Making Mince Pies

21 Sun Dec 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in cooking, Rural Diary

Tags

Christmas, Christmas cooking, Mince pies, mincemeat, sweet shortcrust pastry, traditional British food

We had our Carol Service at Rumburgh church on Saturday and I made two dozen mince pies to take with me as part of the after-service refreshments.

Sweet shortcrust pastry ingredients

Sweet shortcrust pastry is used for French fruit flans, tarts, little fancy cakes – and mince pies! The following recipe makes about twelve mince pies. I use the same method when making little individual apple pies which are lovely for buffets, packed lunches and picnics.

225 g / 8 oz plain flour

pinch of salt

50 g / 2 oz butter

50 g / 2 oz lard or vegetable shortening

25 g / 1 oz caster sugar

1 egg yolk

a little water

This makes 225 g / 8 oz pastry

Sift the flour and salt into a mixing bowl

Cut the fat into the flour

Rub in to a breadcrumb consistency

As soon as I think that I have finished rubbing in the fat I then tell myself to continue for another minute. I always find a piece of fat I had missed.

Add the sugar and mix together

: Add about two tablespoons of water to an egg yolk

: and beat them together

Add the egg and water to the flour, fat and sugar

Mix them together

I always just use my hands, never a spoon, when making pastry. I find it mixes together quickly and easily and I can feel when it is of the right consistency rather than just trusting to my eyes. I have never used a blender to make pastry either.

Keep mixing the ingredients together, adding a very little more water if necessary.

Sometimes just dampening my fingers adds enough water to make the pastry smooth and elastic. Too much water makes the pastry slimy and horrid and will never be anything other than tough to eat.

Knead lightly until smooth but don’t overwork it or it will lose its lightness.

The finished pastry – which needs to be rested in the refrigerator for at least 20 minutes before being rolled out. I wrap it in cling-film.

Mince pie ingredients

Flour your work surface or pastry board and start to roll the pastry out carefully.

As the pastry is very short (crumbly – difficult to keep together) it requires careful handling or it will split and fall apart. If you haven’t added enough water when mixing it will fall apart very readily. This problem can easily be overcome by adding a sprinkle more water and re-kneading the dough.

Roll the pastry out very thinly, 2.5 mm / one eighth of an inch thick

Cut out 12 rounds with a plain or fluted cutter. I use a 7.5 cm / 3″ one.

017Circles of pastry in patty pans (640x480)

Line a pastry pan with the pastry rounds and prick the bottom of each pie with a fork to help the pastry cook through

Fill each pie with a teaspoon of mincemeat

I have never made my own mincemeat but have been meaning to for years! Bought mincemeat is very variable, some very poor and more like runny jam than proper mincemeat. I have found one that is very good and I use it every year. Some bought mincemeats can be improved by a little lemon juice or a small drop of brandy or rum.

Mincemeat is made from shredded suet (beef or vegetable), grated or finely chopped apple, mixed dried fruit (sultanas, raisins and currants), brown sugar, chopped blanched almonds, chopped candied orange and lemon peel, finely grated rind and juice of a large lemon, mixed spice, cinnamon, grated nutmeg and some brandy, whisky or rum. Hundreds of years ago it did contain meat as well, hence the name of mincemeat, but no longer. If vegetable suet is used then the mince pies can be eaten by vegetarians.

Cut out 12 smaller rounds of pastry with a plain or fluted cutter. I use a 6 cm / 2.5″ cutter. If you don’t have enough pastry to cut out all the rounds you need, gather all the trimmings together, knead them with a little water and roll out again.

Dampen the edge of the pie with a little water and cover the filling in each tart with the smaller round of pastry, pressing down firmly so the lids are secure. Cut a small hole or cross in the centre of each lid to allow steam to escape.

Place the pies in their pastry pan onto a baking sheet and bake in a pre-heated oven at 220 degrees C / 425 degrees F / Gas Mark 7 for 12 to 15 minutes or until well risen and golden.

Baked pies.

More baked pies!

A finished pie

Leave to cool in the pastry pan for a few minutes and then place on a rack to finish cooling.

If you so wish you can dust the top with a little icing sugar.

Mince pies can be eaten hot straight from the oven or cold, on their own or with custard or cream and even as an accompaniment to Christmas pudding if you are so minded. They keep for days and days in a sealed container and can be re-heated. I love them!

A Gentle Day

14 Sun Dec 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in Rural Diary, Uncategorized, walking

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

Christmas preparations, Christmas Tree, Christmas Wreath, crinkle-crankle wall, Halesworth, Rectory Lane

A beautiful sunrise on Tuesday of this week.

Term has ended and E managed to attend every day for six weeks! We are so pleased with her and she is very proud of herself too. She has found a really nice group of friends and is starting to relax and enjoy life. She is on track with two out of the four subjects she is studying and just needs to do a little extra work to catch-up in Art. The one subject that needs a lot of work is her Maths but I am hoping that R and I can persuade her to get on with that during the Christmas break. She is going into college next Tuesday for an Art catch-up day which will be a great help.

