Bookworming........

I've spent today being mostly pissed off and cross and it's all the fault of Bugville Library - well, actually it's the fault of the fuckwits at the County Council and their insistence on this idea of inclusivity for libraries and making them a 'positive place for all'. I don't have a problem with the sentiment. After all, if no-one goes to libraries, they'll be closed and sold off for redevelopment in an instant and poor old Carnegie will be spinning like a top in his grave but, for God's sake, just let me be able to find what I'm looking for.

There's a swanky new 'access centre'. That's fine - it's an on-line catalogue. Unfortunately, in a monumental bit a non-joined-up-ed-ness, it doesn't actually tell you where to find the book. Oh no. Instead of the old method of shelving fiction alphabetically according to author (which would be too simple), you now have several sections in which to search, depending on the SUBJECT of the book. This is all very well if you actually know the mindset of the person who decides which subject category the book fits into. If it's a paperback book you're after, they've got special round shelving, nominally alphabetical, but hopelessly badly filed AND put into subsets. I was looking for something by Karen Maitland. They've got 6 copies according to the catalogue. Couldn't find a one of them. Searched high and low. Crime. Nope. History. Nope. Saga. Nope. Fantasy. Nope. General fiction. Nope. Modern Novels. Nope. Went to the information point to speak to the librarian. She was very helpful and insisted on talking me through how to use the on-line catalogue (again)in a slightly patronising way, even though I'd told her that I'd already looked there and I knew she had six copies stashed way in the building somewhere. She huffed a bit and stomped off to search as well. The catalogue definitely stated 6 copies available, none out on loan. She couldn't find them either and admitted that she didn't actually have a clue about where they might be shelved, given the subject matter, which is a bit historical in a thrillery, fantasy sort of a way.

And this is how you get more people to join and use the library?

I came home with the new (non-fiction) David Starkey about Henry VIII instead, which isn't QUITE the same, but will certainly be slightly more educational and which I found completely by mistake in the Crime Thrillers section. It won't keep my mind off the seasickness tomorrow like the Karen Maitland would have, but it'll make the lorry drivers on the ferry think I'm dead clever. We are off to the Flatlands for the weekend with a vast shopping list for chums, our bikes and a pack of bacon.

Oh. And N has a new bike. She's called Betty and she folds up. But she's not Princess Pashley......and she never will be.

The Weekend of Princesses and Revolutionaries

So, the weekend started with a bit of a whimper (from N, not me), with the news that Princess Pashley was taken from outside the Goodge Street offices, despite being chained up with three of the most hardcore chains. Thank God Hercules isn't still around to hear that bit of news - he'd be heartbroken. People are such gits, especially in London. Someone must have been checking out Princess for days, as you just don't have a pair of bolt cutters about your person in the normal run of your day-to-day existence. N said she heard a bit of a ring and though 'Ooh, that sounds just like Pashley's bell'. Course it was - bastard thief giving triumphal ting as he sped away, no doubt.

I heard the news en route to dinner on Friday at the Waynebah with Mr and Mrs Fleming. We had a lovely evening. The Waynebah sits on the corner of the square in one of those picturesque villages that Southern England does so well. The food's good - bistro/restauranty - tasty mussels in cream and wine sauce, roasted snapper with leeks and mustard, home-made lemon cheesecake with raspberry ripple icecream for me, goat cheese and red onion tart, slow roast pork belly and the (interesting) cheeseboard with chutney for the Boy.

Saturday found us in Oxfordshire at a very posh party in a tent, courtesy of one of The Boy's clients, celebrating their tenth anniversary. Theme - Cuban, which made for interesting costumery............

