Being Creative

Signed, sealed, delivered . . . . I'm yours!

Do you like my first attempts at willow work, pictured above? I made it at a talk on willow given by our friend, Alison, for the Lincolnshire Organic Gardeners Organisation back in April. LOGO - to use its acronym - is the organisation that held the Apple Day last October where we had the allotment apple varieties identified. We joined the group earlier this year to meet other like-minded growers and because they have a stall at Lincoln Farmer's Market once a month where you can sell your surplus produce. Also, in April, I mentioned a secret. It actually took much, much longer than we had ever envisaged at the outset, to negotiate the lease, but we are now the proud tenants of almost an acre of orchard, within walking distance of our home! It contains fifteen trees - two pear, two plum/damson ( not sure which, yet) and the rest are a mixture of cooking and eating apples. The 'orchard garden' - as it is described in the lease - runs alongside the allotments and also contains hazel which we intend to coppice to provide sticks and poles for the allotment. We even have an option to keep 'livestock', with the permission of the landlords! This brief description conjures up a pastoral idyll with gnarled old fruit trees standing proud in a meadow of grass and wild flowers, with birds singing and butterflies flitting about between the foliage. After an awful lot of hard work on our part it is beginning to look that way but it is a far cry from how it was when we first took an interest.

Do you remember the children's story about Sleeping Beauty who pricked her finger on a spindle and slept for a hundred years? When the prince came to rescue her he had to hack his way through a seemingly impenetrable forest of brambles and undergrowth. This is just what the orchard reminded me of when we first seriously considered taking it on. The picture above was taken in February this year and actually shows the clearer end. Although it is choked with ivy you are able to see daylight between, whereas the other end had brambles climbing fifteen feet up into the trees, compounded by self-seeded elder, and was too dark to photograph clearly. Initially, we had to cut a passage through with a pair of secateurs! We wrote to the landlords in early October and as soon as we knew they were willing to let - in principle at this stage - we asked if we could tackle the ivy on the fruit trees to encourage them to rejuvenate. We carefully removed vertical pieces of ivy about eighteen inches long all around each trunk to kill its top growth and effectively release its grip. We then left it until the end of February to start removing the loose dead growth piece by piece. It is quite widely believed that ivy is not harmful to trees but having dealt first hand with a severe infestation I would dispute this. Once it gets into the crown of the tree it prevents the tree from forming new growth; in addition, a thick covering of ivy stems on the trunk allows fungal spores to take hold and thrive, thus introducing life threatening infections. We have already lost one fruit tree in this way. In fact, if you look at any piece of unmanaged woodland these days - where ivy has taken hold -  the story is much the same.

 

At first, we weren't even sure how many fruit trees the orchard contained or - indeed - if they would have survived the winter. Some of the apples had borne fruit last autumn and - with the shocking statistics regarding the demise of British orchards fresh in our minds - we decided to try and save them. The two photos above tell the 'before' and 'after' tales of The Magic Tree. (No, she isn't magic because she has leant right over from one side to the other! The sun was shining straight into the camera on the second shot, so I had to take the photo from the opposite side). The magic is that she has actually survived at all. In addition to the torments inflicted on her by years of ivy, elder and bramble growth, poor Magic Tree had the limb of a large ash tree growing down through her branches, effectively pushing her over. It is just visible in the top right corner of the 'before' shot. Removing most of her entanglements only required hand tools and a stepladder but taking out the ash limb required complicated procedures with proper ladders, ropes and the chainsaw. Had Si cut the limb off in one piece it would have crushed the tree beneath as it fell so it had to be done bit by bit. You can see what was left in the top centre of the 'after' photo. Freed of her restrictions, her branches - which had previously been touching the floor as she leant - rose clear of it by four feet over two days. If that's not magic then I don't know what is? The wicker star at the top of this post hangs in her branches in the hope of imbuing its own bit of magic in the form of fruit. And guess what? She has about half a dozen little apples; just enough, I think for a tree that has survived against all the odds.If they reach maturity in the autumn we can have them identified!