I have got most of my present-buying done but I haven’t started on the card-writing yet. I must clean the house properly as it has only had a lick and a promise lately and then we can put the decorations up. I must also start baking and freezing food in advance to save time later.

R has one more week at work and then has two weeks annual leave. He had a hospital appointment during the week for a bone-density scan in case he has started to get osteoporosis. This is part of the investigation he has to under-go because of the tumour on his pituitary gland. He has two separate hospital appointments next week, one to see if his adrenal gland is working properly and the other at the eye clinic. We are not sure if the eye clinic appointment is to do with his pituitary problem (the gland is very close to the optic nerve) or whether it is a routine check-up. He has keratoconus (conical corneas) and has to wear special contact lenses.

My eldest daughter Alice, will be coming home on Christmas Eve and will stay until New Year’s Eve. My sister is visiting on Monday and I hope to be seeing my brother sometime soon too. Mum seems to be fine at the moment. I took her Christmas shopping in Norwich on Tuesday and then we did her usual grocery shopping on Wednesday. I will take her to church tomorrow. She hasn’t been for weeks, sadly – I haven’t been able to take her as I’ve had other duties and there is no-one else around it seems, who could do it either. This is very unfortunate especially as she takes great comfort from her church attendance. Mum and Dad, when he was alive, give and gave so much of their time and skill to that church that I am surprised that she can be forgotten so easily. Mum got a phone call a couple of weeks ago from a lady at the church asking if Mum could provide a cake for the Christmas Bazaar. Mum said she was happy to but had no means of getting the cake to the church. She was told that that would be no problem. Someone would come and collect it and as there was a funeral of an old friend of my father’s on the same day as the bazaar, Mum would get a lift to that as well. Mum made two cakes and phoned and left a message to say she had made them. She phoned on the day of the bazaar and left another message. No-one came and no-one has been in touch to apologise. She is 84 and has very little money to spare and very little energy to spare either. I am hoping that she will get an apology tomorrow.

I have become very tired because of the extra driving I have had to do lately. I have driven over 11,000 miles since the beginning of September, spending on average 4 hours a day in the car. The days I take Mum out as well as doing the double journey to Norwich and back I spend nearer to 5.5 hours in the car. I have bought a lot of petrol, filling the tank every five days. Fortunately the price of petrol has gone down recently – at the moment it is 118.9 pence per litre here. I am still trying to do my household chores but I have had to give up my gardening. I haven’t even had time to feed the birds for weeks and weeks. Tiredness has made me grumpy, prone to upset stomachs, prone to tears and a ‘Scrooginess’ comes over me when I have to think about Christmas.

Humbug!

Today, however, has been such a pleasant one. We woke to another clear and frosty morning. R and I enjoyed a relaxed breakfast and then I drove us to Bungay so that we could collect the Christmas wreath I had ordered a week or so ago. We haven’t been out together for some while so this walk through the town made a nice change. R bought a newspaper and we returned home.

Our Christmas Wreath

E had a hair appointment to go to in Halesworth at 1.00 pm so this time R drove us. We walked with her to the hairdressers and then went to buy some dried ingredients for R’s soup-making from a delicatessen in the Thoroughfare. In most English towns the main street is known as the High Street but in Suffolk many towns call their main street the ‘thoroughfare’. We called in at a café and had coffee and then, as there was still about a quarter of an hour until E would be finished we walked up Rectory Lane back to the Market Place. This is a narrow alleyway that runs behind the Thoroughfare from the north of the town to the south.

The lane goes alongside the Town River, a tributary of the River Blyth.

A few weeks ago when we had nearly two days of heavy rain, this little river was very close to breaking its banks and flooding the town.

A view down the river from the bridge.

The crinkle-crankle wall. There are twice as many crinkle-crankle walls in Suffolk than in the whole of the rest of the country

A small door in the wall. It is only about 5′ tall.

The end of Rectory Lane just before it emerges into Chediston Street.

R walking up Chediston Street

Halesworth is quite a busy market town but as you can see, even on a Saturday afternoon less than two weeks before Christmas some peace and quiet can be had.

We returned to our car and almost immediately E joined us looking lovely with her neatly cut and straightened hair. We drove to Holton, a village on the outskirts of Halesworth where we usually buy our Christmas tree at a farm. We quickly found a suitable one and took it home with us.

Our well-wrapped Christmas tree.

R will trim a little off the base of the trunk and a couple of the lower branches and then fit it into the tree stand after we have soaked it for a few days. We will bring it into the house in a few days time and then decorate it. This is the first year that Alice hasn’t been here to help us.

Advent

11 Thu Dec 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in churches, music, Rural Diary, Uncategorized

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Advent, Advent Candle, Advent Crown, Carols and Capers, Medieval church, music and dance

I took this photo a week ago when, for an hour, the thick pall of cloud that had been over us for a week or more receded towards the coast and we saw the sun. I was amazed to see how deep the cloud was. The cloud returned shortly after I took this picture.

