Gooseberries and mud pies...

Gooseberries don't really have a lot going for them if you think about it.  They are not the first fruit one would reach for to quench thirst, satisfy sweet cravings or add to a fruit salad for colour.  They are often wincingly sour to taste, except for those resplendently purple-hued ones, but even then they wouldn't top any popularity stakes for preference.  Most gardeners these days don't think to include them in a veggie/fruit plot preferring a more contemporary blueberry bush. On the recipe front once you've explored the permutations of gooseberry crumble/pie/fool-they are most likely to be left languishing in the back of the cool drawer in the fridge. But it is strange how we seem to have a few  references to gooseberries -goosegogs as they are fondly known in my northern homeland-in our English language..."Being a gooseberry" is a most odd way of explaining the deeply embarrassing predicament many of us may have found ourselves in, when a friend has bribed us to accompany them on a what could turn out to be a "date" with a suitor....yep I know you've been there sat on the back row trying to concentrate on the dreary movie, eyes averted and wishing you could make a hasty escape....."Under the gooseberry bush" is the phrase used when one finds oneself trying to avoid any "birds and the bees" talk with a young child who is curious to know about the arrival of babies....and to complicate the story the baby is brought by the stork and dropped under the said bush!

I do not have a gooseberry bush in my garden, but yes I admit to a couple of blueberry bushes, a whole forest of raspberry canes and some extremely productive strawberry plants. So I bought a punnet of gooseberries with a definite purpose in mind.  Before getting on with that purpose, my young 10 year-old daughter had a couple of friends over to play; a lovely hot afternoon playing with water and supposedly being in the care of her father-who had his head stuck under the bonnet of the car, car manual at his side.  I went out - what could go wrong?!? I had given him strict instructions that he must keep checking on the girls, in fact perhaps it would be a good idea to leave the car job and take a break. On my return I was warned not to go into the kitchen by a very, very harassed and agitated husband!  so as I walked into the back garden with extreme trepidation and foreboding  I was met with the sight of the three little girls smeared with mud, making mud pies using the soil from the mole hills in the garden-as well as flushing the mole runs with water carried from the kitchen - sorry to any animal rights readers - and in one of the many kitchen bowls taken from my cupboards was the most interesting gooseberry mud pie of all!  Now I am all for trying out new tastes and recipes - but this is one I definitely would not recommend!

However I WOULD recommend this one-an experiment that really worked well...Gooseberry and Elderflower Ice cream....500ml double cream, 4 egg yolks-Olivia is a dab hand at separating yolks and whites, 3 tbsps. of sugar, swig of elderflower cordial,  sieved puree of stewed gooseberries left from a punnet that has been plundered for mud pies...it's helpful if you have an ice-cream maker (mine is from Lakeland and their own basic model).  Whisk yolks and sugar add cream, stir in flavours, bung into ice-cream maker and let it do the rest.......the result is sublime! 

From this........

To this........Gooseberry and Elderflower Ice-cream

Murray-mania!

Just had to mark the historic day that it has been....a Brit has won Wimbledon Men's Singles Championship........go Andy Murray! 

Also to keep with a truly British theme it has been a swelteringly hot day too.......absolutely delightful!  After a charmingly interactive family service this morning with my Hopeful family, the day has been one of water fights en famille - I admit I was totally drenched much to the delight of my daughter!  Then the moment of historic proportions came and one way or another probably all the nation were tuned into the three hour-and-then-some game.....I have to admit the tension got to me ...and I could barely watch at times.  It's been a long time coming - 77 years in all, we hoped Tim Henman might secure the trophy but he never quite clinched it.  

To add a final flourish to the day, my gorgeous boy and his chum barbequed a veritable feast for us all this evening; and we watched the sun go down with them having an impromptu jamming session on the decking; playing guitar and bass and singing through a repertoire from Fleetwood Mac, to blues and onto Beatles and Oasis.....

So nothing in particular to say with this post; but this was the day and I have marked it-my way!



After the great food we were entertained with some lovely happy music...so were the neighbours as the speakers were turned quite high, thankfully the guys sounded great and it was a lovely low-key chilled end to a stunning day...

Sweet peas and strawberries

You can tell I am a Brit because this is another post with weather-related tendencies!!  but how deliciously lovely to have long summer days filled with blue skies, sunshine and real warmth - nay hotness even!  Some people were despairing we would ever enjoy the like again....

