pumpkinstrokemarrow

Having failed to smoke out the end of an era on Saturday (unlike the die hards of the Coach and Horses - a place I had had it vaguely in mind to visit on this occasion), had my first outside smoke of the new era. Appropriately, at an old pub which used to be called the Eagle, is now called the Snug, has fitted with sofas and amongst other things serves Earl Grey tea. They probably sell real guacamole with chips. Not the same at all, despite the passing interest of the passing trade - most of which appeared to be foreign language students.

Followed some time later by our first venture into noveau cuisine from Bangladesh (at least we thought Bangladesh, rather than one of the neighbouring countries) at Bishops Stortford. The place looked as if it had only just re-opened after a refurbishment from the old style red plush. Samosas followed by prawn biryani. Not bad at all - and certainly not something that I have ever suceeded in making so a good thing to have in a restaurant. We decided that samosas were a relation of spring rolls: the same sort of filling, wrapped and fried in the same sort of way. Just shape and presentation a bit differant.

The place was well shopped and the charity shops were well booked so we came away with 3 more books than we arrived with. There were also a surprising number of large old buildings and two large churches. The regular one of which last had an interesting red brick extension to its tower and and contained the first memorial tablet that I remember seeing to an English soldier who died in the Easter rising. The church was very grand and the blurb said it was both old and rich - which didn't go terribly well with another blurb that said that the place cost just short of £500 a day to run so please give generously. The irregular one was a huge gray brick edifice - roughly in the shape of the Albert Hall, albeit on a smaller scale. Put up by the United Reformed Church and most impressive from the outside - despite their appearing to have had to sell their front garden to make a small shopping arcade - but, sadly, not open. Presumably the size of the church has rather outstripped their ability to populate it.

Broad bean harvest continues, making sterling use of the abandoned supermarket wire baskets found in Mitcham Lane, despite a sharp hail storm this afternoon.

Started on the Desiree (in order to make way for a cabbage bed). Not as big a range of size as the Kestrel but quite a good return. Only speared one out of a half basket full. And found that despite all the rain quite a lot of the ground is not very wet at all. The water seems to soak in in a very patchy way.

The new fashion - at my allotment anyway - for cabbage netting is to have a wire mesh sided rectangle with plastic netting draped over the top. Far neater than the ridge tent like things I had been making using just the plastic netting and which did not do very well at all: you did not get a lot of space for your net. And as luck would have it, I have all the makings for the new fashion. Aluminium tent poles for the corners, jam jars to put on them, wire mesh (the deer enclosure wire mesh, cut lengthwise to give strips about 1.5 feet deep) and plastic netting. A further stroke of luck is that the lengths of wire mesh that I have got are just right for the size of plastic netting - around 12 feet by 6 feet. Only catch is that cutting long strips with a domestic pair of wire cutters is heavy on the wrist - and one of the two peices has to have one ragged edge. Also a lot of fag for a few cabbages and it does waste a lot of land. But not a bad result - I now have two of the things - and I am sure I will think it all worth while when I am picking small slugs out of the January Kings in January next. Think of all that orgo flavour.

Next phase is to make a tall version to hide the Brussel Sprout plants in.