Chocolate joy

During a trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, we were surprised to find a branch of Whittards. We thought the whole company had gone bust.


I am delighted to find that is not the case and that there are still branches to be found.


This is simply because I adore their chocolate-coated coffee beans which I recommend to all chocoholics and caffeine addicts alike.

 YUM!

A load of s***t!

These last few days, it is impossible to walk along our local streets without foxtrotting to avoid the piles of dog poo.

Venturing out in the dark presents an even greater chance of landing in a pile of it.

I kept pondering why the quantity had suddenly increased. Has there been an upswing in the adoption of dogs to cheer us up in the economic gloom?  Have I missed some campaign to encourage dog ownership and therefore outside activity?  Are even more dog owners not clearing up after their pet's lack of anal retention?

Now at last, I've realised what it is. The dog owners are just being lazy. The local open land is much too far away - at least another 5 minutes walk.  Now that the nights are drawing in and the weather is no longer conducive to a sunny stroll, the nearest pavement will do.

Poor dogs!

Useful Motorhome Accessories

I just must spread the work about how useful the 'Betterwear' sink drainer is that we bought for our camper.

The sink area is, as in most motorhomes, rather minimal. Normally we stack extra crockery in a second bowl to drain.

This drainer fits neatly on the piece of worktop next to the sink and is slightly raised with a lip at one end that makes sure all excess liquid drains back into the sink.  Marvellous!

I have had some issues with Betterwear on other matters, but on this they have proved excellent.

(A photo and measurements will follow soon)

Is it the right weight?

Travelling and holidays are renowned for being surprisingly stressful events.  I've always wondered why. Usually we just amble off at a time to suit ourselves in the motorhome.  Ferry crossings hold no particular anxiety as it is easy to park up hours in advance and make cups of coffee and snacks to wile away the time.

Air travel now, that's a different kettle of fish. That's full of anxiety hoisters!

We have decided to do away with three (booking in luggage, finding luggage, carrying luggage) by only taking cabin baggage on our next flight.

There are often very specific requirements for cabin baggage. Ours had to be no more than a certain size and no more than 10kg in weight.

A reliable tape measure is easy to find.......but how reliable are our scales?  If my scales tell me that it weighs 9.8 kilos, can I depend on accuracy?

If you see a lady wandering round the airport with coat pockets stuffed with unusual items, it'll be me, increasing my own cabin weight so that the bag weighs less.

How long, I wonder, before we have to account for our own weight on the light too?  I reckon the airlines are missing a money-making opportunity here!

Getting covered

A motorhome is a big investment.  If, like us, you are unable to garage it, it makes a lot of sense to look at a protective cover for the worst months of the year.

We've just ordered one.  These days many are breathable as well as waterproof, and many have bells and whistles such as opening doors, solar panel windows and so on.

Since our motorhome is a bit 'odd' (it is called an Odyssey!) we elected to get it measured by the company making the cover. We took the opportunity of a sunny weekend to go up to the Yorkshire area (where the company is based).

All we had to do once arrived was ring Keith, the relevant technician. He rolled up within the hour  to our rather obscure camping spot to take all the measurements.  The drawing he showed us at the end looked a bit like a Heath Robinson invention but I have every confidence the cover will be absolutely ace.

I'll keep you posted.

Paranoia may have set in (a whinge)

Is it my imagination, or am I on some sort of doctor's pilot scheme to see if people will get better just as quickly with no real help whatsoever?

I've had a painful wrist for about a year now.

The doctor has looked at it on several occasions, bent it about a bit, listened to a few "ouches" and "ows" and then reached for the prescription pad.  Painkillers and anti-inflammatories. With a caution not to take them longer then necessary. "Let's see how it goes" was the comment.

Well, it didn't go! And it didn't go the second and third time the scenario was repeated.

I can put up with the pain if I have to. But do I have to? Wouldn't it better to know what it might be caused by and if I can heal it?

At long last I have now been referred to a physiotherapist. I trust the outcome does not include any suggestion that it could have been treated a lot more easily if I had not left it so long before treatment.......

More on Sudoku

I have a friend who is addicted to Sudoku.  Rather than earphones and an ipod, he is usually to be seen with a pencil (eraser on end of course) behind his ear and a pocket book in his hand.

(Does a pocket book become a hand book if it's in your hand and does a handbook become a pocket book in the opposite circumstances? )

His wife has become a Sudoku widow. Once when I called I asked what her husband was up to.  "Oh, he's  into Sod You as usual" came the reply!

Japanese knots

I turned my nose up at first but an hour with nothing to do found me Sudoku. That led to Kakuro and that led to KenKen!

I'm hooked on Kakuro at present.  Sudoku I find rather tedious.  That's probably because I have not found a good way of solving them other than writing the full gamut of numbers in every square before rubbing them out one by one.