The orchard itself is actually a long strip of land bordering the allotments at the bottom of the hill. No-one has done anything with it in the ten years we've had an allotment there and it has been used as a dumping ground for less scrupulous persons to dump their rubbish and broken glass. It is bordered on both long sides by hedge but whereas the one bordering the road has been cut intermittently by a contractor, the hedge facing the allotments has grown into trees. After we'd 'ringed' the ivy on the fruit tree trunks, we turned our attention to the inside hedge first as we knew how much light these saplings would exclude once they were in leaf. We cut off quite a lot to waist height but Si' was able to lay the thinner saplings back into the hedge as we worked along it. Once we had more light we started at the top end of the fruit trees and worked our way down. From mid-February onwards, I worked seven days a week on my 'mission to liberate' with handtools and a stepladder and Si helped at weekends with the heavier jobs requiring the chain saw or brute force! No wonder I had so little time for this blog, though until we had actually signed up for the orchard I didn't feel able to reveal why. At first, the other allotment holders thought we were crackers to take on such a big project but gradually - as things began to take shape - we even got a few compliments from the older members! The roadside hedge yielded some excellent poles for supporting beans and those that we did not need ourselves have been shared out amongst our fellow allotmenteers.

When we first cut our way through the undergrowth there was an incredibly eerie silence; not a single bird sang in the darkened interior and there were only signs of the odd pigeon using it to nest. As the light returned through clearing,though, so the birds began to return. It was as I was clearing undergrowth and rubbish that I first met the robin of my earlier post. He and his mate delighted in the rich pickings to be found in the cleared earth and though he has been pre-occupied with feeding his brood we have recently noticed fledgling robins flitting about the place. Birds have nested in the rejuvenated hedges; only last week we lucky enough to catch a family of wrens hopping about in a heap of bramble cuttings.

In early April, our efforts were rewarded as first we saw buds on our trees, followed by pear blossom, then damson/plum and finally apple blossom in early May. We had been advised to remove as much dead growth as possible over the dormant period but we are going to need some guidance and training on how to prune the trees back into shape in the future. It will be an ongoing project for some time as they can die of shock if too much radical pruning is done all at once. So for this year the buds and the blossom were our sign that the trees had survived the worst and were in recovery. At this stage we were pinning our hopes on survival - any fruit they produced would be a bonus.

We gave all our attention to the orchard until we had to start sowing and planting on the allotments in April. We had completed our initial tasks of hedge cutting and freeing up the fruit trees and now it was time to let nature take its course. We walk through most evenings when Si has finished work and we go up to the allotments to water. And the orchard has never been short of surprises. Just after we'd started on the hedge a little patch of blue and white chionodoxa braved the cold to flower beneath the outstretched limbs of an enormous Bramley and since then we've enjoyed sheets of pungent wild garlic followed by bluebells. Old gooseberry bushes are covered with strong new growth - and even a few gooseberries - and a deep red climbing rose has just begun to flower in an untouched area at the centre. I  caught its scent first before I ever noticed the blossoms. At the most overgrown end I discovered a large deciduous shrub intertwined with a young laburnum. The laburnum flowered in May but the shrub kept me guessing until last week. As its buds burst the heavenly fragrance of  philadelphus, or mock orange, was released onto the warm summer breeze.

Just when we thought things couldn't get any better, every single tree is bearing fruit and some of them in bumper quantities! I think that the rain came at just the right time to swell them after pollination and they grow noticeably bigger by the week. Also we're getting some idea as to what they will look like as mature fruit in terms of their size and colour. I must confess to spending quite a lot of time these days just gazing up into the branches and marvelling at such little miracles in so short a time.

So what comes next for the orchard garden? Well were loathe to do much before August, when the birds will have finished nesting but we've still got the upper reaches of hedge to tackle that extends beyond the fruit trees and then - once the brambles have fruited - we'l begin digging them out ready for planting some additional trees from November onwards. The East of England Apples and Orchards Project - the charity that identified our first apples - can supply us with trees that were originally bred to suit our area and then we want a quince, a medlar, some cherries ..... the list gets longer and longer! One thing is for sure - we are on our way to becoming just that little bit more self-sufficient, a little less reliant on the shops for our fruit and a whole lot happier about the way our life is going. I look forward to sharing our orchard with you over the coming months.

