Year round Nigel Slater discussion thread Part 2

[RainbowZebraWarrior]

Hello, all and welcome to this lovely space for our continued chats.

A bit of background for anyone not familiar with this topic:

The Nigel Slater Christmas Chronicles readalong usually takes place here between November and February each year (the Christmas Chronicles being a book written by Nigel Slater full of winter recipes and anecdotes) It's been running for a few years, and the contributors have collectively decided it would be nice to have it running all year round.

So here it is. It is a place to appreciate all things Nigel-esque. Think seasonal food and recipes, enjoyment of nature, gardening, appreciation of the weather, and sharing of news and small moments of joy. It's a calm, cosy space for gentle chat and merriment so pull up a deckchair, grab a drink and relax.

A very hearty welcome to friends new and old!

Lordy that is a thing of beauty @RainbowZebraWarrior If I could just win the premium bonds and buy one for each of the Nigelistas!

@RainbowZebraWarrior How funny you thought it was horse. It was a name that I picked out of a list from the Beeb's website when I was joining an Archers discussion board (that's how rock n roll my life is). We do own a horse. Well my daughter does. I just pay for it! 😒However do keep picturing me as a rainbow haired unicorn type. I fear you will be disappointed should we ever meet in the real world...

Funny, I had the same thought. I always had this vision (I think I've mentioned it before) that if I ever won the lotto, I'd hire a stately home and have Nigel come to personally read the CC to us by candlelight and we would all have Diptyque goody bags to take home

Good evening and a happy weekend to you all.

It is the eve of our annual Scarecrow Festival here and we are all set. The car is packed full of honey and candles and we will be making up our packed lunches for what always proves to be a very busy day. I'll take a photo of our stall and post it tomorrow.

For anyone in the North Tyneside or Northumberland area, it is in Earsdon Village near Whitley Bay. 12 Noon till 4pm. Scarecrows will be scattered throughout the village and stalls are held in Eccles Hall next to our beautiful church. Our cake stall is always an absolute frenzy of activity and usually sold out within an hour or two. I'm under strict instructions from my Mum to secure her some cheese scones and slices of corned beef pie!

My thoughts are turning evermore to the Christmas season, as we will be preparing for Christmas craft markets as soon as our Scarecrow Festival is over. I also managed to snaffle this lovely Past Times (remember them?) cranberry spoon from Vinted this week. It's only silver plate, but for a fiver I'm very happy with it.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Hope all goes well tomorrow @RainbowZebraWarriorplease tell us all about it after the event.

planning a trip to hobby craft tomorrow. Aside from a birthday present for do’s niece. Is there anything else I need to put on the shopping list?

Thanks Crushing. We go to Hobbycraft twice a week as we do a lot of crafting. Do sign up for the Hobbycraft club if you haven't already as you get 15% off your first order and a £5 reward on your birthday as well as lots of other offers. They have a lot of Halloween and Christmas stock in already and we love their plush pumpkins.

That's a lovely spoon @RainbowZebraWarrior .

I meant to mention this re: hobbycraft. I'm going to use it for either gingerbread vodka or nigels Apricot Brandy. This year, I am going to steep the apricots / orange peel in the Brandy then remove them as I think when it sits and festers for too long, you just end up with very fat soggy apricots and very little liquer I think it was only about £4 from the new Christmas section.

Also it's bigger than it looks; about 500ml

Am running so far behind on everything here, but have just managed to catch up the thread. We haven't been able to break from working or go anywhere so am living vicariously through everyone's lovely pics, but hoping for a late Autumn break.

Having complained about a lack of tomatoes I now have a late glut, and huge amounts of strawberries and plums, as well as a decent haul of blueberries, and raspberries. It's the first time I've tried mainly growing them in poly greenhouses,(while I try and rebuild and revive the soil in my battered garden) and amongst other learning curves I've struggled with watering regimes.
I thought everything wasn't going to be ripening in time but a mini Indian summer seems to have saved the day, but I'm now (slightly desperately) processing a sudden massive glut, at the wrong point in the year for us, in between silly amounts of work and trying to get ready for changing seasons, if they can decide what they are here.

@RainbowZebraWarrior Hope today goes well, and yes to happy memories of Past Times. Was one of the places on my list for if I ever won the lottery.

This lots also been successfully bottled, but still lots of strawberries and raspberries coming through last minute.

I have been looking at my tomatoes this morning and I think they have had it. Part of me is hoping for a last hurrah, but at the same time I wan’t to get rid of the plants.

