christmas come early

Mel is one of my oldest friends: not granny old, ‘the old are like gold’ kind.  We’ve known each other for 23 years and she’s easy to buy Christmas presents for because we like so many of the same things.  In the summer I became smitten with the embroidered pocket mirrors from Snapdragon’s Garden and when Jane posted about her new camper van bottle openers a squeal of delight escaped my lips.  The perfect gift for my dear friend Mel who is restoring an old camper with her dad.  A purple camper van just like this.

I nearly popped with excitement when it arrived: the van was custom made using vintage fabric leftover from my bridesmaids’ dresses.  I couldn’t wait until Christmas to hand it over and Mel’s delight was as I anticipated; the lump in my throat when she said how much she loved it took me by surprise though.  It’s true ‘the joy is in the giving‘ and there’s nothing that beats the giving of gifts when they’re unexpected.  I thoroughly recommend springing Christmas presents on people in October!

Of course I also delight in being the recipient of gifts and did my own happy skippy dance around the kitchen recently when I won a £50 voucher to spend at the Natural Collection.  What luck that I spotted the Ooffoo recipe competition the afternoon of the closing date and that I’d made something using spinach from my allotment that week.  My quick and easy spinach and aubergine lasagne was beaten hands down by Gem’s dieters delight vegan chocolate truffles but that’s fine – who would ever choose spinach over chocolate in the real world?  Huge huggy thanks to those who did.

I spent my win on Christmas presents and my favourite gift recommendation is this brilliant energy efficient penguin torch (no batteries required – you squeeze his wing to charge him up).  I bought a couple for the little people in our life but would gladly flash him about the campsite myself he’s so cool!

So many skips and smiles in my house this month and an unexpected gift too.  Thanks again Ann, you’re too kind and your cat pouch has pride of place on my kitchen notice board

making oat and onion roast

It’s been a while since I’ve made oat and onion roast.  It sprang to mind after reading Pam Corbin’s recommendation of saucy haw ketchup with a ‘ good nut roast‘.  I’ve not had the pleasure of a ‘good‘ nut roast but I really enjoy the simple, flavours of this oat and onion roast.  The first time I made it I went for a skinny version with half the cheese.  I also left out the marmite (I’m on the ‘hate‘ side of that fence) but the result was somewhat dry and flavourless.  So a heaped teaspoon of marmite is the only way to go (I do still use less cheese than the 6oz recommended in the original recipe).  Equal measures of oats and cheese is easier to remember anyway.  If you need any more persuading this is a great one pot wonder – mixing and baking in the same dish and it’s great cold the next day too. 

To make oat and onion roast
4 oz oats
4 oz cheese, grated
2 eggs, beaten
1 onion, choppped
1 dessert spoon of mixed herbs
1 heaped tsp of marmite

• Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.
• Mix all the ingredients together then spread out evenly
• Cook for 45 mins or less.  Cover with foil if starts to brown too quickly.  (I prefer to use a larger dish and spread thinner to ensure even cooking and less time in the oven)
  
• Serve as an stuffing-like accompaniment to your main dish or with salad for a snack/lunch with a generous dollop of tomato chutney or ketchup
• recipe adapted from:  my friend Ruth’s mum Pauline who’s been making oat and onion roast since Ruth was tiny.  Ruth now makes it for her boys and it’s a family favourite, especially with Rory.

I made a second version of the saucy haw ketchup with the addition of roasted tomato passata which thickens the ketchup up considerably.  It’s a healthier version of tomato ketchup because hawthorn berries are good for your heart: increasing blood flow to the heart and normalising blood pressure.  James Wong in the BBC programme ‘Grow your own drugs‘ made fruit leather with hawthorn berries and globe artichokes to reduce cholesterol.  I didn’t get to try it this year because the artichoke heads were too tough by the time the haw berries were ready but it’s definitely on my list for next summer.

