The Polytunnel

 By dint of doing it piecemeal, the polytunnel has finally had a good clean inside and out.  It has a beautiful slivery glow about it now.  The green algae and gunk which built up over winter has finally gone.  

The outside vegetable beds have been dug over and the strawberry beds have been planted up.  Young plants are settled inside the tunnel, just waiting their turn to either be planted outside, or coddled and nurtured inside.

This is where old Sparky likes to come and drowse away part of her day, snug and warm, waiting for the unwary birds or mice to come in, looking for whatever they can scavenge.  

She is too old to do much more than watch and remember her gory glory days.  The delicious warmth of the polytunnel is the perfect place for her to warm her old bones in peace.

Having said that, she is back indoors now and is sitting at my feet, giving me a hard stare.  She who must be obeyed!  

Time to go and feed the old girl.

Silverlocks and Golden Syrup

 Thank you for all the comments about how you like your porridge.  I couldn't resist doing a couple of taste tests, but more about that later.

An early 1918 cookery magazine, Isobel's Home Cookery, wrote a feature on how to make up for the shortage of milk and other dairy products.   No problem!  The magazine had lots of helpful suggestions to make porridge more nourishing when milk was not available.

Here is just one recipe, presented in their words. 

Creamed Porridge

A nice name goes a long way, you know!

There's not a drop of cream in it, but it tastes just as smooth and rich as if there was any amount.

I take the best of the dripping from the weekly joint "render" it carefully, so that it may not have the very least flavour of the meat, and beat a little of it into the porridge just before serving.  I allow one good teaspoonful of dripping for each child.

Don't boil the porridge after the dripping is in.

Don't add salt - it is not necessary.

If you use margarine, take twice the quantity-it contains much less actual fat than dripping.

Serve the porridge very hot, or the fat will cake on top and look horrid.

Serve hot syrup with it.  Sugar is not very nice without milk-it is too gritty.

The children simply love creamed porridge, and I think, myself, that it is far and away nicer than the plain kind.

For the sake of the children, I hope syrup was cheap and plentiful.

Unfortunately, further reading shows me that syrup was often not available.    Not to worry, those resourceful cooks at Isobel's had a recipe for a substitute made with dates, glucose and water, if dates and glucose were available, of course.

As for the shortage of milk for a bedtime drink, they recommended a soup made with rice water.  Fry an onion in a little good dripping.  To each onion add a quart of rice water and flavour well with salt-no pepper if the children are to have it.

According to the article, children much prefer it it to hot milk...  

Last word on porridge.  

If only I had golden hair and were many decades younger, I could have presented this little experiment in the manner of Goldilocks and the three bears because that is what it felt like as I sampled three variations of serving porridge.

I tried it with brown sugar and evap, melted butter into another one,  and drizzled golden syrup into the third.  

I discovered that my years of eating porridge without sweetness (other than that added by the evap) made the brown sugar and golden syrup versions far too sweet for my taste.

The butter was interesting.  It definitely made the plain porridge a nicer consistency.  

Old Silverlocks here, will be sticking to plain porridge with evap, but I did enjoy the little experiments, so thank you.

The Porridge Feud

   

The Porridge Feud I refer to broke out in Norway, in1864.  

A cookery book had been published which challenged the traditional method of cooking porridge!  It was normal to add some flour to the porridge after it had been taken from the heat and was ready to eat, therefore the flour was not cooked.

The author argued that this raw flour was wasted, because it would simply pass straight through the body without providing any nutritional benefit.  He directed his criticisms at the 'foolish peasant women and farmer's wives' who cooked it this way.   

You can imagine it caused much offence to women!   Surprisingly it also stimulated a big national debate which went on for years.  The book was a success and quickly sold out no doubt due, in part, to the controversy.

Luckily, another scientist argued in defence of the women and a while later lab tests were done.  For three days a doctor and his assistant ate nothing but traditional porridge, with flour added at the end of cooking.  Tests proved not a single molecule of carbohydrate had come out the other end.

It has since been found that the raw flour could release helpful enzymes and provide a little sweetness in the absence of sugar.  So perhaps those peasants and farmers wives knew a thing or two!

At this time people were coming up with all manner of 'scientific' methods of achieving optimal nutrition.  

• One deemed that wholegrain flour was indigestible and therefore highly refined flour was much better for the body. 
• The use of dairy products was discouraged and the use of margarine encouraged
• Sugar and syrups were excellent nutrition.
• Coffee was praised as being an excellent substitute for meat.  
• Salt was to enjoyed without restraint, and the brine in which meat was pickled was called excellent nutrition...ditch the meat use the brine.
• Sugar and alcohol were necessities 
• Narcotics such as coca, hash, opium and tobacco were given the stamp of approval. 

