Pheasant and Partridge in Cabbage

I remember well that this was a dish on the menu in a Paris restaurant where Mozart ate. So he probably ate the same. It was for partridge cooked in cabbage. When I returned to England I made a guess as to how it was made and have thrived on it ever since. Simply put: a cabbage is cut up finely and put into a casserole. On to it you add pepper and salt, some olive oil and white wine. This is worked with the hands until the cabbage is glistening. Then partridges or pheasants are nestled into it, potatoes added and the result cooked with the lid on in the oven for an hour at least – or two. Margreet’s version takes longer to prepare but shorter to cook. It is richer, and very good.

 

PHEASANT AND PARTRIDGE IN CABBAGE (Margreet’s recipe simplified a bit by Jim)

 

You will need:

Streaky bacon on the fat side (about 6 rashers)

Pheasant(s) or partridge(s)

Cabbage of your choice

Potatoes

A herb of your choice (fresh or dried)

Pepper and salt

White wine

 

Chop up and fry morsels of streaky bacon until crisp, pouring off the bacon fat into a casserole – or, if using the casserole, extract the bacon from the resultant fat. Keep the bacon bits until serving the dish.

In a large saucepan boil, in salted water, a cabbage, cut up finely, with several potatoes, cut to walnut size. Only add enough water to about the half way mark, allowing the cabbage/potato mix to boil and steam. Time it for 20 minutes, and well strain the contents, using the liquid as an addition to soup, or the start of one.

In the casserole with the bacon fat and your chosen herb (it could be thyme or rosemary), cook the pepper and salted bird(s), turning them as you do so, giving pheasant 10 minutes or 5 for partridge. Take them out.

Partridges may be halved beforehand with a heavy bladed and sharp knife by pressing its sharp edge down the side of a breastbone, using considerable force. It’s not easy to do. 

Now put the drained cabbage and potato mix into the casserole, adding a slosh of white wine for moisture. Give it a gentle stir. Then nestle the birds into it.

With the lid on the casserole, cook the dish in a pre-heated medium to hot  oven for about 3/4of an hour.

Place the partridge or carved pheasant meat on a plate and surround with the potato/cabbage mixture – which will remind you a bit of bubble and squeak. Sprinkle over the crispy bacon bits.

This is a dish that can be prepared well beforehand, then oven-heated and served at the table exactly when wanted.

 

 

Looking Backwards

 

In our conservation area of London, we had elegant and simple street lighting. A plain iron pole with an arched, “crane’s neck” top, distributed a mellow, yellowish light on to the street and pavement below.

            Then, one day, a notice appeared through the door asking for a considerable monetary contribution to pay for a change from these lights to fake gas lamps “converted” to electricity.

            Considering that these were in excessively bad taste (“taste” being very subjective) we declined – but to no avail.

            The pantomime set, “Victorian”, gas lamps are up and running, far taller than would meet with the approval of a lamp lighter – who would also have too high a cross piece on which to rest his ladder. They spread a harsh, cold light.

Ornamentation consists of moulded collars, slipped down the poles to be attached by screws. These are meant to represent the shapes of Victorian cast iron originals, in use when gas lighting was invented. I think that a royal personage would approve of the conversion.

Who instigated this rearward-looking move? Perhaps it was owners of houses in a nearby, late Georgian square who rent out their abodes to film-makers of period dramas. But even to an artistic director, these lampposts will still not look quite right.     Will the next monetary request be for plastic half timbering to nail on to our houses?

Change is inevitable and necessary. But surely change in buildings and street furniture should represent the period in which we live. Thank heavens the Georgians did not copy Stuart architecture, or architects in the early twentieth century the Victorians (well, some did).

What it has done is to make us much more aware of real, original, cast iron street furniture, which is viewed with renewed affection.

 

House and Garden Ideas

 

I am sure that most of us adapt a house, flat or garden to suit our way of living in it, making each abode unique in its way.

            I have loved the houses in which I have lived and, in adapting them, have created items of interest to buyers when I have had to leave - and in doing so made a good profit on each.

            So what ideas embellish where Margreet and I now live?

            Starting at the far end of our small garden, there are anti-cat and –fox defined boundaries. From where the animals might leap or land there is a coating of car grease mixed with hot chilli powder. Sometimes there are anti-pigeon spikes. It seems to work – if occasionally unsightly.

            By a short length of late Georgian wall at the end of the garden we keep a small pile of garden growbags. These are light in weight and will fit snugly across our inside front door in case of floods or flood warnings.

            A lidded compost bin (emptied annually) at the end of the garden is a breeding ground for mosquitoes and flies. So, in warm weather, before adding kitchen waste or a little sifted garden soil (excellent), I lift the lid momentarily, and spray in insect killer. In a minute or two all is silent inside. Then waste may be added.

            Every so often, compost in the bin is cut through with a coarse-toothed saw. Cut several times and in two directions, the compost is thus aerated and chopped. The result when the lower part is emptied into a holding bin or on to the garden in early springtime, is fine, crumbly, loamy compost – beautiful to smell and handle.

            A mirror on the back wall of our small, octagonal shed (summerhouse) reflects and multiplies one candle power of light from the mirror and five glazed sides in evenings when we eat, drink and relax with our season-changing garden in front of us. When it is raining, and the drops fall on to the roof in staccato fashion, there is cosiness and magic in the air.

            We peer out of our “shed” through a grapevine arbour which offers shade in summer and where bunches of wine grapes hang in autumn.

            This arbour of reinforcing rod and galvanised wire is seen in perspective from the house. Its nearby arches are more rounded than the flatter ones beyond. And they are positioned nearer together the farther they are away. This all goes to give a false perspective, making the arbour seem much larger than it really is. And from the shed end, this configuration of arches seems to magnify the garden – rather like looking through binoculars or a telescope.

            We like to burn incense (joss) sticks outside our shed to ward off insects and scent the evening air. Some lovely clove-scented examples were once on sale in a Hilversum market, in Holland, but no longer. So I took bland ones and coated them with my beeswax/white spirit painting medium (polish, too) and rolled them in powdered cloves. It worked, but, in reality, mostly in the imagination, as the original coating on the stick gave off the more dominant scent. This might be an idea to tinker with, but now we have found clove sticks on the Internet.

            A hand bell beneath the arbour summons birds in winter when I proffer food. This means that they can forage elsewhere and know that they will not miss getting their fair share of my offerings.

            A tall, earthenware strawberry pot failed for its initial purpose, and now has pelargoniums (geraniums) growing out of its orifices instead of strawberries. On top rests a large, rustically crude, Chinese (I think) dish that makes a fine bird bath and place for them to quench their thirst. When watering the pelargoniums after temporarily removing the bath dish, I found that water rushed out of the upper holes and left the lower plants unwatered. The remedy was to drill holes in a plastic flowerpot and sink this pot into the strawberry pot’s earth. Now, when the plastic pot is filled with water to overflowing, all pelargoniums with root systems at varying heights in the pot get a drink.

