Christmas been and gone

I did start writing this this post 2 weeks ago, still struggling with flu and with the rain pouring down outside, however what I wrote was so depressing that I have deleted it. Truth is that we did both have flu over Christmas and new year which wiped out the festive season. Next year year I will seriously think about a flu jab, I do not want to be that ill again. It also true that there has been a bit of an epidemic and people younger that we are have died. The small part of this that is good news is that I can now happily join in with the favorite topic of conversation hereabouts, Ill health. If weather is the default in the UK, health is the default here. Steve and I are rarely ill (I get colds) and nether one of us is inclined to bother the doctor with anything non life threatening. Since most folk around here have or have had this flu we now have something to discuss at length. Almost a silver lining if it wasn`t for those poor folk who are ending up in hospital.

We have also had all of our average winter rainfall over about three weeks and much of Galicia has been affected. We sit fairly high and dry here in Frades, so aside from the odd leaking roof (not ours) we have been fortunate. things are drying up a little and to be honest I still have post flu tiredness so am not inclined to do more than I have too. A bit of sunshine will certainly change things, and a few days in the garden would I am sure make me feel a whole lot better.
We have finally got our act together and put our spare room on air b&b so if you know anyone who's coming to this part of the world give them the heads up. I will put pictures and a link up later in the week.
I am in the process of tidying up some of my etsy listings trying to offer a bit more choice with each listing. New stuff when I'm feeling better. Once again pictures later in the week!

Figs and things.

Not long after we came out here my brother and sister in law broke the normal family rule of only buying presents for children at Christmas. They gave me a baby fig tree and Steve their spare chain saw, despite the fact that we were flying back out here by Ryan air. I was a bit dubious about both gifts, terrified that the chain saw would kill us and that I would kill the fig tree if we could get them to Spain at all.
Steve flew back first as I was staying in the UK to sort out some family matters. The chainsaw was in his suitcase in the hold despite being questioned in front of all the other passengers he was allowed to fly. The fig tree came with me and remarkably suffered only only one broken branch.
The chainsaw despite my doubts proved to be one of the most useful presents we ever had and we still use it despite having brought a another more powerful machine since.
This year the fig tree produced its first harvest of beautiful black figs.

To celebrate I am including my favourite fig recipe.

For two people you need four black figs,four rashers of streaky bacon, half a small log of goats cheese and four slices of country bread.
For the dressing you need honey, mustard and sherry vinegar.


Squash the bread into an oven proof dish and sprinkle with olive oil.
Cut the stalks from the figs and then cut through them to about hhalf way to the base.
Put a thick slice of goats cheese into each slit and then wrap the fig in streaky bacon. Stand 1 fig upright on each slice of bread.

Whisk together a teaspoon of honey with a teaspoon of mustard and two teaspoons of sherry vinegar and drizzle over the figs.

Place in a hot oven until the bacon is cooked and crispy. Serve the fig on the bread with a small green salad.

Cleaning the freezer.

Most people, I guess, find stray and forgotten food parcels at the back or in our case the bottom of their freezer when they come to clean it out. Well OK there are one or two people who have colour coded labeling and super strong clips so that not even a rougue frozen pea escapes scrutiny. I am not one of them. We have a largish chest freezer which makes it even easier to loose things. The things lurking at the bottom of my freezer turned out to be random pieces of pig.  To be precise two stomachs, three tails, two trotters,and three packs of cawl.
I am slightly unsure how long they have been there. The reason for my uncertainty is because they were gifts, I know, I know normal people get chocolates or flowers not pig guts! I have a bit of a reputation for being willing to cook and eat anything so sometimes when friends do have a whole pig they bring me the bits that they don't want. I accept anything but I have to admit not always with a great deal of relish for the cleaning, scraping, salting or boiling that such things enevitably require to make them taste good.
I was for a moment (of weakness) tempted to bin them,however I have been a bit vocal in the paste about the crime of wasting food and we are as ever on a bit of a budget. I thawed one of the stomachs and repackaged the other things in the quick access basket. I then girded my loins and beafed up my determination, and set about trying to remember what to do with said stomach. We had cooked one once before and it had been surprisingly good.  It turned out that I had kept the recipe for the stuffing but not the cleaning instructions, YouTube came to my rescue of course. I have to ask who gets up in the morning and decides to video themselves cleaning out a pigs stomach? The answer is quite a lot of people apparently.
To cut a long story short, having spent two days brineing and scrubbing I ended up with a cleanish almost smell free casing for my pork meat sausage and potato stuffing.

These are the pictures of the cooked result. It was really delicious though I should have realised when the recipe (taken from a book of Amish memoirs) noted that it is a good recipe for a barn raising that most of it would end up back in the freezer. I better remind myself not to let it lurk!

Learning life skills

Almost every thing that I have done in life I have wished that I started with more knowledge.
 As I was gardening over the weekend I was thinking about school, about the fact that so much of my time was spent on things that I have never used and in fact no longer really remember. If only basic food production had been a subject, or even, more general gardening skills. I could have supported my family in a more enjoyable way. Basic carpentry and plumbing would have been so useful as well.
Understanding income tax and banking, calculating interest rates and basic car mechanics. Indentifying native trees and flowers, childcare and stain removal. I could go on. I know that some of these have been tought intermittently, primarily to the least academic children, as though brighter children never need these skills.
I never wanted to have a career in these things just to know when I took the car to be repaired that I wasn't being ripped off, or when I rang the plumber to be able to tell him in general terms what the problem was. Now having chosen a more practical lifestyle I know I would have learned the skills I need so much more quickly had I had some basic knowledge as a foundation.
Almost everything that I read describes poverty in purely financial terms, but what if it's not just about finances what if it's also about knowledge? I know that good heath and access to fresh food are linked so if people could grow, cook and preserve thier own produce what a difference that could make. I feel so encouraged when I read about local groups and sometimes even councils who are prepared to sponsor such iniatives but I still .wish that's what we all learned at school.