We are now in the second week of Advent and Christmas is looming fast. I like Advent – at least I like Advent in theory, if not in practice. I wish time would go a little slower so that I could fit in all the Christmas preparations and still have opportunity for quiet reflection. i wish to appreciate and enjoy anticipating Christmas.

There used to be a children’s programme on TV when both my girls were younger called ‘Bernard’s Watch’ in which a boy called Bernard had a special watch that could halt time, stopping everyone in their tracks, while Bernard rushed about trying to catch up and put things right. I want Bernard’s watch!

Unfortunately, this time of year is so full of doctor’s and hospital appointments, check-ups at the optician and dentist, visits to relatives, trying to remember last postal dates and ordering of meat and wreaths, that the really nice bits are side-lined and fitted-in to our schedule almost as an after-thought.

Our Advent Crown with the first candle alight

At home we make an Advent Crown with evergreen and candles, we have an Advent Candle and Advent Calendars.

The Advent candle

While E and I make the Crown and also a table-centre decoration as well, it is traditional for us to play an ancient tape that we have had since my eldest daughter was little. It is the most horrible of tapes with what my daughters describe as ‘cheesy’ Christmas songs on it. If R is around he complains very loudly when we put the ‘music’ on but I don’t think Advent Sunday would be half as much fun without it.

004Elinor's Advent arrangement (640x480)

My daughter’s table-centre arrangment

The Sunday before last (30th November) was Advent Sunday so the day before that, R and I went to Rumburgh Church to make sure all was tidy and in order and to put the church Advent Crown together. There are plenty of evergreen trees and plants in the churchyard so I gathered a selection of good looking cuttings and arranged them as best I could around the candle holder.

Rumburgh’s Advent Crown

While I was wandering about the churchyard looking for greenery I saw this…

An extremely early primrose.

…and this.

A coral fungus. This was very small as you can see by comparing it to the pea-shingle next to it.

I also saw this…

Holly with berries. If you look carefully you’ll see the mildew on the shiny leaves. It has been so damp this autumn!

…..and this

The wooden churchyard gate has turned green too

010Gate to path leading to churchyard (640x480)

as has the gate to the path which leads to the churchyard. Our church is not visible from the road.

We have no church services at Rumburgh for the whole of the Advent and Christmas period this year but we do have a couple of carol services, the first of which was last Sunday, 7th December.

We had travelled up to Manchester on Saturday 6th December so that we could visit my in-laws. R had driven up from Gloucestershire in the West Country where he had been working and E and I had gone on the train from home. Because of the new franchise there is no longer a direct train route to Manchester from East Anglia. The quickest and cheapest route was to travel south to London, cross the city from Liverpool Street Station to Euston Station and then take the pendolino train north to Manchester from there. My poor mother-in-law is still very unwell but has left hospital and is now in a respite care-home for a few weeks. Since moving to the care home she has caught a chest infection which has added to the problems she has with breathing because of a faulty valve in her heart. She also fell and broke her thumb so has her hand in a plaster cast. We stayed with her for about half an hour at most and then left when we saw that she was tiring. We then drove to a restaurant and met my brother-in-law and his partner, his son and his partner and their two-year-old daughter and had a meal together. R’s nephew, nephew’s partner and daughter had all had the chesty cough and cold but my brother-in-law was still suffering with it and we have since heard that his partner has become ill with it. This does not bode well for us! We returned to our very basic hotel and had a restless night before driving home on Sunday morning. We set off shortly after 9.00 am and got back home just after 2.00 pm. We had a short rest before going to the church to get it ready for the carol service.

The interior of our church. R is starting to get it ready for the service.

There are many candles to be lit and the mince pies and mulled wine to set out before the congregation start to arrive.

Here is R lighting the candles on one of the window sills. R is 6′ 3.5″ tall and even by standing on the pew and stretching he can only just reach!

We set out the refreshments on the table at the back of the church and covered them for protection

Floral display round the font

This service is called Carols and Capers and is organised by our local folk groups and Morris dancers. (A caper is a skip or jump and is used in Morris dancing). Unfortunately, this year we didn’t have as many people in the church as in past years, probably because of a number of other events going on in the area. I usually make my own mince pies to bring to the service but I had been much too busy and so I brought bought ones.

The congregation began to arrive

The second candle was lit on the Crown

The service went very well with a mixture of communal unaccompanied carol singing, dancing, solo singing, recitation and instrumental music. Three of us from church were asked to do some readings from the Nativity Story and the Rector gave us a Bidding-prayer at the beginning, an amusing talk on ‘Christmas Words’ and sent us home with a Blessing.

Gallimaufry are a dance group who specialise in Medieval and Tudor dances

Gallimaufry

Pearl in the Egg are a couple of very talented young women who play period instruments. Here they are playing the music for Gallimaufry to dance to.

