louisa

3BT – wake up routine, office at last, fun warm-up

28/4/2010 / louisa / 1 Comment

1. Get up. Wee. Feed cats. Get dressed. Take dog for a walk. Feed dog. Have shower. Get dressed again. Sit with John as he wakes up. Have breakfast.

2. We’re working in our office at last. After months of stagnation, the room has been transformed in the last few weeks and is now beautifully bright and airy. The wide desks seem too big to start with but are quickly filled with paper. At the end of my working day, I put my laptop away and retreat upstairs, able to leave work behind for the first time in four years.

3. They make me laugh so hard and for so long that my lips stick on my gums when my smile finally falls.

Sausages!

27/4/2010 / louisa / 0 Comments

One of my ten goals for 2010 was to learn how to make sausages. I’ll admit it was a bit of an easy one — the “make to-do” list item on your to-do list just so you can cross something off straight away — as I was already planning on attending a sausage making course in March. When March came along though, I was incredibly disappointed when we had to cancel our places a couple of days before the course – and delighted when Rachel, the course organiser, said they were running the course again a month later, and would we like to attend that instead?

The course took place on Saturday at Old Sleningford Farm – a lovely informal community/small holding near Ripon in North Yorkshire. The drive up showed off Yorkshire at its best – the sun shining on all the hills, dales and cute cottage-filled villages – and when we got there, the group were having a cup of tea in the sunshine next to the herb garden. There were five of us on the course, plus Rachel & Martin, who ran the session together.

Once the tea was supped, we headed into the purpose-built kitchen and Rachel & Martin told us about their experiences developing the recipes, how they’d come up with their fatty/lean meat ratio and why they used homemade bread instead of rusk. Then we read through the recipes of the sausages we’d be making – all standard wet pork sausages but we were given two recipes for dried/smoked sausages and throughout the day, they discussed how each stage would be different if we were making them (we also got to try the dried sausages at lunchtime – super yum!). They had also thoughtfully copied out large versions of the recipes and hung them on the walls so we didn’t keep having to refer to our take-home A4 papers.
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Last week’s Tweets (up to 2010-04-25)

25/4/2010 / louisa / 0 Comments

Is it just me or is this ash cloud thing starting to seem more and more like the start of a John Wyndham novel as each day passes? #
@left_realistic dude, i think for the sake of the over-stretched NHS, you need to switch to sports to gentler pursuits. Bowls, perhaps. in reply to left_realistic #
The animals put forward a compelling argument to retire to bed earlier than normal. Unable to resist. #
@paulhorsfall got any website/book recommendations for Ruby learning? specifically learning to program using Ruby as 1st lang? :) in reply to paulhorsfall #
@paulhorsfall thanks! I have the 1st ed. of the book but it seems to make some jumps/assumptions that haven't been helpful. Will persist. in reply to paulhorsfall #
@swirlyarts ooh, where will you be talking? is it an open thing or to a closed group? if it's open, I'll try to come down :) in reply to swirlyarts #
Had a lovely walk in the woods with the cat & dog. Or rather the cat & I sat in the sun while the dog ran around. http://twitpic.com/1hib1s #
I've got too many things on my to-do list for this point on a Friday night. Boo. But 2 to-dos are make bread & eat slow-roasted pork so yay! #
Two of "our" chickens turned out to be boys so under John B's tutelage, we've killed, plucked & butchered them. Interesting experience! #
@IdleSi not any more ;) (@johnleach's brother handraised some and another friend has been fostering them while we get our coop sorted out.) in reply to IdleSi #
Had an ace day learning to make sausages at Old Sleningford Farm. Gorgeous place, lovely people, the best sausages ever! Recommend ++ #
Great food day: "home"made sausages from yesterday for brunch, the chicken we "processed" on friday in a curry for dinner, then a wispa. :D #

Death & dressing: killing, plucking & butchering our first chickens

25/4/2010 / louisa / 4 Comments

On Friday night, we killed, plucked & butchered two chickens. As you do.

To be accurate, the wonderful John B and my John did the killing, then my John’s brother Chris and I joined them in plucking, then John B showed me how to dress the chicken, and then I showed Chris.

The chickens first came into our collective lives late last year as unwanted day old chicks and Chris handreared them in a make-shift nursery in his conservatory until New Year, when he had to clean out the chicken poop, ahead of the arrival of his son, Zachary on Valentine’s Day/Chinese New Year. Despite being planning/building a chicken pen/coop since we got this house last September (well, planning it since I went on a chicken course in April last year), we still weren’t ready to take them when Chris needed to get rid – and John B, who already had his own girls, offered to take in the still-unsexed chicks. He gave us regular updates about how they were doing – and a few weeks ago, his suspicions were confirmed: two of them were definitely boys. Over the last week, the boys had become somewhat randy boys and were hurting his girls with their “affection” so one way or another, they had to go. John B has been banned by his daughters from eating anything they’d named so he couldn’t do it and a friend on his allotments offered to do the deed instead – but he thought he’d give us first refusal.
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3BT – first spring, slick, the answer

21/4/2010 / louisa / 0 Comments

1. (I sort-of mentioned this on Clare’s blog the other week but I’ve not mentioned it here yet so…) Where we lived in Leeds, it was green — the lawns of the park, the trees of the woods leading down to the canal — but north facing houses & gardens meant no flowers, no colour, permanent shade. Here, as I walk along the road, there are cheerful spring flowers, vibrant bedding plants, delicate tree blossoms and surprising wild blooms. The cottages with their cottage gardens, hanging baskets against stained black stone. A single red tulip. Next door’s garden spilling out through their front gates. It feels like the first spring in nearly a decade.

2. The pink meat falls heavily to kiss its own reflection in the glossy marinade.

3. It seems so obvious after we try it – why hide awkwardly in the corner when we can float in the middle of the room?

3BT – halo, trunk, indulgence

20/4/2010 / louisa / 1 Comment

1. The branches practically invisible, the green buds form a lime halo around the trunk.

2. We sit down on a fallen trunk for a kiss. The sunlight dapples the world around us.

3. We nibble the rich dark biscuits in bed before turning to our books.

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