(sigh, autumn is marching on and the poor light photos are not improving…)

making christmas chutney

The inclusion of Gluhwein in Matron’s Spiced Christmas Chutney sounded wonderfully festive.   Seeing that the recipe would also lighten my apple load and use up a pumpkin my mind was made up (although using a whole pumpkin was overly optimistic – 1lb of flesh doesn’t leave much of a mark on a pumpkin the size of a basket ball!).  I began using some of Henley’s small bright orange pumpkin but found it really hard to cut without nearly losing my fingers.  The skin on my Jack o’Lantern pumpkins wasn’t nearly as tough but the flesh was much paler, more like marrow that pumpkin.  I roasted the remainder of both varieties of pumpkin while making this chutney and the difference in taste and texture was quite marked.  Henley’s pumpkin was really dense and soft like a sweet potato while mine was less so and didn’t dissolve.  I preferred the taste of Henley’s so I’ve saved some seeds for next year.  To make Spiced Christmas Chutney
4lbs cooking apples, peeled, cored and chopped
1lb pumpkin cut into half inch cubes
1lb red onion, chopped
3oz grated root ginger
10oz brown sugar
rind and juice of an orange
4oz dried cranberries
4oz dried mixed fruit
1/2 pint gluhwein (mulled wine)
3/4 pint spiced vinegar
(prepared in advance by infusing malt vinegar with your favourite christmas spices -  cinnamon , clove, nutmeg, star anise etc)

• Put all the ingredients, except the sugar, in a large saucepan and simmer for at least 30 minutes.  The amount of liquid in this recipe seems small but once the apples start to soften the chutney becomes more runny.
• Add the sugar and continue to simmer until the mixture has reduced.   The degree to which the pumpkin dissolves depends on what variety you use.  Spoon into sterilised jars when it’s reached desired consistency (note:  this chutney is not as brown as recipes that use darker vegetables/fruit)
• This recipe makes a vast amount of chutney so you may wish to halve it if you don’t have lots of appreciative friends to gift it to.  I filled nine 500g honey jars. 

I must admit I’m feeling quite chuffed that my Christmas preparations are so advanced and leisurely this year.  Pressies for little ones in Australia, Bolivia and Germany are ready to be posted.  The garden is starting to slumber for winter and it’s that time of year when cold wet weekends just shout ‘curl up with a book’.

Which I am going to do as of tomorrow night when I start reading ‘The Christmas Mystery‘ by Jostein Gaarder, author of Sophie’s World.  Since enjoying it for the first time in 1998 I’ve been wanting to re-read it in December because each chapter is numbered like an advent calendar leading up to the last chapter: ”the twenty fourth of December”.  If you fancy reading along with me there are plenty of second hand copies and reader reviews on Amazon.  Limiting myself to one chapter per night will be a challenge!

24 carrot gold

Fortune favoured me when I found myself at the allotment the same time as my neighbour Derek last week.
D – do you want some carrots?
Me – to eat?
D -  yes, just dig some out
Me  – brilliant, thank you (very excitedly)
I love making hearty autumnal soups and stews using carrots but eating freshly picked home grown carrots raw when the wind is howling and the rain is hammering the windows is like taking a mouthful of summer sunshine and breathing in blue skies.  Scrubbed up beautifully didn’t they.One of my favourite ways of preserving the natural sweetness of carrots is to saute them in a little butter or oil sprinkled with cumin seeds (add a splash of water or vegetable stock if they start to catch).  They’re especially nice when the carrots are small enough to cook whole and with the skins on.  Delicious.

Buy Nothing Day

Tomorrow is Buy Nothing Day.
For the last 2 years I’ve marked it on the calendar then found some reason excuse or other for pulling out the plastic.  The name speaks for itself but if you’ve not heard of Buy Nothing Day click here for more information.

Buy Nothing Day is simply a challenge to us all to stop and think about what we buy, where it comes from and the environmental impact of the purchases we make.  And for one day, 28th November, to hold a 24 hour moratorium on consumer spending.