My most anticipated and molly-coddled plants are always sweetpeas....I cannot get enough of them.  They typify English gardens,  lemonade and strawberry jam-type days.. and I always try and grow them from seed myself.  I count the day I buy new seed packets for the following summer as a great day on my calendar...then take care in tending them in the greenhouse, planting them in long tube containers to ensure good strong roots.  I am very particular about the choice of flowers, no gaudy new fandangled types for me....beautiful blues and delicate pinks with strong perfume.  They are planted out when the frosts are past, and covered up if there should be the threat of one; staked early to train strong stems and fed regularly with plant food in the water.  Yes, I admit it's all a bit of a palaver, but so worth it when I pick the flowers for my house, and the scent is truly out-of-this-world.....my treat to me really.......I have some on my kitchen window-sill, the first ones picked this year, and they are worth every little bit of time spent in nurturing them.

I love my garden.  When we first arrived at Michaelmas Cottage, it was a long piece of lawn with a car track up to it....nothing else....and it has been a labour of love to plan, dig, plant, chop and change ideas to see if they worked....it's always going to be a work in progress but so are the best gardens, and people really - we are never the final, finished product....Here are some little windows into my gardening world...

An old wooden bread bin found in a vintage shop now stores bought and collected seeds.  The small seed packet being hollyhock seeds from a house in France we stayed in two years ago, and the plants from which are growing tall and strong in the back garden.

Sweetpeas and Sweet William flowers smell glorious...

Cordelia, our sweetpea fairy....named by my youngest child

Our labour of love; work in progress....

Sundowner......wouldn't swop the view for anything...

Dog rose days

Just how dog roses got their name is anyone's guess...that's probably down to the peculiarities of our dear English language....their name does not do justice to their simplicity and beauty. 

They are usually in bloom earlier in the year, but this being a year of late seasons we have the pleasure of spotting them in the hedgerows in July.  They always lift my spirits.  They remind me of childhood days; long walks in the surrounding countryside, from my parents' home. I really did wander quite afar when I think about it, and it's a sad indictment that children seldom do so now...I thought nothing of walking to another village, taking some pocket money to buy a drink and sweets from their village shop, then watching the world go by on a village seat before walking home.  My parents often had no idea where I'd decided to go - I was quite an independent child - and in my own way quite adventurous....I'd usually inform them of where my journey had taken me on my return! 

But I'm digressing....it really gladdens my heart to spot the small roses prettifying our Hampshire hedgerows, and it's heartening to see that despite modern hedge husbandry they are still prolific... 
wild and beautiful    

http://hedgerowmobile.com/dogrose.html

Whatever the weather.....

It's fair to say that we Brits have a fixation with the weather....and we are never happy with it!  It is a national sport to grumble and speculate the cause of the latest deluge...dry spell....high winds...I have a deal old friend who regularly comes to mind when I find myself sighing again, and who taught herself to be thankful for whatever the weather.....but if we all learnt that lesson - what would we find to talk about! 

My own dear mother recently made the comment during our phone conversation...."Never mind...it's the growing season...we need the rain..."  that brought me up to a start....coming from a background whose livelihood depended upon the elements it made sense...the seed sown in late winter, early spring needed water to supply their roots, and nourish the crop, or the harvest would be poor resulting in less income and less food in general for all.  But for modern, high-tech living that approach is foreign and too simplistic, in our country anyway- a sobering thought.

Today however, has been glorious!  The perfect weather for a proper village Fun Day and Fete.  The whole family enjoyed a great British tradition of wacky races, music and dance, magic acts, yummy cakes, Pimms, traction engines and other lovely things too numerous to mention.  I never take for granted where I live, in an artistic and rural community...and today reinforced that appreciation and gratitude.

Not quite pen to paper...

Not quite pen to paper....

Scary stuff this writing lark! but there's always been thoughts and compositions in my mind, and sometimes when I have been more organised I have scribbled them down, in the hope that one day I might even make them more permanent. Strange isn't it?...the urge to make words more permanent, I can't quite understand the compulsion, but it's always been there. It's not motivated by notoriety or adulation.  I think it's more the art form.  Thoughts changing into a more solid state almost, but that makes it sound more like a science than an art form. 

So maybe this blog malarkey, is more a hopeful discipline.  Because to be honest I have started experimenting with writing at various times, but it hasn't got very far.  It may be that no-one finds this blog, and that's absolutely ok, because I know it's here, and it's up to me to nurture it with words...but if anyone should stumble across it, please make yourself known.