Pearl in the Egg then sang and played to us. This is my favourite part of the evening. According to their web-site, Pearl in the Egg (Perle in the Eghe) was the name of a real minstrel, a blind harpist who performed for King Edward I in 1306. He performed along with the Minstrel with the Bells, Matilda Makejoy and Reginald the Liar.

Pearl in the Egg describe themselves as Historical Musicians and they perform in many places including in churches, at fairs and at schools. They give talks and presentations and not only perform Medieval music but also Tudor, Victorian and 1940’s as well. Pearl in the Egg was a term used to describe cataracts in Medieval England.

‘Rumfolk’ then sang to us

And Rumburgh Morris danced for us

A most enjoyable evening rounded of with the mince pies and mulled wine and lots of talk! Our next carol Service is on Saturday 20th December.

Peak District Holiday 1st to 9th July. Day 5.

26 Wed Nov 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in churches, Rural Diary

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

architecture, church of St Edward the Confessor, George Edmund Street, Greystones, Larner Sugden, Leek, Leek School of Embroidery, Nicholson Institute, Norman Shaw, oatcakes, ragged schools, River Churnet, silk mills, Staffordshire, stained glass, William Morris, William Sugden

A view down one of the main streets in Leek looking towards the Roman Catholic church.

The nearest town to where we usually stay in the Staffordshire Peaks is Leek. It is the principal town of the area and is known locally as ‘The Queen of the Moorlands’. It is not a large town; it is built on a hill and is contained in a large bend in the River Churnet. During the late 18th and early 19th centuries it changed from a quiet market town to a silk-weaving centre and a few large mills were built there. This industry has completely gone now but some of the old mills remain.

An abandoned mill.

William Morris, the founder of the Arts and Crafts movement lived and worked in Leek from 1875 until 1878. He studied the art of dyeing there and it was Leek which provided his firm with silk.

R and I woke on the Saturday morning to hear the rain still falling and so didn’t rush our breakfast. Fortunately, by the time we had washed up after our meal the rain had stopped and the sun had come out. We decided we would spend the rest of the day in Leek so after a mid-morning cup of coffee we drove into town and parked the car in a car-park next to playing fields.

The town is full of interesting architecture.

I love this house with its chequered brickwork and the arch over the door mirrored by the arch over the window above it.

004House in Leek with stained glass (2) (640x456)

This house has a stained-glass window reaching from top to bottom.

004House in Leek with stained glass (526x640)

I wonder if this window is where the stairs are. How lovely to have jewel-coloured light shining into your home! The next time we go to Leek I must try to find out more about this house.

Someone has filled their bay window with model boats

We began to feel hungry and went to the White Hart Tea Room in order that we might sample their wonderful Staffordshire oatcakes.

These oatcakes are made like pancakes but with oat-flour instead of wheat-flour. They are like the galettes you get in Brittany, France (which are made with buckwheat!)

Mine was filled with sausage and melted cheese and R’s had bacon and melted cheese.

Rested and refreshed, R and I continued to wander about the town.

008Church of St Edward the Confessor (640x480)

The church of St Edward the Confessor

There is an 8th Century Saxon cross in the churchyard and some of the stained glass in the church is by Morris and Co. The church also has a wonderful collection of examples of the work of the Leek School of Embroidery that R and I were lucky enough to see a couple of years ago in an exhibition. There were enormous altar frontals and embroidered panels as well as smaller pieces of work and all so beautifully done. The church was extended in the 19th Century by the architect George Edmund Street. William Morris was one of his apprentices.

Apparently, until the trees in the churchyard grew too tall, a phenomenon called a double sunset could be seen from this church at about the time of the summer solstice. There is a hill called the Cloud and as the sun sets it can be seen above and to the side of the hill at the same time.

The Rectory

Spout Hall. A mock Tudor building constructed in 1873 and attributed to the architect Richard Norman Shaw. Look at the size of the chimney! The gutters also need clearing!

A kissing seat decorated with the Staffordshire Knot

An attractive iron railing

I believe these are almshouses.

The plaque on the wall states that the building was restored in 1911. It also says ‘The gift of Elizabeth Ash widow, the eldest daughter of William Jolliffe, Esqr. Anno Dom 1696’

I looked on the British History Online website and discovered that William Jolliffe acquired some land (part of an estate) in 1644. When he died in 1669 the land passed to his daughter Elizabeth Ashe (the site spells her surname with an ‘e’), widow of Edward Ashe a London draper. In 1677 she charged the land with rent to support the almshouses which she had founded at Leek.

I wonder what the tenant of the land thought about that!

035Wesleyan Chapel and Ragged School (640x480)

As the sign over the door says, this is the Wesleyan Chapel and Ragged School.

Looking at the building it appeared to be disused and was a little worse for wear.