What lovely pics @EphemeraleEudemonia loving the little house @RainbowZebraWarrior

I’m hoping ds2 will stuff one of our giant courgettes this weekend. We’ve got some very well developed runner beans with pods that are likely to be stringy, so I may well pod the beans to add to soups and casseroles.

We have a challenge on, as after nearly 30 years, we are changing the kitchen 😬. We’ll be without a fridge freezer and oven for two weeks. This is fine but we need to run the freezer and cupboards down some more, as well as continuing to clear out. We’ll use the air fryer and microwave during the build, probably having a small amount of chilled stuff in our camping coolbox - we can swap freezer blocks over at ds1’s house down the road. I know ds1 would sort us out for cooking too if we needed it.

Hope your fair went well today @RainbowZebraWarrior, and excellent harvest @EphemeraleEudemonia. @AllthingsI feel a bit the same about some plants that are nearly finished for the season: I just need to move them so I can sort out the next phase of planting. In fact that’s what I’ve done today: moved my summer bedding that’s still got some potential out of pots and into little spaces here and there. I’ve then refreshed the compost in the pots, planted some bulbs and topped off the pots with a range of violas. It all looks pretty now, and I’m hoping to have a good show of daffs in the spring from the bulbs.

I need to sort a new hanging basket by my front door, and I’m still on the hunt for a Daphne Odora plant that Nigel mentions somewhere in one of his books. A neighbour has one near me, and it smells lovely at some wintry time (Feb or March?) when not much else is in flower. I saw one in a garden centre on holiday, too far to transport home, and naturally haven’t encountered one locally since. Might have to order from t’internet.

Hope everyone is having a lovely autumnal Saturday. Best of luck with your kitchen refurb @Bimblesalong. We did ours about 4 years ago and I still open the wrong drawer looking for cutlery about 50% of the time!

@LemonVerbenaGeranium our garden waste bin goes in a weeks time, so if I don’t get the tomatoes out over this weekend, I suspect that they will be out come next. The bedding plants in planters are still looking good, so I will leave them until they fade. Once they are out, I can move the planters out of the wooden frames and put in the planters with the bulbs. Perhaps a job for next weekend. It’s been a case of dodging showers here this afternoon, including thunder and lightening!

@Bimblesalong oh the joy of getting the kitchen done. It will be worth it in the end, but it can be a right nuisance whilst the work is being done. When we had ours done, I was able to set the fridge and freezer up in the dining room which was a massive help. Although not much good if you are having an integrated one taken out.

Ah, the joy of having a busy day and then coming home to read lots of lovely posts here. It really is my favourite 'place' to be.

We've been dodging showers today too @Allthings Thankfully nowt thundery going on today, but we did have some yesterday.

That sounds like some good gardening jobs you've gotten done today @LemonVerbenaGeranium I am going to go and have a quick check of the garden now and suspect I'll end up with a bit of a list of things I should do, but likely won't get round to.

@EphemeraleEudemonia Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness always springs to mind when it comes to gluts. We still have so many apples and pears on our trees that we really must pick very soon.

@Bimblesalong I remember you saying last year that getting the kitchen done was the next thing on your list. It's a massive job and likely a lot of upheaval, but hopefully worth it in the end. I still don't have an exact date for my conservatory roof, but it's looking like the week before Christmas, which doesn't sound like a lot of fun considering I'll have to find somewhere for my heavy oak Welsh dresser to go for a week along with the massive farmhouse table that's in there. I'm in denial for the moment.

Such a great day today celebrating our 10th anniversary of the village Scarecrow Festival. Most folk are still in the church hall now having a celebratory disco, but we are home and decompressing. The wonderful thing about selling local honey and hand made candles is that everyone is interested in the whole process and also about our bees.

I shoved some chicken, onions and curry sauce paste in the slow cooker earlier, so hopefully by sunset it will be ready to ladle into a bowl. Definitely an Autumnal style late evening meal. Slow cookers are the best on busy days. Has Nigel ever professed to indulging in the slow cooker revolution?

Anyway, here's a pic of our stall. It never looks great on camera, but I was so pleased with DD for the way she set it all up. My favourite thing about being in the village hall is sneaking off to the kitchen for a quiet cuppa and just looking out over the farmland. I've done it for years since DD was at baby classes and then later in Rainbows. It was so calming today, despite the madness of the main hall and the cars double parked for miles!