            Painted to match the London stock brickwork of the house are bird, bat and insect boxes that seem to be part of the house, and cater for creatures that may or may not want to share their lives with us. Made from discarded wood on rubbish skips, and painted with my own ground colour and beeswax medium, they are just as I made them some 15 years ago, with no visible signs of deterioration in either construction or colour.

            A kitchen window and glazed door to the garden have string pinned across them to tell birds that the reflection of blue sky in them is just reflection and not real sky. This was done after a pigeon crashed through window glass into the kitchen on a clear day.

            Once inside the 1830s house there seem to be fewer ideas as you pass by black olives maturing in dark olive oil and salty, stoned green olives, coated in a mixture of lemon juice, coriander seeds, pressed garlic, thyme and olive oil. These jars are upended as often as I remember to do it. 

Due mainly to lack of space, whoever is cooking in the kitchen has everything at hand within 1½ pace. Cooking is thus ergonomically arranged, but allows only one cook at a time to be at work (we take turns to cook every other week).

In the kitchen is a new leaf tea “bucket” for cups and mugs. This has now been re-designed with a copper wire loop so that fingers are not scalded when it is being extracted from a large teacup.

Also in the kitchen is a radio-controlled clock. They are on other walls as well as this modestly priced clock not only tells the time to the millisecond, but also alters time automatically when clocks have to be put forward or back. And each works for a year on a small battery.

            Wine, held in wooden bins on a wall, is sometimes blended before being served. If a good and powerful red wine is too high in alcohol for its own good (14% or more), it is mixed with a lighter, less alcoholic wine.

            Dishes and pots are soaked in sink water overnight, washed by hand, rinsed and left to dry in a rack. If well organised, this method of washing up actually saves time, energy, water and space.

            A home made wooden salt box needs only one hand to extract either cooking or sea salt.

            There are no drawers or cupboards. Almost all wants are stored visibly – including knives, forks and spoons that lie in open bins as in a restaurant.

            Wine and cider vinegar, made by mothers of vinegar in 5 litre earthenware pots, is emptied into bottles for home use and gifts, each leaving behind an active live mother after her old and dying companions have been extracted and discarded. The cider vinegar mother was obtained in Normandy from an hotelier who had many a request for female company, but never for a mother.

            A candelabra of 5 candles, suspended from the ceiling on a chain, can be raised or lowered with the use of butcher’s meat hooks.

            When Christmas arrives there is a connection between the warm house and cold garden. I decorate the part-glazed front door with many (rather vulgar) flashing coloured lights and tinsel. Now that I have managed to grow mistletoe on an apple tree in a pot, this will also be harvested to decorate the doorway – its magical properties (being pagan) adding balance to the season.

            Pictures, that almost cover the internal house walls, making re-decoration unnecessary, are changed, added to, or stored constantly, so they are noticed and seen anew.

            Handles on the stair well are positioned accurately so that climbing or descending is made easy for both the agile and infirm.

            Rainwater passing around an inward opening window at the top of the house (I’ve never managed to stop it) is channelled, and drips through a tube into a bucket, ensuring a dry wall beneath - and making a nice noise as it does so.

            On top of our standard mattress lies one of firm rubber, topped by a very soft thinner one. The result is not only a comfortable bed, but also one that has been raised to a convenient height.

            When on holiday I have noticed what a strain it can be to get out of a bath. A handle, screwed to the inside of a dormer window, makes getting in or out of our bath an easy matter and, like the handles on the stair well more helpful as one gets older.

            The base of a lightweight aluminium ladder lies above a trap door to the loft space. The ladder is taken down to provide access to the loft, where pictures are stored, and for a high cubby-hole where paint is kept and demijohns of wine are left to complete their full and malolactic fermentations before being bottled in the new year. It is also used in the garden for pruning vines and harvesting grapes for winemaking.

            Items and ideas such as those mentioned go to make the house and garden easier to run, and to fit in with our way of living. In time to come, I hope that others will appreciate them.

 

Paint and Polish

 

Time as an art student (for me very early 1950s) was a chance to experiment with artistic techniques. Of course, I would use oil paint. But with meagre resources, this was an expensive item to buy.

            So I bought empty tin/lead tubes (mostly large ones) and, to fill them, ground my own colours – either from powder colour or from more solid ingredients. (Working sometimes in the theatre, powder colour was easily obtainable, and cheap.)

The ground colour was mixed with linseed oil (probably the slower drying raw in preference to the quicker drying boiled) to help it set. I also added a little non-drying oil, like olive oil, to keep the paint moist in the tube.

These open-ended tubes were filled with my home-made paint, using a spatula. They were then folded over at the open end, crimped together, and Vaseline applied to the cap’s thread and around the top of the tube.

Over 65 years later I am still using that home-made, home-tubed paint, even after the tubes lay idle for 25 years when I turned to writing.

The key to success when using artist’s oil colour is the medium used to mix with it. So those researches at art school allowed me to assess the pros and cons of materials, and of paint and medium in particular.

I acquired a book (now missing) which told of almost every conceivable medium and how to make and use it.

The most successful of my experiments was a vastly superior and outright winner – emulsified beeswax. It formed a matt surface on canvas and primed paper.

This beeswax not only made a splendid medium for oil paint that I have used ever since discovering it, but it has had the added benefit of being wonderful furniture and wooden sculpture polish.

Briefly, lumps of beeswax are melted in a galvanised iron bucket of boiling water. When still hot, concentrated ammonia is added to emulsify it. The result is then allowed to cool. A yellow wax crust will form on the surface, which is penetrated to allow the ammonia laden water to be poured away from beneath it.

The crust is then warmed, before turpentine substitute or white spirit is added. Oil of spike lavender can also be added (though I have since found this to be unnecessary, except to add a pleasant smell). The wax is warmed again (for fluidity) and bottled, then to be used as medium for oil paint, or as polish.

Mixed with bought or home-made oil paint, the result forms a formidable and long-lasting coloured surface.

Bird boxes, exposed to the elements, painted as brickwork to match our London stock brick, east-facing house wall, has, in ten years, not deteriorated one iota. And a newly painted outside wooden sculpture should do the same.

Smooth surfaces painted with this oil paint/beeswax mixture may also be polished when hardened.

As for using any paint/medium mixture, constant use will enable the artist to forget the ingredients used, knowing its qualities and limitations, and enable him or her to concentrate on the content of the work of art in progress.

 

a London Garden (with mid-summer update)

This is about our small garden in London that only measures about 3 ½ paces across and 13 paces long. Then I add a 2013 mid-summer survey of it.

            The house wall stands at one end and a 1.5 metre wall surrounds the rest. So it is a little walled garden. It runs east-west, offering its four walls to exploit.

            Over some 25 years I have chosen or have been given plants for it. And a few gift ones I might well have chosen had I known how well they fitted in.