Tomorrow I’m putting my money where my mouth is by keeping my pennies in my pocket.  What better excuse for a morning at the allotment and an afternoon making christmas presents?  Then come the evening…

… a date with The Magic Numbers at Gloucester Guildhall.  Well, not a date with the Magic Numbers.  A date with George to toe tap and sway our way through an evening with the musical maestros.  If date seems like a strange choice of words for an evening spent with my lovely husband I make no apologies for it.  We’ll be celebrating 15 years of togetherness.  Cheaply of course, ‘mine’s a water thanks‘.

The Magic Numbers have penned new song with Malian superstars Amadou and Mariam called ‘All I Believe In’ which is featured on the movie soundtrack album to the much talked about “The Twilight saga : New Moon’

making sweet pickled crab apples

These gorgeous cherry like crab apples came from my friend Sara’s ornamental crab apple tree.  They’re quite different to the crab apples I picked from Reg’s 40 year old tree in the summer.  The crab apple and clove jelly I made with those was a lovely orange colour and tasted delicious but I wanted to try something different with these; something that would retain their beautiful shape and colour.  Sweet pickled crab apples were the result and we’ll be in for a treat if they taste as good as they look.

To make sweet pickled crab apples
300ml cider vinegar or white wine vinegar
400g granulated sugar
25g fresh root ginger, bruised
5cm piece of cinnamon stick
1tsp allspice berries
1kg crab apples
1tsp cloves

• Put the vinegar, sugar, ginger, cinnamon and allspice berries into a large pan over a low heat, stirring until the sugar has dissolved, then bring to the boil.  Turn down the heat to a simmer. (note for next time: increase volume of liquid (by a third) as not enough to sufficiently cover the fruit in all of the jars and had to hastily make more.  If there’s too much liquid it can easily be used in other preserves)

• Remove the stalks and blossom tops from each crab apple and prick with a fork to prevent the skins from bursting.  Add to the hot vinegar.  Simmer very gently until they are tender but not too soft.  Remove with a slotted spoon and pack them into warm, sterilised jars.

• Bring the spiced vinegar syrup to the boil and boil for 5 minutes, then strain it over the crab apples.  Cover the jars with vinegar proof lids.  Consume within a year.

This recipe is a variation of Pam Corbin’s ‘Spiced pickled pears‘ from the River Cottage Preserves Handbook.  You could use almost any fruit and spice combination – just consider how long you cook the fruit for so it doesn’t go too mushy.  I reduced the cooking time for the crab apples and reasoned the vinegar would continue to ‘cook‘ them over the next few months if they were a little under-boiled.

Before boiling up the fruit I dry packed the crab apples into my chosen jars to check how many I would need and to avoid over-handling the fruit once it’s softened. I thought they’d make nice christmas gifts so invested in some small 110g jars.I had enough crab apples left to make another small batch of crab apple jelly; an unadulterated pink blush coloured crab apple jelly.  Straight up, no fuss.

apple juices and jellies

Lifting our fabulous haul of foraged apples in to the boot of the car a few weeks ago I had dreamy plans of supping on our own home made apple juice well into the winter months.  My juicer however had other ideas and in spite of being fairly heavy duty it found the skins on the apples a little too tough to easily chew up and spit out.  So we both gave up juicing after creating this one bottle of apple juice!  I’d researched how to ensure freshly pressed apple juice stores well, the key to which is pasteurising the apple juice and proceeded to heat the apple juice before bottling.  At least we were able to savour the juice rather than glugging it all in one go.  I’d barely made a dent in the apple mountain though so over the last couple of weeks I’ve been experimenting with various apple cordial combinations.

