The Year Round Nigel Slater Discussion Thread - Part 5

[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 on Mumsnet between November and February each year - the Christmas Chronicles being a book written by Nigel Slater full of winter recipes and anecdotes - It has been running for a few years, and the contributors 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 chair, grab a drink and relax.

A very hearty welcome to friends new and old!

Lovely Doggy RZW.
I’ve also saved the candle! The season is approaching!

That sounds like Belle du jour @piscofrisco

Ooh if Sheep Detectives is on Prime, then that's a good shout for us, too. Home made pizza also sounds like a great idea. I think I'm going to make a Quiche as I have a lot of bits and bobs of cheese, and a lot of eggs. Probably cheese and broccoli. DD also wants to make more oreo cookies and muffins (probably raspberry ones)

Lovely morning at the beach today chatting with my bichon frise pal about how excited we are for Autumn and Winter. Don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed summer but it's a bit much. I am currently still celebrating the season we are in with a St Eval Sea Salt candle under the lamp and my beekeepers suit it airing in the sunshine on the line.

Who was it who made a lovely sea glass Christmas wreath decoration again? I think I screenshotted the post from last year so I will go looking in my gallery. I have decided to make some for family and friends so best start now.

Currently sitting with this lovely chonk that I found this morning. It's very tactile and reminds of a giant fox's glacier mint!

Belle is so pretty @RainbowZebraWarrior

@petitpasta is that shop near you? I have a couple of very good friends in Lichfield.

@CrushingOnRubies I like the sound of the rechargeable heated thingy, I have plug-in gloves and blankets... will investigate. I have a one-cup thing rather than a kettle so hot water bottles are a bit of a faff.

I'm glad we've never had a school reunion. We did have one person who became quite famous in a kids TV show (actually the year below me but we shared some classes as it was a small school).

Attempted to get up for the rehearsal of my little musical group this morning but my body thoroughly objected to that idea by making me dizzy when I'm upright, so I'm back in bed feeling sorry for myself as I would have liked to see people. Ten months of COVID-related nonsense now, I feel like that's quite enough!

Oh I missed your post, sorry. It's bloody awful. Was chatting to some folk this morning about it and saying how its not quite as depressingly bad at the moment (3 weeks down the line) but we are currently on neep tides, with spring tides due back next week for 3 or 3 days so we reckon we will get another influx. I'll be putting my seive and bucket back in the car ready for Monday.

Enjoy the beach and hope it's quieter.

@RainbowZebraWarrior ‘Who was it who made a lovely sea glass Christmas wreath decoration again? I think I screenshotted the post from last year so I will go looking in my gallery. I have decided to make some for family and friends so best start now.’
T’was me! I’ve just started making another one for myself as the previous one was for Dd. I found the best way to start was to use a thin plastic round lid to form the outline shape, fitting the first layer of seaglass round the edge. Then glue the second layer over the first to hold it in place. Allow the glue to set (can take a day or two depending on the temperature), gently remove from the lid, turn the whole thing over and glue between any pieces that need to be secured and then leave the whole thing well alone until it’s completed set before gluing on the small pieces of green and tiny red beads. I used Gorilla Glue Clear, which is absolutely clear when it sets. Hope this is useful!

Aha!! You have answered what was going to be my next question as I have been looking at all sorts of - mostly expensive - flat round rings and was just off to scour B&Q. Brilliant idea! I have been sorting out all of my flatter pieces of glass for a while now as I am going to try and make about 20 (friends, family, teachers)

You say you hope this is useful. Well I see your useful and I raise that to Genius, my dear! Thank you so much. I'll go and order the clear gorilla glue now. Thankfully, I already hoard have a few Pringles and other lids as they appear to have a multitude of uses.

It's definitely feeling increasingly autumnal despite still being in heatwave conditions. Leaves turning on the trees, and noticed a couple of pubs with 'book now for Christmas!' signs out. On the other hand we are forecast 30 degree heat again this week. It's a weird time. I think I'm more conscious of it this year as it's the last summer before DD starts school! (Sob!!) Have been doing a mammoth back to school shop on M&S website for all the uniform.
Hot but quite hazy today. Have had a nice relaxed day taking DD to a local farm with a big play area. Ice cream was involved too😁
I would love to go to a school reunion! School wasn't the easiest time (is it for anyone?) but on the whole I had a nice bunch of friends and not too much drama. I'm very nosy so would love to see how everyone has got on in life! No celebrities that I know of though.
Thinking of you with your 2 week wait appt @piscofrisco I hope it all turns out OK for you.
Hope you feel better soon @martha79 take it easy today.
Off to cook some sausages for tea and pour a glass of wine in a minute. Have a good evening all x

Looking forward to seeing your wreath creations @RainbowZebraWarrior. Such a clever idea @Seasidebubbles

I've watched Sheep Detectives twice on Prime now 😄 Could do with a nice film for this evening as I've perked up a bit but still lounging in bed.

