Saturday, November 22, 2014

Communal Living.

I have always liked spiders, and tolerated their presence in my home, however they are now threatening to take over the work room. This is a big room, seldom used for anything other than storage and for rearing quail, quail attract flies as do all birds. The local spiders must have thought that a fast food spider restaurant had opened up, they moved in and set up house.
Spider Town.
The web that they have made spans two fourteen foot walls, just how many spiders are living in this gossamer apartment we can't tell, but they seem to be living in harmony together, not a fly in sight, so they are doing a good job.
A couple of weeks ago I ordered a special offer of David Austin roses, I love roses but they have to be perfumed and the old fashioned type, which Austin roses specialise in, the large package arrived in perfect condition, what had not been said about the offer was that they would be including flowerseeds and bulbs as a free gift.
Yet more bulbs, this time for free.
In total this free gift contained seventy bulbs, I'm just not sure where I am going to plant them, I have already planted over six hundred new bulbs this autumn, but these were planned for. Also included was packet of Petunia seeds, I will pass these on to friends as I don't 'do' hanging baskets or have anywhere that they could climb.
And still they bloom.
We still have roses blooming in the garden but if we do have a hard frost we will probably lose them, however all the roses bushes have buds on them so they might go on a while longer.
The garlic and onions that were planted in the tunnel in October are growing well, the garlic is now up nine inches and the onions about three inches. We have a frost warning for tonight so this will benefit the garlic which requires a cold spell to make good cloves, we are hopeful of having another bumper crop next year as we did this year.
Since we moved back from Spain we have rather got out of the habit of entertaining, in Spain someone would be holding a dinner party every week normally for eight to ten people who were all in our circle of friends. Here dinner parties are not a usual occurrence, except within families. Last night however we had friends over for a meal which made a nice break for us and also for them.
Rich and Spicy.
I decided to play safe with the menu and cooked a Hungarian Goulash with Lyonnaise potatoes followed by Lemon Meringue pie as we have plenty of eggs and it's a good way to use them. I love guests that eat! Our friends really appreciated the meal, little was left,
Every ones favourite.
the Lemon Meringue was voted the best they had ever had, which pleased me.
 We had friends in Spain that always requested my Lemon Meringue pie when they dined with us, and in fact it was something that I always made for these particular friends birthdays and other special occasions. Although we and our friends don't drink nowadays we still managed to consume a couple of bottles of good French wine. This wine is a mystery to us, where did it come from? We didn't buy it, we still have two cases of Spanish wine that we brought with us when we moved back here, the only alcohol we ever buy would be Guinness for making Christmas puddings and Specked Hen real ale if we have helpers coming. We seem to have a wine fairy.   

14 comments:

  1. Nice fairy to have but we dont drink either. I have a brother that works for a winery so i could get some freebies but cant be bothered. So where is the recipe? Its obviously has some magic in it. Argh dont talk about food. I feel like im starving but im eating well. Just none of the in between snacks, no bread and only a little dairy. I love dinner parties as well and remember the good ole days when it was a regular thing. I particularly liked progressive dinners where you all walked to the next place together. Your meal looks lovely.

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  2. Hi Lynda, hope you are feeling better and are recovering fast.
    Is it the lemon Meringue recipe you were looking for, I will do it in my next post.
    In Spain it would have been impossible to walk to the next dinner party, the same as here everyone is miles from each other, but it sounds like fun. The way it worked in Spain was the hostess provided the main meal, someone would bring the starters, someone else the nibbles, several people would bring deserts, everyone would bring a bottle of wine, it was a real mix and match affair and great fun as you never knew what would arrive carefully wrapped in tinfoil and in a freezer box. It's the one thing that we miss most about Spain, that and sharing plants and ideas on renovations! That was something else that people would join in and help each other on harder jobs, nothing like that here I'm afraid, apart from when we were first moving back and our friend who is giving up farming came over with her grown up kids and helped us get the first part of the garden started. We have reciprocated by helping with weeding in their tunnels.

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  3. Such a pity. I miss my small town life and the community. In the big smoke you are surrounded by strangers. Ive found more friendship on line with blogs than anywhere else. Ive connected with a couple local and now we meet up. Jess just called from rabidlittlehippy and arranged to sleep over with daughter on 5th so we can be up early to go to a market to pick up boxes of tomatoes. She is going to help me with my first bath of pasata. I have a new vacola (water bath) and i am dying to use it. Jess bought me a box of fowler jars for my 50th earlier in the year.
    Yes i was referring to the pie recipe but i wont be making it until my month of dieting is over. My friend is having a hysto op in Dec so i am supporting her to lose weight.

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  4. Didn't know garlic likes frost. We had a grass frost this morning. The Hungarian Goulash looks delicious. I like spiders and let them live in the house.

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    1. Not only do spiders catch flies and my pet hate, moths, Ugh! you can use their web to stop bleeding from cuts! Useful little beggars!

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    2. Apparently Dave it's the cold that makes the clove split to form multiple cloves.

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  5. I'm happy having spiders around.
    Love Goulash and roses but, agree with you, roses must be perfumed.
    Oh to have a wine fairy!

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    1. So many times I have seen what looks like a beautiful rose only to sniff at it and find there is no perfume, I love the variations that you get with the perfume from roses, they all have something different about them.

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  6. Also buy from David Austin. Favourites are the big full blown ones like the Gloire de Dijon. Scent is very important in a garden.
    I make rose water in the summer, freeze in ice cube trays then pop into plastic bags. One defrosted cube will last a week used as a toner. Also dry the petals and mix with Lavender for the airing cupboard.

    Didn't say before, but that is one heck of a web you have there.

    Always look forward to your posts.

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    1. A lot of our roses are David Austin plus a couple that we brought back from Spain with us as they also have such a wonderful perfume.

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  7. Goulash looks splendid. Was always a favourite 'school dinner' back in the day! Like the idea of a wine fairy, too.

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  8. Hungarian Goulash, school dinner? Very strange school if it served pupils with a meal cooked with wine and cream, not to mention paprika. Was your school trying to turn the kids into alcoholics?

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  9. Oh my goodness that spider web, wah! Roses look beautiful, great news about the bulbs. The food looks amazing, delicious and now I am hungry, this happens a lots when reading your blog! Lauren x

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    1. Not too sure about the extra bulbs being good news, still have not found a place to plant them all.

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