen some recipes where the instructions are to chop everything finely, and use fresh tomatoes. Like all classics, there are variations and why not? I like mine a little rough and chunky. I think the classic way might be to serve it with spaghetti, but in the spirit of things, I tend to use whatever I have in the cupboard, and prefer penne or conchiglie, so that the sauce sits in the pasta to make luscious mouthfuls.

Mine is further 'tarted-up' because I use slightly caramelised onion in the base, and then dump a can of tuna into the sauce towards the end of the cooking time.  If I happen to have half a sweet pepper in the fridge needing to be used up, I chop that and pop it in too. My recipe makes easily enough for two; it freezes (although you might want to take out a freezer portion before putting the tuna in, if you use it, as the tuna can break up into nothing when you reheat it from frozen). Alternatively, it's very good the next day, too. It does mean that your store-cupboard needs to contain garlic, anchovies, capers, olives, chili flakes, canned tomatoes and dried pasta, at least (if not the tuna and an onion).  If yours doesn't, then get some in, and you will always have the makings of something fast and delicious.

Ready? Here we go ...
Whip out two pans, one for sauce, one for pasta, chopping board, favourite knife, wooden spoon, can opener and your ...

Ingredients:
A smallish onion, a couple of cloves of garlic, three or four anchovy fillets, olive oil, a teaspoon or two of capers (drained), a dozen or so pitted black olives, chili flakes, a can of chopped tomatoes, a can of tuna, salt and black pepper, pasta of choice.

Method:
Fill the pan for the pasta with cold water, add some salt and put it on the heat to come to the boil
Measure out some pasta and note how long it needs to cook.

Skin and chop the onion and either use a little oil from the anchovies or a bit of olive oil to start it cooking.
If you have a bit of pepper to use up, now's the time to chop it up!
Peel the garlic and crush or chop
Roughly chop the anchovies and pitted black olives and add these with the pepper (if using) and garlic to the pan.  Sprinkle in a few chilli flakes to taste and give it all a stir.
Open your tuna and leave it to drain.
Drain some capers, chop if they're not already tiny and add them to the pan.
Open the can of chopped tomatoes and pour them into the pan.  Note how pretty the bright pinky-red of the tomatoes looks when studded with black olives and green capers.

Your pasta water is probably now boiling, so pour in the pasta shapes and get it back to the boil.  Note the time and work out when the pasta should be pretty much done.
Give the sauce a stir and lower the heat to a simmer. Go do something else until a couple of minutes before the pasta is due to be done.
After 8-10 minutes, the sauce will have changed to a darker red.  Taste and season with black pepper, but it's very unlikely you'll need any salt due to the anchovies and olives. Now's the time to take out a portion for the freezer if you want to. Otherwise, pop the tuna into the pan and break it up a little to heat through.
Test the pasta  - it's probably done by now. Drain it well, then pop it into the sauce.
Take a bowlful, perhaps shred a little fresh basil over the top if you happen to have some growing on the window ledge. If you want to make more of an occasion, serve with a green side salad and a glass of red wine.

Enjoy (with your feet up!).

What a Week!

It's been a roller-coaster of a week, or more accurately, a week and a bit.

A week last Thursday, I had my second interview for the technical writer job which I have been pursuing for the past few months.  I thought it went reasonably well and had very high hopes. I zipped off afterwards and picked up my prescription, and a couple of balls of navy yarn with a metallic thread in it, having decided to start on some fingerless gloves which have been at the top of the project list. (No, the interminable Autumn Leaves thing is not yet completed. I'm gradually sewing the leaf motifs together.  It's a learning experience - do not do this sort of thing in this way ever again!)  I also have a throw or blanket in mind of blue and green waves, so the yarn would work in that, too.

I'd had to reschedule the interview from its original slot on Friday, because I was helping out at my friend Rose's classes' Christmas belly dance gathering. It's a chance to showcase what they've been working on, and as different classes go out to change, I run belly dance games for those left 'waiting'.  It's all pretty light-hearted, like musical statues, where you try not to move and to pose nicely when the music goes off.  The dancers also bring food to share (including the stuffed vine leaves and baklava, thanks, they were lovely!), and it's a warm, friendly, festive atmosphere.  Then Rose and I went back to her place to leave my car, repack hers and head off to my parents, who were kindly putting us up for our annual trip to the JWAAD Fantasia weekend of belly dance workshops and show.

We set off at our normal time on the Saturday morning, which would normally have seen us getting into Chiswick in plenty of time to park, register and get to our first workshop, but it turned out that the last three junctions of the M4 were closed and we joined increasingly heavy traffic to crawl along into West London, arriving over an hour later than we had planned and missing our first workshops.  Fortunately the rest of the weekend went to plan, and we came away inspired and enthused, ready to upload what we've learned into our teaching for next year, chatting almost the whole way about various plans to increase interest in belly dance in West Wales.