 One doctor went so far as to say that narcotics were a necessity for millions of people as it made them strong and happy, banished the blues and gave them energy!

Remember, this was all happening about 160 years ago.

These days we are constantly being bombarded with crazy messages about food, the benefits of eating lab-grown meat, insects, and other nonsense.  I wonder how that will be looked back upon.

We do have porridge 'discussions' in Parsonage Cottage.  Nothing serious.  He likes his porridge served with chopped Granny Smith apple at the bottom of the dish, then porridge topped with grapes.

I've tried it that way.  Horrible.  Doesn't work for me.

Mine is unsweetened porridge with a dash of good old fashioned evap milk.  Any shrieks of horror?  

I eat my grapes and apple separately, later in the day.

If you eat porridge, how do you take it?

Neglected Things

Last year we had a reasonable crop of blackcurrants so I decided to have a go at making some blackcurrant vinegar.  

I made a small batch in a kilner jar - just cider vinegar, blackcurrants and some sugar.  Initially I was filled with enthusiasm and remembered to give the jar a shake each day.  After a week or two I forgot all about it. 

 

Until yesterday, when I was cleaning that part of the pantry.  Ooops!

It is a large pantry, time was when I would empty the entire thing and clean it out all in one day.  Those days have passed, I now do a shelf as and when I get the urge to do it...obviously that is not as often as I should!

I opened the lid expecting to find a mouldy mess but, no, the vinegar is wonderfully dark and delicious.  The blackcurrants should have been removed after a few weeks, but they were left in all the time.  No harm done, in fact when I tried one or two they were delicious.   

I strained the liquid and poured it into a couple of small sterilised wine bottles.   It will be used on salads and as a dipping sauce.  Best of all, unlike so many Balsamic vinegars, this didn't trigger a bad headache, and that has to be a bonus.

The signs are looking fairly good for a reasonable crop of blackcurrants this year.  Fingers crossed!

Several years ago I made some vanilla essence, just vanilla pods and vodka.  It needed plenty of time to mature but it is excellent.  Much better than the commercial ones.  

Time to get another batch of that made then I can let it sit and mature in peace.

A couple of months ago I made a sourdough starter (again) followed all the directions, nurtured it and coddled it, then forgot it.  Dead as a do-do (or should that be a dough-dough) it just fell off my radar.  

I could blame it on the fact that George suddenly developed an interest in baking bread (it soon waned) and he took over the bread-making for two or three weeks, but I won't. 

I will own the neglect.  I totally forgot it was there.  

For St George and for England

 

I have been in and out of the house today, waiting for the wind to swing around in the right direction to properly unfurl my St George's Cross.  It has played games, so has the camera.  

Just as the grandchildren were eating their tea, I stepped outside for one last go and managed to get this one.

Not brilliant, but it will do.  It is high above the arched gate, normally this picks up any breeze.

MSM would have you believe that far right hooligans were causing trouble, earlier.  No they were not.  The met police suddenly formed a barricade across part of the planned route, this is not a little trick they would do during one of the hate marches which take place each weekend.  It was calculated to stir up trouble, it was provocative.  It worked for a short time, they got the photographs the MSM wanted.

Back to my normal platform, a couple of old-style farming sayings.  According to weather lore experts these are tried and true:

'When on Saint George's rye will hide a crow, a good harvest may be expected.'

'At St George's the meadow turns to hay.'

Happy Saint George's Day!

 

A Town without Walls

 After doing the shopping I had a little time to spare so I called in at Louth library.  

The shelves of local history books are in a quiet corner, perfect.  I found a book which gives the history of virtually every street in town.  Jonny and MingMing have a house in town, not so much a house, more a rather large project.  I was hoping to be able to discover some of the history of the old building.

I couldn't find anything directly relating to their building but there was plenty about some of the people who lived in the same road, Northgate, which is only one of the names it has been known by since medieval times.  

The other names are rather more fun - in 1317 it was known as Padehole (toad-hollow).  'Northgate', was recorded first in 1450 then, for a while, it became known by the nickname Finkle Street (stinking street or fart street). 

 

There were a couple of small schools along the road, but given the Finkle Street name it probably wasn't a particularly good part of the town, nor were they especially good schools.   The Poor House and House of Correction were also sited on Northgate.  These days part of the workhouse building has been converted into flats, after having been a butcher's premises for quite some time.  You can see it in the photograph.

