Blue Orpingtons

We went to the ploughing match yesterday, where it was the old-fashioned ploughing that caught our attention:






























































We met friends, we tried on waxed jackets and sturdy boots, Lucius bought a pair of telescopic loppers. And I bought two blue Orpington hens in the poultry auction. They are very nervous at the moment, and only come out when it's raining. I'll post better pictures when they've settled down. (I fear I'm going to turn into the poultry equivalnt of a mad cat blogger.)






Related links:

First outing for our buff Orpington chicks

Banksy at the Bristol Art Gallery

Nothing to eat at the Bristol Art Gallery, but plenty of food for thought ... various striking things about the Bristol Museum vs Banksy exhibition: there are a lot of jokes, there are a lot of people in the queue who don't normally visit art galleries, there are a lot of children roaring round the museum looking for Banksy jokes and finding other inspirations. Thoroughly recommended - Banksy will make you laugh out loud, challenge some of your perceptions of art and of the world, deflate any tendency to pomposity, and make you notice all sorts of things in the museum. It's not subtle, but it's great fun.

































This joke definitely got me thinking about the gleaners as real people; there's something a little lazy about romantising such tough lives. And who's to say you wouldn't want to sit down for a quiet smoke if that was your life?
























This is Banksy's version of the Angel of the North ... a southerner's view of Saturday night on Tyneside - but just as true of Bristol - we were kept awake much of the night by noisy young pouring out of a nearby nightclub and the university student union.
























You could say that this is simplistic, it was one of a number of works dealing with warfare and violence (eg a classical bust of Mars thrown in a bucket with some flowers next to a large painting of soldiers armed with flowers); if you don't agree with Banksy's pacifism, it's no good reacting pompously, because the next work will be a joke. Like this rather gory circus joke, which reminded me of various stories and poems I read to our children when young ..

(Jim) hadn't gone a yard when--Bang!

With open Jaws, a lion sprang,

And hungrily began to eat

The Boy: beginning at his feet.

Now, just imagine how it feels

When first your toes and then your heels,

And then by gradual degrees,

Your shins and ankles, calves and knees,

Are slowly eaten, bit by bit.

No wonder Jim detested it!

It's part of Jim, from Hillaire Belloc's Cautionary Tales for Children, a poem all our children know by heart.

The lovely Edwardian museum has probably never seen anything like it; it's free, but you'll have to queue - there were several hundred people ahead of us when we arrived half an hour before opening time at 9.30 (on a SUNDAY). By the time we came out, the queue was twice as long, the people at the back were probably going to have to wait at least an hour, maybe more.

Beechdean ice cream

We went to the Theatre Royal Windsor last night to see a very good whodunnit ... disappointing that it was only about 1/3 full - normally on a Thursday it's pretty full, so perhaps everyone was at home watching Britain's Got Talent. Hope there's a better turnout for Brief Encounter next week.

As usual, fantastic Beechdean ice cream in the interval .... reading the label, it's produced on a farm which is very close to home, as well as the theatre. What a treat.

When we emerged, the ferris wheel was lit up and still spinning furiously, but we couldn't work out whether there was anyone in it or not.

Testing the new roof at Wimbledon

We left home this morning in a shower of rain, and arrived at Wimbledon in a cold blustery wind.

















We saw the new roof cover the centre court - eight minutes of stop-start - then watched Tim Henman, Kim Cluysters, Andre Agassi and Steffi Graff play doubles and singles.
























When we emerged .... yes, it had been raining. We were blissfully unaware that, for the first time, rain didn't stop play. (The roof was deployed for final testing, rather than to shelter the court.)

















Lunch was a decent but pricey sandwich, and filthy coffee; if you're heading for Wimbledon this summer, my advice would be to take your own food.

Escape to Sussex

Suddenly needed to get away for a few days. This is the view from my room by the sea. Yesterday it was sunny, but I didn't have my new camera then. (After months of humming and hawing, took the plunge, bought a Nikon D90, fell in love with the first click.)

I went to Alfriston, to visit the Clergy House, the first building ever bought by the National Trust. Wonderful floor, made of tamped chalk hardened by pouring sour milk and leaving for a couple of weeks. Beautiful oak frames, and an oak leaf carved into one - the centuries-old decoration of a yeoman farmer, now used as the logo of the National Trust. The garden is beautiful, the productive parts much the best to my eye.


















