Though She be but Little, She is Fierce

Liz's Aer Lingus flight descends into Knock Airport

The eagle has landed. Liz is home and we are together again for a brief while. Other friends are looking after our good friend, Diamond for the moment, though Liz will probably return for another stint in a couple of weeks. She got on well 'over there', they successfully moved Diamond and John into the new house and set up all the rooms ready for Diamond, though she was for the last part of the week not actually present, being briefly admitted to medical care for some treatments. She has not actually moved in yet or indeed even seen the new house furnished. Liz also enjoyed catching up with various UK friends from our Kent days.

While in Kent she also got a chance to call in at everyone's favourite deli, farm shop and purveyor of all manner of foreign foods and drinks (Italian, Deep South, African, Greek and many many more), that being Macknade's Fine Foods of Faversham Kent. Macknade sensibly have a presence on modern Social Media, mainly Facebook and Twitter where they do some of that advertising which attracts a big group of people who "follow" their posts, "like" their stuff. They run competitions where if you re-post (re-tweet) their stuff you can win Macknade's goody bags and it was in one of these that both Liz and Mazy not only re-tweeted but then got into an "outrageously flirty" (Liz's words) riff with them, but whether it was that which won them the goody bags, they do not know.

Kent Cob Nuts - we planted a few here just to see.

Either way Liz was able to call in and collect her prize when she went shopping in there for stuff it is tricky to find over here - Patum Peperium, Angustora Bitters, Bloody Mary Mix, Zatarain's (Deep South) mixes for 'Dirty Rice' and 'Red Beans and Rice'. The prize itself was well worth while and not to be sniffed at - one of Macknade's new jute bags stuffed with packets of nice things - Earl Grey tea bags, Kent cob nuts, a goats cheese 'Camembert', fruit, chutney, fruit juice, beer and so on.

Is Liz trying to tell me something?

Liz also inherited a nice variety of unexpected and very generous presents including a lovely scarf which features pink piggies which is now in the wash - I will photograph that for the next post; I have claimed that one! Also a very nice bangle for Liz which carries the Shakespeare quote "...and though she be but little, she is fierce". You can get away with that, Diamond. I will refrain from comment. Naturally with all this new 'stuff' it was necessary, but worthwhile too, booking her luggage into check in (we normally fly with just carry-on luggage which restricts you to 100 ml of any liquid and 10 kg total). Amusingly half a dozen eggs is allowed because each individual egg (a well know terrorist device?) has less volume than 100 ml.

That bangle. Don't worry; that 'damage' in the pic is only
to a plasticky waxy protective coating.

Well, now Liz is back here and has her feet back under the table for a couple of weeks at least so I've had to hand back the kitchen after my welcome-home meal of chilli which I cooked on the Tuesday night. I do like my cooking and enjoy the chance to get in there while Liz is away. I also quite enjoy the shopping and when I am in, for example, a fishmongers, I will always look to see whether they have anything 'new' (to me); something I have never tried or tasted. They say, do they not, that you should try everything once except, famously, Incest and Morris Dancing.

Pangasius (white fish)

So there I was at the fresh fish counter in a nearby supermarket (Supervalu in Ballaghaderreen) looking down at some white-fish fillets labelled 'Pangasius' at only €2 per fillet and asking the assistant what they were, fully expecting a look of confusion and a blustered apology that she didn't know, was only covering for the butcher, has never heard of it either. Fair play to 'SV-Balla', the lady proved to be helpful and knowledge-able. Pangasius is a freshwater fish (actually something called a 'shark-catfish') commonly farmed all over Asia, eaten a great deal in the USA (where it is in the top ten on tonnage) all be it mainly used by the 'service food' boys (so, I guess, disguised as fish fingers, scampi etc) but also sold intact as 'Basa', 'Tra' or 'Swai'

Surprised that this hugely 'popular' fish had slipped my attention for 57 years, I put this to some of my friends in the USA and, to a man, they either denied all knowledge ('Someone else must be eating all those tonnes!') or advised me to not go there because this fish was cheap and unpopular, and also known as the 'Vietnamese River Cobbler' (I can see why SuperValu would not be using that name). I will speak as I find, though. I baked the fillets in a wrap of tin foil with just butter and slices of beef tomato so that I could be sure to taste the fish, and served it up with ruby chard and salad potatoes. It was OK. Quite a mild flavour, like whiting, so you'd not want to be blasting it with any spicy sauce, but fishy enough and with a good firm, meaty, flaking texture.