            The garden is all paved with flagstones, except for an east-west strip of soil running along the south-facing wall.

            Much of one end of the garden is taken up by a lovely cedar, octagonal, 5-side-glazed summerhouse, which we call our shed. This is a den/haven in which we can sit for much of the year – except in the cold of winter.

            Spanning almost a quarter of the garden from side wall to side wall, is a reinforcing rod and galvanised wire arched arbour. Over it grow Triomphe d’Alsace and Seyval Blanc grapes to give shade to a wooden bench beneath in hot weather, leaves for stuffing, and grapes for wine or juice in late summer.

            Hanging from its arches, above a marble garden table, is an odd arrangement of bird feeders. One of niger seeds to feed goldfinches, another is furnished with peanuts for blue and great tits, two hold sunflower seeds, also for tits, and the last for unwanted kitchen fat and fat balls (home made) during wintertime.

            There is another, much smaller (bamboo) arbour, the top of which springs from vine-training wires above a wall and protrudes over the garden, forming a narrow, shady tunnel beneath. Up and over this arbour grow runner beans and tomatoes alternately each year. Bees and bumblebees love the orange-coloured bean flowers, helping to provide bounteous crops which are grown from our own seed, saved each year.

            On the north-facing wall was a morello cherry tree, which, over several years,  succumbed to silverleaf fungus. It has been replaced by a damson (Merryweather), trained in espalier fashion – which I hope it won’t object to.

            Along this north-facing wall in pots, are a conference pear and an apple – into the latter of which I have “planted” mistletoe with success. We do not expect much fruit from these trees, being quite happy with about half a dozen from each every year.

            And standing just away from this wall is a 5’ high wood sculpture of lovers that was carved out of a lump of elm-diseased wood in the late 1970s. Always outside in the elements, the couple split and rotted away inside. The piece has now been hollowed out, restored and painted – a little garishly.

            Intruding from the south-facing wall, almost 3/4 of the distance toward the north-facing wall, is a peninsular of cascading, loose brickwork, on which perch pots of flowers.

            Some pots are changed over the seasons, and top ones being anchored with string in winter to prevent them from being blown over.

The pots contain pyracantha (yellow winter flowers, with birds loving the berries, spectacular and also loved by bees), phlox (purple and a surprisingly successful gift to us), pelargoniums (springing from the holes of a strawberry pot – with a bird bath resting on top), a Bolivian begonia (scarlet flowers with its corm saved in sand through the winter), a pieris (a plant that is for ever doing something or other of interest), two fuchsias (lovely flowers, loved by bumblebees), a buddleia (purple flowers for butterflies),  a malva (white as white can be with a limited season), petunias (never dead-headed, long-lasting and taking the place of impatiens, which seems to have succumbed to disease nationally), lavender (for its leaf colour as much as its fragrant flowers), a true geranium (a new gift), a solanum (given to us and told that its cunquat-like berries are tasteless), sorrel (excellent in green salads, purée and in an omelette, and the first edible green leaf to appear in springtime), thyme, rosemary, mint, coriander, rocket (which we grow from our own seed each year), asparagus (providing a few spears annually, which we eat raw), roses (Rev. P-R, and two Typhoon - the best rose ever), two bay trees (one domed and 35 years old and the other pointing to heaven as we were given it by a dying woman who had turned to Christianity), a trough of snowdrops and crocus (disappointing), a honeysuckle and, rather hidden away, a poor hydrangea and a hybiscus that doesn’t really fit in.

            Birds are our garden mobiles and friends – dunnocks, blackbirds, green and gold finches, blue and great tits, robin, wood pigeons and the passing wren. We treasure them, and give them food and water. Mice seem to have left the garden now that their home in the wooden sculpture has had their nest and the rotten wood extracted and thrown away with the rubbish.

            So what of our mid-summer (August) update for this 2013 year?

            During the winter I reduced our vine extent by almost a third. If it was that, or  the year was the cause, the grape bunches are larger and more prolific than usual. So we expect to make wine.

            All plants, trees and shrubs have done very well. The three buckets of early potatoes (Charlotte) provided us with tasty dishes. There has been no blight on the Gardeners’ Delight tomatoes, but they are late to ripen. Our bamboo canopy of runner beans has already provided us with a considerable crop (harvested and eaten when only about 3”to 4” long).

            I think of it as a man’s garden, compact and a bit austere, and somewhat changed since BBC2 made a Gardener’s World programme here, inasmuch as there are now extra plants and more colour.

            Guests love this garden sanctuary, seeing it as a cosy and colourful environment in which to drink wine, talk freely, and eat my home-made cheese pancakes. I offer Kalamata black olives that are stored in a snap-down jar with olive oil. This oil darkens with age and adds extra flavour to the olives. As the jar is topped up when necessary, some olives in it might be quite old and soft, while others are harder and more astringent.

            When guests eat these olives they are invited to throw the stones at the south-facing wall, where they fall to the earth below.  There is something about being able to do this that appeals to the child in most of us.

 

The Computer World

I am most fortunate, due to age, in having come late to the world of iPhones, computers, iPads and all the rest.

            I see young children who are far more savvy than I am when dealing with the internet, their computer games and the magic that appears on the screens of these marvels of electronics.

            And I also see the time-consuming worries, cost, and struggles that people have in keeping up with the times – being engulfed in the mighty forces of consumerism.

            I appreciate that the world now revolves around these modern masterpieces - gadgets that almost think for you, but often in their own language.

            After much cajoling, I managed to convince Margreet that with wonderful public transport at the door, to own a car was unnecessary.

            There have appeared a few inconveniences in being without one, all of them surmountable, and at little cost. The relief, the pleasure obtained, time saved, and trouble avoided, have all formed an enormous plus to our lives.

            But my rather flippant suggestion that she gives up her various electronic devices has been met with incredulous scorn. Yet hardly a day goes by without some hair-raising computer glitch intruding on our combined lives.

            Even home conversation has diminished since electronic Scrabble can now be played night and day (not by me) with friends and relatives near and far afield.

            I have always believed that simplicity is the key to a happy life.

            People may laugh at this now outdated dictum for happiness, which is derived from an approach to life where my ideas of happiness have been two-fold - not to be ambitious and to have no expectations.

            The result is a life of achievements and delightful surprises, with even the smallest success, seeming to be a wonderful bonus. They are ideas quite out of tune with those of this age.

            As for computers, I concede, partially, to their use in my life, as I write this blog on a floppy disk Windows 95 and hand it to Margreet, who has a gadget on her sophisticated machine that dispatches it into the ether.

            Perhaps I should stop asking her to be the medium between me and the world of mass communication. But what is the point in writing if no one is going to read it?

            Good or bad my words may be (and I don’t really care) but I dearly love to put words on paper.

            And computers, whatever ill I may think of them, do justify their place, and have clearly become quite indispensable to most people, despite a mounting degree of criminal intrusion.

