Annual ramblings, 2021

Still alive (at the time of writing...)

Another awful year.  We keep pretty well, though our bodies keep reminding us that we're respectively in our seventh and eighth decades.  We have each had our three doses of vaccine, but are still being very careful, and doing lateral flow tests before we have guests or go to others' homes.  We aren't doing much shopping, but rather place a weekly order and have it delivered to the kitchen door.

We've said farewell to far too many friends and neighbours this year, but this comes with age: I think I've quoted the late Isla in the past: 'It's a bugger, gettin' auld'.  The art group has not met this year.  Since I need a bit of peer pressure to produce anything, my output this year has been damn' all.  So, for those of you upon whom we inflict a homespun Christmas card, I'm afraid this year's will be a case of 'here's one we prepared earlier', using pieces that, though we haven't used them before, are not from this year's output.

The world of politics has always been a a pretty ugly place, and this year has plumbed the depths.  Of the events of 6 January, all I need say is that I'm astonished that the rabble-rouser-in-chief is still at liberty.  This side of the pond, HMG is an object lesson in incompetence, vacillation, corruption and moral bankruptcy, with quite a few other adjectives competing for the prize.  

We decided early in the year to dispense with one of the garages, and have had the inner one converted into a study for us both.  We got quotes from a couple of local builders, and selected one of them.  He asked for a 50% deposit, which we declined to pay until we had planning consent.  He evidently understood and accepted this, then the day, previouly announced, before the consent came in, contacted Martyn to say he'd given our slot to someone else, and couldn't do the job until next year.  Company name on request.  So, it was back to mybuilder.com, and we had a prompt response from a chap from Eastbourne.  He came in with an estimate half those of the local firms (cartel, anyone?), and sensible requests for stage payments.   Hemen and his Dad, chatting away discreetly in one of the Kurdish dialects, completed the job promptly and well, complying willingly with our wishes on the details, and liaising for us with the Buildings Regs man, who in the course of three visits totalling roughly three nanoseconds, approved the work, and happily relieved us of over £400.  Though not great detail merchants - we'd to do a bit of the snagging and decorating ourselves - Hemen, his dad and their sub-contractors were mostly good workers, and we're very happy with the end result.  H&H Builders.  And it's nice to know that we're still capable of hanging the odd run of wallpaper.

A side issue was where to keep the lawnmower, which had previously occupied the doorway between the two garages.  A quick measure confirmed that we could get a small shed into the space next to the raised bed opposite the back door.  Assembling it almost killed us, but it now accommodates practically all of the garden tools as well as the mower. (We have replaced the petrol job with a battery driven one which works better and takes up less room in the shed.)

Garden

Big changes out the back.  We spent what we'd had refunded by Cunard on some pretty major landscaping.  I mentioned last year that the hideous leylandii hedge had gone from the back of the garden.  In January, Ben and Duncan took out a section of fence at the top of the garden and came in with a digger.  They also sent some chaps to grind out the roots of the leylandii.  Cutting a long story short, we now have two new raised beds; one to the left of the path up to the summerhouse, and another across the back of the garden, and a continuation of the path up to the little quadrant terrace under the goat willow trees.  The chaps did a fine job, fuelled by frequent mugs of tea and a spot of home baking.  We were still pretty much in lockdown, but towards the end of the work, on one of those fine days we so often get in February, we were able to treat them to fish and chips out on the terrace.

Then, of course, came the job of planting it all up.  We moved a few roses and bought more, and have planted a camellia, a Japanese cherry, clematis and much more.  We grew some annuals from seed as usual: the old faithful rudbeckias and tagetes, of course, and also Musselburgh leeks which have cropped magnificently, cheek by jowl with flowering subjects.  The potato crop was modest this year, and although we had a fair crop of tomatoes, the plants succumbed to blight.  We learn that we are incapable of growing carrots, the crop of which amounted to precisely three runts.  French beans were also poor, but the runner beans fed us for a couple of months until the fragility of the wigwams I'd put up brought them down. 

Neighbour Lynn gave us a couple of splits of her acanthus in the spring, so that will quickly take over a lot of the new top bed.  Another neighbour, David, has given us some agapanthus seedlings, which I shall try to bring on in the sitooterie this winter, alongside some penstemon and fuchsia cuttings that we plan to give to neighbours in the spring.  As I’m sure I’ve said before, sharing is one of the joys of gardening.

