Last Saturday we had a very nice surprise: after a wait of more than 2 years, we have been assigned a plot of land in a local allotment, about 25 minutes walk from home.
This is such a great thing, I have been wishing this would happen for so long I can’t stop telling everyone!
It’s going to be hard work, but growing fruit and veg is the kind of hard work I love.
And it’s also a good excuse to buy a book on “allotment management”!
I am very thankful, things are going very well!
Look at that!
I have just received this ancient lawn mower, it’s at least 50 years old, it’s rusty and very heavy.
I got it through “freecycle”, which is a way of giving out things you don’t need and receiving thing you might need that other people don’t want anymore, and it’s completely FREE!
I posted a message for a non-electrical lawn mower and a kind gentleman answered, how easy was that? He also actually offered to deliver it to me because we have no car.
And now I’m very very happy.
I have something that looks absolutely fantastic, and I am convinced that this is something that Wallace and Gromit used to mow their lawn (before Wallace invented some kind of mow-matic, that is!).
Giving away and receiving things is so much better than having to get new stuff, all our houses are full of things already, the word of the day is SWAP! Join you freecycle group, organize clothes swap nights or (if it’s not raining) try to put an item outside your front door with a sign “please take”!
I have been terribly lazy, spring is gone and it looks like summer is fading away quite quickly.
In the world of blogs I have been very very absent, and a few months is a long time.
But one thing I’ve done is growing my vegetables, I have had some peas, but finally realized that the spot I chose for them was unsuitable, so next year I’ll plant them somewhere else.
I had strawberries, but they are never as many as I would like.
I still have courgettes, an Italian heirloom variety which is extremely tasty even when it gets to the marrow stage.
My autumn fruiting raspberries have just started turning red, they are huge!!!
And I am keeping my little eyes peeled for the glut of tomatoes that my tiny garden will hopefully produce, I have 3 different varieties: a beefsteak, a “regular” (smallish round, forgot the name) and the all-time-favourite San Marzano, which you won’t find anywhere in he UK.
San Marzano are “the” tomatoes that you find in the real neapolitan pizza, they a specialty of the Campania region and are canned whole (no skin though). San Marzano are quite special, they look long and sort of rectangular (yes, yes), the flesh is quite dry and the flavour improves tremendously when cooked, they get much sweeter than your regular tomato.
Last year I halved them and dried them in the oven with herbs and they were amazing.
So, you see, in the end I was doing something…
Yes, it seems it’s finally warming up, and it looks almost like a joke, it’s too good to be true.
Last year I got a bit overexcited with tomato seed and planted a whole packet, too late in the season and it wasn’t a real success, this year I am taking it professionally, and given that I have a garden the size of a post stamp, I am planting out very few plants.
I have 2 different kinds of tomatoes and a first batch of peas (the ones on the top right), and I am soooo looking forward to planting them out!
At the moment the peas are “hardening”, staying outside during the day and inside at night.
There is nothing better than growing vegetables and fruit, it’s easy, cheap and everything tastes much nicer!
I recently saw this amazing film called “Home”. It is a documentary by the french photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand, a man specialized in aerial photos, his book “Earth from above” is a wonderful collection of 365 pictures of all sorts of places on Earth.
This film is an ecological documentary in which the story is told mainly by the beautiful images, and it’s about how humans are exploiting planet Earth, using up all the non-renewable energy without thinking of the consequences.
It is a very good film to show to young people as well, it is very simple and straighforward.
However hard “normal” people try to be as green as they can, the governments are so tied up by the interest of big companies that are extremely slow in doing anything, and quite often the steps they take are just silly or ineffective.
But the laziness of the governments should not stop each one of us to try and do our best, even if we are doing it with a huge feeling of frustration.
Whatever happen next, we’ll all be paying the price of what we have done.
The author gave up his rights and you can watch it online, I recommend it strongly.
Writing about this film made me a bit gloomy, oh dear!
Outside is all covered in snow.
Good night
A couple of months ago I acquired a Nintendo DS game console, a second hand one to be precise and the main reason was that I had bought a game a month before the console! The game in question is quite famous, it’s called “Professor Layton and the curious village”
Now, on the packet it says “for years 7+”… but that didn’t put me off, I played the whole thing and I have to say I loved it!