Ragged Schools ‘were charitable organisations dedicated to the free education of destitute children in 19th Century Britain.’ (Wikipedia) Eventually these schools began opening at night as well to educate all comers, children and adults. The novelist Charles Dickens began his association with Ragged Schools in 1843 when he visited one in London. He was appalled by the conditions but wished to help them. His experience inspired him to write ‘A Christmas Carol’. He said, ‘They who are too ragged, wretched, filthy and forlorn to enter any other place: who could gain admission into no charity school, and who would be driven from any church door: are invited to come in here, and find some people not depraved, willing to teach them something and show them some sympathy.’

William Sugden the architect arrived in Leek in 1849 to work on the design of the Churnet Valley Railway. His son Larner was born in 1850 and was apprenticed to his father in 1866. Both men’s influence on the town was very great. It was they who built the Methodist Chapel and Ragged School in 1870. Larner’s masterpiece was the Nicholson Institute built in Queen Anne style in 1882.

This part of the building is now used by Buxton and Leek College.

Nicholson Institute. Now Leek Public Library and Gallery

Larner incorporated busts of Shakespeare, Newton, Reynolds and Tennyson into the building, representing 400 years of artistic and scientific achievement from the 16th to 19th Centuries.

The quote from Milton says, ‘A good booke is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit imbalm’d and treasur’d up on purpose to a life beyond life.’

The Institute is tucked away behind a 17th Century building on the main road. Any other architect of the time would have pulled the building down but apparently Larner had a real regard for old buildings and so the building was allowed to remain.

And here it is. Or at least a part of it. There were so many trees and plants in the front garden that I couldn’t see much of the house.

The house is called ‘Greystones’ and until recently was being used as a tea-shop.

The gate is lovely!

Local rumour has it that William Morris founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in 1877 as a result of his successful campaign to prevent the demolition of this building. It was through the SPAB he came into contact with Larner Sugden who went on to publish some of Morris’ speeches and essays!

November

22 Sat Nov 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in churches, Rural Diary, weather

≈ 21 Comments

Tags

Christ the King, November, Rumburgh Church, Stir-up Sunday, Thomas Hood

It has been a typical November day today (to look at) but as it is 11 degrees Centigrade it is still unnaturally warm for the time of year. There are also still some leaves on the trees and a few flowers blooming! The downside is that we have had a lot of rain and mud is everywhere. R kindly washed my car earlier which was extremely noble of him as it has been drizzling, then raining, all day.

We went to the church this afternoon to make sure all was clean and tidy as we have a service there tomorrow. We will be celebrating Christ the King – ‘the all-embracing authority of Christ’ (Oxford Concise Dictionary of the Christian Church).

I find this service uplifting and it is good to celebrate before we enter Advent next Sunday, which is a quiet time of meditation and preparation.

This Sunday – the last before Advent – used to be known as ‘Stir-up Sunday’ which comes from the Collect prayer for the 25th Sunday after Trinity. ‘Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded’. Many thought this was the time to be’ stirring up’ their Christmas puddings, though of course, the best time to prepare a good Christmas pudding is in October. It needs to mature thoroughly!

R was reminded of the famous poem by Thomas Hood, written in 1844.

‘No sun – no moon!

No morn – no noon –

No dawn – no dusk – no proper time of day.

No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,

No comfortable feel in any member –

No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,

No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! –

November!’

More Birds!

16 Sun Nov 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in Rural Diary, wild birds

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

birds, black-headed gull, buzzard, dunnock, green woodpecker, kingfisher, pheasant, stock dove, Suffolk, Swallow

This is a Dunnock. They used to be called Hedge Sparrows but they are not like sparrows at all except for their brown and grey colouring. They have quite a bright jangling song and search for food mainly on the ground under hedges and shrubs.

This post will be of more photos of birds I saw this summer and autumn in my garden. We are very lucky to have so many types of bird visiting.

The dunnock realised I was looking at it and so looked at me.

It then tried to edge behind the hawthorn leaf to hide.

A Green Woodpecker also known as a Yaffle because of its laughing call. This bird is a juvenile as it hasn’t got its full green plumage yet. I hardly ever see these birds in trees. They love ants and ants’ eggs I am pleased to say, and are very welcome in our garden which is ‘ant city’.

They are such attractive birds with their black masks and cherry-red, olive-green, grey-green and primrose-yellow plumage.

I have re-posted this photo of a female pheasant to show how drab they are compared with the males. Their feathers are so good at blending in with grasses which is very useful at nesting-time.

A Stock Dove

A Swallow – one of our summer visitors. I miss them very much when they fly south for the winter. They left very early this year because we had such a cool August.

Swallow

Another re-post of Black-headed Seagulls in the field behind our house. These were losing their summer plumage. During the winter they don’t have a black head only a black spot on the side of the head. And it isn’t black but dark brown!

A Buzzard flying over our house. Buzzards have returned to East Anglia in the last few years having been absent for a very long time.

I must apologise for the quality of the next photograph. I am including it because I am so pleased and excited to have seen this bird at all, let alone seeing it in my garden. It decided to perch in a very shaded part of the garden by the pond and I couldn’t focus on it at all.