• a rainy day apple cordial with warming spices; cinnamon, coriander, cloves
• a blackberry and apple cordial using blackberries foraged from a playing field near my mum and dad’s house (and stored in their freezer until I was ready to retrieve them – thanks mum).
• a raspberry and apple cordial produced using just a spoonful of sugar after giving the juicer another try – this time peeling and coring the apples first.  Still rather labour intensive for a relatively small quantity of juice but the addition of our allotment grown raspberries was really delicious.
• a marm’apple cordial made using the leftover apple peelings and cores from all the juicing – a cordial variation of Pam Corbin’s ‘compost heap jelly‘ recipe.  I’ll be writing a separate post about jellies made with apple scraps but for now here’s what you can expect compost heap jelly to look like.  I renamed it Marm’apple because of it’s pairing of apples with oranges (and apple-ade sounded too much like a drink). Sue and Martin’s apples were naturally very sweet and disintegrated quickly when boiled so I’ve often been able to reduce the amount of sugar I add when using them to make fruit cordials.  The general rule of thumb when boiling and sugaring fruit to preserve as a cordial, so says Pam Corbin’s Preserves book, is:

1 kg hard fruit/blackcurrants + 600ml water to boil
1kg stone fruit + 300ml water to boil
1kg soft berries/rhubarb + 100ml water to boil.
Then add 700g sugar per 1 litre of strained fruit liquid.

ps.  this wasn’t my first experiment with apple cordials.  In the summer I made blackcurrant and apple cordial using Henri’s blackcurrants but I didn’t get round to mentioning that did I?   Here’s the post that would have been!

It’s stir-up Sunday

I came across a great website today called Make it, Mend it and while browsing the food section spotted an article about making Christmas puddings and a fabulous sounding no sugar, no flour Christmas pudding recipe.  A lot of other food bloggers made their puds weeks ago so I thought I’d missed the boat to get one made and marinated in time for Christmas (especially when I’ve not made one before).  Not so according to an ancient tradition that names today, the third Sunday in November, as Stir-up Sunday: the day on which the whole family take a turn at stirring good luck into the Christmas pudding and making a wish.Googling ‘Stir-up Sunday’ to find out a bit more about this custom I came across a website for a primary school in Kent.  Woodlands Junior School pages are loaded with all sorts of Christmas related information and recipes, interactive games and activities and student pages including book reviews and a joke zone.  It’s brilliant that the importance of developing the whole child, the school’s heartbeat, is so tangibly reflected through their website.  Here’s what I learnt about Christmas while browsing their site this morning:

Christmas puddings are made with 13 ingredients to represent the Christ and his disciplines and it is  stirred from East to West to honour the 3 wise men who visited the baby Jesus.   A coin was traditionally added to bring wealth to whoever found it, a ring would foretell a marriage and a thimble a lucky life.

Mince pies were traditionally coffin or cradle shaped and spiced with cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg to represent the gifts given to baby Jesus by the three wise men.  It was thought lucky to eat one mince pie of each of the 12 days of Christmas – to refuse one could bring bad luck.

Christmas trees became popular in Britain after Queen Victoria’s husband Albert brought one over from Germany in 1841.  The most famous Christmas tree in Britain is in London, near the statue of Nelson in Trafalgar Square.  Since 1947 a Norwegian spruce tree has been sent over as a thank you to the British people from the people of Oslo (during the second world war King Hakkon of Norway was forced into exile in England when the Germans occupied Norway).  Christmas jokes (handy if you’re making your own crackers! answers at the end)
•  what’s brown and sneaks around the kitchen?  (from Michael Edwards, age 9)
•  what is a mum’s favourite Christmas carol (from Georgina Flynn)
•  what do you get if you eat Christmas decorations (from Adam Courtley)

As our planned walk with a friend has been postponed today I’m off to buy my missing pudding ingredients instead… once I can decide for definite which recipe to go with.  Here are other pudding recipes from some of my favourite food bloggers:
Jules’ Guinness Christmas pudding
Johanna’s beginners Christmas pudding
BBC Good Food 7 Cup Christmas pudding

And since I don’t want to spend a fiver on a lidded pudding basin I thought I’d buy a shop bought pudding to munch on while making my own.  Or perhaps I’ll copy Nic’s genius idea for making Chocolate Christmas pudding truffles. 