            Hopefully, there is still a place for pen and ink. Isn’t it wonderful to receive a hand written letter nowadays? I write them.

            I would like to shout “Luddites rise up”.

            But we would have no chance of success.

            It’s far, far too late.

American Justice

I have been to America several times. The first was as a refugee in early wartime, returning by convoy across the Atlantic to join the RAF in 1942 when old enough to do so.

            Returning to the US almost right away in wartime, I was sent to Oklahoma to learn to become a pilot.

            I was back there again, post-war, to be married in front of the fireplace at my great friend’s house in New Haven. A Jewish gentleman who we found through the Yellow Pages conducted the ceremony. Then four of us went to New Hampshire on honeymoon.

            Back once more in America, this time with a baby, I was with my now ex-wife who was a Post-Graduate Fellow at Yale. I shudder to recall a cruel, hoax telephone call there, supposedly from the Police Station, to inform me that my wife had been shot and that she was in a critical condition. When I telephoned the Police Station to learn more, they knew nothing of it. Matters like that, and thus the sound of an American telephone bell with which the incident was connected, stay in one’s head for ever.

            Then came a visit once more, this time with my new wife.

            So, one way or another, quite a part of my life has been spent in the USA. And I have had close connections with it through almost weekly correspondence over some 60 years with my great friend, the recently deceased and much honoured historian, Edmund S. Morgan.

            Perhaps it was those first few years of Rob’s life in Connecticut that was

the magnet that drew my firstborn back to America. Or was it the lure that seems to catch the young of this world – a New World, glamour, riches, fame and all the rest (mostly as seen in the “movies”)?

            I have found most Americans to be extremely friendly, but the country, despite a common language, very “foreign”. I have never felt really at ease there. Perhaps it is the sheer size of the place, and the feeling of just being merely a  consumer.

            Be that as it may, this slightly wayward “American” son of mine, after London work as a bicycle dispatch rider (averaging 80 miles a day) to find the Company with whom he would like to work with his computer (and did), then decided to settle in Los Angeles, California.

            Being very imaginative, artistic, creative and resilient, he found sporadic work with his computer, designing record sleeves, book covers (including four of mine), work behind bars (as a barman who spun bottles and glasses around the place), running restaurants, making films, designing and making scenery for TV commercials and much else.

            Then he found his true métier – as a prop master, specialising in fake explosions (blowing up a Boeing 747 airliner being his largest) and general ordinance – canons, hand guns, and all the things that go flash and bang. He was in his element, and happy as a sand boy.

            He wrote that he had just landed a job as prop master for a major film, and that there was other film work in the offing. There was even interest in him writing his autobiography.

            We then heard from a great friend of his in London that he was in a Los Angeles jail.

            He managed to send me a letter as he was awaiting trial. It was folded into a small square, and pencil-written in capital letters on lined paper torn from an exercise book.

            His following words, with his permission to print them, speak for themselves:

           

Dated 14 of September 2012

IT WOULD SEEM THAT I AM IN THE HANDS OF THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT, I WOULD SAY “JUSTICE SYSTEM” BUT I AM NOT WITNESSING MUCH OF THAT AT THE MINUTE. JUST WHEN I HAD IT ALL WORKED OUT AND FOUND MY WAY FORWARD IN LIFE. IT SEEMS THAT I MAY BE BACK TO SQUARE ONE. WELL, I SUPPOSE MY LIFE HAS BEEN ANYTHING BUT NORMAL SO FAR AND I SHOULDN’T BE SURPRISED BY THESE SUDDEN TURN AROUNDS.

IT ALL BEGAN THREE WEEKS AGO WHEN I WAS ENTERTAINING MY NEIGHBOUR AND A FRIEND. WE WERE HAVING A FEW GLASSES OF WINE AND I WAS TELLING THEM ALL ABOUT MY NEXT MOVIE PROJECT. AS THE AFTERNOON CONTINUED, I STARTED TO SHOW THEM THE PROPS I WAS GOING TO USE (MOSTLY PLASTIC GUNS, AMMO AND FAKE DYNAMITE STICKS). IN AMONGST ALL THIS WAS ONE WORKING SHOTGUN WHICH I ALSO USE AS A PROP ON TV SHOWS.

THE GUN APPEARED TO BE JAMMED SO I TOOK IT OUT TO THE BALCONY FOR A BETTER LOOK. WHEN I FINALLY MANAGED TO RELEASE THE PUMP ACTION IT WENT OFF AND SHOT INTO THE AIR. LUCKILLY NO ONE WAS HURT AND IT SHOT STRAIGHT UP. IT SHOCKED US A BIT AND I HAD NO IDEA THERE WAS A SHELL STUCK IN THERE. ANYWAY, WE THOUGHT NOTHING OF IT AND TOOK OUR DRINKS DOWN TO THE POOL AS IF NOTHING HAD HAPPENED (JUST ANOTHR GUN SHOT IN HOLLYWOOD).

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT WAS STRAIGHT OUT OF THE MOVIES. FROM THE POOL WE COULD SEE HELICOPTERS BUZZING ABOUT AND THOUGHT NOTHING OF IT. JUST ANOTHER NORMAL DAY. ANYWAY, A FEW MINUTES AFTER WE GOT BACKTO MY FLAT THE DOOR OPENED, FOLLOWED BY A FULL SWAT TEAM WITH ASSAULT RIFLES AND RIOT GEAR. WE WERE ALL CUFFED AND LED OUT INTO THE STREET WHERE THERE WAS QUITE A SCENE, ROADS CLOSED OFF, TENANTS EVACUATED, PRESS CAMERAS FLASHING AND THE ARRIVAL OF THE BOMB SQUAD. IT WAS CLEAR AT THIS POINT THAT THE CITY HAD SLIGHTLY OVER-REACTED TO THE WHOLE THING.

APPARENTLY, YOU ARE GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT OVER HERE. SO I WAS HAULED OFF TO JAIL WITH ACCUSATIONS OF SHOOTING AT CONSTRUCTION WORKERS, HELICOPTERS, AND BEING INVOLVED IN TERRIORISM… GREAT!

IT SEEMS THAT ONE PRESS HELICOPTER HAD TO MAKE AN EMERGENCY LANDING BECAUSE OF ENGINE FAILURE. BUT THAT’S REALLY NOTHING TO DO WITH ME. THEY SHOULDN’T HAVE BEEN SO NOSEY.

SO HERE I WAIT FOR AT LEAST ANOTHER MONTH WHILST THE LAWYERS STRIP AWAY ALL THE OVERDONE SENSATIONALISM AND SEE IT FOR WHAT IT ACTUALLY WAS, A NEGLIGENT ACCIDENT.