The orange and blue bird with white throat and neck patch is a Kingfisher

Some More Visitors to my Garden : Birds

13 Thu Nov 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in Rural Diary, wild birds

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

birds, blackbird, chaffinch, coal tit, Garden birds, Great Tit, greater spotted woodpecker, greenfinch, house sparrow, moorhen, Muscovy duck, pheasant, pied wagtail, Robin, rook, Suffolk, wren

During this summer and early autumn I managed to photograph a number of animals, birds, insects and other creatures in my garden. Some of these photos are of very poor quality but I will include them as a record of what I saw. This post will be of the birds I’ve seen in my garden.

This Great Tit has an insect in its beak and was fluttering its wings very quickly (hence the blurring). It was waiting for me to go away so that it could feed its chicks in a nest box we have in the garden.

I quickly took another photograph and then walked away

Here is one of the pair of Great Tits using that same nest box nearly two weeks later. I am fascinated to see how carefully they hold the insects in their beaks so as not to crush them.

This is a Greenfinch. There are always plenty of these in the garden. The feeder pole is always leaning and covered in mud because of the squirrels and rooks that use the feeder too.

I didn’t quite get all of this cock Pheasant’s tail.

Cock Pheasant

A female Blackbird collecting insects for her chicks.

Another female Blackbird searching for food.

And again.

My daughter came running to me one day saying that there was a strange bird in our garden. She described it as being half duck, half chicken. I had to have a look and discovered that one of our neighbour’s Muscovy Ducks was visiting us. If you have ever seen a Muscovy Duck walking you will know that they move their head and neck back and forth while walking just like a chicken does.

Female Muscovy Duck

Walking like a chicken

I thought I would post this photo of a Wren again as I was quite pleased to get it. Wrens are quite shy birds and fairly small (3.75″) but have very loud voices.

Wren

I’ve posted this photo of a Robin before too

Female Greater Spotted Woodpecker

Male Chaffinch

Pied Wagtail

Rook

Rook.

Coal Tit. These birds are very slightly smaller than Blue Tits at about 4.5″. You can see the mud on the feeder that the Rooks put there with their dirty feet and beaks!

Male House Sparrow

The usual rear view of a Moorhen as it runs off down the garden

A male Blackbird at dusk

Sunday Walk

11 Tue Nov 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in churches, domestic animals, plants, Rural Diary, trees, Uncategorized, walking

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

All Saints church, autumn leaf colour, barn owl, bryony berries, field views, guelder rose, hawthorn berries, Lowestoft, muddy lanes, Remembrance Day, spindle berries, St Margaret South Elmham, St Nicholas South Elmham church, stress, stress management, walking

Stressed!

Yesterday evening E and I went to Lowestoft to attend a stress management course. Stress in all it manifestations was described, its causes and what keeps it going. We were told how it affects our thoughts, actions and body and why it affects people in different ways. We have been given a relaxation CD and a little homework to do for next week. This is a rolling course; as soon as this one finishes it starts all over again with a different set of people. There is a day-time course running at the same time as this in Great Yarmouth on a Thursday morning. There are courses like this being run all over the country all the time. The room we were in was full of people of different ages – a few had brought companions like me – but most of us there were sufferers from stress of one type or another. Research done a few years ago states that in this country 4 out of 10 people suffer from stress. This figure is already out of date – anxiety and stress are on the rise.

Lowestoft is affected, like most British seaside towns, by high unemployment especially in the winter. The recent down-turn in the economy has made a bad situation worse. Shops have had to shut and the buildings are still empty or ‘pound shops’ and pawn shops have replaced them. However, it looks better cared-for than Great Yarmouth and a lot has been done recently to brighten it up and improve the road system. As well as being a traditional seaside resort Lowestoft developed firstly as a fishing port, mainly herrings, and when that declined it became, with Great Yarmouth, the base of the oil and gas exploitation industry in the southern North Sea. This has now declined too but Lowestoft has begun to develop as the centre of the renewable energy industry within Eastern England. Parts of the North Town are very attractive and the old Scores are still there – the steep narrow lanes with steps up from the beach that were used by fishermen and smugglers. The Scores are now the site of an annual race which raises money for charity.

Lowestoft is the most easterly point in Great Britain and is on the edge of the Broads which is a series of connected rivers and lakes and Britain’s largest protected wetland and 3rd largest inland waterway. Some of the earliest evidence of settlement in Britain has been found in the town – flint tools dating back 700,000 years. I will try to make a post about Lowestoft at a future date.

As sunset is now about 4 o’clock in the afternoon we drove there and back in the dark. We parked on the sea front and, returning to the car at 7.30 pm we could hear the waves crashing on the beach – the tide must have been in. I was glad to see on our drive back along the Front, with its rows of hotels, bed-and-breakfast establishments and restaurants, that the Beau Thai Restaurant is still open. I’ve never been in there, but a place with such a terrible name deserves to survive!