The music is particularly lovely, and the video sequences are really good, the graphic is detailed and the puzzles are very interesting, some being quite easy, others a bit time consuming.
Buying something that mainly 9 year olds have made me think a bit.
Am I too old for this? I share the console with my daughter, who is completely in love with her “Nintendogs” game (which came with the console and 2 other games).
All this thinking led me to the conclusion that I am part of the first generation of computer lovers, being born in ‘75, I was about 11 when the Commodore 64 came out and we loved to play games on it, even waiting 20 minutes for the tape to load one very simple platform game didn’t put us off, I had friends coming round to play and spent many afternoons at my best friend’s house playing “Mission impossible” (which of course we never finished).
In bars we could play on the big machines, and it was either Street Fighter or Tetris.
Then I had the Game boy (only ever played Tetris on that one and was very happy too!!!).
Then came proper computers, I never was able to do any programming but I played my fair share of games, some of them I remember very fondly, “Little big Adventure”,”Alone in the Dark”(the first one), “Theme Hospital” (hilarious!!!) and “Ultima underworld”, and of course I played “Quake”, “Duke Nukem”, and “Tomb Raider”…
We now have a Playstation 2 which we use mainly as a dvd player, but I have a couple of games, and recently discovered “Katamari”, which is a crazy Japanese game in which you just have to roll a sticky ball to which objects stick…
I don’t feel I wasted my time playing all those hours, it was a fun thing to do with friends, and it’s a bit like reading a book, which I also do, and a lot more than playing games.
I won’t be one of those parents complaining of their children playing violent games all day long, it’s a bit like complaining that your child is reading De Sade, it’s all a matter of balance in the end, it’s normal for children to try as much as they can, and if something has a reputation of being bad for you then it will be the first thing they want to try.
I have read De Sade and played violent games and ended up being a vegetarian!
As I wrote in the previous post, I have been to some very nice vegetarian places in Cornwall, and they came as a surprise because I wasn’t expecting any veggie restaurant/cafe.
I already wrote about the Bean Inn, it is worth a trip if you are in the area.
In St Ives centre there is a very nice cafe called Terra Viva (next door to the library); the same owners run an organic hairdresser next door.
The cafè is small but very bright, it’s entirely vegetarian and there are plenty of vegan options, they serve salads, sandwiches, main dishes, soups and ice cream.
We had a coffee with some vegan ice cream, made out of cashew nuts (from Tofutti). The address is Gabriel Street, Royal Square and their telephone is 01736794447.
Up the road from the cafe there is a farmer’s market once a week (I think it’s on Thursday, but I’m not entirely sure) which is quite small but worth a visit, there are also the people from the Bean Inn selling veggie food. We bought homemade jams, local strawberries (they were absolutely great), chocolate, cornish cheese (yummy!) and some indian snacks.
Our best dinner was in a small restaurant on the harbour, a little hidden away (it’s on a first floor and you can’t see it from the street, but there is a sign). The great place is called Spinacio’s but it’s not an Italian restaurant despite the name.
It is just one year old, and the atmosphere is nice, maybe a little bit on the dark side, and it has a strong accent on seasonal ingredient. I had a beetroot and new potato rosti with goat’s cheese, broad bean mash, some wild greens and minted peas, my husband had a curry and it tasted really good, my rosti was delicious, and the peas were superfresh and not overcooked (it is a rare thing in UK!).
For pudding the hubby got some home made macaroons, with orange flavoured chocolate chips, and said it was one of the best dessert he ever had!
Spinacio’s tel. n. is 01736798818
There are some other vegetarian restaurants around Cornwall, we happen to read a local magazine with the names of the best veggie places, we copied some down, but didn’t visit, so here they are:
Lettuce and Lovage, tel 01872 272546, 15 Kenwyn Street, Truro TR1 3BU
Johnny’s Cafe 50 Penpol Terrace, Hayle (TR274BQ) Phone number: 01736-755928
Treetop Cafe, The Monkey Sanctuary near Looe Cornwall PL13 1NZ Tel 01503 262 532
And one in Plymouth, Devon, just in case!