IN THE MEANTIME THEY MOVE ME AROUND THRU THE SYSTEM AND BECAUSE OF MY PRESENT SECURITY LEVEL I AM IN WITH GANG MEMBERS, MURDERERS AND ALL KINDS OF FUN PEOPLE. I CAN’T HELP THINKING THAT THIS ENGLISHMAN IS SLIGHTLY OUT OF PLACE HERE. MOST PEOPLE IN L.A. HAVE BEEN IN JAIL AT LEAST ONCE AND FOR CELEBRETIES IT’S REALLY QUITE FASHIONABLE. AND I HAVN’T BEEN IN ANY MAJOR RIOTS YET, WHICH IS GOOD…

I GUESS I HAVE TO LOOK AT THIS WHOLE THING AS A NEW BEGINNING WHICH IS JUST THE START OF ANOTHER CHAPTER IN MY SOMEWHAT COLOURFUL LIFE.

DUE TO THIS “ONE SECOND” INCIDENT I HAVE MISSED OUT ON A MAJOR FEATURE FILM IN CONNECTICUT AND AM GIVING UP MY LOVELY FLAT AND DISPERSING MY POSSESSIONS AMONGST MY FRIENDS.

THE CRAZY THING IS THAT I HAVE NO IDEA HOW LONG THIS WHOLE THING WILL TAKE, MAYBE A MONTH, MAYBE YEARS… I WILL KNOW MORE AFTER THE HEARING IN A FEW WEEKS. UNTIL THEN I WILL WRITE OF MY EXPERIENCES AND TRY TO STAY POSITIVE IN THIS HELL HOLE.

LUCKILLY, I HAVE SOME VERY GOOD FRIENDS WHO ARE TAKING CARE OF MY AFFAIRS AND DOING DAMAGE CONTROL ON MY REPUTATION (WHICH WAS RATHER GOOD BEFORE THIS). ANYWAY, I’M SORRY IF THIS HAS BROUGHT ANY EMBARASSMENT OR SHAME ON THE FAMILY. BUT THIS TIME IT REALLY ”WASN’T MY FAULT “.

LOVE TO EVERYONE AND I MISS YOU ALL VERY MUCH.

(DON’T WORRY, I’VE BEEN THRU WORSE THAN THIS…)

Almost two months from being arrested he was moved to a jail, away from murderers and gangsters to where he was able to “get some sunshine and walk around a bit”

Then, after three court postponements, two and a half months behind bars, and a considerable reduction in bail money from the initial $250,000 (yes, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars), he was out on bail pending a (hopefully) final court appearance. (Surely there’s grist to the mill in all this for a book, a play, or an autobiography.)

            It seems that he was having to pay for the gross misjudgement and expense incurred on the part of the LA Police Force, having mistaken him (a prop master) for a terrorist (his rooms were filled with props, including fake guns and make-believe explosives).

            Shortly after being released on bail, he telephoned to say that he was in the mountains, trying to re-adjust to life outside prison. There would be two more court hearings. But he sounded very up-beat about the future.

            We then heard that that he would be back in court at a date a month away – being four and a half months after his arrest. Then he would file a notice for dismissal, when they would make an offer (whatever that means). The court (or police, perhaps) retained his passport. With the court case looming it was difficult for him to get any work.

            In early December 2012 Rob telephoned to say that, despite being on bail, he had found a job and created an explosion (his speciality). He hoped that his case would be settled out of court before the trial date. And due to frightful murders of school children in Connecticut, he was no longer public enemy number one, and even somewhat of a hero when welcomed back by his friends after his feat of endurance in jail.

            At last the date of his trial arrived (8 January 2013 after 5 months and 4 postponements) – and went. We heard nothing. Was that good or bad news?

            Then an email arrived. It said:

Went to court in front of the beak yesterday, all is looking good. They are going to reduce the charges or possibly dismiss the whole thing, but the legal system takes forever here. I have to go back on the 31^st Jan to finish the whole thing.

Then I get my passport back just in time to fly to Costa Rica and host a new National Geographic show on a volcano.

Wow, talk about cutting it close…

(signed) The Hollywood Terrorist

The trial day came – and went.

            We waited for news, and waited, and waited, and waited.

            Four days later rumour reached us that all was well, but that he was now a person of no importance.

Again we waited – this time for confirmation that all really was well.

            Then, seven days after the trial, Rob telephoned, through a very low volume and bad line, to say that his passport had been returned but that he was still on bail.

            But the trials are not yet over. They will be two-pronged – a hearing with Immigration and one with the department that deals with the misuse of firearms, of which one will involve a fine and the other a short stay in a more comfortable jail. He added that the system from which he is trying to free himself is the second largest money-spinner in America after religion.

Then, on the 21^st of February 2013, a card arrives to say that he was off to Costa Rica to co-host a pilot adventure show for National Geographic, hiking through the jungle, through crocodile-infested streams, then up a volcano and back down to hunt a prehistoric fish in a volcanic lake.

Another card arrived in mid-March to say: “Filming went well. Greetings from Costa Rica. Still on Bail”.

We heard through a mutual friend that it was best not to communicate.

It was not until the end of June 2013 that we had a telephone call from him to say that he was staying with a friend in West Hollywood and that there were still court matters to deal with. But he was optimistic – as he always has been.

Almost immediately we received an email of his description of the horror and humour of Californian prison existence, saying that after his two months in jail he had been to court four times with no result except postponement.

The document continued to describe a truly frightening tale of injustice and extreme hardship, told with great humour. He had managed to record the happenings when he was moved from one jail to another.

His brilliant bit of writing should, hopefully, find a much wider audience. For my part, I am unable to blog a transatlantic parent’s version of events until he is clear of the courts, just in case, with such international eavesdropping at present, it could prejudice the outcome of the courts.

Then, toward the end of July, we get a telephone call from Rob to say that a penultimate court case would be held on the 12^th of July – a day before his birthday. But the news of it was bad. He would now have to face a jury in court, with all the expense that that would entail – to the benefit of lawyers and court. He would have to appear a week after this communication. And for such a resilient character, he sounded very depressed. He was being treated very badly by the law in a country that he loved, where he wanted to work, was happy, and where he was about to become a proud citizen before he inadvertently and harmlessly fired a gun. And this was in a country where people are lawfully armed, murders are rife, and crazy gunmen kill, seemingly for the pleasure of it.

On the 22^nd of July 2013, after almost 11 months after he was handcuffed and clapped in jail, a bargain was struck and he was a free man.

This bargain seems to be that he would admit to the negligent discharge of a BB device in the air, which would mean that he would no longer have to face a court and jury. He would be on probation for three years and have to pay for the services of his arrest.

After his dreadful ordeal he is at last free of the courts and the American legal system.

The conclusion is simple. You set foot in America at your peril, and if you are Rob, it seems – even more so.

Disuading town-savvy wood pigeons

The wood pigeon, besides being one of the handsomest birds around, is either very wary or very gullible.

            When I lived in the country, you were very lucky to get to within half a mile of any wood pigeon, unless you either set up decoys or waited beneath a tree where they would roost.