Remembrance Day

I looked out of a bedroom window this morning at dawn (about 7.00 am) and saw one of our local Barn Owls flying round the field behind the house. It perched for a while on a fence post but the photograph I took of it there never came out. However, I have included the following picture which I took at the same time, strange as it is, as a record of the owl’s presence.

Why this happened I have no idea! I was looking westward and it was fairly bright and cloudy. No pink anywhere! The sun hadn’t risen yet and would be on the other side of the house anyway.

At 11.00 am this morning I listened on the radio to Big Ben striking the hour and I kept the two minutes silence, praying for all those who have lost their lives in war and for those who have been damaged and injured by war and also for their loved ones. I am finding this more and more affecting as the years go by.

An Afternoon Walk

We have had so much rain recently that the garden and fields are sodden. R and I were in need of a little exercise and fresh air on Sunday afternoon so we decided to do our circuit walk round the lanes, which were less muddy and wet than the footpaths.

View from the lane across the field to All Saints church, just visible sticking out of the group of trees in the distance.

Our lane is fairly muddy as you can see!

There is a natural pond full of fish just to the right of these bollards. It is so full that it is close to overflowing onto the road.

Farmers round here cannot bear to get rid of old implements, tools and scrap metal. I think it gives them a sense of pride to survey this old stuff. ‘It may come in handy some day! It’s worth a lot of money, scrap metal is!’

St Nicholas church was demolished many hundreds of years ago. This is the site where it once stood – the cross is in a garden.

This is our nearest post-box. The lime-green lichen is happy to grow on it.

Just beyond the low pink barn in the distance is the largest tower of straw bales I have seen so far this year. Not a good picture I’m afraid – the light was already fading.

The goat on the left is keeping itself dry by lounging on a trampoline!

Water flowing fast in this ditch.

This is the other side of the bridge.

There is still a lot of green about. Many of the leaves have dropped from the trees while still green.

This is a field of oil-seed rape which is growing very well in our mild, wet autumn. Only a few weeks ago it seems, I was posting photographs of rolls of straw on these fields after the wheat harvest.

These are beautiful spindle berries. Only nature could make orange seeds emerge from shocking pink seed cases!

This is a spindle bush in the hedge. It was glowing in the light of the setting sun.

These are gorgeous dark-red haws from a hawthorn bush in the hedge.

Some leaves are beginning to show some colour.

These leaves caught my eye. I think this is a Sugar Maple – not a native tree.

Another view across the fields.

These are Guelder Rose leaves (Viburnum opulus)….

042Guelder rose with berry drupes (640x480)

…and this is another Guelder Rose with mainly green leaves and also bunches of berries or ‘drupes’.

A dead oak tree. I am pleased that landowners are not in as much of a hurry as they used to be to remove dead wood from fields and hedgerows. A dead tree supports more life than a living one.

These poisonous bryony berries are like shiny beads.

They are everywhere to be seen now the leaves are disappearing from the hedges.

The path through St Margaret’s churchyard is an attractive one….

…especially as one can see these sheep from there.

I thought the entrance to the car park outside the village hall was looking inviting.

I also liked this entrance to a field further along the lane.

A leafy puddle,

some tiny yellow toadstools…

and some more autumn shades and our walk was over.

An Update

06 Thu Nov 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in cooking, Gardening, plants, Rural Diary, Uncategorized

≈ 20 Comments

Tags

anxiety, crop spraying, family, fero cactus, germination of crop, hospital, illness, pyracantha pruning, soup and smoothie maker, sugar beet harvest, unhappiness

Our ‘Fish-hook’ Fero cactus developed flower buds for the first time ever. It was so late in the season that the flowers never opened but we were pleased nevertheless.

I thought I would tell you a little of what has been going on with us.

This smoothie and soup maker is a new acquisition of my husband’s. He has been enjoying experimenting with different ingredients and then sampling the results.

My husband has an appointment with his specialist next Friday when we hope he will find out a little more about his condition. (He has a tumour on his pituitary gland which is probably benign).

‘The pituitary gland is a small ductless gland at the base of the brain which secretes hormones essential for growth and other bodily functions.’ The Concise Oxford Dictionary

He had a blood test yesterday in preparation for this appointment. My sister (who knows about these things as she works in the medical profession) tells us that to remove the tumour the surgeon will go up R’s nose as the gland is just behind where the eyebrows meet. It is often done during day surgery with no need to stay in hospital.

005Pyracantha at side of house (640x480)

I haven’t had much time for gardening lately but this pyracantha at the side of the house had grown so much since its last trim in May that I had to find the time to deal with it.

This is the result of two days of work with loppers and a step-ladder. I will have to get rid of the honeysuckle growing through the right-hand plant as it is pulling the whole thing away from the wall and I am frightened that high winds or heavy snow will cause the plant to lean too far forward and break.