Rainy season, Amazon, and preparations for the Christmas market.

We always have a rainy season here, and it´s a common joke that it lasts for 9 months of the year. In reality though November is often pretty wet, this year though the rain has started a bit early and has left us with  a dozen jobs that really need attention outside, including firewood which we are only halfway to chopping and storing. It doesn´t do to bank on normal weather patterns when in truth there is no such thing as normal.

Steve has just gone to collect an Amazon parcel from town, we have never been able to persuade them to deliver to the house, in fact they insist that the house doesn´t exist. We have tried persuasion and threats all to no avail, so off we go into town to rendezvous with with delivery drivers in cafes and car parks, somehow it rather defeats the object of internet shopping. The right thing to do would be not shop on Amazon, but they are so useful we have never been able to hold out for long. Such is modern life I guess, but all the same I am grateful don't  do that much shopping, internet or otherwise.

Our washing machine broke down at the weekend, yet another link to the commercial world. The repair man is coming tomorrow, simple life or no I am not wanting to wash everything by hand.

I am having a stall once again at the Christmas Market of a friend, I rarely sell much, and it is always cold but we generally have a good time. It is kind of a tradition now. Normally I take way too much stuff so this time I plan on taking cowls only in lots of different colours . We will see how they do.

The walnuts are going down though I have to confess to being slightly fed up of putting walnuts in everything. Any way all last years are out of the barn now and in the pantry so I shouldn't forget them.

Weekends are different

I suppose that I thought that living in the country would mean that all the days would turn out to be pretty much the same. As it has turned out weekends are different. To Start with all the shops in Sarria close for lunch on Saturdays and don't re-open until Monday morning. No major problem there, but it does mean that our attempts to have a rest day on Sunday is supported by circumstance which helps us. It does make a difference to, I have way more enthusiasm for life on a Monday if we have had a quiet day on Sunday.
Steve gives English lessons to a neighbor on a Saturday morning, he agreed because it is a neighbor but I know that he feels that it is the hardest lesson of the week. It think that we hope that it dies a natural death as it is our only chance in term time for Steve to get jobs done around the house. He likes to think that we are moving forwards or at least keeping on top of things. For me it's almost the opposite problem because Steve has the car all week I like the chance to get and go for a coffee or a drink. I rarely get lonely and relish the quiet passing of the days but I do like some contact with the rest of the world.
Whilst Steve was teaching yesterday I took the opportunity do some work in the garden, the weather was threatening to do something unpleasent. Heavy cloud and gusts of wind, but in the end only a few spots of rain. There is so much work need doing but I was determined not to repeat Friday's mistakes. I chose a bed to work on and closed my eyes to  everything else. You really can only do what you can do.

Plenty of Work here

 I get quite a lot of satisfaction from restoring some sort order in the garden. although it will never be quite as regimented as the Victorian Kitchen garden that has remained my secret ideal,despite changes in gardening fashion, with a few days of good weather I should be able to prepare it for the winter.

Blight

My tomatoes got blight whilst I was away, inevitable really as the weather changed and Steve really had no time to mess with them. In fact we have had a pretty good crop so I'm not too disappointed.

Peashoots

The cooler damper weather has given the green stuff a new lease of life including pea shoots grown from peas that fell in the spring they make such nice salad veg, that next year I might grow some specially.

Failure on the walnut eating front I will try and do better tomorrow.

Time

Today, not for the first time I completely forgot my normal mantra of tackling only one job at at time and as a result I was exhausted by lunch. The kitchen was littered with a dozen started, but not completed tasks and I had left no room for,and gave no thought, to preparing lunch. As I surveyed the worktops my heart sank when I calculated how much time I needed to finish everything I had started. It was not going to be before midnight.

I did the most logical things that I could think of:- Panicked and then shouted at Steve. Steve was obviously being unreasonable coming into the kitchen at lunchtime and offering to set the table, with the built in implication that that we might be eating sometime soon. The fact that the table was no longer visible under the piles of washing in various stages of organisation didn't help. Rather than let him mess with my laundry system I told him to make the Salad. He said nothing, just looked helpless as the ingredients for the said salad were still in a bucket mixed with random vegetables  green stuff for rabbits and chickens all with a healthy amount of soil attached. It was also still on the Patio so not really obvious ( but irrelevant he should know where it might be!)

We managed lunch eventually, Steve went to work, I had a cup of coffee and tried to calm down. I also tried not to be angry with Steve for the unpardonable sin of finishing early on a Friday (Glass of wine, crisps and a film) and no chance of extracting myself from the unintentional chaos I had created this morning. I sighed and thought longingly of the life that some of my old friends in England still think I lead. A villa with a pool in the Sun and me on deckchair with a Gin and tonic.

Tomorrow I need to tackle the garden but tomorrow is another day.......

PS I didn't forget the walnuts, we had vegetable tagine for lunch and I replaced half the chickpeas with roasted walnuts, it was good move definitely worth repeating. Not as good as the walnut sauce yesterday but good enough. If walnuts really are a super food we will be so healthy by the end of the week.

And now for that glass of wine