Guinea Fowl Feather

Well done SuperValu for risking putting that on the display; the Irish do not generally do much in the way of unusual fish, sticking when they do fish at all, to the well known salmon, trout, mackerel and so on. At €2 per fillet or €4 for 350 g it is also quite a bit cheaper than most Irish fish. I'd buy it again, anyway.

An Epic Jambalaya

Flavours from the Deep South y'all.

The food at this 'restaurant' is (in my unbiased opinion!) always gorgeous and often new and interesting; Liz is always trying out new flavour combinations and new recipes for tried and tested favourites. This leads in turn, to the left-overs also being varied and exciting, with some bizarre combinations left for your blogger to use up on Liz's 'Knit and Natter' evening. A couple of days ago we had a lovely combination of sheets of ribs from our own lambs, marinaded in a mixture of honey, ginger, garlic and soy sauce plus rice from a packet mix by 'Zatarains', a genuine New Orleans company specialising in Creole, Cajun and other New Orleans and Deep South dishes.

Holiday snaps - Outside 'Mother's restaurant in 1998

We love all that kind of thing ever since our visit to New Orleans with our very good, Mississippi-resident, Westie breeder friends Marlane and Norm' C in 1998. We love the 'Po' boy' drip-down-your-chin beef and mayo sandwiches, the seafood dishes, the gumbos and the jambalayas. I am not sure whether "Mother's", spiritual home of the 'Po' Boy' is still there and running after Hurricane Katrina did her destructive worst but I hope so.

Top right - getting ourselves round those Po' Boys

Anyway, where all this waffle is leading is to tonight's epic DIY jambalaya which was pretty much these left over lamb rib sheet cut up a bit, the rice and the meat juices and sauce plus a little water to let it all flow again, eaten with some gorgeous (Lizzie) home made wheat/rye wholemeal bread. Epic. I don't generally starve myself on these Liz-less nights but this one was a cracker which, sadly, will probably never get reproduced. The Zatarain's mixes are not (as far as we know) available here, so we buy them in Macknade's in Faversham when ever we are over and eke them out through the in between times.

Crocosmia 'Lucifer' doing very well

Monday afternoon has now become our regular bee hive inspection time and we are delighted to say that the colony is thriving and rapidly expanding into the 'super' (top box) we added to the hive stack recently. They are an active, contented looking crew and certainly deserve the old clichéd moniker of 'busy'. When I am exercising the dogs in the orchard of an evening, I like to sit down on the grass in the top left corner where I can see the hive flight path and the bees launching themselves off the hive and up at their standard 20-30 degree climb; where I am sitting they are back-lit by the sinking sun and show up well against the dark, shady side of the hawthorn hedge. Just out of curiosity I counted the take-offs recently and saw 46 bees ping away in a 30 second period. Similar numbers return, zig-zagging down or spiraling like planes approaching a busy airport.

Some first hollyhocks. Seed saved from our Kent garden.

One small doubt concerns us. The bees are obviously very busy and productive, and the pollen for larvae, nectar for honey and the ingredients for beeswax are obviously being collected from somewhere but that 'somewhere' does not seem to be OUR garden. If we're honest, we find this a little bizarre and our noses are a bit out of joint. What's wrong with OUR flowers. you ladies?