Unlimited pink and Widow fizz (i lost count after 8 glasses), grown up hapjes (warm chorizo, hummus, cheese straws and smoked almonds on the flower-decked and very colourful tables), personable girlies walking round with trays of canapes (marinaded bocconcini and cherry tomatoes on skewers, hot spiced lamb samosas, prawn cocktails in dinky glasses) for what seemed like hours, a cocktail bar serving the best mojitos it has ever been my pleasure to neck down, a vast barbecue of chicken, garlicky king prawns with chunks of fresh fresh coconut, home-made burgers in ciabatta rolls, salmon, beautiful fresh pea, mint, feta and melon salad, cherry tomatoes and a serious coleslaw accompanied by wines and beers of your choice (unlimited), followed by four types of serve-yourself puddings (chocolate mousse, lemon posset, passionfruit meringues and strawberry cream pots), self-serve cheeses (a whole Brebis, wheels of forme d'Ambert and an unpasteurised Brie with membrillo. All this, coffees and spirits ad lib, a bumper car ride, bouncy castles, an icecream van, a Cuban Band, a Blues Band and a One-Man Band in the grounds of a real, bona fide castle with a moat. Lovely.

Slightly the worse for wear on Sunday, though. Sort of a bone-dry head, like someone had sucked all the moisture and goodness out of me and replaced it with sand. Luckily the Boy had undertaken to cook so after spending the day carrying out his own particular form of garden maintainance involving lots and lots of secateur-wielding, he made a pie of immense proportions, without a recipe and to his own design. I must admit his initial idea had me swallowing hard and turning a bit Thomas, but it worked and in a big way. He made a layered filling of couscous with tons of marjoram, thyme and oregano, stewed red and green peppers with onions, chunks of feta cheese, spinach from the garden and slices of Bavarian air-dried ham. Total deliciousness -which is more than can be said for the leeks a la greque accompaniment - sauce, delicious, made from last year's frozen tomato sauce with onions, garlic, fennel and coriander seeds. Leeks - ah, yes. Like little spring onions, they looked, leading us to believe that they'd be tender in the way that only a baby vegetable can, plucked from the garden and straight into the pot. Ooh. Twiggy peasticks, actually, or bits of green bamboo. Tender, not. Not even after 40 minutes. Arse.

Haircut 100........

By getting caught in the rain (promised for last evening, but arrived this morning) on the way back from the farm shop, I've now got slightly crispy, wiggly hair of immense and eighties-ish proportions - like a spiral perm and certainly odd, considering that I'm more a 'yard and a half of pumpwater' sort of a girl in the tonsorial department. Oh, to still have one of those rake-like combs from my teenage years. I could do a real Bananarama. What with The Boy channelling a slightly gay 'Tintin' quiff, following a bit of Pinnywearer barbering last evening, we are going to look a right pair tonight. Still, it's his fault really for seeing the haircut he's always wanted on a bloke on the Tube, coming home and vaguely describing it to me and then expecting me to cut it. As I'm more Sweeney Todd than Toni and Guy, despite many years of practice, I don't think I can really be blamed if people laugh at him in the street today. Not that they will, as he looks very cool (IMHO), but he's had the 'Russell Crowe Gladiator' for so long that it's going to take a bit of adaptation, not least because he's got to get used to using a bit of 'product' and sweeping it all back and across instead of forward and down. The double crown could prove a problem. Stupid spiral head.................

We're being taken out to supper tonight by the Flemings. They don't entertain at home like mere mortals - they go out. We don't know many people who do that except Mr Bursar and Little B (and perhaps Rich Little Bro, but he's never actually taken US out and paid). As it's our wedding anniversary, it's somewhat of an treat. We don't usually bother - never really have. Last year we weren't even together - he was here and I was in Belgium aan het studeren.

I had a great call from Pa last night. He was laughing so much that he could barely speak. The Runts and I have this 'parsimony/good husbandry' rivalry thing going on, seeing who can do most with the least - you know, I've got a mushroom and a rasher of bacon and five people have turned up for supper. Pa rang to tell me that their supper was going to take the biscuit as far as frugality and parsimony were concerned and that I'd NEVER in a million years be able to beat it. Mum took a pot of left over beef casserole from the freezer for supper last night, cooked and mashed the spuds whilst the casserole defrosted and heated up in the nuker, only to find, as she poured the casserole over the mash, that it wasn't actually casserole, but a bit of gravy left over from a lamb shank dinner. Gravy. No lumps, no meat, no nothing. Just gravy. The War Office would be proud.