Another friend has been in hospital for a few weeks, so I went to see her on Monday, hoping to cheer her up. It was rather a tearful visit as she was feeling depressed and I could understand why.  Her condition leaves her feeling like her life has been completely derailed into something closer to torture, and she cannot see herself coming back to sufficient health to dance again.  I think she was doing rather better than I would under the same circumstances. I grabbed a hasty sandwich at a garage on my way home, because I hadn't really eaten that day.

Early the next morning, I awoke with terrible stomach cramps and an urgent need for the loo.  A couple of hours later, I knew I was going nowhere, so rang the garage to rearrange my car's service appointment and retired to bed, feeling extremely poorly, weak and useless.  Just to add to the misery, the power was off all morning, so I couldn't even listen to the radio. I was still dodgy the next day, when I should have been going to the last somatic movement workshop of the year. I couldn't even rouse myself to send an apologies message before the workshop started.

I was feeling a bit better on Thursday morning as I took the car in for a service.  I knew I wouldn't want to go into town while they worked, so I took my knitting bag and lurked in their warm and comfy waiting room, happily knitting away and periodically discussing the work needed on my poor car. I made a start on the fingerless gloves (the pattern is Evenstar Gloves by audreym on Ravelry).  I found myself wondering if I had every actually made anything on double pointed needles (dpns) or whether I had just read the technique somewhere.  I decided that because I didn't have any dpns until a successful raid on a charity shop in the past year or two, then I hadn't, so this was a first.  I found it quite challenging, wrestling with a set of four dpns and a cable needle, so the tension was a bit tighter than usual, but a glove started to grow and I was almost at the palm by the time they came to tell me the damage.  New back tyres and brake pads, new timing belt, removal of old rusty sump guard (but not replacement), major service with all the bits that entails, not to mention labour. Over £600. Ouch. I went off for a quick raid on a heaving supermarket and went home.

On Friday, I woke up with a tell-tale sore throat.  A volley of sneezes scared the cats and shook the rafters. Oh no, the start of cold! Surely not! I did a few chores, had another sneezing fit and was just dosing myself with vitamin C when I got a phone call. I didn't get the job.  It had been very close and they had deliberated for a long time, but had chosen the other candidate. They are planning to expand and there might still be a place for me in the future, as I had been a high calibre candidate.  Oh, rats! Back to the drawing board.  I still live in hope that an opening might appear again soon, but that job seemed ideal and I am so disappointed!

After discussions with my friend who was having a little get-together in the evening, it was decided that it was probably better I don't come and infect people just in time for Christmas.  I also missed another friend's solstice gathering on the Saturday night.  Why do I always get a cold at this time of year?

Furthermore it means I can't go back to visit my friend in hospital, who has just heard they are sending her home for Christmas anyway. The weather is vile, with gale force winds, heavy rain and hail.  Nothing for it but to sit with a shawl and a cuppa in front of the TV and knit.  I've just started the second glove.

Salad Days - Rainbow

What, no meat?  It can't be good for you!

Okay, not really a rainbow, exactly, but I'm playing with food colours again, and why not? It takes so little to create a tempting plateful and for most colours, you're spoilt for choice. There's not much to choose from at the blue-violet end of the spectrum - perhaps in summer some viola flowers and Edzell Blue potatoes, if you can get the colour of the skins to stay on, and you can now get purple carrots too.  I didn't have any of that, so just went for beetroot. It takes so little to create a tempting plateful!

The weather is getting colder, so while raw salads are lovely and fresh, I'm starting to crave something warmer and more substantial. There will be another gap in the sequence while I look for more salad inspiration ....

Salad Days - Salade Niçoise

In recent years, the mention of this salad reminds me of the sequence in Ridley Scott's film 'A Good Year', when Russell Crowe is serving an American couple in a French restaurant. 

"I would like a salad Neeswahzay with ranch dressing on ... I'm still on my diet, so I would like low-cal ranch dressing with no oil and could you sprinkle some bacon bits on top?"

It's probably very naughty of me, but the resulting head-on culture clash (let alone the irony of low cal dressing but with bacon bits!) leaves me giggling every time. I watched the film again recently and it was the inspiration for today's salad (except I forgot that I had anchovies in the cupboard, so didn't add any ... and the last one I had in France used a big, tasty beef tomato instead of cherry toms and some salad leaves instead of a wedge of iceberg lettuce). The cats happily shared the tuna!