Arrivals

Our first visitors this year were Celia and Andy, who came round for tea once we were allowed to entertain outdoors.  Afternoon tea out on the terrace one sunny April afternoon.  I froze.  But Martyn's scones and my sponge buns went down well enough.  Topped out with a glass of prosecco.  More recently, we've done a couple of lunches for our neighbours while their kitchen was out of action.  Annie, recently widowed, had signed the contract for the kitchen work shortly before Julian died, so perhaps the need to deal with building work provided some welcome distraction.

Departures

Scarborough 

Very few.  We've taken a few drives down to the coast on fine days, but our only stay away was a few days house-sitting in Cottingham for Annie while she and Chris went off to the Wye valley and Wales.  While there, we got to meet our friends Janet and John from Wakefield for lunch at a suitable half-way point, and had a good catch-up over lunch.  Annie's friend Linda in Beverley invited us to a splendid lunch another day.  We toured a little, visiting Scarborough, Beverley, Hornsea and Filey in unseasonably fine weather (and evidently better than Annie and Chris got further west).  I also got to meet some lovely people at Beverley Urgent Treatment Centre and Hull Royal Infirmary, having attempted to shorten my right thumb with the door of Annie's dishwasher.  Oddly enough, said thumb, now nicely healed and no longer aching much, is rather longer than its sinister counterpart: scar tissue, I guess.

We had a splendid lunch with Christine and Jon in their beautiful garden in the late summer.  I wish I had Jon's grilling skills, and Christine's flair in designing accompaniments. 

Wheels

The only other vehicle I've driven this year is the late Julian's Polo, to move it from their drive to ours while Ben and Duncan were using the drive next door for building materials.  Hardly enough to qualify for a road test report.  My Ateca has had its five-year service, which calls for a new cam belt, water pump, brake fluid and goodness knows what else, leading to a four-figure bill, and rather sweeter running.  Oh well, it's only money, and we're managing to keep the wolf from the door.  The good old Egg2, now 13 years old, drives like a new car, and has just passed, as always, its eleventh MoT.

Food and drink

Since we've been at home so much, we've been resorting to old favourites rather a lot.  A favourite decadent lunch is based on the pizza norvégienne that we used to have at the Grand Café in Limoux.  Ours, on a home-made base made in the bread machine using a handful of wholemeal flour in the mix, is rather more generously topped.  Heat the pizza stone in the oven at max temperature for a quarter of an hour at least.  Wilt and chop a good handful of spinach which, once cooled and chopped, mix with a couple of generous dollops of crème fraîche.  Anoint the base therewith, then lay on smoked salmon, big peeled shrimps and a sliced pavé or fillet of fresh salmon.  Sprinkle on preferred herbs (ideally fresh dill in season), season to taste, cover generously with grated mozzarella, and add a figure 6 of olive oil, then bake for 8 minutes.  A 300gm dough makes two pizza bases, and we tend to freeze the leftover to use later with ham, mushroom and chouriço.

Runner bean soup is not a great way to use up the surplus crop, though it's OK half and half with leek and potato, or broccoli and cauliflower. Better to leave the oversized beans to ripen for next year's seeds.  We usually make stock with the chicken carcass, then use some of the leftover meat together with mushrooms and stellette in a soup.  The recipe calls for spring onions, but chives or some sliced leek greens do the job as well.

Arts

Martyn has dismantled the huge model railway layout in the loft.  It had become a bit of a monster, and he'd got fed up of banging his head on the roof timbers.  This is part of the reason for the garage conversion, which frees his old study to become a model railway room on a manageable and less hazardous scale.  My old study, meanwhile, still houses all my art kit, but also a decent-sized bed.  We’ve neither of us done much painting this year, lacking the peer pressure of the Thursday art group.  Martyn’s brushes have been busy on the new model railway, of course, and I’ve been doing the occasional Brusho piece.  

2022

 

I can scarcely imagine a worse year than the one that’s ending.  But we cautiously hope for better, and send you our most positive thoughts for the new year.

 

Martyn and David