16 Years tomorrow........

I got married. I was 33 which, in comparison with my contemporaries, was pretty old for a starter marriage. It's lasted, though, unlike many, which makes me proud and incredulous in equal measure. I put it down to the lack of children and the fact that we had to stay friends (due to circumstances beyond our control) for a long time before becoming an official couple.

We've been out cycling today, only to the shops for a few bits and bobs, but it's good to get fresh air and a bit of healthy exercise. Back at home, we made a good dish of stuffed, baked vegetables - bought, unfortunately as the homegrown stuff isn't quite ready yet, but aubergines filled with a sort of paella with peppers and chorizo, flavoured with saffron, smoked pimenton and fennel tops and peppers stuffed with couscous, feta, the innards of the aubergines mixed with walnuts, onions and fresh mint and both served with a fresh tomato sauce served warm with fresh basil filled the hunger gap very effectively and tastily.

Unusually, we had a pud as well. I made a base of squished gingernuts mixed with a tiny bit of melted butter and a squeeze of lemon and pressed that into a mould. On the top, a mixture of cream cheese, lemon zest and double cream, topped off with fresh blueberries, dusted with icing sugar.

Quite festive for a Thursday..................

Keffir and the Art of Hayfever Maintenance

I'm waiting for it all to kick off. Normally by this time in the year and every year since I was seven years old, I'm awash with bogies, redly gritty-eyed and exhausted from long-lasting bouts of explosive sneezing. Once the trees start coming into leaf, that's me buggered for several months, even with copious amounts of druggage.

But, hush,hush, whisper who dares.........not this year. So far, so good.

I think it might be due to the keffir, although I'm still not convinced that it has quite all the mystical healing powers attributed to it by the pixieweb hippies. According to my reading, drinking or (God forbid after the one attempt I made) eating it can magically make your hair curl, cure you of scrofula, enable you to grow a huge penis (which could be slightly disconcerting if you weren't expecting it) or do one of many hundreds of things health related. However, as I have had not one sniff of hayfever since I started drinking the stuff in December and I've done nothing else of note towards effecting prevention, I've got to conclude the possibility. I'm still waiting for my penis...........

Economy, frugality, parsimony

I sit amidst the chaos of the 'Crisis' like a modern-day Madame Defarge, not knitting whilst guarding the steps of the guillotine and seeing off the aristos, but baking and doing interesting things with lentils in an effort to protect the remaining few sous from escaping the confines of the purse. We could all be 'sans coulottes' within a twelvemonth.........

However, being more Bree van de Kamp than Defarge in a physical sense (less whiskers, this being a 'good day'), I've been experimenting with a new loaf. This area suffers really badly from a lack of proper bakeries - there's one at Upper Snobton and a Maison Blanc at West Snobton, but really, £3.00 for a small rye? Otherwise, it's pain industriel from Pesko, Leadle or Morry's Sons - instant indigestion, anyone? Mmmm. Chorleywood process. The work of the very devil.

In an effort to replicate some of the deliciousness that I found over the last year living Abroad, I'm working on some bread recipes. Today's blends one third organic malted multigrain flour with a third organic wholemeal and a third organic rye. 2lbs of flour in all, 2oz butter rubbed in, 2 teaspoons salt. 2 teaspoons sugar, 2 tablespoons active yeast and 220ml warm water left to sponge, then topped up to 450ml with semi-skimmed milk. Made dough, left to rise for an hour, knocked back, slashed decoratively, dusted with maize flour for a bit of a crunchy crust, rose for another hour and a quarter, baked for 40 minutes at Gas 6. Robert's your mother's brother. The proof of gorgeousnes will be in the eating, but it looks fantastically golden and crusty and smells quite extraordinarily good.

