Beetle poetry...

Today I picked my very first home-grown cherry tomato. It is a little on the small size I admit - hardly likely to make first class at the Horticultural Show later this summer, for instance - but it's mine, and I'm proud of it!

I met Alexander Beetle in the back porch this morning. He shot out from the peanut bag as I got it out from behind a low-wooden chest, in order to refill the bird's peanut feeder, and oozled his way quickly under the shoe rack.

Are you acquainted with Alexander Beetle? Let me introduce you....

"I found a little beetle, so that Beetle was his name,

And I called him Alexander and he answered

  just the same.

I put him in a matchbox, and I kept him all the

   day...

And Nanny let my beetle out -

  Yes Nanny let my beetle out - 

    She went and let my beetle out -

      And Beetle ran away.

                  

She said she didn't mean it, and I never said she did,

She said she wanted matches and she just took off

  the lid,

She said that she was sorry, but it's difficult to catch

An excited sort of beetle you've mistaken for a 

  match. 

 

[......]It was Alexander Beetle I'm as certain as can be,

And he had a sort of look as if he thought it must be 

  Me,

And he had a sort of look as if he thought he ought 

  to say:

"I'm very very sorry that I tried to run away."

And Nanny's very sorry for you-know-what-

  she-did,

And she's writing ALEXANDER very blackly on the 

  lid.

So Nan and Me are friends, because it's difficult to

  catch

An excited Alexander you've mistaken for a match."

                                                   From 'Forgiven' by A A Milne

Robin RED-Breast (at last!)

A couple of months ago, at the beginning of May, I watched two newly-fledged baby robins foraging about outside my window. They seemed quite independent, despite their youthful appearance - the most noticeable part of which was a complete lack of any red on the breast. All they had was a rather mottled area in a tawny sort-of colour, showing where the fine red breast would eventually be; and instead of the smooth greyish-brown tailcoat of their parents, their backs were covered in a gently speckled brown.
I had no idea that they were not born with the redness already present, and wondered how long it take for it to appear, and in what manner.

Most conveniently one of them has stayed around, making daily trips to the bird food dish, and generally putting himself on show, so I have been able to observe his gradual ascent to man-hood!
Rather endearingly, it started as a little round red spot right in the middle of his breast. He went around like this for a few weeks, and the red spot gradually extended outwards, getting larger and larger, until at last, just a day or two ago, he appeared proudly resplendent in a full red waistcoat; not yet as sleek as a full adult, and still a bit rough-and-ready looking round the edges, but a fine specimen, nonetheless!

Choral Evensong

Detail from a stained glass window

This year is the 400th anniversary of the Authorized Version of the Bible. One of the translators was the Rector of my parish church, and also Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University, and later President of Magdalen College, Oxford. As my father is a Fellow at Magdalen, he organised a special Choral Evensong at our church, sung by Magdalen College Choir, to celebrate the occasion. 

We had the service mid-afternoon on the last Sunday in June, and it was a really lovely day. 

The sky was overcast when we woke, but the weather forecast had promised that the cloud cover would burn off by mid-morning, and lo and behold by nine o'clock the sky was a clear blue, and the sun was blazing down. 

The choir rehearsing

Come the afternoon it was turning into the best day of the year so far, and the church was full of people who had turned out to enjoy themselves. Our rector started off with an address about the translation of the Bible, and then the service began. Of course, the choir sang beautifully; they treated us to canticles by Purcell and three movements from Handel’s Messiah.

In the churchyard

My father is a dab hand at making elderflower cordial, and he made a large batch of it to be provided in the churchyard afterwards. Some stalwart women of the congregation provided biscuits and tea, and people stood around afterwards drinking, and chatting, and soaking up the atmosphere.

My parents and I had invited some particular friends back to our house for tea and cakes afterwards. The weather was so gorgeous that we spent the whole afternoon in the garden. No one really wanted to get back into a hot car again, and one family, who had come up from Southampton, stayed till seven o'clock. 

When at last they were all gone, my parents and I continued to sit outside for some time, simply enjoying the gentle, caressing warmth of a summer's evening.

 

Recipe: Chocolate Slab With A Difference!

 Non-gluten, low-sugar, chocolate dessert

 

Utensils

1 round tin, greased (I used a 4 1/2" one, with a removable base)

1 bowl for mixing base together

1 small bowl for melting butter

1 glass bowl and 1 saucepan for melting topping

Ingredients

Base: 

Walnuts

Almonds

Brazil nuts

Pecan nuts

Butter, melted
Freshly grated nutmeg

Topping:

70% dark chocolate (I used Green and Blacks)

Single cream

1tsp blackstrap molasses

Method

Take roughly equal quantities of walnuts, almonds, and brazil nuts, and a smaller amount of pecan nuts, and put them all in a food processor until ground into small pieces (but not powdered). You want enough to cover the base of your tin and be about 1/3 of an inch thick.

