The day I fell in love...

8th January 2011

A small glass house and a jelly palm...
crazy dreams & wishes.

Two years ago today we found this house and it was the exact answer to my New Year's Eve wish list... "maybe find a garden with a greenhouse...?"
Exotic plants stuffed the garden room, running all over the ceiling like a jungle. The garden itself - the seven layers of it - spread out like a wide wing, a central rib climbing to a copsed apex, ponds either side, wattle and gum, banana, fig, gingko, yew, quince, apple, blackcurrants and rhubarb, apricot no less ... and two greenhouses!

Time to celebrate ..

Desire Lines

... so, you nip across the road on the crossing, no traffic, and look up to see four long sets of steps going up to the station... what's that odd shaped bit of kerb doing there... I want to walk right across it! I want to get climbing straight away, all in one breath, to the top.
Scores of people must do this everyday... the "desire lines" become pathways, the quickest way from A to B is the straightest ... I just wonder why there two!




Do pairs of people do it side-by-side? Is it someone and a bicycle? Do people go one way and come back the other? What will happen to the tufts of grass in the middle? Which path did I take today?

White Town: Arcos

...is there any point?

treasures...

i always think light is transparent

Peña Flamenca Flores

Arcos de la Frontera: spooky, hidden-exotic, bright, quiet after dark unless you know where to go. In a little cafe, the telly is turned off. It's Friday night, the rest of the family is round for a little chat, a bit of a sing-song, a few twirls in the space between the table and the kitchen. Quite a lot of anis gets drunk, thrown down a ragged throat after a bit of cante jondo... old aunties dance with their brothers, a sevillana. Eight-year old Lola replica steps on the floor... shyly at first, cajoled, then gradually that sort-of-show-off flourish of girly giggling, dancing for her father, dancing with her mum, her grandad, her aunt... generational passing down of passion and skill, big brown eyes flashing promises. We just watch...

Wassailing on the Fête des Rois 2013

Slowly the Three Kings made their way up the path through the pergola, carrying a lantern each, their crowns at various angles. The sparkling light lit our feet up as we all gathered round the big old apple tree, wineglasses in hand, words at the ready. A large Turkish copper bowl held the Wassail... Christmas beer from Harvey's, hot apple juice, cinnamon sticks and cloves, bay berries, fennel seeds and a sprig of holly.
Last year was a very scarce season for everyone's apples we hear. In 2011 we had "bags full", and on the quince too. 2012 was wet at the wrong time (no bees flying), frosty enough to knock off flowers where they had been quick enough to set, and we had TWO apples and one quince!
So Wassailing is very necessary, or Apple Howling as it's called in Sussex.

Twelfth Night - end of the Xmas holiday, Plough Monday tomorrow, Three Kings chosen by finding a favour in the Galette des Rois, leading the party through the woods to the three apple trees. We toasted them by chanting at them, pouring a libation to their roots and placing - literal - toast in their branches...

Old Apple tree, old apple tree;


We've come to wassail thee;


To bear and to bow

Apples enow;

Hats full, caps full, three bushel bags full;


Barn floors full

And a little heap under the stairs

Stand fast root, bear well top


Pray the gods send us a howling good crop.


Every twig, apples big... every bough, apples enow

Bank Holiday task 2 - no knead breadmaking!

So there's this chap in New York City who invented a no knead bread that has just a small amount of commercial yeast and a large amount of time... the Guardian magazine this weekend featured how the 'new wave of male bakers' make bread (Christopher Hirst). So I had a go. WOW! The difference - apart from the 18-24 hours for its first rise - is that is baked in a Le Creuset (or similar) cast iron pot with a lid in the oven... well if the truth be told, this apparently has melted many a plastic knob and cast wives into angry moods (allegedly... curious that the right-on Grauniad allows such 1950s thinking to be expressed?)
Smallish loaf - 400g flour, 300ml tepid water, teaspoon of salt and a quarter-teaspooon of dried yeast. Mix in a biggish bowl, for a "few seconds"... I did it for about 2 minutes just to get all the flour incorporated and suitably gooey - yes, it is almost liquid, very sloppy. Cover with clingfilm, leave for up to 24 hours. Pour it out onto a floured surface and fold it into itself with more flour, then slop it into a well-floured linen teatowel for the second rise, about 2 hours or so. It's still very sticky and loose, so I brought the points and sides of the teatowel up together and pegged them so make like a little basket.
Put the oven on to very high. As high as it might go - 260 or gas 8/9? Put the oiled-a-bit Le Crueset cast iron pot in to heat up. Well I don't have one, so I used a terracotta casuela (crock) with a lid, reckoning that it might do the trick instead. After half an hour pour the dough from the tea towel into the pot! Well that was my experience, it simply flowed into it, no way to pick it up easily!
Lid on, into oven, 30 mins, take lid off and another 20 mins. Eh voila.... something that approaches an open-crumb, sourdough-looking but not tasting, ciabatta-like? Looks a bit weird but chewy, tasty, tasty, gorgeous proper-bread-like aroma ... HAVE A GO!
There's a YouTube video of it - Jim Lahey's Sullivan Street Bakery - he seems to make loaves that look more like loaves!

Bank Holiday tasks- vertical growing & intercropping

Once the rain stopped, there was constructed a new raised bed with sycamore pole framework (3rd dimension) in the ground of the 'fruit cage', for proper sweet pea growing. Five different varieties, including Mixed Bijou! Edged with pot marigolds, waiting for dwarf French beans. That gets lovely organic manure & new top soil into the ground, and uses up space where last year's raspberries didn't survive the snow. (Intercropping & multi-yield)
Sweet Pea Cupani and a new frame for the climbing squash in the recycling box, in with the dark-leaved nasturtium Empress of India. Also Jessy snap peas in the other raspberry bed, as they should grow & crop well before the summer fruits reach the top of the little wired structure. Ground Elder looking lush - had some Thai-green-curried with spinach on Friday and I'll put some in a tart for Permaculture lunch on Wednesday! PS Happy International Permaculture Day (phew, just caught it, UK BST!)

Updates

completed engineered oak floor 

the conservatory floor in use

Nearly a year... so, just to show that we have been doing something!

Skyrocket, rucola, national trust rocket...

greening of the roof