Then to Much Ado Books, where the lovely proprietress slipped a teabag into the book I bought, so that I could enjoy reading it with a cup of tea ... I went straight back to the car and got the kettle out of the boot.

A play-date at Miele Experience Centre

A week or two ago, I spent a very merry day at the Miele Experience Centre, trying out their kitchen equipment. We've got a little light kitchen remodelling to do here, and I've been humming and hawing about it for months. Not any more. I've got it all sorted. Nearly.

The Experience Centre is unique amongst white goods manufacturers: anyone can go (by appointment) and play with the full range, everything is "live" - ie plugged and plumbed in. You can even take your washing. But mostly, people go there to cook, guided by Miele's home economist Elspeth.















You might think that a cooker is a cooker is a cooker. But you'd be wrong. (Well, I was wrong.) The test kitchen has four work stations, and each of them is equipped slightly differently: a hob, ovens, plus one item which might be described as a novelty. There was a barbecue grill, a salamander (which is a fancy, space age sort of a grill that rises up out of the worktop), a tepanyaki hotplate, and a built-in wok. All good fun, if in total contrast to my Esse woodburning stove, and the Aga that I have cooked on for over 20 years.

Someone commented that this was scientific cooking ... all that programming is not the thing for an instinctive cook. On the other hand, here's something worth having - the whole range is integrated, so that all the trays and racks fit everything .... you can prepare food ahead, put it on a metal tray which slots into your fridge and later will go straight into your oven. Every last little detail has been thought about - top class design and engineering.

I'm not a great one for gadgets, but the built-in coffee maker is a dream. We won't need a microwave any more, as we only ever use it to heat up milk for hot chocolate. And we'll have a heated drawer, which will primarily be used for proving bread, although we'll never have an excuse for cold plates any more, and we'll be able to keep supper warm for late-comers.

Miele are kindly going to lend me a steam oven to play with .... people who have them say that they are the best; I just wonder if it's too scientific for me, if it would end up as the world's most expensive egg boiler.















Anyone can spend the day at the Experience Centre, for which there's no charge (that's real confidence in your product), although my day there was specially arranged for a group of bloggers. I cooked with Sam, the Cycling Cook, whose post explains what we made. Also there were Alex from The Princess and the Recipe, Joy of Almanzo's Belly and Alex at Just Cook It. A great day out ... made perfect by Anna, the washing-up fairy, who made it possible for one fabulous day to cook without having to bother about clearing up.















Beware though, you may end up, like me, thinking that there's really no alternative ...

Real tennis at Lord's

Pride comes before a fall ... and (so?), of course, Oxford failed to win a single match, although they were all closely fought. Half way through the last match, the lights went out. And that was the end of that. Ditto the dinner, as the lights were still off two-and-a-half hours later.

























The match was duly abandoned, and we all repaired to the Long Room bar for drinks (Pol Roger, as they are the sponsors). The room was lit with a few emergency lights, and a long line of silver candelabra, which flickered flatteringly for the mothers (and a sprinkling of grandmothers) - the young women tennis players would all have looked fabulous in any light. But there was still no electricity by the 8.30 deadline - the emergency lights were due to fail at 8.45. Alfred and I left Lord's as the players were all milling about trying to make a dinner plan. We drove back to Henley, got takeaway from Pizza Express, and ate it while watching Match of the Day. (Hubris for Lucius, too, now I come to think of it, as he swore Aston Villa would beat Chelsea 1-0. Ha!) Not what we'd planned, but nice.

A bit of gratuitous maternal boasting

Fingers crossed. It's the conclusion of the real tennis varsity match at Lord's today, and it's the first time for over a decade that Oxford has any chance of beating Cambridge - the long-serving Cambridge postgrad tennis players all graduated last year: one of them (the one playing my boy) was playing for Cambridge for the 14th time.

Horatio is captain of Oxford this year (see post title), and started the match with a doubles win yesterday. Sadly the other doubles match went to Cambridge, but that means today's four singles matches will be keenly contested.

My top photo shows Horatio warming up; the one below shows my chaps watching the second match, and gives you an idea of what the court looks like. I'll try to take better photos today.


















