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| First snowdrop 20 November 2024 |
The pre ferment which is left to rest overnight in the fridge helps to give a great depth of flavour to these delicious Rosemary Raisin and Sea Salt Rolls. These are one from November 2024 Jack's Home Baker's Club. For me the shaping technique was a new one, which I almost got right after watching Jack's demonstration.
We had them for supper last night with some cheese, after a hotpot/soup made up from the left overs from The Sausage and Lentil with Apple and Sage Recipe on page 139 of my new copy of How to Eat 30 Plants a Week by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.
I just happened to have bought some sausages from our market butcher, and didn't want to go out to the shops again. Hugh's swaps and additions suggestions were useful , as swede was used in place of celeriac and frozen spinach balls in place of Kale or cavolo nero. For the soup dish, I just added some water and cut the left up veg and sausages into smaller pieces.
I was delighted to read Cathy's post this week celebrating the 11th Anniversary of In a Vase on Monday and she has certainly earned my congratulations on this day. I'm not quite sure when I first joined in, it was perhaps June 2015.
I haven't been on top form regarding standards of vases for these weekly gathering recently, and neither have I been a constant contributor. At the 11th hour I have decided in recognition of both Cathy and all the other people who have joined in over the years to mark this occasion. It is not with a fancy vase or a boastful range of blooms, but with just what happens to be on the mantle shelf today. Even when I don't post I will have plant material such as this adding something to rooms, which I feel don't match up to what might be expected.
Form and shape were very much in my mind when I arranged these few stems of Pittosporum Tom Thumb, picked from the garden simply to reshape the shrub. The new growth is green and the older leaf purple. As both Mr S and I react to pollen, we often have just some leaves in a vase. The feeling is very much in the vein of a house plant I suppose, and here the vase is joined by some beautifully coloured leaves of a Cercis tree which I picked up in a friend's garden. The Vase itself is a Caithness one which I found when browsing one holiday.
Over the last few weeks I began to realise that the world is getting too full of various viewpoints and opinions, seems to be unnecessarily fast and too complex, everyone seems to want to hear and give and share and discuss and influence, inform, cajole and judge. I feel more calm and am embracing simplicity, and maybe this vase reflects this.
The weeks wiz by , and now we arrived at mid November leaves me baffled. Jim is our leader for sharing of six things in our gardens. The guidelines for joining in and the place to anchor your post is on his blog Garden Ruminations.
1. With sunshine came butterflies and bumble bees visiting the Chrysanthemums, and made the grey days of last week melt away.
Another special moment came when a robin made the most of the bird bath, and since then, I have been cleaning it and changing the water each day. As I did yesterday evening. I worked in the garden till it almost dark enjoying the company of Robin even though he is still very shy. Digging out the sedum, planting the fern, and giving the Conservatory bed a good tidy and mulch in readiness for the spring bulbs to emerge.
2. The cyclamen coum are already starting to flower in that bed.
3. At the start of the week the nasturtium leaves were still vibrant and green, adding to the frisson of wondering just how much longer they will hold, and still today they are green. I may well go and pick some since next week is forecast to be much colder.
4. The grass Panicum virgatum 'Sangria' bought this year is lovely but has not developed the red or purple flushed leaves I had expected. It have developed a pale golden colour which works nicely in that spot.
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| Panicum virgatum 'Sangria' |
The height suits this space and hopefully next year when it is a little more mature it will be more handsome. I had Japanese Blood Grass on my list, and when I popped into my local garden shop to get some grit, they had one by the entrance. I shall wait till next year to plant it out in the garden. If anyone would like to comment on the foolishness of this please do leave your views in the comments. I don't want to release an invasive plant into the garden, so shared experiences would be useful.
5. I've made a start on gently mulching the conservatory border. Around one of the Rosa Grace was the Primula "Treborth Yellow", which I was quite bowled over by this spring. Not surprisingly I had split it after flowering into three. A few weeks ago I had taken one and split it into three good plants, that I moved so that it as backdrop the dark foliage of the Pittosporum Tom Thumb.
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| Primula "Treborth Yellow" planted up |
This week the remaining two got divided and planted up into one of my special pots, hoping that it makes a real eye catcher next spring. With a good sized space round the poor struggling Rosa Grace and a good measure of manure, it had better show its gratitude next year, or else it is being removed.
6. Yesterday afternoon as the sun set Cornus sanguinea 'Midwinter Fire' was giving off what seemed like a glow, with the colours even more intense and rich than in the picture taken in the afternoon.
We had been warned on the eve of our holiday that the kitchen at our hotel was having problems and that we would be having breakfast at The Novotel their sister hotel, just a short walk down the Greenwich High Road. That was fine by us since we liked walking, and I rather enjoyed the walk before breakfast. On the first day I grabbed a window seat that looked over the road towards the charming early nineteenth century Queen Elizabeth College Alms-houses.
Our post breakfast saunter took us across the street and down Langdale Road, along Circus Street and down Royal Hill where there are a line of just my type of shops: a butcher, a green grocer etc. The standard and displays of goods was so enticing and inviting, and how fortunate for the residents to have this.
Our first planned visit on Saturday was to the Cutty Sark. In the past few years we have enjoyed visiting different sailing ships from The Mary Rose and others in Portsmouth and SS Great Britain in Bristol. We bought joint tickets for The Cutty Sark and The Royal Observatory. We thoroughly enjoyed looking through the ship at its exhibits and learning about its history. Built as a fast ship for the Tea Trade with China and later bringing Merino wool from Australia, it started it maiden voyage in 1870 and brought back nearly 600,000 Kg of tea.
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| Harrison's H1 Clock |