The view from here

It was ten years ago last month that we first came to live in this little corner of Lincolnshire. Prior to that we had spent eight years in the country, first in a hamlet in mid Devon and latterly on the western fringe of the Snowdonia National Park in North Wales. To say that I didn't want to come here was putting it mildly but we were running out of options if we ever wanted to get a foothold on the property ladder. The cottage we lived in was rented and although the rent was reasonable it really had become too small to house our growing family. Even uninhabitable hovels with trees growing out through the windows and an attic full of bats were beyond our pocket. We tried looking at other rural areas of Britain but the story was always the same; anything with more than a couple of bedrooms and a decent sized garden was priced beyond our reach. If it was in a particularly picturesque part of the country, if it possessed 'period charm' or if it had enough land for at least one horse then the estate agents started adding noughts to the price tag. Things were looking bleak.

Then one day, as I was lamenting our woes to my mum on the phone, she piped up that one of the houses across the road from her was for sale. It had been repossessed and the mortgage company had put an advert in the paper asking for offers. When we had first been thinking of buying, while we lived in Devon, Si had suggested that we would get more for our money if we bought a Victorian terrace in one of the nearby towns. We hadn't long been living in the country - my most cherished ambition - and although we rented there and went on to rent again in Wales, I wasn't prepared to give up on my rural dream without a fight. Eight years later, I was reminded of the Victorian terrace I had vetoed previously when the particulars for the house mum had suggested arrived through the door. It was big - five bedrooms - it had no major structural problems, no shrubbery sprouting from inside and no wildlife in the roof! What's more, if we got it for the guide price it would cost no more per month in mortgage than we currently paid in rent and our council tax would actually be cheaper. We came over to look. There were three floors. In Wales we only had a single story and a bit of boxed in roof space that served as a bedroom for our son, Angus.

The children were keen to move; they would be nearer their beloved Nan and Pops - and all the treats that would entail - but Angus in particular yearned for more varied social activities than our village could provide. He had started secondary school the previous year and had made new friends in other villages but many of these were not served by public transport and he was reliant upon Si' to ferry him around. What he really wanted was some independence. We put in an offer and it was accepted. Given that I'd had to concede that this was ultimately our best option, I told Si' I would only move on the condition that we took an allotment nearby for all my plants. The secretary seemed very pleased to see us and told us we could take our pick from amongst the many vacant plots. Being rather spoilt for choice, I selected one with two fruit trees on it that were currently in blossom. Only later did I find out they were both pears and two different varieties at that. We both got jobs within the first month of moving here, both in schools, but while Si's was forty minutes drive away mine was a fifteen minute walk. I walked the girls to school on my way to work and Angus walked himself to secondary school. After the first term, Carrie joined him at secondary school and they walked there with their respective friends. At first I fretted about moving to a town - about the noise levels, pollution, the proximity of other people and the possiblity of becoming the victims of crime. Gradually though, life settled down and I began to enjoy the benefits that a small town can provide.

The town centre is just a short walk away, likewise the twice-weekly market bringing fresh fruit and veg, some of which comes from other parts of our own county. More than this, the food cost much less than it had in rural Wales, particularly the fresh stuff. I could be on the main rail line to London in twenty minutes and arrive there in under an hour and a half. Previously it was an hours drive to Bangor to catch a train which took over three hours to reach the capital. And that was just one way! Our doctors is within walking distance, the dentist is next door and the vets across the road. Angus got into the school football team and began receiving free weekly guitar tuition. Carrie moved schools to join me after my school was granted Arts College status and went on to play the lead in the annual Christmas production just twelve months later. Lucy made friends with several girls in her class - a novelty for her since in our former village school she had been the only girl in that year's intake. I became involved in charity and fundraising activities both within and beyond my job and Si' became secretary of the allotments. When I gave up full time work eighteen months ago and told people we were downshifting to live more simply, it was widely anticipated that the house would go up for sale and we'd be moving back to the country again. There's not a chance of that now and this is really rather the point of writing this post.

We live in difficult times. We worry about the economic downturn and potential unemployment whilst being simultaneously concerned about the effects that stress, ready meals and long working hours are having on our health. It is easy to see why potential downshifters dream of getting away from it all and that many believe that downshifting and moving to the country are one and the same thing. If you look back to my very first post, Staying Put, it begins with a quote from Polly Ghazi and Judy Jones from their book Downshifting. It suggests that downshifting is primarily a change in how you view the world regardless of where you decide to live. It goes on to say " Life is what you do with where you are, and the resources and strength you can call on". The dream of a rural idyll is currently so powerful that I fear that some people will be disappointed when they can't achieve it and yet others will be disappointed who do. Prices of country property have not really fallen since we were looking ten years ago and so will remain beyond the reach of many.

