Made about 2 kilos of plum jam, plum crumble, plum ice cream sauce, and have frozen loads to make sugar plums at Christmas. Life has been better and not just because of the multitunenous plums.
Garlic has been abundant, strawberries, blueberries are nearly there - pears and apples growing on apace. Sage, Chives, rosemary, fennel, oranges and grapes are all waiting for us. Our little garden is almost a totally edible experience. Apart from the grass yes - but that's for the goats!! We also use the roses,lavendar, nastursiums, curry plant, and the Bay leaves growing next to the sage. We have Aloe Veras by the score. Our freezer is full of cooked recipes from 1625 to 1940s to present date.
We have decided to move away - somewhere where we can grow and sell stuff- we seem to be good at it. I will still write & hubby still has to work, but we will look and see what we can find. It's given me a kind of peace knowing we're ready to move on.
We'll pot up as many plants as we can and take with us. I couldn't bear the thought of some-one chopping my lovely kitchen garden to bits to cover with cement - like the guy at the end house did with the little orchard in his garden - or the people next door who prefer paving to plants.
We'll take the blackberries, the rhubarb, the edible sunflowers and everything we can pack, after all, we brought them all here.
So I'm starting to look, peace and quiet to write, a big kitchen so I can cook, room for two cats and a dog and perhaps some chickens, and our garden. Who knows might even find a derilict castle!!
Well, I've already had a little break from the blog, but I'm going to have a week or so more to decide what I really want to do with my life.
I can't live in this house anymore, however beautiful I've made it, however fruitful and lush the garden has become. The Cotswolds are becoming claustophobic, every time I look round another field is being turned into houses. Little houses crammed on top of each other without a breathing space. Those who aren't moving are extending so the village is a constant thrumm of building machinery.
I remember the scree scree scree of the house martins as they sail across the summer sky. Now drowned out by diggers and pile drivers and the swearing of workmen wearing just shorts and a yellow armless jacket over massive beer bellies and tattooed legs.
If I lived in the middle of London for instance, jack hammers on the road, buses,heavy traffic and general noise would be something I had signed up for. Been there done that - moved for a quiet life. Not happening.
Today I'm particularly frustrated as I can't get out of my road. Blocked by builders vans and cars. Ask them you say?
Tried, apparently they're all deaf and I'm invisible.
Anyway time to have a think - if I can with the constant thumping in the road and the dog barking next door. I need to get out. Need to feel a breeze that doesn't contain brick dust and cement.
See you in a couple of weeks.
Keep well and safe,