Alice is still applying for jobs but with no luck so far. She has a part-time job at the university library filling shelves which doesn’t give her very much money and she is finding it very boring. She thinks she will finish writing her PhD in a couple of weeks time which will be wonderful as she has been at it for nearly four years. She may be able to spend more time looking for work when she doesn’t have to write so much. The drama group she belongs to has just performed ‘Antigone’ by Sophocles and Alice was in charge of the curtains and also performed other stage managerial duties. I didn’t go to see the play as I have too many calls on my time at home at the present. The next play is an adaptation of ‘Emma’ by Jane Austen and Alice has been cast as Emma. I would love to be able to go to see her in that but it may not be possible.

Most of the sugar beet has been harvested from the fields near us. This is very early in the season as usually, it is done during the wet and cold of late autumn and early winter and the lanes are then a sea of mud. So far we have had a fairly clean harvest.

My younger daughter E, has had a hard time adapting to college life. The first few weeks went very well but she suddenly had a return of her anxiety which really shocked her as she thought that she was in control of it. She has missed quite a few classes in all of the subjects she is taking as the panic attacks affected everything she did. There were days when she thought that she would be able to get into college and we would drive there only to find she was unable to get out of the car. The anxiety paralyses her and she cannot think logically. We would drive away and try again later. Some days we would make the journey three times. However, the staff at the college have been absolutely marvellous and have gone out of their way to help and encourage her. Last week was half-term and she was able to do a little catch-up work but spent most of the time feeling very depressed and frightened. This week however, she has suddenly found her feet again and has been in every day and is doing very well. We are praying, keeping our fingers crossed and touching wood. We have spoken to our GP who has enabled E and me to attend a four session course which will be every Monday evening for the next month on Stress Management which may give us a few helpful tips and stratagems. The course covers all sorts of stress, anxiety and depression so there will be some parts that will be of only partial relevance to E’s situation. However, with all the financial cuts to mental health we are lucky to get this help so we will take advantage of it. I am not sure when we will be able to cook and eat our evening meal as the course is between 6.00 pm and 7.30 pm and it will take about three-quarters of an hour to get there and the same to get home again. When R is at home he says that he will be able to help out.

This pre-germination spray of the field behind our house was performed on 4th October

My mother recovered slowly from her stomach upset and is now back to normal. I took her to Norfolk and Norwich Hospital on Tuesday for her regular eye check-up and she is fine and doesn’t need another injection yet.

You can see the horrible-looking green spray which smells very nasty

My mother-in-law collapsed about six weeks ago and lay on her bedroom floor for some time before she was discovered. She has a panic alarm which she wears around her neck but for some reason she didn’t press it. For some time she has had great difficulty in walking but after a rather strenuous visit to the hospital that day she found she couldn’t stand at all and fell down. She was taken to hospital the following day and it was discovered she had also had a mild heart attack. She is still in hospital as more and more problems with her health have been discovered. My husband has visited Manchester a couple of times for a few days to see her and help my brother-in-law out. It may be that R’s Mum won’t be able to go back home. She is still in the critical ward in the hospital until her health can be stabilised. She will then go into respite care for a month and will be assessed to see whether she could cope in her home or not. If she does go home she will have to have much more help than she had before. If it is found that she isn’t able to go home she will have to go into a nursing home and her house will have to be sold to pay for that. This is a very worrying time for R and his brother. Mum-in-law has her 89th birthday on Sunday.

This is the same field on the 15th October

The crop germinated quite quickly because of the warm and damp weather we had

At the same time as my poor mother-in-law was first in hospital my brother found that his 33-year marriage was at an end. He is absolutely shocked and very unhappy that all the effort he put into caring for his wife and their two children (who are now grown up) and making a nice home was all to no avail. His wife no longer wishes to be married to him as she has found someone else. They are now having to sell their house and everything they have has to be split between them – pensions, cars, furniture – everything. It is all proving to be too much for my brother to cope with. He has been to stay with me a couple of times so that he can see our mother and have a little comfort too. I have spoken to him tonight and he tells me that he has been signed off work for two weeks with depression and has been given anti-depressants by his doctor. He is looking for another job away from where he lives where he may be able to get a cheaper house or flat to live in. Both my sister and I have been through a divorce because our husbands no longer wanted to be with us so we know what he is going through. I am now happily married but my sister has not been able to find anyone else.

This is the field on the 31st October with a few pheasants.

So you see, life has not been a bed of roses for us for a while now. We hope that nothing else happens to add to our load of worries.

Hocus Pocus

04 Tue Nov 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in Uncategorized

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

Halloween, Hocus Pocus

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Alice’s Halloween!

I was so impressed by this photo my daughter posted on Facebook of her and two friends that I thought I would share it with you. I am assuming most of you have seen the film ‘Hocus Pocus’ and will agree with me that they have done a great job in looking so much like the three witches.

I have never celebrated Halloween – it was never something we did as children – but Alice has taken to it with enthusiasm and enjoys herself very much. Alice is in the blonde wig on the left.