The modern building to the right is the library.

Records show there was a baker and flour dealer on Northgate,  Edward Fields,  this is of particular interest as some of the old deeds to J & MM's house show that the building was formerly a bakery and shop, could that be their building?  I wonder.  Unfortunately the paperwork they have doesn't go back quite far enough. 

Back to Louth, the town itself.  It is a fairly small market town, steeped in history.   The number of gates which are listed, given that it is not a walled town, is intriguing.

• Eastgate
• Westgate
• Northgate (No Southgate)
• Kidgate
• Upgate
• Ramsgate
• Gospelgate
• Cisterngate
• Ludgate
• Chequergate

These are all street names which can be seen around town.  However, there also used to be:

• Hollowgate
• Walkergate
• Enginegate
• Lowgate

According to another book this is because this part of the country was conquered by the Danes in 9th century and a strong Danish influence of the language remained long after.  The Danish word for road was 'gata', which over time became the suffix 'gate'.

My Next Project

 One of my 1930's cookery books gives a wonderful description of a typical farmhouse kitchen - huge old flagstones, white scrubbed tables and brightly shining grate, delicious pots of food simmering on the fire.

Once a week bread (plain, spiced, fruited, wholemeal) Yorkshire teacakes, pies, cheesecakes, tarts and great big fruit cakes would be baked.  All the work of one capable and efficient pair of hands, the farmer's wife.  

The author could see the flames of the fireplace travelling under the brick built bread oven and enquired about how she managed to maintain the heat, did she use coal?  

No, she used only wood, didn't trust coal at all.  She knew wood, and could manage the heat very well with it.  

The table was laden with delicious-looking bread and pies.   When asked whether she used scales to weigh out her ingredients, she said she just knew how much flour, butter, lard, milk, water and eggs were required.

As you can see, I use my trusty scales, but then I am not a real cook.  I don't enjoy cooking, but I do enjoy baking bread.

Further on in the book there is a paragraph of the practicalities of using a brick oven, the work involved in firing up and cleaning one and that is before the baking can begin.  However, despite all these drawbacks, the writer says that no bread, spice loaves, or fruit cakes ever taste as wonderful as those baked in a brick oven...

I have asked that George build me an outdoor bread oven.  He can call it my birthday present.  

We have plenty of old bricks around the place and Owl Wood is the perfect place for me to get the wood to make into faggots for burning under the oven.  I know he will enjoy the build, in fact he is busy doing the research right now.

I will enjoy the bread-baking experiments.  No doubt there will be many failures.  I will post them on here.

Not sure how long this build will take but it has certainly got him fired-up (if you will forgive the pun) and energised.  Now that he no longer works it is all too easy for him to fall into the doldrums.  This should keep him happily occupied for a week or three.

Letterboxes

My mother and her relatives were prolific letter-writers.  So was my father, although his letters were either to my mother, when he was working away, or correspondence with fellow naval historians as he did his many decades of research.

I still have bundles of their old letters and postcards.  Every now and again I open the box and have a little read, enjoying the sight of their familiar handwriting.  

Almost every day the postman would push a pile of letters dropped through their letterbox, not the boring circulars which I receive, but personal letters.  I began thinking about postboxes around here and what a challenge it must be for temporary postmen when our lovely regular one has a holiday.   

 Here is a small selection of post and parcel boxes found on a rural postal round in Lincolnshire.  

The boxes range from cute to strictly utilitarian.

Some are positioned on fences, to save the postman a long drive down to the house,

while others are stuck on outbuilding walls.

Royal Mail postbox, built into a tiny section of wall which was specially constructed to house it.

A black painted mail box, barely visible through the ivy and attached to a tree trunk.  

The post is collected once a day, six days a week, from the red Royal Mail post boxes,  though that may soon change.

I got carried away talking to this interested spectator and forgot what I meant to photograph, the letter box is the red painted item, lower left, it is a nice chunky box which could also hold parcels.

This beautiful house was formerly a railway station.  Built into the actual wall of the house, between two windows, is a bright red post Royal Mail postbox where mail can be posted, while mail deliveries are through a typical letterbox in the front door.

An elderly woman lives there, I didn't take a photograph of the front of the house with the box as I didn't want to worry her.  That box also gets emptied once a day, though I doubt there is anything in it most times as there are only nine houses in this hamlet and two of those are holiday lets.

Not all country letterboxes are so cute, this one is the black slit you can see in the wall.  Definitely not parcel-friendly.

My post today: two circulars.  One personal email and a whats app msg.