It's a pity that the bready smell is somewhat overlaid by the aroma of burnt rhubarby sugar. The juice escaped from the dish. Arse. The rhubarb came from the market this morning - Bugville has a twice weekly market, normally shite, selling crap plastic goods and dreadful clothes to the tourists who flock here to the Holiday Camp. Lion print towel, large fragranced ball on curly string (Legend: Sniff my smelly ball - how we laugh every time we pass there....) or engraved crystal paperweight, anyone? Today, however, there was a nod to healthy living amongst the crap - a very nice fruit and veg stall - seasonal rhubarb, English asparagus, purple sprouting broc and Jerseys in between the imported Spanish strawberries, the rock-hard plums and the fragranceless pineapples. I may look in again.............

Bad news from Little Sissy. Redundancy. Good thing though,that she won't cry on the way back from work several times a week like she's been doing for the past year or so, nor get stressed about actually having to go into the office every Monday to work with a bunch of people who have no idea about business whatsoever. Bloody Flower Fairies. Bad thing if she can't immediately get another job. Sure she will, though.

And finally. I read today that the BBC are making a third series of Robin Hood, but minus Jonas Armstrong in the title role, which will be taken over by the bloke from Eastenders who played the one who married the dumpy blonde sister of the woman who owns the nightclub, but ran away when he found out the baby wasn't his. Now. Forgive me, but how are they going to write the change into the story? Robin goes off and comes back with new face and about a foot more height. I can only think -mediaeval plastic surgery following a bit of a ruck in the forest perhaps? OR, how's this? Robin's long-lost brother/cousin comes back from the Holy Wars with a message for him from Richard the Absent - present for anti-Muslim duties at his Maj's right hand, immediately. Robin goes off, llb/c takes his place as champion of poor/irritator of sheriff/pisser-off of Gisbourne. I can't get my head round it at all.

I don't know if I've done this right, but.....

I've been writing a blog that wasn't a blog for the past fourteen months, whilst studying abroad. The BTWAB came about because I had no internet access at the house and because I was too mean and stingy to go to the internet cafe and pay for the privilege, so I used to type a diary every day onto the laptop then, once a week, load it onto a lollystick and send it home here to Bugville where my friend Mr Bursar would disseminate it to interested parties. By the time I finally came back to Bugville (three weeks ago), it amounted to some 140,000 words, I'd become addicted to the actual process of 'getting something down' every day and my readership had become addicted to reading it.

Here we are then.

It's a cold, wet old day in Bugville in deep contrast to yesterday when The Boy and I spent the day in the garden, readying it for the glorious summer we're (perhaps) going to have. We borrowed Little B and Mr Bursar's power washer and wooshed three years of mould off the verandah which doesn't sound too exciting, but when we'd finished and it was back to woody not mossy and we sat there drinking wine in a self-congratulatory way, we were quite excited. Such is the stuff of life for the Pinnywearer.

The Boy has filled the greenhouse with teeny little trays of salading seedlings, the peas are planted out, the back raised border is dug over and ready for brassicas and beans, the tom plants are coming on apace, the little raised beds are full of green shoots and the spuds are earthed up. There's a new cucumber house, the butternuts have sprouted and the courgette plants are perky and healthy, as we will be when we've chewed our way through that lot later int he year.

The Boy has added a new recipe to his repertoire. He is a fine cook, in the Jamie mould, having had to hone his skills or starve to death whilst I was away, but he tends to stick to the same things. No sin in that, says I, but ragout, risotto, slow roasted meats and sausage, mash and onion gravy get a little dull after a while. Yesterday we introduced him to the fine art of the salade tiede, comprising frisee from the garden, eggs poached from scratch without the aid of a plastic egg poacher, a fine vinaigrette flavoured with fresh tarragon from the herb patch and crispy bacon lardons. As this dish requires skills and timing to get it right (don't dress the salad too early, don't overdo the eggs and remember to dry and trim them whilst still keeping them hot, keep the bacon warm and get them and the warm dressing onto the egg p.d.q), it was a pretty startlingly good first attempt. We ate it with rye bread and followed it with a Coq au vin blanc, leeks from the garden and steamed spuds with parsley butter.

Today, I've been watching the rain sheet down, doing the ironing and getting the expenses plugged into the spreadsheet as the VAT is due at the end of the week. Darling giveth and he taketh away..............