pumpkinstrokemarrow

Various culinery events to report. Excellent toad in the hole on Thursday. Just the right balance between crisp and soggy. Sausages not so great but that does not matter in this context. Method of construction unknown as down to BH. On Friday decided it was time to try the small fish van which lives outside the baker on that day. Turned the pound and a half of haddock into a sort of fish soup - aka chowder although the method was not much like any chowder in the Boston cook book which has plenty. Lightly poach fish in water. Remove, flake and set aside. Boil potatoes in fish water, topped up a bit. Fry some onions in butter. Five minutes to the off add slivered white cabbage to the potatoes. Then the onions, then the fish. Four litres left enough to have a bowl for breakfast and the only e-number was the salt in the fish. (Odd that fish doesn't taste salty considering the amount of salt that it lives in). Yesterday was the first outing for lentil soup since Christmas Eve. Now down to the last pound of red lentils in the larder. Must talk to the shopper. Poached smoked haddock from van man for breakfast. Good fat peice which did not go soggy round the edges: haddock is supposed to be firm. Not bad at all.

All seven posts now sunk, and the childhood rule of two thirds up one third down has been maintained - which means holes of around 2 foot 6 deep. The first two have dried out a bit and are getting to be reasonably firm. Surprising how much the ground varies from hole to hole. The first two were sodden, the last five dry. The penultimate was stony - with flints, which I thought grew in chalk. Perhaps the thin overlay of clay (only a few feet think in places - chalk comes to the surface in places on the common, only a few hundred yards away) stirred the underlying chalk up a bit. Don't think the hole making contraptions I did not buy would have dealt with stones. One would have still needed the spade to fetch them out. And the clay varied a bit. There seemed to be a pale yellow sort and a grey sort, this last only occuring in patches.

And while this has been going on an allotment trusty told me that a common trusty had assured him that the deer can jump the six foot fence. So there really is not much to be done on that front. Private enterprise rules. The hope is that they will not jump into a small fruit enclosure because they might have trouble getting out again. We shall see.

There is always the barbed wire option - a strand running along the top. This is said to be a pretty good deterrent. But the stuff is a swine to handle and comes in 200 metre rolls which is far more than I shall ever want. And I might get sued for the possible damage I might do to two legged trespassers.

Door to the enclosure also under construction. Still pondering on how exactly to hang it - thinking slowly drifting towards perfectly ordinary hinges, having pondered long and hard about various contrivances with large size staples.

Opinion of Kevin Spacey is climbing. Didn't like him in Richard 2 but have now seen some films of his which I thought good - kpax, the shipping news and I think one other. A welcome change from the usual fodder available to those who scruple to bung Mr Murdoch a few more quid. Maybe we will go and see the well reviewed moon for the misbegotten or whatever it is called at the Old Vic after all.

Two puzzles to close. First, how can a gang called sterling cycles do mail order cycles for £40 pounds a go out of Southend. Apparently they have been doing it for a while. Presumably they come from China. What sort of a bike do you get? In any event a lot less than what I paid for mine. Second, how can a town where football is not a big deal pay such a huge amount for a footballer who is just going over his hill? How will they get their money back? What is in it for him apart from the money - which he can hardly need very badly - the football being pretty poor compared with what he has been used to. Maybe it is all down the the mutton dressed as lamb.