One of my Walks

 One of my favourite walks.  If you click the link it will take you to a You tube video which I have just found.  

The three-and-a-half minute video belongs to someone else, but it is a good illustration of one of my favourite walks.  The terrain and the peace.  

Parsonage Cottage can't be seen because it is almost totally hidden by Owl Wood, but you do pass through 'our' barley field at one stage.

Not shown is the watermill, although the route takes you past it.  Along the lane and on through the fields.

Onward, past the dovecote (not shown) then up the small hill to the church where we have our Christmas Carol evenings.

Follow the very quiet lane, then we hit the tracks and the fields as we head out to Swaby.    Cut back through a long and narrow valley (formed during the last Ice Age) and back along the farm tracks, through some protected meadow and out to another church, the one which hosted the Angel exhibition.

More tracks and fields and the circular walk is complete.  About 5.5 miles of wonderful Lincolnshire countryside.

Hardly a soul to be seen, just the occasional car or tractor.

By the time I reach home I am more than happy to indulge in some bread and cheese.

A Parish Council Meeting

      Agenda:

• Need for more adequate police protection.
• More regular dustbin emptying required.
• Road crossing problems near school.
• Need for more trees to be planted.

Nothing special about these topics for discussion, except that the meeting in question took place in November 1952.

Once again proving the old saying 'the more things change, the more they stay the same'.

Yesterday, and the day before, I spent some time on my hands and knees clearing out some bookshelves.  Of course this process always takes much longer than it should simply because I can't resist having a quick read here and there!   

Taken in small doses, they make fascinating reading.

Meanwhile, in Owl Wood, the crab apple tree is coming into blossom.  The dark withered bits are the remains of crab apples from last year.

The apple trees are all coming into blossom.  There is one apple tree which I am really pleased about.  It is in Owl Wood, we didn't even spot it until a few years ago.  It had sprouted up among some of the towering ash and field maples, so it is exceptionally long and skinny as it has had to fight hard to reach the light.  Now that the roadside trees have been pollarded, the apple tree is finally getting a full quota of nourishing light.  It has blossom and (silly as this sounds) it looks much happier!

The pear tree, plum trees and cherry trees are all in blossom.  So far they have survived the strong winds, please don't let us have any frost.  No blossom yet on the quince trees.

Last weekend, I went to shop in beautiful Louth.  This is a very unlovely photograph of the Co-op car park, looking towards the church.

As I was dropping some shopping off at the car, I could hear a busker singing 'Scarborough Fair".  This particular busker has a regular pitch on Saturdays, but her beautiful voice doesn't often carry as far as the car park.  I debated whether to walk back into the shopping area to listen and drop her a few coins but, in the end, I decided to carry on and get the cat food from the supermarket instead.

As I came out of the shop, the sun broke through,  and the church bells began ringing.  

I was already happy but the combination of sunshine and church bells elevated my mood even further.  

A hotch-potch of Lincolnshire life.

x

Hear Ye, Hear Ye!

These days we are fed information daily, hourly, minute-by-minute, according to your settings and self control.  News can flash around the world almost before it has happened.   X, Fb, TikTok, YouTube, Rumble, Quora, Snapchat, Instagram, Telegram and WhatsApp can broadcast events with frightening speed and coverage.

Before all this modern hocus pocus, other methods were used to inform a community of forthcoming events.  You could engage the village bellman - the rural equivalent of a town crier, for a small fee.

Say you wanted to announce a whist drive, jumble sale, summer fair, or even a pig sale.  Well, for just a couple of shillings a village bellman would go to certain stations/places around the village where he would ring his bell and call out the announcement for you.

In a medium-sized village there could be anything up to twenty of these 'stations'.   A message may have had up to a hundred words, so it could take quite a while to complete the circuit.   Back in 1963, a Lincolnshire bellman charged 2/6  (12.5p), which wasn't a great deal, even in those days.

The bellman I have been reading about was also worked as a road sweeper.  He thoroughly enjoyed both jobs and only retired due to advancing years and ill health.  While he happily handed back his shovel and broom, he was rather more anxious to hang on to the top hat he wore when making the announcements.

The bellman tried hard to find someone to take his place but no one was interested.  

He put it down to the fact that young people could make more in an hour than he could in a week as a bellman.

Everywhere is coming to life in Owl Wood, so we have been working hard to complete our work.  I reckon we need to do another couple of days work out there, then all will be as it should be and the cow parsley and wild flowers will take over.  

Some of the tracks have had fresh chippings applied, a few are still waiting.

Some are grassy, so they will be left to do their own thing.