I get into a frenzy when the eraser won't rub out properly and I land up with a grubby little mess of squares. That in turn removes any vestige of memory I had for where I was 'logically' in the puzzle. Mini-rage hits and I put a VERY LARGE CROSS right through the page.

Thus, the whole thing becomes an emotional rather than a logical procedure and of doubtful merit to my sanity.

Family members who also indulge in the game- with considerably less frenzy attached -  give me all sorts of useful tips and aids but,  no,  I still have to coat the page with scribbles and notes and trails of numbers - and occasional rude words too! These, though hastily erased, still remain faintly visible here and there in the Sudoku book.

Kakuro holds my attention with the little additions one needs to make and the number combinations that hold the clue to success. I'm a three or four a day addict now!

KenKen is uncharted territory for me at present.  Still - watch this space!

The Joys of "Secondhand"

Preloved, refurbished, secondhand, preowned, used ..... there are a lot of alternatives for passed on stuff these days.  Whatever you want to label them, these goods are like treasure to me.

I was reminded of just what good value you can get yesterday when I was taking a photo for the blog.  As a die-hard SLR 35mm user for  more than half my lifetime, I was distraught when the shutter on my Pentax KM stuck. Hardly a surprise, bearing in mind it had never been serviced in all the time I had owned it.

A quick ask around told me repair could be costly. Big sighs. I weaned myself off cameras completely for about a year.  I looked around stores but nothing seemed to appeal to me.  Deep down I was turning down the Canons, the Panasonics  and all their brothers and sisters  because I was still mourning my beloved SLR Pentax (which nearly weighed enough with its accessories to exceed an airline's cabin baggage allowance!)

Then, one day, I found a site selling refurbished cameras .  I nervously sent off a very modest sum - about £35.00.

The refurbed Pentax Optio M30 I bought is a dream. I had been looking at new items at 3 or 4 times the price at least, but here, for not much more than a rather expensive meal, I had entered the digital photography age at last.

About time too! My camera goes everywhere with me again.

I've been reading reviews before posting this and I see that it's not rated that highly.  Pentax must thank heavens for customers like me who don't read the reviews but just jump in head first! I love it,  it is perfect for my requirements and so far I have been delighted with the quality of the photos.

Oh NUTS!

Ah well, seems maybe that the nut-gathering should have been in September. My whole crop to date numbers twelve!

There have clearly been loads more but all that's there now is a mass of cracked shells.

I have not noticed either of my neighbours walking about surreptitiously with a pair of nutcrackers hidden about their person, so I imagine a wild creature of some sort that has nobbled (or nibbled?) the lot.

I'd like to think it was a far-from-native meerkat - we all seems to be having a love affair with them at the moment, don't we? - but I think a mouse, shrew or rat is more likely.  Had it been a squirrel I think the bird seed on the table would have vanished in seconds as well. Whatever it is, I trust it's not like the new rats found in Papua New Guinea recently (reported September 2009) which are amongst the largest ever found.

Here We Go Gathering Nuts in May

Just as I was about to go outside (glorious sunshine today) to pick up hazelnuts, this old nursery rhyme jumped into my head.

Here we go gathering nuts in May, nuts in May, nuts in May,
Here we go gathering nuts in May,
So early in the morning.

But why does it refer to May?  I can't think of any nuts that are ripe then. It is said to be a traditional British song, so I can't explain it away by thinking maybe they are gathering nuts in Australia at that time (would you be?)

Some versions of the song refer to a 'cold and frosty morning' which would be another oddity for that time of year.

An entry in Wikipedia suggests that it might refer to pignuts. The Wild Food School tells us that pignuts have been used as a food source but not commonly.

Maybe pignuts were collected for animal feed though the collecting of them sounds labour intensive.

Anyone else got ideas out there on the matter?  Could it be it was originally Nuts for May, keeping them for May festivals?

Anyhow, here I go gathering nuts in October.... it occurs to me they may just have taken poetic licence as that doesn't sound at all right!

Just two jars...

Boiled up the damsons and squashed them through a sieve. Got the pips out, then put the puree in a saucepan with the same weight in sugar (now THAT made me think!). The instructions said to boil it up and then to reduce the heat and cook until 'very thick'.  After about an hour of this gentle cooking I decided the thick stage was just not happening for me! So I walloped the heat up full blast and - hooray - within ten more minutes I could just about stand the spoon up in it.

The mixture filled not quite two jars. A lot of effort for not much. I'd best pick more next year, assuming it tastes as good as it looks.

That is, if the mixture has not set like toffee in the jars.........

Charitable Offerings

Got a great new occupation helping out in a local charity shop, just every now and again.


Met a lady there today who was so scared of spiders that she had to carry some kind of killer spray everywhere she goes.  When she came into the shop she thought there was one sat on the ceiling and was clearly very worried by the possibility.  News that we are beginning to see pockets of non-native spiders on our shores had really disturbed her.