Salad Days - Waldorf Salad

So called, because it was first presented at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. The original recipe of apple, celery and walnuts on a bed of lettuce seems to have had plenty of variants over the years.  Years ago, I ordered a sandwich with Waldorf salad and what arrived was basically coleslaw with added raisins in a runny mayonnaise.  When I complained about the lack of walnuts, I was told that they could not serve a salad with nuts in, because of the risk of allergies!  I pointed out that surely, someone ordering a Waldorf salad would expect a salad with walnuts and what they served in no way resembled what I expected of a Waldorf salad, so I refused to eat or pay for it. The server just shrugged.  It was a catering firm and this was what their supplier sent them, described as Waldorf salad, what were they supposed to do? I didn't go back to eat there again, but don't expect they acted on my suggestion to sack their supplier, employ a chef and make their own food from scratch.

So, is it still a Waldorf if it doesn't contain celery? A friend took a little diversion to see me on her way back from a week away visiting various family members, and stopped for a light supper of herb and cheese omelet and salad (and with a gift of chocolate profiteroles on a bed of chocolate mousse for pudding. Oh my!).  She doesn't like celery, so I didn't put any in. I like shredded white cabbage in mine too.  But it must have walnuts and apple!

We chatted for hours, drinking, eating and generally catching up with the latest news. It was such a pleasure to cook for her, especially since the alternative might have been for her to try to get something at a motorway services. No problem if you like burgers from a well-known chain, but if you're after real food on a Sunday evening, you're probably out of luck!

For a late night TV snack, I added celery to the left-over salad and munched away, with my cat Greebo sat purring companionably by my side. He was probably hoping for a lick of mayo or something, but there really isn't anything in a Waldorf salad to interest him. Tomorrow's salad, on the other hand ....

Salad Days - Prawn Cocktail

It's November, not the usual time of year for salads and the weather is pretty horrible. For some reason, (probably because I have been eating pumpkin soup all week!) I had a bit of a craving for a prawn cocktail salad, and they are so easy to put together (especially if you're not trying to be artistic with it).  A bed of salad, some prawns, a slick of suitable sauce (like Marie-Rose or, in my case, some light Thousand Island dressing) and you have something light and delicious.
They were so fashionable in the 1970s and '80s that all restaurants seemed to include a prawn cocktail in their starter menu, before they were considered a cliché and dropped out of fashion and off the menus.
I like the contrast of the tender prawns and the sauce on crisp lettuce leaves.  Here's my messy version, which  had a bed of little gem lettuce, cherry tomatoes and avocado and was delicious.  I could have done with some brown crusty bread to eat it with. Must remember that for next time!

The Freshest Bread ...

... is one you make yourself.  I love bread and am very grateful that I can tolerate gluten, unlike some of my friends.  I had a craving, yearning for that warm, yeasty smell again recently and making my own bread was the only solution.

When I first moved to Wales, I made bread pretty much every couple of days and worked out my own recipe of a combination of flours, oil rather than lard or butter, dried yeast and lukewarm water.  We had a Rayburn and the solid state oven baked the bread beautifully - all I had to do was adjust the length of cooking time, depending on how hot the Rayburn happened to be at the time.  I sat the dough on the plate rack above the Rayburn to prove.  More than once, I left it too long and it started to escape the pans, but in general, I thought it was pretty good.

When I moved into the cottage, I had already given up making bread regularly due to adverse comments and the lack of time while working; besides which, the old gas oven was just not up to it.  It would have been a perfect time to get a bread-maker, but I didn't have the counter or cupboard space for one.  Then the old gas cooker packed up and had to be replaced.  I've had my lovely new oven (and no-one to criticise me!) for over a year, so I thought, why not?

I've forgotten so much - one of those 'use it or lose it' things.  I've made focaccia a couple of times and forgotten to cover dough on its second rise, to keep the crust soft.  I couldn't find my previous recipe, so used a different one, with different brands of flour and yeast, and was not very impressed with the results.

On Sunday, I found that I had forgotten to buy bread and didn't have any left in the freezer. I was yearning for fresh bread, so I decided to make a white loaf, shaped like a cottage loaf as I have lost my bread pans.  I used a new recipe and found the amount of water, albeit only 68% hydration, resulted in an enormously slack dough. Not just slack - really wet and sticky, somewhere between dough and batter.  Knocking it back was a nightmare which gave me flashbacks to my earliest attempts at bread making in my teens, where I would have dough stuck up to my elbows, in my hair, on my face and on every surface, except where it was supposed to be.  Eventually I gave up trying to knock it back and just let it slump into the oiled pan I was going to use, covered it with oiled film and let it think about rising again.  It didn't do much, so perhaps I left it too long on its first rise.  Wondering what it would turn out like, I threw it in the oven and remembered this time to take five minutes off the cooking time (I burnt the last focaccia).

The resulting bread was lovely, quite dense and with a beautiful crumb.  I don't aspire to be an artisan baker, but I think I'll be doing more bread making from now on.