Did get up and make some food though, fancy tinned fish this evening!

Beach was lovely. Took a picnic and wasn’t busy at all. So DDog could explore and play with her ball. It wasn’t quiet at all even managed to park in the notoriously hard to get a space car park.

I made jam today. Cycled to my favourite cheapo fruit stand and bought tons. Made 3 batches, nectarine and apricot and strawberry, so far. Have plums too and some very firm peaches and other bits and bobs for recombining (eg strawberry and plum was great last year).
I don’t think Nigel goes down Kilburn High Road to buy the fruit like I did (bit rough innit) but home made jam is surely VN!

That sounds amazing. I have loved every minute of this week since DD had her B12 shot and finally has some energy and isn't tired and grumpy any more
We have come back from the woods every day with a carrier bag full of goodies. Today we took a different path found a heritage apple tree. We are planning to make jam, chutney, curd and jelly. I have been boring telling her for years about how amazing it is to forage / collect / make things in the summer months that sustain us throughout the winter months 😊

I have no doubt that Nigel has any clue that the woods we inhabit are actually a council owned biodiversity park that used to be an old coal pit, but I am sure he would he proud of our endeavours 😊

@Seasidebubbles that wreath is fab! I feel inspired to have a go, but I'll need to collect the sea glass first!

That looks like nice fancy fish. Where was it from please as I am making Dad a hamper and he loves his tinned fish but it's only coming up as Ocado. We don't have Ocado here. They have been saying 'we don't deliver to you yet' for the last 15 years.

Also hope you found something nice to watch last night. We still need to watch Sheep Detectives and still need to see Spiderman at the cinema, but are bingeing our way through so many other shows.

I saw Damon Albarn in an Irish pub on Kilburn high road once @comtesse.I used to work on Maida Vale. One of my best celebrity sightings.

great foraging @RainbowZebraWarriorand glad the B12 has kicked in for DD.

DH got some posh tinned fish from Waitrose yesterday. You sort of grill it in the tin by setting some baking paper on fire in the lid I think? I’m dubious. Yours looks nice though @martha79. Did you get much football related noise yesterday? Up the mighty owls!

I always get a bit weepy in September as I’ve no littles to buy uniform and a back pack bigger than themselves and all the things in Sniggel (is that still a shop?) for. The days are long but the years are short eh @Markknopflersheadband

a miracle has happened. Both DD’s were out by chance in the same pub near their Dads last night and actually sat together and seemed to have a nice time. DD2 sent me photographic proof! They were both leathered, but I’m taking it as a win, given that they have barely been able to tolerate each other for the last two or three years. They will be back later and the DSS’s finally made it home yesterday so it will be all 6 of us here this evening for the first time in what seems like ages.

It’s already warm here and set to be 30 degrees later. We are going to a friends bbq which I don’t really feel like at all, long drive and I slept so badly-but I’m sure it will be nice when we get there.

Have a lovely Sunday all

Meant to also say ooh nectarine or apricot jam is my favourite. I am paying nearly £4 a jar for Bonne Maman apricot jam. Might as well make my own. I might go in search of some cheap ones today.

Happy to send you a parcel of sea glass from my stash if you don't get round to it.

Hope you enjoy the barbecue @piscofrisco <autistic thought approaching> I never could understand why folk wanted to eat hot food from burning coals on a blistering hot day. A winter time firepit makes so much more sense in my head. Thats a big win for the teo DDs though leathered or not eh? Hurrah! Also, I adored Damon Albarn and copied the necklace he used to wear that he said his Mum made him. It fell apart and I came across all the beads yesterday so added that to my list of things to do

We won our friendly game against Valencia last night. Rather nervous for the season ahead what with a new manager and selling all our top players as bloody usual but hey, what will be will be and there's not really any pressure. DD dreams that she will wake up one morning and see on the news that we have signed Haaland or Bellingham but I can't see lowly Newcastle tempting them somehow. Players never much did like the weather up here!

I've done much better with my glycerine leaves this year. Probably because I used a bigger tub and wasn't meant with the glycerine!

17 degrees and cloudy here with rain forecast later again. Perfect for market meandering and woodland walking.

Have a good Sunday, all.

Correction. It isn't going to rain later, it is actually already pouring down. Looks like it's just us and Scotland again I'm afraid.

Right? Nice jam is expensive. But what I found is that the jam I make is much much nicer than anything I can buy in the shops AND is much cheaper. I reckon I spend £1 or less on ingredients per pot and it is really really nice jam. NB you don’t need to buy fancy pants fruit either, even mediocre apricots make delicious jam.

For example: Years ago DH came home with 9 kg of strawberries in November cos the fruit stand was selling them off cheap. They were rubbish really as you might expect given the time of year (loads of green ones, nothing really ripe, loads of mushy ones so a lot was chucked away), but the resultant jam was lovely. It makes me think that commercial jam must be made out of shocking fruit.