But I hope this blog illustrates that elements of The Good Life are within the reach of so many more people than those in possession of a country postcode. The magazine Home Farmer, launched last year, hopes to encourage more people  with their maxim "you don't have to live in the country to enjoy the good life" and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has received an enormous response to his Landshare project, designed to pair up people with land to spare with those willing to cultivate it. Although allotment waiting lists have become over subscribed in many areas, one thing that will guarantee you'll never get one is not to put your name down in the first place.

For those ready and able to make the leap to a rural life, don't go expecting a bed of roses. This is especially so since escaped livestock always make a beeline for your flower beds and seem to have a nose for just those plants you are particularly bothered about. Also remember that the flip side of peace, solitude and getting away from it all is isolation and feeling cut off. There are only eight hours of daylight in the middle of winter which leaves sixteen hours of darkness surrounding you when you have no street lights. Equally, houses snuggling together in urban areas tend to keep each other warm whilst loan country properties can cost more to heat. Many would-be country dwellers are keen on the idea of the greater community spirit of the country, where other people know who you are. By the same token, everyone will know who you are and the minutiae of your life will provide endless hours of entertainment for the local gossips, some of which may reach your ears in a form which bears no resemblance to reality! Further advice I can offer is to buy a sound vehicle and take good care to maintain it. Almost everything will require a journey of some sort - work, school, shopping - and not always in the most clement of weather.

There are fewer work opportunities in the country and commuting long distances is stressful and time consuming. In the last month I have read that two stalwart country dwellers - pottery designer, Emma Bridgewater and Country Living magazine editor, Suzy Smith - have moved, or are in the process of moving, to more urban areas to cut the time they spend commuting to work. Emma Bridgewater also said that her children - whose ages range from nine to nineteen - "wanted to be nearer the centre of things". Crucially, do not offer an open invitation to friends to visit. They will take you upon it. Frequently. You will get opportunities to sample the life of bed and breakfast proprietors without the benefit of being paid for your troubles! If the last paragraph sounds like an exaggeration, it isn't; it's personal experience. On the other hand, small market towns like ours have so much to offer. All the pictures in this post were taken within ten minutes walk of our house. Within fifteen minutes walk you can be in open countryside on either side of the town centre yet still have facilities right on your doorstep. We may like to think that our heart resides in the country but it doesn't mean that our body has to accompany it!!!

Feathered friends

 

Here is my little friend, Robin, whom I was absolutely delighted to have captured succesfully with my camera this afternoon. We first became aquainted during the winter months while I was working on the allotment. As I cleared the ground of dead plant material he would hop within a few feet, waiting patiently for me to uncover some tasty morsel to eat. I didn't realise it at the time but robins need to eat almost half their bodyweight each day, during the kind of cold weather we've had this last winter, to survive. I'm very glad then that I'd remembered reading somewhere about mealworms being their favourite food and have put out a daily dish of food - with extra mealworms added - ever since. Robin has a mate now, who I call Bobbin, and they've built a nest in the allotment hedge, sheltered behind an old door. A couple of weeks ago, I was cutting down some overgrown elder when I heard a terrible twittering beyond the hedge. Fearing a cat had found their nest I tiptoed over to look, only to discover a fight had broken out between Robin and an intruder. The intruder beat a fairly hasty retreat but I have read since that about 10% of robins actually die as a result of battles over territory; it would appear that the perpetrator in the poem 'Who killed cock-robin' was most probably another robin! Apparently, they have been known to attack toy robins, bunches of red feathers and even their own reflections in an effort to defend their patch. Neither has Robin taken kindly to other birds encroaching on his dinner table; neither he, nor Bobbin, were prepared to tolerate other diners -in the form of dunnocks - near their nest spot until they had had their fill! In the last couple of weeks, Robin has taken - most endearingly - to feeding Bobbin with mealworms and other tasty treats. Presumably this is in readiness for when she begins sitting on her eggs and becomes totally reliant upon him for food. In the last few days Bobbin has been noticeably absent at feeding time and I hope this is a good sign. Now that Robin has become used to my daily contribution to his diet I think he looks out for me and is quick to come and serenade me when I arrive. At other times I do not hear him at all but look up from my digging to find him three feet away! I understand that only British robins have developed this affinity with humans and that in Europe they prefer to skulk about in the undergrowth instead. No wonder, then, that they were adopted forty years ago as our national bird. It's heartening to know, too, that robins are one of our more successful garden birds, with about 4,200,000 pairs in Britain and also that numbers have increased by about 20% over the last 25 years. It was as he was waiting for his tea that I managed to get these photos of him today. I'm thinking that if I'm going to be feeding an entire family of robins soon then I'd better start stocking up on mealworms now.