Images licensed under Creative Commons
With thanks to Jules at Domestic Goddess in Training – Christmas pudding mix, David Iluff at Wikipedia – Trafalgar Square Christmas Tree, Nic at Cherrapeno – Christmas pudding truffles.

Joke answers:
Mince spies
Silent Night
Tinselitus

moving things around

Billy loves boxes and is often found with his head inside one or just a paw peaking out when the flaps trap him inside.  Mikey favours curling up on top of items of clothing abandoned in new places around the house.  Occasionally they both try to assert their claim on a new curiosity which on this occasion was a Freecycled blanket box in the hallway waiting to be moved upstairs (thanks Jenny, it’s fab).  Down on the allotment there’s been quite a bit of bed hopping and moving round over the last month!

1.  cabbages now in the early pumpkin patch

2.  broad beans in the late pumpkin patch

3.  onion sets where the second sowing of beetroot and carrots were

4.  first sowing of spring bulbs where the dwarf beans were, second sowing of bulbs and wallflowers in the early potatoes patch The grazing rye cover crop sown in the blighted tomato bed grew rapidly in the first 2 weeks but has slowed down now.  On the home front we’ve been moving things round in the kitchen replacing an overburdened shelf with a cupboard.  Hoping the new cupboard would house all my jars of chutney as well was a bit optimistic (and hasn’t happened!)I’d envisaged a clearer worktop than this but every vegetable that sits here waiting to be pureed, pickled or creamed is immediately replaced with something else.  The punnets of crab apples have now been pickled and apples, carrots and sprouts are currently filling every square inch of worktop space. 

making aubergine parcels

This is one of my favourite aubergine recipes for it’s simplicity of taste and making.  We enjoy it as a light lunch with salad or a more hearty dinner with vegetables.  Cutting the aubergine strips thinly will ensure you get 8 slices out of one aubergine and makes it easier to fold the strips over.  There’s a fine line though – too thin a slice will break up when you fold it so have some cocktail sticks to hand to pin the parcel together.The original recipe is from ‘200 make ahead dishes‘  which recommends boiling the aubergine slices in salt water for 2 minutes and then grilling the finished parcels for 5 minutes on both sides.  If I didn’t skip the ‘chill for 30 minutes‘ step then I might well find that the parcels hold together better:  as it is I always need to cook them straight away and have never dared try flipping them over as the cocktail sticks are holding the top closed.  So instead I tend to lightly brown the slices before assembling the parcels as below (although the pictures show the boiled, then grilled version).  I didn’t have fresh basil leaves so used dried herbs and the pine nuts were shaken directly from the packet having forgotten to toast them.  Well when you’ve spent a morning digging and want lunch from fridge to table in 30 minutes you don’t worry about the small details do you!

making aubergine parcels  – serves 2 for lunch or 4 as a starter
1 long, large aubergine, cut into strips lengthways
125g (4oz) mozzarella cheese cut into 4 slices
1 large or 2 small tomatoes cut into slices
8 large basil leaves
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp pine nuts, dry-fried in a hot pan until golden
salt and pepper

• Remove the stalk from the aubergine and cut it lengthwise into 8 slices, disregarding the two outer edges.  Brush the aubergine slices with oil and lightly brown under the grill or in a frying pan.  Cut the mozzarella into 4 slices and the tomato into 8 slices, disregarding the outer edges.

• Place 2 of the aubergine slices in a flameproof dish, forming a cross.  Place a slice of tomato on top, season with salt and pepper, add a basil leaf, a slice of mozzarella, another basil leaf, then more salt and pepper, and finally another slice of tomato.  Fold the edges of the aubergine around the filling.  Repeat with the other ingredients to make 4 parcels in total.  Cover and chill for 20 minutes or until required.