Yellow 'Bishop' related dahlia

We always garden in a bee-friendly way and especially this year we have specialised in pollen-rich and insect friendly flowers - we do crocus, ox-eye daisies, nasturtiums, hollyhocks, geraniums, ribes and so on; Blimey, we used to win Gold Awards for it in the Kent Wildlife Gardening competitions, and became judges. There must be 5-10,000 bees in that hive by now but I am lucky if I've seen half a dozen foraging in our garden. I have had dozens of bumble bees across at least 3 species, we have a rake of wasps flitting between flowers like bees and we have a good population of the bee-like hover flies. We have a forest of Phacelia tanacetifolium, we have 2013 leeks left to go to flower just now opening and we have the autumn fruiting raspberries all breaking out in bloom, but go look at them and bumble bees will be all you see - the honeybees will be whizzing over your head, up to hedge-top height and then spreading out across the fields and bog-lands all around 'us'. You can lead a horse to water, I guess.

An "artist's" impression of the new fence

Our next big project, it will not surprise you to learn, is some more fencing. That is what most of the previous ones have been, after all. This time, though, something a little different. We are going to fence around the front lawn so that we can graze it with sheep. The rabbits are doing a good job, but cannot keep up with it and it offends me every time I have to mow off all that lovely, nutritious grass and let it rot. But sheep fencing, as we know, can look a bit 'industrial' with its tree trunk posts, green high tensile barbed wire and the square section 'sheep fence' itself. OK where you would expect it, like round a field (!) but not all that beautiful.

Ball head cabbage grown from plug plants

So Liz has put her foot down with a firm hand on this one and when she sits at the terrace furniture outside the front of the house in the sunshine, she doesn't want to be looking at a barbed wire fence. We have set our contractor, Paul-the-Fence (he says it 'fince') the task of doing us a nice post and rail, sheep-proof fence up the drive and along the front of the house. He will then join up the out of sight bits with the barbed wire stuff to give us all-round security, and we will have a gate nearest to the yard so that we can move sheep easily between the East Field and this one without any going astray. They will also be able to enjoy the browse in the hedge base and around the new keet run and tidy that up for us nicely as did the Jacob cross ladies in 2012.

The ever growing goose family

Hopefully we will look most picturesque to any visitors coming up the drive. Pricey though, this post and rail, and we need 54 metres of it. Ker-ching.

I will leave you with this pic of the geese. The two 'babies' are to the right, still fluffy but taking shape. George Junior (centre face on) is fully feathered and looks for all the world like his Mum and Aunt.  

Archie is "Thug" says vet

Ahh, poor Archie, my beloved brother. Contrary to my story last week, he didn't get his jabs on the same night as me, as there was a mix up with the dates. He was last night, with real-Mum, Mollie. Mollie is apparently no problem, licking the vet's face and taking her treatment in true, hard Scottish style. But she was so long on the table that (First-Dad says) Archie got bored and by the time he was up there he wasn't having any of it.

Possibly from as long ago as his hedge-hog carrying-indoors incident, real Dad, Hector has a scarry lump under his chin and the vet needed to look at it, but Hector was not going to co-operate, first-Dad had to wrangle him solidly under an arm while he wriggled and protested. First-Mum was reported to be curling at the edges with shame, as the vet was laughing "Have you done nothing to train this dog?"

I'm proud of them both! They are true blue members of the Monarch* family!

Dad must stop at our vet's tonight for Meggie's Vetoryl, so time he's got in, lit a fire and waited for Mum, it's dark. We go a normal walk - known as the Macknade loop, but at night it's much more exciting - all those unfamiliar sights, sounds, smells! It's cold and spitting in the blustery wind. Some of Dad's work lot were reporting flurries of snow this morning over "Bluebell Hill". Winter is on it's way, for sure

Deefer

*Monarch? First Dad's mission is to own a gang of westies, all named after characters in the TV series "Monarch of the Glen" - hence Archie, Mollie, Hector. We are all waiting for "Gollie the Ghillie". Dad recalls the series with a laugh - wondering how they got to write lines like "Ach... Don't be silly, Mollie, it's only Gollie the Ghillie" etc