Melt butter in the microwave and stir into nuts. The mixture should be fairly moist, so that it will stay together once it's been packed into the tin. Grate some nutmeg over it and stir.

Press the mixture firmly into the tin and put in the freezer.

Put some water in the saucepan and place the glass bowl on top. Break the chocolate in small pieces (I used about two thirds of a 100g packet) and put in the bowl, with a little cream. Melt slowly, stirring the mixture constantly, and adding more cream whenever necessary. When all the chocolate is melted and the mixture is the consistency you want, add the molasses and stir well. 

Now take the base out of the freezer and pour the chocolate mixture on top, spreading it evenly over the base. Put it back in the freezer.

When serving, make sure you take the chocolate slab out of the freezer far enough in advance for it to completely de-frost, but not so far in advance that it melts. I cut my 4 1/2" slab in quarters, to serve four.

Serve with fresh berries and a drizzle of cream if desired. Enjoy!

"Christopher Robin!"

"Yes?"
"Have you an umbrella in your house?"
"I think so."
"I wish you would bring it out here, and walk up and down with it, and look up at me every now and then, and say 'Tut-tut, it looks like rain.'"
                                         - Winnie the Pooh


I was speaking to an American friend of mine the other day, and she said that where she lives in Arizona people think that it pours with rain all day every day in England. My friend has lived over here for a year, and she knows from first hand experience that this is untrue, but as always, there is a grain of truth in the misconception.
   One problem is that our rain is not confined to any one 'season' - it spreads itself out in a very benevolent and unbiased fashion; so it might rain any day of the year, or it might not rain at all for a whole month.

Perhaps one reason why foreigners think it always rains here, is that our rain has no respect for summer. There's no saying for instance "I want a dry day for my wedding/garden party/village fete etc., so I'll have it in July." Even if July is the driest on record for a hundred years, you can bet your bottom dollar the one day it does rain is on the day you've chosen.

The main thing to remember is that it's changeable and unreliable. For example, there might be light mizzle for two hours during the morning; or perhaps a quick shower at two o'clock in the afternoon; or a really heavy down-pour at four; and the rest of the day may, or may not, be completely dry, and there may or may not be some blue sky.
Or perhaps you wake up to blue skies and glorious sunshine at 7:00am, only to find it overcast at 8:00am and by 10:00am it's splashing. Then it suddenly dries up in the afternoon and the sun comes come out, but just as you're getting used to it, there's another shower at 6:00pm. Or it perhaps it will rain all night and be completely dry the next day; or on the other hand it might stay overcast for three days together and never rain once.
  And of course, there are different types of rain. It would be very dull indeed if it always 'poured'. No! We have many different 'rainy' adjectives, depending on many variants: the size of the raindrops, how many of them there, how close they are together, how quickly they fall... Just think of Eskimos and snow..

"Moses supposes.."

"Moses supposes his toes-es are roses,
  but Moses supposes erroneously."

Our garden is now full of roses of all different colours. Pink, peach, and yellow, they are climbing through the hedges, tumbling out of the flower beds, and spilling over across the paths.
They make lovely flower arrangements - this one was made with pink and yellow roses, chervil, and purple geraniums. I originally cut the flowers with the intention of making them into several smaller arrangements, but when I had them laid out on the dining-room table afterwards, on a sheet of newspaper to stop the pollen making too much mess, they looked so happy all together in one group, that I left them to it.

Recently I have been enjoying reading 'The Italian' by Mrs Radcliffe. I have never gasped aloud so much at any book before - talk about melodrama! There were such terrific twists and turns of the plot as I should not have thought possible; and the heroine had so many narrow escapes and near-death experiences (to say nothing of the sufferings of the poor hero at the hands of the Inquisition) that I'm surprised my hair had not turned white by the end of it.

"Just a little rain.."

"Just a little rain, falling all around,
The grass lifts its head to the heavenly sound.."

I went round the garden with my trug this morning, cutting roses in the rain, and felt very like Elizabeth von Arnim in her German Garden. In fact, yesterday I even danced barefoot on the lawn, although I had no servants to hide from as I did so!

I do enjoy the rain. There are so many different types, and they create so many different moods.
Last Thursday it was dark and exciting: we had a thunder storm, and the crashing rumbles overhead were accompanied by thick heavy raindrops falling from the charcoal sky; they hit the windows with a steady drumming, and ran down in a great mass of rivulets.
This morning on the other hand it was much gentler - a constant mizzling which a friend of mine referred to as 'wet rain' - the sort that's so light you don't feel it, but so penetrating you end up drenched. It has got heavier as the day's gone on, but still in a rather drab, miserable way. However, I console myself with the thought that this is the sort of rain we really need. Instead of rushing down in a torrent and immediately sliding off the soil (where to, I ask?), it will all sink steadily down into the thirsty earth, and (hopefully, if they're not leaking) fill the reservoirs.

Oh, what would we do without rain?