 

Although it's been a month now since I mentioned 'the secret', there has sadly been no further progress, which is a shame as I have so many potential posts that tie in with it. Never mind, though. We have had some lovely prolonged periods of rain to quench the thirst of our allotments this week and now sunshine is forecast for the weekend so that I can spend my birthday digging and sowing in my favourite place. The eternal optimist in me whispers, "all things come to (s)he who waits" and so I wait. Patiently. While my Robin sings  . . .

Keeping it under my hat!

I've got a secret. It's terribly exciting and I want to share it with everyone I meet. But I can't. Not yet. When something really exciting like this happens I come over all superstitious and worry that in sharing it before the ink is dry, so to speak, I might be jeopardising my chances of it reaching fruition. Silly, I know, but there we are. I can tell you, though, that it has been taking up most of my spare time over the winter months, luring me away from the comfort of my computer and stealing my blogging time. But I see it as an investment. Time spent now will allow my secret to blossom and bear fruit and will actually add to the things I have to write about here. Relevant things, to do with living well - on less. With pictures and examples to inspire you (I hope)! So please bear with me a little longer. I anticipate being able to tell you all any day now.

 

Ten things I've learned since downshifting

 

It's a year this month since I first started writing this blog and I never would have believed, at the outset, exactly how much of a positive difference downshifting would make to our lives. So much so that I have had to think really hard about the things listed below as they have come to be so much a part of my everyday life that I have trouble remembering a time when they were not. This is not just a case of rose-tinted spectacles on my own part; we have had our fair share of troubles - in particular just before and just after Christmas - but we have got through them and lived to tell the tale. We're not bankrupt and we don't hate each other and we're very much looking forward to year number 2. The list below is not exhaustive, and I'm sure that over the coming days and weeks I will remember lots of other things as well, but setting limits often helps to determine that which is most salient.

1. THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE This might sound like a terrible cliche but it's true: sunshine, fresh air, compliments, a smiling face, a hug from your children, good sex with your beloved, the company of family and friends. In fact, if you look at it like that, it makes me wonder why we hanker after what we can actually buy to improve our lives at all!

2. MOST PEOPLE ARE LARGELY UNAWARE OF THE HUGE INFLUENCE THE MARKETING MACHINE HAS OVER ALMOST EVERY ASPECT OF OUR LIVES We are bombarded with images through all types of media that encourage us to spend or aspire to spend. From the soft, persuasive voice of the woman on the M & S telly advert to the toddler on the toilet roll one, they are subtly designed to hook us in and persuade us to part with our cash, sometimes cash we don't actually have. In combatting this, I've found Martin Lewis's maxim to be most helpful, "Do I need it? Can I afford it? Have I checked if it's cheaper anywhere else?" If the answer to any of these is 'no' then don't buy it. It can stop you in your tracks with those impulse purchases, in particular. The same can be said for choosing premium brand goods, the ones in the attractive but excessive packaging. Just remember, fancy packaging and peak time advertising are expensive and someone has to foot the bill. This excess cost does nothing for the quality of the product and just leaves you with additional rubbish to dispose of!

3. DOING IS MUCH MORE FUN THAN HAVING If you think about your fondest memories, how many of them are from things you did or experienced and how many are from buying something you wanted? The trouble with buying things you want is that you then go on to want something else, so nothing in particular stands out in what we remember but memories of things you've done - in particular, successfully - can last a lifetime.

4.LIBRARIES ARE AMAZING PLACES I've relied on mine so much this year and find it incredible that we have such a service (ostensibly, anyway) for free. Books, internet, newspapers, local history, posters advertising what's on - they're all there for our cash-free perusal. Why shell out when so much is free in one place? In cold weather they even heat them well too!!!