Veggie Perrin’s 97 Mayflower Street, Plymouth, Devon, PL1 1SD, UK. Tel: 01752 252888
I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that finding veggie foods has been much easier than I thought.
It’s much easier to find a “fish and chip” around every corner, though…but at the end of the day, if you want a snack on the beach, forget the calorie count (and the sky-high G.I.!) and you can always grab some chips, the kids will not object too.
We had a couple of not so nice experiences, and both in attempt to eat a pizza, the first one was rather bad, the second one better but still not a good pizza.
But I try to keep this blog positive and I will talk about the nice things: we stayed at a vegetarian bed and breakfast which also ran a veggie restaurant in the evenings (just some evenings though, if you plan to go better call them to check they are open).
The b&b is called Coast and it’s in Carbis Bay, the restaurant is called Bean Inn.
The menu in the restaurant changes quite often and it’s a nice mix of world foods, all with seasonal ingredients, some dishes I can remember are “tarka daal” with very nice garlic naan bread, the daal is a lentil cream you scoop up with the bread; I had a strange but nice tarte, with blue cheese, walnuts and grapes, a very good puy lentil, stilton salad with roasted beetroot pure.
As for the hotel itself, it’s nice but we had the room on the ground floor which was terribly damp (which is the main “ingredient” in the local weather) but they gave us a de-humidifier. The rooms on the second floor had the most amazing view on Carbis Bay.
One of the owner is an artist and you’ll find her pictures and art pieces everywhere, and many are for sales (cards as well).
The greatest thing for me was breakfast, because you could choose from the hot menu, as well as toast, jam and the like, there were things like scotch pancakes with maple syrup and bananas, full english (veggie) breakfast, toasted muffin, a knickerbocker-style glass of yogurt, fresh fruit and muesli… We had the pancakes many times and I have to say they were delicious!
I wanted to go to see St. Ives and I finally went!
We had a nice little holiday in Cornwall, and I have to say it’s a great place, completely different from the rest of England, there really is a “surfer’s coast” feeling, despite the rain, that is.
The town itself it’s small but very nice and a lovely place to just wander around. There are lots of shops and in high season it’s terribly busy, and cars are allowed in narrow streets of the centre, which makes walking around a bit uncomfortable.
We have been to the Tate St Ives, and the building itself it’s probably more interesting than the art collection inside…but it was a windy stormy day so it was a good place to be, we had a nice lunch in the cafe and this is the view from the cafe:
We also managed to be on the beach as well and enjoy the sun, there are lovely beaches and you can walk from one bay to the next though coastal paths immersed in lush vegetation, which makes it very pleasant.
We then rented a car and were able to go a bit further (there are buses but you would need more time to see as much).
We went to Land’s End, and I’m not sure it’s worth the trip, because they make you pay for parking the car and they’ve built a big shopping place with cheap attractions (there was a Doctor Who one!!!) which makes the place look like a very tired theme park.
The view it’s still beautiful but the shopping place it’s just awful.
We visited the Minack Theatre, which is absolutely amazing:
It’s a theatre built into the rocky cliffs, and the seats in the lower area are carved with the names of the play they’ve showed
It is still used, but you need to book your tickets in advance, it is quite small so it gets full quickly, but it is opened for visits, there’s also a small exibition that explains how it was built, and that’s very very interesting.
Climbing down a very steep path you reach the beautiful Porthcurno beach:
As you can see from the photo it was a beautiful day and we spent the rest of the day on the beach.
Cornwall is a gem, really beautiful.
Isn’t it a dream come true to have good neighbours next door?
Well, I am lucky enough to have a lovely family next door, and to me it’s like a dream come true!
In an ideal world we all would have nice people living next to us, at hand when you need last minute babysitting, an egg or just a chat over a cup of tea, but the reality is often very different: screaming kids, loud music, offensive smells and nasty looks…
If you don’t know your neighbour, try and bake some cookies and just bring them some: if they are anything like me they will jump at the chance and you’ll be friends for good!
I have had some vary nasty neighbour over the years, the worse being a guy who tried to attack his partner with a very long kitchen knife (all this in the garden, with a crowd of people watching!!!) and ended up in prison for trying to kill someone!
So, thanks to my Lucky Star for my lovely neighbours, more cupcakes coming their way!