            For the roosting lot you might shoot a couple for the pot, but by making very simple decoys of folded and painted cardboard, held on a twist of fencing wire and pointing up-wind, you could be of great help to a farmer as a noisy scarecrow. Moreover, you could shoot so many of these tasty birds that one simply cut off the breast meat for stews and patés and buried the rest. This arrangement meant more grain to harvest for the farmer and more food to eat for the marksman.

            The wood pigeon in London, though, is quite a different beast.  It might land close to you and look you in the eye boldly before eating as much of other bird’s food that you might have on offer. And it is small garden birds that most of us want to help through a cold winter and encourage to nest and breed in the garden. They make such delightful and colourful mobiles.

            So how to prevent large and greedy wood pigeons from hogging bird food?

            Nuts in an anti-squirrel feeder are safe from their predatory beaks, but any feeder with a try beneath to catch husks and uneaten bird food makes a landing and claw-purchasing place for the agile villains – who then proceed to eat and then foul the garden flagstones.

            I have found that chicken wire as a deterrent in any configuration is not only unsightly but has little effect. A wood pigeon will simply land on it, compress it, and use it as a perch for dinner.

            An observer of a wood pigeon taking off from a site will notice that it has to raise its wings high above its body. So if you can prevent them from taking off you will stop them from landing. So, in that way, the problem will have been solved.

            A weatherproofed, hardboard disc, fitting around a tube of food, and wired in a position to prevent the raising of wings, is the answer when the feeding outlets are low down on the tube. But for a two-tier feeder (as for goldfinches’ niger seed) it is far more difficult. I tried the disc method, and was defeated. So I added to the disc my never-failing, anti-animal solution – that of spreading engine grease mixed with chilli powder where feet or claws might land. This worked, but made a nasty, greasy, seed-coated mess. So the idea was abandoned. The wood pigeons were winning.

            Margreet then came up with the idea of a bucket, slung beneath a bare feeder. So I made one, with a “handle” of copper wire threaded through the rim of a 6” black plastic flower-pot.

            The previous device of greasy disc was destroyed and feeding tube cleaned. A hook was then added to beneath the feeder, and the “bucket” suspended from it. To prevent husks and uneaten seeds falling through the pot’s drainage holes, and yet allow rainwater through, a circle of plastic was cut to almost fit the bottom of the pot.

            The pigeons are unable to hang on to the goldfinches’ perching places and uneaten seeds and husks are trapped in a bucket that they are unable to raid.

            We now have a cleaner garden and some frustrated wood pigeons.

The Odd Job Man

I get up early on most days, earlier as the mornings become lighter. So at 5.30 on this particular late spring day I was at my computer, working on a blog and turning it into hard copy for alteration and correction. The on-going, almost abstract pastel of a “Landscape Recalled” could wait.

            Ablutions, then the collection of the newspaper and breakfast for us both either in or on the bed followed at around 7.30.

            I did not have to think about cooking as it was my week off. I had odd jobs in mind.

            Over the previous two days I had carved a piece of wood to fill a hole in the large wooden sculpture of “Lovers” that had rotted and was being restored in the garden. The wooden wedge was glued and hammered in place. Now it needed only filler and a coating of black bitumastic paint – which I did. Mice had been using this hole as their front door – but no longer.

            After washing up in the kitchen I thought that I might clean the drains – a periodic task that keeps the house in working order.

            The u-bend drain on a small basin fills with junk and furs up with limescale over time. The judicious use of spirit of salts, scraping with a screwdriver, rubbing with a scourer, and the insertion of a bottle brush does the trick. Dirty wastewater now part filled a plastic basin with unpleasant material that in normal circumstances would have been washed away had the basin been large enough to provide an adequate head of water to flush it.

            Nearby is a shower drain to be cleared of hair. The drain hole contains a simple device that catches hair before it can clog an inaccessible waste pipe. This, again, is not a pleasant job, but a periodic and necessary one.

            And as I was on this drain-clearing business, the coarse filter on the clothes-washing machine had to be cleared and cleaned. Drains done. Satisfaction ensured.

            A dormer window needed attention. So as this was becoming a real odd job day, I was on a roll, using putty to fill the gap between lead roofwork and window frame. When the combination occurs of a strong east wind and rain, water runs off the lead covering and is then blown up behind where it should, in normal circumstances, drip down outside. When this happens, some rainwater appears as dirty liquid to run down inside the window. So I hoped that my putty treatment would work.

            Putty was also used to fill gaps on and around the outside of an old window frame, where paint will be needed later.

            Since starting to resuscitate the large, wooden, “Lovers” sculpture in the garden, the kitchen table inside the house had been covered with tools, brushes, and several tins of preserver, hardener, bitumastic paint and such. Now, with the sculpture restored, after weeks of work, I could at last clear the table and get rid of the rubbish and newspaper protective covering.

            My recently employed hearing aids (which take some getting used to) told me in blips that the batteries needed changing. Which I did.

            Then, as I had the spirit of salts at hand, I dealt with limescale that had built up around the waste plugholes in bath, bidet and basin, and in the lavatory. With a high lime content in London water, this is a regular task. Spirit of salts is dangerous to handle, can destroy plumbing joints, and has noxious vapour. So I used it sparingly, wore rubber gloves for protection, and was careful not to breathe in any fumes.

            Back to the computer, Margreet had made a few editorial suggestions, which are always spot-on and helpful. So I could, at last, put the piece (on “Sculpture Restoration”) onto a 3 ½” floppy disk (Windows 95) for her to convert into modern computer-speak in her much more modern machine. She will choose when to cast it forth into the ether.

The catch on the lock of our lovely little shed (some would call it a summerhouse) was not securing the door. So with saw, file and screwdriver, this had to be rectified. And the thin brass hinges on a clothes cupboard had sprung, and needed a few blows with a hammer to put it right.

            A couple were coming for 6 o’clock drinks, so I started to make a special "house” cheese pancake, which gave me time to plant out some tomato and runner bean plants that had been nurtured from seed in pots on the kitchen window sill. Then I watered the garden.

            We showed our guests the newly sprouting mistletoe growing from the bark of our apple tree in a pot, and gave them a conducted tour of pictures. The latter can take ten minutes or so to an hour or two, depending on time and/or interest.

            It had been quite a busy day for an 88 year old when coming to think of it. But it’s best not to.

            How, I wondered, can anyone run a house properly without an odd job man (or woman) about the place?

Caper Sauce

We were eating slow-cooked roast mutton with a quantity of caper sauce (boiled is probably a more usual method of cooking mutton with caper sauce), when our guests remarked on the deliciousness of this traditional combination. It was not the timing of the slow cooking that they wanted to know about, but the recipe for the sauce. 

Make lots of sauce when you are about it, as it may be heated up again in a double boiler for cold mutton, and also used for making an excellent soup and other dishes

Capers generally seem to be sold in rather expensive small glass jars. But from an Asian-run grocery shop they are obtainable in larger jars and at a reasonable price.

