It amused me to take a detour to walk down Memory Lane as I went to meet friends for lunch today. I spotted it on the map, running between Tuam and St Asaph Streets. The lane itself was pretty nondescript, but I found a cool little bit of street art on St Asaph. Later, when we came out of the restaurant in the Salt District, there was a depiction of Johnson’s Grocers. Both of these places: the Dog House which used to be in the Square, and Johnson’s which used to be in Colombo Street, do take me back down memory lane.
Chefs must be up against it thinking of with new words for their creations. Recently I’ve come across ‘shrub’ as a drink – and now ‘buckle’ as a cake. Anyway, I have now made both using fruit from the garden. I made two shrubs in autumn: grape and cranberry – now languishing in the fridge waiting to be used in a mocktail, perhaps. A lot of effort for little result, really. The buckle, on the other hand, is rather delicious as a dessert. It consists of a chocolate cake base, blackcurrant middle and crumble topping.
I found the recipe on the internet (thank you tinandthyme.uk) and made slight alterations: I used all the blackcurrants I picked this afternoon rather than just 250g, and added crumbled weetbix to the topping.
I used to bake my blackcurrants in a shortcake using the gooseberry shortcake recipe from the Edmonds Cookbook, but it’s nice to have a change.
It would be nice to have gooseberries. Sadly, although I have four gooseberry bushes, there was just one solitary gooseberry this year. What am I doing wrong? I thought maybe they are too shaded, but there was a very productive gooseberry bush right underneath an old pine tree in a place where I lived once. Looking on the internet, I can see that lots of people have the same problem and there are lots of suggestions – some of which I’ve tried in the past. I’ve become too afraid to prune them in case I cut off the fruiting wood.
Felix was up at the crack of noon* today, unusually. Here he was at 10am, still asleep on his rug on top of an old trunk and suitcase behind Mum’s chair – but looking warily as I took a photo..
Teddy and bunny often get pushed over the edge
Perhaps he wasn’t ready for his breakfast because he was still digesting the mouse he caught last evening. I was alerted to this when I went into my room to close the french doors and discovered a pile of books in disarray. After a long moment of ‘What the…?’ as my brain cogs engaged, I checked under the bed with a torch and found some bits and pieces, which turned out to be a little tail, two tiny paws and something else I couldn’t identify. I swept them up, along with pieces of a book which had somehow been chewed in the chase. Later, I found some clothes on the floor where they’d fallen from the bottom rung of a ladder shelf, and the shoes underneath upturned. I guess the battle was fought on several fronts. Just as well the poor wee mouse didn’t run up the Christmas tree.
A card in support of Women’s Refuge
*This expression has amused me since the 1970s when I read it in Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.
It’s a sweet morning task to pick sweet peas. I have to stand on the garden seat to reach them now, and some of the stalks are quite short. Two vases are required: one for short stalks and one for long. The fragrance is lovely.
A stalk of Christmas lilies, which a friend gave me from her garden on Monday, fills the air with festive fragrance, especially when combined with the pine scent of the Christmas tree.
Mum enjoyed decorating the tree on Sunday – supervised by Felix.
Piles are being driven into the ground three doors along from me, where there was once a modest wooden house on a modest piece of land. The vibrations have put us on edge for several days now, but this morning seems worse. Our post-traumatic earthquake stress is reactivated. The ground is shaking. Plates are clattering on the shelf. The rose bush outside my window is trembling.
Pile-driver in action
I walked down to see for myself. How does that repetitive, bone-jarring work affect the operator of the pile driver, I wondered. A passerby who lives on an adjacent street told me he can feel the vibrations as he works from home. Messages from our street’s on-line chat tells me others are disturbed by it as well, and that two-storeyed townhouses are being built on this small site. One neighbour thinks that ‘the new city council flood modelling requires deep piles for high foundations’. Hearsay is that this is the last day of the work. Here’s hoping.
I can hear the clang of the pile driver and then a delayed deep thud and vibration. It’s driving me to do distracting things such as vacuuming and mowing the lawn.
Cineraria Silverdust is a truly striking plant producing deeply divided silver, fern-like foliage. This exquisite foliage plant will provide elegant colour accent to the garden creating both form and contrast. The bright yellow daisy-like flowers produced should ideally be removed.
The feverfew (so prolific I call it ‘fever several’) is beginning to flower and with some cineraria silver dust flowers which had snapped off in the wind, I thought there was a touch of Van Gogh to this arrangement. As long as there are flowers which attract pollinators, I won’t remove them just to make a plant attractive for its elegance and form in the garden.
I love the old-fashioned pink of the Spiced Coffee rose. Today I picked the first flower to open. It has a delightfully spicy scent.
There are more flowers to come which is lovely to see as the plant has had a hard life. I moved it to comparative safety in a pot and it is good to see it, still delicate, but thriving.
On a whim, I went into Adventure Books in the old Municipal Chambers building. Inside were many tales of derring-do by daring men – and at least one woman: a ‘Lady Pioneer‘.
There seemed to be a lot of snow and ice, but there on the bottom shelf was ‘Darkest Africa’.
Artefacts were on display, such as a ship’s sextant and, in a glass case, a first-aid kit and various mementoes of Shackleton’s expeditions. Even his skis were leaning casually against a wall beside a most persuasive advertisement.
It was a brief visit to another time of Boy’s Own Adventures and of one woman who had a taste for adventure – from the comfort of a sedan chair.
Ironically (or purposely?) two books along from hers is Everest the Hard Way by Chris Bonnington. There could be a lengthy discussion about which achievements, given all the odds, were the most difficult.
My desk looks as if Santa’s elves have invaded. I’m in my happy zone recycling calendars and cards – whatever I can find – to make new cards, and humming Christmas songs as I work – or is it play? This is the fun part of the season.
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