• When ready to serve place the dish under a pre-heated grill and cook for about 5 minutes or until golden brown.  Serve hot drizzled with a tomato dressing and scattered with the pine nuts and extra basil leaves.

• To make the tomato dressing whisk together 2 tbps olive oil, 1 tsp balsamic vinegar, 1 tsp sun dried tomato paste and 1 tsp lemon juice.

what I like about Facebook

‘Jenny is slightly bemused… Rosy is very grumpy and doesn’t want to be Mary in the nativity play.  She says she wants to be baby Jesus!  When I told her she’d be a lovely  mummy she gave me a withering look and said ‘I’ve had loads of babies.  I don’t want any more!!!‘

I love the way status updates allow you to be a fly on the wall in your friend’s lives. You’re so right Jenny, you are ‘good at making flapjack and small cute girls‘.   Rosy and her little sister Florence.

making saucy haw ketchup

Hawthorn trees are a common sight along the hedgerow in Britain but who would have thought that the haw berries would make such a delicious sauce.  I certainly wouldn’t have but fancied trying out Pam Corbin’s River Cottage Handbook recipe using the peppery little berries from the hawthorn tree on my plot.  I decided to make a small batch in case it wasn’t very tasty and adapted the recipe below using 350g of haws which filled two 110g jars.  It’s so simple to make and really appeals to my love of cooking with foraged ingredients.

making saucy haw ketchup
500g haws
300ml white wine vinegar or cider vinegar
170g sugar
1/2 tsp salt
ground black pepper to taste

• Strip the haws from the stalks and rinse in cold water.

• Put the haws into a pan with the vinegar and 300ml water and simmer for about 30 minutes.  The skins will split revealing the firm yellow flesh.  Cook until soft and the berries have become a muted red-brown (I gave mine a helping hand with a potato masher).  Remove from the heat.

• Rub the mixture through a sieve to remove the stones and the skins.  Return the fruity mixture to a cleaned out pan.  Add the sugar and heat gently, stirring until it dissolves.  Bring to the boil and cook for 5 minutes.  Season with salt and pepper.  Pour into a sterilised bottle and seal with a vinegar proof cap.  Use within 12 months. Many of the preserve recipes from the River Cottage Handbook recommend serving with meat but Pam Corbin’s favourite accompaniment for haw ketchup is ‘a really good nut roast with a crisp green salad or drizzled over Welsh rarebit’.
  

My hawthorn tree always has some bird or other whistling from it’s branches and according to the RSPB hawthorn trees provide food for more than 150 insect varieties.  Blackbirds and other thrushes (including redwings and fieldfares), greenfinches, yellowhammers, chaffinches, starlings and many other birds relish the haws in autumn but it’s no surprise to me that there are still so many berries on my tree with thorns like this to protect it! So while the autumn sunshine is holding out stick a plastic bag in your coat pocket in case you spot some of these gorgeous blood red berries.  You’ve got a few more weeks to get gathering (maybe more in view of how mild it’s been) and if making ketchup doesn’t float your boat then you can always use them in a hedgerow jelly or make haw brandy.  And don’t worry about depriving the birds, they’ve got plenty of berries to feast on out of arms reach.

chutney for a chicken

You know how much I love chutney.  I love it straight off the spoon, I spread it on things and I sometimes stir it into soups and casseroles.  But being a vegetarian I don’t eat it with chicken and this is not a post about such culinary combinations. This is a post about a fabulous swap with my blog buddy Ann at Calico and Cards.The chicken in question is this lovely Christmas chicken which I swapped for a jar of my damson chutney.  Ann’s a bit handy with a needle and thread and generously included a fabric covered tin of sewing accessories too – all made by her own fair hand.  What a treat!