And being generous with capers is part of the sauce’s success.

CAPER SAUCE

You will need:

Capers

Butter

Stock cube

Plain flour

Pepper and salt

Milk

Dijon mustard

I seldom measure anything when cooking. But to give an indication for making the white sauce, melt a heaped dessertspoon of butter in a saucepan, adding a stock cube, 2 heaped dessertspoons of flour, pepper and salt. Mix these ingredients together with a whisk.

Add a pint of cold milk, whisking all the time, adding a little Dijon mustard as you do so.

When the sauce thickens and begins to bubble, note its consistency. It might need the addition of a little cold water or milk to thin it.

Now add 3 dessertspoons of capers and a little of their liquid. Heat it all through.

The sauce may be kept hot in a double boiler – or in a basin above just boiling water.

Use the hot sauce again for when you serve cold, sliced mutton.

Mashed potato goes well with this “Olde English” dish.

For caper soup, simply add more milk and water and another stock cube or two.

The sauce also goes well with slow-cooked cockerel, or boiled or roast chicken.

Add chopped hard-boiled eggs as a sauce for steamed fish.

I have also used the sauce successfully by coating barely-cooked thin slices of beef with it and then baking the result in the oven.

Garden Birds Spring 2013

Our garden lies within a narrow strip between two rows of London houses. And it is a strange thing to say from someone who loves birds that I am happy not to have many to see. This is an advantage. In fact, it is a wonderful situation as territorial boundaries are restricted in size, intruders are rare, and those that do appear are not welcomed by the feathered residents.

            This means that we know most of our birds quite well – and they know us. So we are a sort of a family.      

            This family of ours varies in size each year. Some spend the winter with us. Then old friends appear, sometimes to nest with us after surviving the winter, others not.

            In springtime we share our house with the birds that use my bird boxes on the house. On the wall are nesting possibilities for most – even for birds that we seldom or may never see. The nesting boxes are there in case.

            Nearly always a pair of great tits bring up a family in a box made from scrap wood and painted as bricks to match those of the house. Sometimes blue tits nest in a box much higher up the wall. This box was made for house sparrows when we had many resident birds before they all disappeared mysteriously from the London scene. At least nesting places await their return.

Birds take time to get used to any home made for them – sometimes many years. I have made boxes for several friends who have initially been disappointed that they were not used immediately. But in the end all was well and those homes are now in use and appreciated. Birds take time. They do not like change.

In a hole in the eves of a house two away from ours, swifts nested. It must have been the only nesting place for miles around. We did not tell the owners who were not bird lovers and might well have filled in the hole. But they had their house done up for sale and the gap used by the swifts was closed.

High on our own house wall I replicated the birds’ home as best I could, but a year too late, by which time the birds had moved elsewhere. But it was a newly-made box and, as mentioned, birds need time. So we are hopeful of a return – even though we see so few swifts in the district. If they come back we will hardly know it, judging from past experience. She will only appear to lay each egg on an almost bare surface, and feeding young is done so quickly and quietly that only the very observant is aware of it happening. It may all take place again. I hope so. I can offer no greater encouragement than supplying a house especially made for them.

Our “house” robin was so tame that she would feed in our glazed shed with us and feel at home by standing on my knee for a minute or two. Her new mate (“Ranger”) took her too far away to nest from her usual sites near our house. But once in a while she returns, flying straight into the shed for a bite, and staying awhile for our company.

Our hen blackbird, of at least 14 years, and the survivor of a nasty cat-mauling, must have come to her end. But “Mr Black”, her shy mate of old, took another partner, and together they produce at least two broods each year.

He, once so shy, has now flown into the shed and next to me for food. Compared with our elegant little robin he is a large lump – and an untidy eater.

He shoos off the greedy starlings when I am in the house, but leaves this task to me when I am in the shed with the door open.

Starlings, now regarded as a declining species, abound. Goldfinches come and go (but so alike we don’t know them), as do greenfinches (one of which ate himself to death on sunflower seeds at one of our feeders). Wood pigeons are handsome pests that foul the flagstones. Dunnocks (who have bred well this year) scurry around the garden endlessly picking up minute morsels unseen by the human eye. Chaffinches have not re-appeared this year, nor have coal tits. But with so many fledglings around after a good breeding season, we are sure to see them soon.

            There is always drink and bath water for our feathered friends. And throughout the winter there is food for every species. A favourite “bite” for some is that from fat balls – not the bought variety, of which they are not particularly fond,  but of my own make.

            This is made from most of a loaf of bought bread, which is turned into crumbs. Bran is added, with a good handful of green raisins. A slab of lard is then melted and added, to be stirred in well. This mixture is allowed to cool before being formed into balls and frozen until wanted for the outside container, made for the bought variety (to which I have added a bamboo perch). Starlings, blackbirds, great tits and blue tits have made it their favourite food. When I made this in the country, stale bread was used, which was soaked and squeezed dry before the additions (including peanuts then, which now have a separate dispenser).

            I was worried initially that the tits might overfeed their nestlings with my fatty offering. But they wisely mixed the youngsters’ diet with caterpillars and other grubs. Also on offer in London are sunflower seeds, peanuts that have been crushed in a pestle and mortar, and niger seeds for goldfinches.

            This breeding year seems to have been a good one for my garden birds, despite a very cold and damp spring.

Rejuvenation

Could it be springtime, or just that the inside of our house needed attention and rejuvenation after years of neglect?

            So we felt that in these straightened times with our country in recession, we might turn savings into help for business and the livelihoods of their employees, and bring our house up to date.

            Outside in the garden my ‘60s elmwood sculpture of more than life size lovers embracing had, over the years, been eaten internally by mice and split outwardly, so that the figures were becoming both hollow and falling apart.

So it was time to act – more on Margreet’s part than mine, as I rather like living in a decaying and slightly seedy environment and seeing my sculptured wood returning to powder.

            Tension straps and glue were the first moves to help the lovers return to their previous embrace. Later there would be wood preserver, wood hardener, glued dowel rods, filler, and possibly paint or the application of an impervious coating.

Inside the house the carpet layers had done a splendid job. Almost every object of our daily lives that rested on the old carpet had to be moved from room to room and returned to its regular place (often by us) after the new moth-proof carpet had been laid. Electrical equipment had to be wired back and plugged in again exactly as before. It was furnishing chaos, and one thwart with considerable wiring problems. It was a surprise to me to find how complex and numerous were the (often hidden)   wires in our house.

Then all was well. Nothing fused when plugged again (except the necessity of re-tuning the TVs). A lot of items in the house were discarded. And a feel of rejuvenation ensued, with everyone happy.

            The recovery of the sculpture would have to take many days, but new carpets in the house took only two days of extreme exertion.

            Although I was a bit reluctant to accept the internal bringing-up-to-date, I liked it in the end.