I’ve been being rained on in Liverpool today, I went to meet a friend I haven’t seen for nearly 2 years as she was dropping her DS off to start uni! So that was very pleasant but I’m a bit jaded now and itching for a day in the garden tomorrow although the forecast does not look promising. I’m feeling quite pleased with myself as I tried on a gorgeous coat, two lovely blouses, and stroked a very beautiful dress, and had coffee in Waterstones, and managed to not buy anything apart from lunch in Mowgli! (But I took DD3 to Hobbycraft when I got home to get some bits for her GCSE art project, and somehow we impulse-bought some new fish for her tank) (Not in Hobbycraft! In the pet shop)
Good luck with the kitchen @Bimblesalong , an air fryer, microwave, and dare I suggest an instant pot will take you a long way. I never know what drawer things will be in anyway @LemonVerbenaGeranium as it entirely depends on who emptied the dishwasher last!

Managed to dash out before the sky turned dark and snap some of my Dahlia's which really are at their best right now. Thankfully, today's showers have meant they are sufficiently watered, but I'm not sure I'll ever be able to replicate my success. I've estimated I've spent 300 hours watering and feeding them over this Spring and Summer.

@EphemeraleEudemoniayou’re fruit harvest looks bountiful and gorgeous

@RainbowZebraWarriorglad today went well your stall looks wonderful and inviting, would have definitely swung by if I didn’t live the other end of the country.

went into town today then wrapped niece’s birthday present, I do love adding bows and ribbons and things. And then did something I haven’t done for years.. got out a partially finished cross stitch and did that whilst watching a harry potato film. I’m intending to do more of it, I need something to do whilst watching tv. And I want it to be a bit more healthy then scrolling my phone. Especially as the evenings close in and I’m on my own now. When dp is here it’s not too bad as I can chat to him but when he’s away I need something.

and now to do the most high brow thing I do all year, watch last night of the proms

They look gorgeous

😂 Harry Potato sounds amazing

Those dahlias are gorgeous @RainbowZebraWarrior , as is the stall.

Glad you got some social time @SheherazadesSpringNonsense , it sounds like a good day. You were restrained - I did the caution to the wind with a visit to the Bloomsbury Toast shop earlier this week!
Kitchen starts in about 4 weeks - we’ve yet to sign off on it as there are last minute things to decide. DH is having a serious wobble about the colour of the doors and countertops - I’m minded to go with his suggestion of changing from porcelain to pink doors, although not sure how that would “age”. I think we’ll be sticking with the original plan - such a huge decision.

We have to clear out the existing rammed cupboards, which will have a knock-on effect on the rest of the house. Thanks for the ideas about how to manage. It will be “FIIIIINE!”!!!

stupid autocorrect 😂 Harry Potter

Gosh it's an awful night weather-wise. Hope everyone is safe and warm. We have the heating on and I'm burning a beeswax candle that I made by refilling an old Neom jar. I'd forgotten about the simplicity of a beeswax candle. It smells organic and rather like woodsmoke. It's tunnelling a bit, but that's probably due to the size of the wick I used.

I've been to the cinema with DD tonight, we saw The Roses which was definitely NVN but very entertaining.

@Bimblesalong we had our kitchen completely redone 4 years ago and it has been SUCH a big improvement, we totally changed the layout, a big upheaval at the time but worth it. We went away for the first week while they gutted the old one and did the first fix of plastering, electrics and plumbing, then we had the fridge freezer, microwave and kitchen table in the living room, filled big water bottles from the outside tap and washed up in one of those huge plastic trugs on the patio. We had our washing machine temporarily plumbed into a shed which has electricity.

I am also having a late tomato rush, I kept them in the greenhouse to avoid blight but it's too shady so I brought them out about a month ago and they have finally started properly bearing fruit. The foliage is looking a total meas though, not sure how much longer I'll
keep mine either. m

DH and I had a nice few days away last week, in Cheshire, here are a couple of pics

Lovely pictures @EndlesslyDecluttering, glad you had a good time away. That’s just a mile or two down the road from me! Thanks also for the calming words re the kitchen. It will all be fine!!

That looks so relaxing @RainbowZebraWarrior - we have a lot of weather coming through in the next couple of days here too. I burned an embers candle last night whilst we watched the last instalment of Wednesday.

I’m packing for Paris later this week in disbelief at the forecast high summer temperatures over there. Must make the most of the last blast of warmth.