The ceiing 'spider' turned out to be a black mark on the plaster much to her relief.


I didn't like to mention to the lady that a (very small) spider had walked across the glass counter just before she came in!

A Passing Thought on Beauty

I remember looking at a black and white photo of my mother, taken when she was aged about 30 I should think.  I remarked to her "How beautiful you were!"   Now,  feeling slightly down-at-mouth looking at my own ageing face in the mirror, I realise how much better it would have been to say: " How beautiful you are!"

What's under YOUR Lawn?

We had good weather yesterday after a day of heavy rain.  It was a perfect time for me to investigate the strange brown patches on our lawn.

Patch is an understatement. One was the size of a miniature aircraft landing strip laid across the grass!

So I dug and dug and guess what I found?  Great sheets of clear polythene about a foot down (don't ask me for the metric, I'm still an old-fashioned girl at heart).

It wasn't a total surprise as we had dug over another area of the garden when we first moved in  three years ago. Then I had found large polythene sacks (also buried at a depth) filled with rubble.  I keep wondering when I'm going to dig up the body!

I've relaid the grass now and removed a section of the offending substance. Whatever purpose did it serve? Maybe you can think of some, because I certainly can't, other than a handy way to dispose of their rubbish.

Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness etc etc

A windy spell over the weekend had brought down wild damsons at the campsite we were at. One taste of the cooked fruit last night was worse than eating a lemon (and I am one of those who eats the lemon slice in my drink - are you?)

So on to brilliant vegetable and fruit website  to find something to do with them!  Damson cheese - which I have never heard of before - seems to fulfil my requirements (simple, quick, cheap). 


I've cooked pear chutney from a recipe on the site before. It was my first ever attempt at such a thing and was a wild-fire success. At least it was for me, I ate my jar in no time with everything from chips to pizza (and a lot of healthy options in between!). The other jars, which I gave away could be gathering cobwebs in a corner somewhere.   Could it be that I am so proud of my first foray into creativity that I cannot see its blemishes?  

More Fit or More Fat?

Just had a fabulous weekend near Stratford-upon-Avon, enjoying good company and clear skies (though not a clear head at a couple of points!)

Of course the whole pace is soaked in Shakespearobilia.

I  confess no particular interest in the Bard and his world-famous outpourings.  High School education finished William Shakespeare for ever for me. Months of my life were lost poring over Henry V. We read it, watched it, analysed it, memorised it and most of us agonised over it too.  I cannot now remember one line. I thought he might be the chap who kept asking for a horse (turns out to be Richard lll) but now I recall he was the one who was one of the happy few and a band of brothers, all that kind of male-bonding stuff.

However, the sculptures adorning the garden by Nash's House were intriguing and we nodded sagely as one of our friends recited the quotations from Hamlet and Midsummers Night Dream adorning a couple of them.

The town itself is vibrant, buzzing with tourists, bars and buses. Banks and chain stores are disguised in traditional cladding and a plethora of eating possibilities assail the senses on all sides. The snack we enjoyed at Cox's Yard would have been more than enough to energise Henry V several times into the breach he insisted on revisiting.

We cycled the few miles from our campsite at Weston-upon-Avon  (yes, I did it!). Friends had carefully planned a route avoiding any form of four-wheeled traffic along the Greenway.

A recently placed railway carriage (opened May 2009)  on the greenway at the back of the Racecourse  provides bike hire if needed and essential little bites to eat and delicious filter coffee to prop up flagging leg muscles and morales en route.

Sunday brought unexpected warmth and a walk along the riverbank to yet another hostelry.

We enjoyed a pub barbecue and relaxed in the unexpected warmth while watching an unfortunate boater whose engine spluttered to a halt. He and his crew drifted gently across to the opposite bank and spent fruitless time trying to fix the problem. At least it was a sunny wait for the rescue that eventually came their way!

Just a few Last Minute Things

Oh no, thought I was ready to go.  My jeans are still wet on the line, I haven't sorted out the food, need to buy some eggs which I forgot yesterday. Apart from that, bring on the camping!

Yes! A weekend away

The weatherman.... weatherperson...... says it's going to blow a gale and rain soon (after a week or so of good weather).

Naturally we have decided to go away camping with some friends!

"Camping" is a loose term for our adventures, since both we and our friends will be in reasonably large and luxurious campers. Us in our Oddy, them in the Wiggy - does everyone have pet names for their motorhomes?  I'd be interested to hear them.

We're taking our pushbikes - this an appropriate name for mine, since I often push it more than riding it, being of a fairly nervous disposition in the case of two wheels.

I sometimes used to walk to work which took about an hour.  I decided to take my pushbike instead once.  I spent so long getting on and off at every junction and walking up every hill that the journey took one hour and ten minutes!