TBF batch size makes a difference. Small batch jam is much easier to manage and faster to cook so will be fresher tasting. I like ~1.35kg of fruit (plus 80% of the weight in sugar and juice of a big lemon) and that would normally fill 5 Bonne Maman jars from that amount.

@martha79 I live quite in Lichfield. I love it so much, but wish it was nearer to the sea. The furthest point from tidal water in the UK is Hammerwich which is a little village just outside Lichfield.

I also heard the nurdles being reported on Radio 4. So awful.

The school reunion was actually OK. It was quite frightening how many contemporaries have died. I grew up in a fairly deprived area but I think I live a very affluent lifestyle now. I guess many of my school contemporaries didn't escape and the link between deprivation and premature death is very real. It was quite a shock though. We did have a minor celeb at my school - lightening from the original gladiators.

Another shock yesterday was having to evacuate our house due to finding a screw in the main gas pipe. I had just got out of the shower so had to stand in the front garden wrapped in a towel. We are so very fortunate. The (metal) screw was lodged in the (metal) gas pipe but must have sealed the hole perfectly until our DS pulled the screw out to paint over it and heard and smelled gas escaping. It could have leaked or worse at any time. The screw has been there for 9 years we think! We found an emergency gas engineer yesterday, now we just have a large hole in the wall to deal with...but we are all alive which adds perspective to the inconvenience.

The seaglass wreath is absolutely gorgeous @Seasidebubbles! I love seaglass and am very tempted to make a detour to @RainbowZebraWarrior's beach when we're in Northumberland next month.

Eek @petitpasta that's a bit of a scare, glad you got it sorted quickly! I've not been over to Lichfield for ages but do really like it.

@piscofrisco very little football noise - I could hear people heading home after but it was just a sort of crowd murmur at the end of the street. Was quieter than where I lived before (near the other side!) when I used to get loads of traffic up the road.

@RainbowZebraWarrior sorry, it was Ocado. They do have their own online shop too (https://www.organicorealfoods.com/) of fish and things like pulses and oils.

I loved Damon Albarn too, saw a clip yesterday of an interview with him from 1994, he was such a pretty man in those days...

Feeling a bit better today but trying to take it easy and just do a few housework bits - got a wash on and will take all the rubbish down to the bins. It's interesting seeing how much cat fur comes off daily, now I have laminate floors instead of carpet - I might have a go at setting up robot hoover later, even if he will have to navigate a load of boxes still.

Getting up to 25C here today and 32C later in the week - at least I don't have to go far/ lug things about if I don't want to. I do, I think, need to make a GP appointment - I've noticed some patterns in symptoms around food and am a bit worried about blood sugar/ insulin (have a very strong family history of diabetes). I wouldn't be surprised considering the amount of weight I've put on and the general dysfunctioning of my body!

Just checking in, a bit behind on the thread but enjoying the jam talk. I have autumn fruiting raspberries on the allotment, they are usually a pale apricot colour and a little sweeter than red ones. Last year I made them into jam half and half with blackberries and it is the best jam I’ve ever made. But this year the raspberries are much later, still only small buds so I am freezing bags of blackberries while I wait.

We went to a local sunflower farm the other evening, it was just lovely in the low sun, much bigger than I was expecting and lots of wildflowers too.

I've started the cherry plum jelly and had 1.5kg of fruit. I'm hoping that by time it has finished dripping through the muslin, I will have around 1 litre of juice. Add in the sugar and 2 (ish) tablespoons of lemon juice and it should give me at least 3 x 300ml jars. Any more will be a big bonus. I've put 5 jars in the dishwasher to sterlise just in case. It's a gorgeous deep pink colour so far.

My Dad used to hop on the metro to the city at 4pm and get crazy bargains from the fruit stalls in the Grainger Market. Usually multiple 2kg trays of blueberries for a quid. With him foraging on top of that, he had to buy a 7ft tall extra freezer just for all of his frozen Fruit. My Mum gets told off if she clogs it up with 'her' food. Bless them.

Crikey. That is a bit of a shock eh? Pleased it all got sorted.

Happy to meet up for a Whitley Bay sea glass walk if you want to shout up nearer the time my lovely.

Thanks for the link. I'll have a gander later. Aye, Damon was a bonny lad. Definitely sounds like you best get checked out with the doc. Fingers crossed it's nowt or easily treatable though.

Oh the dust bunnies and floof on laminate flooring is never ending. An elderly client of mine had laminate fitted a few years ago thinking it would be easier maintenance. Her son would (helpfully) call around once a week and berate her for her dusty floors and fluffy corners. It's a nightmare to keep on top of, but makes you wonder what muck and dust carpets harbour.

Just back from the woods and today's wildlife spot was a sparrowhawk. Lovely to also hear a Robin singing it's little heart out. It has rained all day and reached the heady heights of 16 degrees. I have had to put the heating on to dry the towels I washed first thing. Madness!