5. FOOD REALLY DOES TASTE BETTER IF YOU GROW IT/ MAKE IT YOURSELF It stands to reason that if you're going to the trouble of doing either or both of these you will put effort into making it good: time spent preparing, freshness of ingredients, etc, etc. By and large, those who want to sell the same to you - especially supermarkets - want to make a profit. This is not necessarily compatible with making it good. Enough said.

6. JUST BECAUSE WE ARE DESCRIBED AS A THROWAWAY SOCIETY DOES NOT MEAN WE HAVE TO WASTE SO MUCH There is a lot of satisfacton to be had from finding other uses for things that might otherwise go to landfill. From making meringues with your leftover egg whites, turning your empty pop bottles into mini cloches, through to taking those clothes that don't fit to the charity shop/ Freecycle there are a myriad ways to re-use your rubbish. The good feeling you get is free and is not 'costing the earth'.

7. A TREAT IS A TREAT ONLY IF YOU INDULGE IN IT OCCASIONALLY If you think about it, if you buy yourself little 'treats' all the time they become the rule rather than the exception. They are not savoured as a one-off but accepted as everyday necessities, which rather misses the point, I feel. Save your money for a better treat just once in a while and you value it so much more for its rarity.

8. A WOMAN'S/MAN'S BEST FRIEND IS A DOG You could feel quite put out at this one if you are one half of a dog owning couple but think about it for a moment. Your dog is always pleased to see you; it will probably greet you even if you've just popped out for a paper and will welcome you with all the enthusiasm of a long-lost friend if you've been out for any length of time.It will not have had a bad day, hold a grudge because you forgot a special date or require much of you at all except its tea, a walk and a cuddle. Dogs do unconditional love best - my advice is to let them!

9. LET YOUR LIFE BE YOUR MESSAGE This sounds incredibly high-brow but is really very simple. It's not about talking the talk but walking the walk and is inspired by a quote from Gandhi. We might profess to be very green or very well-informed (or whatever) but do our actions really match our words? Talk is cheap, as they say, and my own thoughts are that if you want to see something happen around you then begin to live it. If you want the people you meet to be more friendly then be more friendly first; the same goes for kindness, generosity and a myriad other things. Too many people spend their time moaning instead of acting. Is that what we want to be remembered for?

10. "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.” This quote be Helen Keller has always strengthened my resolve at difficult times and it seems particularly poignant in todays uncertain times. It reminds me of a journey. Life can be full of diversions and forks in the road; some of these can cause frustration at times but ultimately the trip is a rewarding one. Or you can stay on the motorway; you're getting somewhere fast (though you're not certain where), the journey is predictable and often monotonous and there are few surprises to add interest. What's more, you miss the scenery! Just over two years ago my life was turned upside down and what started out as dipping my toe in the water, followed by a tentative paddle, now sees me swimming with confident strokes. If you are at a similar crossroads in your life then I would encourage you with the following: come on in, the water's lovely!

Time to take stock

 

I always enjoy January. Traditionally - once the excitement of the parties and new year's resolutions has worn off - I know it's often viewed as an anti-climax, what with the cold weather, lack of money after Christmas and those looming credit card bills! However, even when I was earning and spending alongside everyone else, I think what I enjoyed about it was the contrast. It's probably safe to assume that most people are busy in the run-up to the festive period and this has been no less the case for us this year. So, once the last of the decorations are packed away, I like to spend January reviewing our progress over the past year; to see what went well - in the hope of repeating it - and what didn't go quite so well and needs more thought for the year ahead.

One of the things I wasn't prepared for was the bulk of autumn produce. Naturally, I was expecting a steady trickle of seasonal bounty, just not in the quantities that it arrived in. I dare not even hazard a guess as to the number of pounds of pears our two allotment trees produced but it became a race to see how quickly we could find new recipes for them so that they didn't go to waste. We never did find out which variety they are but neither sort keeps for very long and we were picking them and giving them away by the box full. Our processing capabilities were stretched further by the bumper apple harvest and I began to get paranoid about constantly smelling of vinegar from the myriad chutneys we turned them into. Lots of these, along with jams and marmalades, became Christmas presents for our family and friends, so all's well that ends well, but it left me with very little time for anything much else. Whilst I was busy chopping, boiling and potting, though, I gave a lot of thought - if not attention - to this blog. When I first started out I was completely new to 'blog-dom' and struggled initially to set it all up but, like anything, you soon pick it up and it's only with time that you realize the design you've created is not as flexible as you thought. Furthermore, it then takes another lot of struggling before you work out how to put it all right! Needless to say, I spent the first half of this month making some changes to Being Creative that I hope will make it easier for you to navigate and for me to to include new material.