Related post:

We went to last year's match too - and I managed to post something about the food

This wonderful, pagan knocker is on the door of Durham Cathedral.

In the Middle Ages, the cathedral could be used as a place of sanctuary by fugitives. If you'd committed a serious offence, you could claim sanctuary by knocking at the door (the knocker is very high). You then had 37 days to organise your affairs, and either stand trial, or leave the country by the nearest port.



















I took my reluctant boys to the cathedral yesterday morning as we were passing, and it's very close to the motorway. There's a chapel for the Durham Light Infantry, my grandfather's regiment, and I was glad to be there the day before the anniversary of his death in 1941. He served in the DLI in the first world war; in the second world war he served in the Royal Artillery, so his name is not in the DLI roll of honour in the Cathedral. But it was good during this hectic season to have a quiet moment's reflection about a man I love but never met.

How DO you say Miele?

Most inconveniently, I've fallen in love - preposterously, with a fridge. Not just any old fridge, either. I'm not much of a one for labels, so it was a coup de foudre. No, really, I don't even notice labels - yesterday, I told the man from Lavazza that I loved his coffee, only it turned out to be Illy's, and, moments later, I found myself telling the Dove miller that the flour my children liked best in the world was his Seed and Grain - only that turns out to be made by Allinson. Oh dear.

Anyway, back to the fridge. This is how it happened. We were in the huge theatre at the Good Food Show watching the pantomime dame that is James Martin spinning sugar out of a pan, his patter awash with doubles entendres, the audience screaming with delight - not the children, grown women (some of whom clearly thought they were about to see the Chippendales). Show over, our little group of bloggers was allowed up on the stage.

My plan was to take photos of the underside of the demonstration worktop - does that sink actually work? From the murky world of investigative blogging I can tell you definitively: no. There's a waste pipe poking down, but no bucket. Probably no water in the taps, either, but I didn't get the chance to try them.

On the way back down to earth, I passed the fridge. Being the sort of person I am, I opened it. Nothing in it. Nothing at all. Even so, the fridge beckoned: it's got more lights than the third runway at Heathrow, you'd never lose anything in there. I thought I'd take a photo, but someone from Gordon's team elbowed me out of the way, on an urgent mission to fill the fridge with everything he needed for the next show (a small plate of tuna steak). Actually, now I come to think of it, any photo of mine wouldn't have done justice to my new love, but it's okay, I'm not about to forget. (Also, it just occurs to me that there's probably a properly pornographic photo in the brochure I've got somewhere.)

A couple of us stayed on to watch Gordon (first I'd heard the papers say he's been a bad man was from his own lips). While he was patronising us with something he called blotty soup, but which the rest of us might think of as minestrone with an awful lot of wind, I began to notice that both TV chefs had mentioned all their sponsors bar one (James Martin gleefully telling us that Waitrose is a better bet than the sponsoring supermarket). At first I thought it might be because they took for granted the presence of a hot oven in their kitchens. But gradually I realised it was because any fool can say Billington, Sainsbury, etc etc.

And then - forgive me - I began to feel smug. I'd taken the precaution, earlier in the day, of asking our host for definitive advice. Miele. Rhymes with dealer. I just wish I'd asked how much my fridge is going to cost.


Other bloggers at the Good Food Show yesterday

Becky at Girl Interupted Eating
Francesca at 101 Things Every Cook Should Cook
Nicola at Cherrapeno
Katie at Apple and Spice
Anne at Anne's Kitchen
Sam at Antics of a Cycling Cook


Useful link, especially if you want to buy a fridge

Miele


PS the photograph (illicit, I'm afraid, but I was sitting in the back row and came over all naughty schoolgirl) is not so much a snap of Gordon as a picture of the perfect fridge (on the left, and in the background on the right)

Two views of the River Tyne

Dodging the showers, I've had a busy day ... Corbridge first thing, then on to Langley to visit the Garden Station, then to Wallington - knock-out - and back to Hallgarth Manor through the centre of Newcastle.


















These photographs were each taken from a bridge: top, from the Gateshead Millennium Bridge (looking towards Stephenson's High Level Bridge and the Tyne Bridge); bottom, from the 17th century bridge at Corbridge.