            The soft, synthetic carpet surfaces were a pleasure to walk on for those who were shod, but not quite as soft as the previous woollen ones to the barefooted.

            As I had just painted the outside of the house, we felt that we could both settle back to our normal routine without any outstanding jobs to be done – except for an internal fibre door to be replaced with a part glazed pine one. And then there was putty to apply to beneath leadwork where rain can enter when it is raining hard at the same time as a violent east wind. The sculpture repairs had to be finished. Then there are windows to clean for the summer. And on it goes.

Will it ever end? I hope not, because I like it that way.

Mystical, Magic, Mythical, Occult - Mistletoe

It was on the 19^th of April 2013 when I roared into the house to tell Margreet the great news. What great news?

            Earlier I had been watering the garden and, in the kitchen, planting Gardeners’ Delight tomato seedlings into individual pots for summer growing outside.

            But I had just witnessed something outside that, as a keen gardener, I had tried to do, but never – ever – managed before – something that I had been attempting for most of my life.

            I was crying with joy. And as I entered the house, Margreet was astounded to see this grown man cry so copiously – with joy. I had done it at last. I had grown mistletoe.

            I am not sure that one grows mistletoe at all. One plants the berries acquired from Christmas decoration in the junction of apple tree spur and stem – in the vain hope of success.

            Either the seeds in their berries fall off, or are eaten by birds – which is rather strange because the berry juice is so sticky that it has been used on branches to catch birds for the pot.

            Anyhow, for quite a few years now I have tried to get this mythical parasite to take hold in a host apple tree, growing in a pot, and given to me by my son, Pete – with  no success.

            Over those years I have tried just pressing the sticky berries into the joint of trunk and spur. I have tried fresh berries and berries dried out over the Christmas holiday (found shrivelled up on a rubbish skip). I have tried binding them in with string. String, being unsightly, I have painted over it to match the apple tree bark, and I have tied in berries and covered the unsuitable-looking light-coloured string with rubber solution (Copydex) and rubbed soil over it before it had set. The string binding for these experiments had, over time, either rotted away or been cut off to prevent strangulation of the tree.

            For the last two years I had not taken up the challenge, firstly by forgetting to try, and secondly because of the unavailability of the berries in the market. That was it – failure and lost enthusiasm.

Then, about to enter the house on that fateful day, and passing my two fruit trees in their early flowering state, I looked at where I had sown berries on the potted pear tree (no success) and then the pillar-shaped, Italian apple tree. And there, pointing straight out of the apple’s bark, and several inches away from where I had placed the seed, were three green sprouts – firm, erect, and one with two typical mistletoe leaves (quite unlike apple leaves) at its point.

Having recovered from the initial shock, and still with tears in my eyes, I telephoned my gardening expert sister, who was as excited as I was to hear the news.

I would dearly like to recall exactly which of my planting methods succeeded. But as I had not tried for two years, at least it is now known that the gestation period must be at least 2 1/3 years.

How will this evergreen parasite progress while feeding on a deciduous apple tree in a pot? We shall see.

Ancient lore tells that the crop should be harvested at midnight on Christmas Eve and the result kept for a year. But I am already thinking too far in advance.

The whole aura of this fascinating Eurasian parasite is shrouded in myth and primitive lore.

How will it affect our lives?

What portents lie in store?

What magic will ensue?

What ancient rites does it now need?

What life-changing spell will descend on us with this given sign from ancient gods?

How exciting.

Roadkill

Roadkill has, it seems, become a fashionable subject of interest. It means that whatever you run over in a car, or find in the road, you do not leave it there but recover it, take it home if edible, prepare and eat it. This is food for free and the hygienic clearing up of mess.

            That is all right in the country where you might have unfortunately struck a pheasant, rabbit, duck, chicken or hare. But it is not everyone who would, or even be able to take advantage of it.

            Presumably one might leave a badger where it lay, and a deer would be a bit bulky to be put into the boot of a car, should you have been lucky enough to have survived the crash.

            It is different in town.

            The animals in question are foxes, cats and dogs – hardly edible, any of them. A single feral pigeon would barely be worth recovering, even if it hadn't been pressed flat already.

            James May’s internationally famous cat, Fusker, with whom I had a considerable tussle, suffered from roadkill at the end of our street. Despite wearing an identity collar, he was probably dumped in a rubbish bin, and certainly not eaten.

            So one doesn't expect to be coming across much edible roadkill in London.

            Well, it so happened that when walking on a Chiswick pavement recently, a cucumber lay in my path. “Roadkill,” say I, and picked it up, displaying it in my hand as I proceeded, should its rightful owner appear and ask for it back. No one did.

            So I shared the roadkill with my sister, and have just consumed my half of it, cubed and mixed with the flesh of an avocado, all coated with a vinegary vinaigrette. – first class London roadkill I would say.

            I felt quite in vogue with my action, and fully up to date with present-day mores.

Poisoned food?

Self-satisfied, self-promoting, over-acting, and with too complicated recipes, television chefs put me off watching their cookery programmes.

            I'm sure (hope) that away from the kitchen, where cooks belong, these show-off performers are all delightful and modest people when at home and not in front of the cameras, and that the food and skills they display to their TV audience are of great use and entertainment.

            Recently, when scouring the various TV networks with my remote control in search of an interesting programme, I landed on a cooking one where sausages and offal in skins were boiled slowly in fine stock to make, firstly soup, and then a feast of the objects that had been boiled in it (just my kind of cooking).

            This seemed to me a good enough idea, and why not boil offally things that have made certain nations famous?

            I took the specialities of three countries for my test dish – Scotland, Spain and Ireland.

            The stock/soup was made of pressure-cooked bones, spices and chopped-up pigs’ trotters. This was strained into a bowl, and overnight became a thick jelly with a top layer of fat, which was discarded.

            Adding water and my international goodies, I intended to start heating up the dish when guests arrived for 6 o’clock drinks – but forgot to do it.

            When our friends had departed (drinks in our district mean come at 6 pm and leave by 7.30 pm - 8 pm), I started the dish that I should have put heat under earlier.

            Because we were hungry, I failed to give it enough time at a slow boil. The result was not as hot as it might have been.

            At two in the morning I rose when my body decided to rid itself of what seemed to be most of my insides. Had I poisoned myself, and with myself, Margreet?

            Still feeling rather unwell, I kept a worried eye on Margreet – who, to my relief, continued to sleep soundly and breathe steadily.

            Thinking that my digestive tracts were, by then, completely empty, I was surprised when the evacuation continued - from top and bottom.

            I then realised that it was not my cooking that was causing the internal turmoil, but the widespread norovirus, for which I understood there was no cure other than paracetamol and patience (period of tumult, day of bed, next day up and around).

            Even though innocent of cooking with noxious poisons in this case, I have been quite put off from trying the dish again.

            I will now be even more determined than ever not to watch cooking programmes on television.