Ann has some autumn print chickens left over from a recent craft fair  and she’s posted a ‘chicken in a bag’ swap today.  If you’d like to exchange something with Ann leave a comment on her swap post or email her directly.  And don’t worry if you’ve not been stitching or stirring up creations yourself – Ann’s open to swapping non-crafty creations so drop her a line if you think you have a chicken worthy carrot to dangle.

making sloe gin

Making sloe gin for the first time this week, with the sloes I picked a few weeks ago,  conjured up memories of making elderflower cordial for the first time:  no two sloe gin recipes are the same.  The quantity of sugar to sloes recommended varies from equal measures to half measures to none depending on who you ask.  I chose half measures of sugar to sloes calculating this would be the best combination for filling the gap between the berries and booze in my enormous 1.7ltr cognac bottle (no, I’m not a booze hound – I fished it out of my neighbours unlidded recycling box!)

Bottle 1
650g sloes + 325g sugar + 850ml gin (in a 1.7l bottle)

Bottle 2
200g sloes + a vanilla pod + 150ml  (in a 375ml bottle)

This article recommended using a vanilla pod instead of sugar to miraculously sweeten the sour sloes and produce a less syrupy liquer.  I’d bought a small bottle of gin as well for gifting when the time comes to decant it and liked the idea of experimenting with a sugar free variety of sloe gin.

Bottle 3
200g frozen raspberries + vanilla pod + 125ml gin (in a 250ml bottle)

I had no use for the last 125ml of gin so poked around in the freezer to see what other fruit could be used to replace the sloes.  My stoned damsons would have worked really well but I was quite taken by the idea of a raspberry red tipple.And just 4 days later this is how they’re looking.note to self:  made on 10/11/09.  Freezing sloes is supposed to help the skins to burst but most of the berries are still intact despite vigorous shaking.  Patient pricking instead of freezing next year then?  And keep some gin aside for topping up bottles once the gin/fruit/sugar settles.

shed envy

I’m very much a cup half full kind of gal and envy is not part of my day to day existence.  Today, however,  the green eyed monster leapt well and truly out of the bag when I came across Steph’s shed of wonderment.  Steph inherited this shed and all it’s treasures when she found herself at the top of the allotment waiting list in April this year.

Coming across Steph’s blog got me thinking about the concept of 6 degrees of separation.  Let me explain:

a) The Informal Gardener is one of my favourite blogs and it’s creator Miss M and I share a love of gardening and black cats.  I wrote about Mikey last week and implored her to share her 5 black beauties, which she did.

b) after a few virtual strokes of Miss M’s felines I scanned her blogroll and The Green Grower caught my eye.  One click later I was green with envy exploring Steph’s shed on her allotment in Cheltenham.  Cue thoughts about 6 degrees of separation…

c) 6 degrees of separation is the idea that if a person is one step away from each person they know and two steps away from each person their friends’ know, then everyone is at most six steps away from any other person on Earth.  I grew up in Cheltenham so it’s highly likely I know someone Steph knows.  If this proves not to be the case then our mutual blogging friend Miss M all the way over in Canada is a mighty fine link in the chain and just shows how much smaller the world becomes through on-line networks.

I’d really like to know if Steph inherited some magic hours along with the clock in her shed.  As well as working, gardening and cooking she finds time for creating gorgeous glass fused crafts and gifts.  And blogs about that as well!  So if you’re on the look out for unusual hand made gifts this Christmas you might like to take a nosy over to Steph’s on-line shop (she’ll even do custom made commissions). Anyway, back to the subject of allotments.  My bird on a wire for all things green and local, otherwise known as my neighbour Pat, tells me that Gloucester’s City Centre Community Partnership (GCCCP) have made a proposal to turn the old Bowling Green in the heart of the city into a community area.  Various suggested uses for the derelict space have been made and I shall be contacting the chair@gloscccp.co.uk to cast my vote for a community allotment area.  Especially when elsewhere in the County allotment holders are fighting plans to build an access road through their allotments for a new housing development.  And in London the Manor Road Allotments were bulldozed this year to make way for the 2012 Olympics.  Devastating.