 

Under my original design, my book and recipe pages just ran down in one long list and I was discouraged from adding more because of the amount of 'scrolling down' it involved for both myself and the reader. Both the books and recipes now have their own separate lists so that you can find the recipe you want straight away, or find the section of reading matter that grabs your attention most. I keep finding books and recipes I want to add all the time so this should make it easier all round! On the recipe front, when I first started out I had very firm principles about not giving out recipes that came from books; in hindsight that may have been short-sighted of me. I always credit my sources - where known - for anybody else's intellectual property, be it a quote, an idea or a recipe, so it's not as if I'm trying to pass it off as my own. Secondly, by showing what I consider to be the very best recipes - and only then one or two from each book - I am applauding the author's creative success, recommending that book to you as one worth having and giving  a bit of free advertising to boot. I will still only include recipes I've tried and tested myself and where I provide a link to a recipe on another site, I may direct you via my own thoughts on how to get the best from that recipe. I recently made some medlar jelly (more of that in another post) and the recipe said to boil for 45 minutes to achieve a set; I think it was a typo as it only took 4 to 5 minutes for mine to reach that stage. I think I might have wrecked my jam pan had I left it for the suggested time! I'm also conscious that several of my previous posts promise recipes that never made it to the former Tried and Tested page, so I hope to put this right, too.

If you have visited this blog before and are looking to find the 'Pages' that introduced the various subjects covered within it, they are still in the same place but under the heading 'Beginning to Be Creative'. They are essentially the same, with the book and recipe sections separated out, as I've mentioned. The change is just an operational issue on my part to make the best of my Typepad account.The final change - my, we are really ringing them today - is regarding the photo albums. I have had a lot of positive feedback about my photos and thoroughly enjoy taking them and putting my favourites together. However, a month is not very long to amass an albums worth of good shots, especially during the winter months when there is less growing, the light levels are so low and the day length so short. I've therefore decided to organise my photos, this year, by season. Autumn 2008 is currently available to view and I'm in the process of putting together Winter 08/09. It will mean, of course, that in the other seasons I will hopefully have a plethora of snaps to choose from of which only  the very best will be included.

 

So, if you were to ask me, what would I consider my successes to be for 2008? Well, I set up this blog, not entirely - but almost - without help and with one or two exceptions (attributed to my better half) I have taken all the photographs for it, too, something I thought I'd never have the patience to maintain. Our allotment has blossomed - and fruited - with all the extra care lavished upon it and one of my own personal triumphs was being able to pick my own dahlias (see the Growing section of 'Beginning to Be Creative'). I have learned to make our own bread and bake a couple of loaves each week; Lucy told me only yesterday that she thought mine was "the best bread in the world" so I must be doing something right. One of the things that has surprised me most is how I've learned not only to manage, but to thrive, on a budget. Earlier today I was going through our finances and noticing that through a little price rise here and a little increased direct debit there we will have to do some further belt tightening. Not the most prestigious start to the new year, you may think, but though we might not wallow in wads of cash we have enough to get by. And although we can't manage without money there are so many things that money can't buy you - love, sunny days and an honest opinion are just for starters. I've met a lot of lovely people since I started this blog who have given me some very positive feedback and a lot more at events we've attended, and within our own community, who we now count as friends. Seeing a first patch of snowdrops yesterday reminded me that this time last year I was just embarking on my journey. Thank you for keeping me company along this road less travelled and I look forward to renewing our aquaintance over the coming months. Wishing you - rather belatedly - a happy 2009!

An abundance of apples

This year - in our corner of Lincolnshire at least - it has been a wonderful year for apples.There has been a paucity of plums, a dearth of damsons and not even a solitary sloe graces our hedgerows but apples we have aplenty! I had never really rated apples before. My sister and her husband are enthusiastic proponents of the British apple but I think I may have fallen foul of too many an insipid Golden Delicious which - having been picked under-ripe to help it survive the journey from France - had rather deterred me from experimenting further. That and the scrumped Bramleys of my childhood, whose luscious appearance is belied with one bite of it's mouth-puckeringly sour flesh! I suppose that my interest has only really been awakened this year because I have noticed such an abundance of quite distinct varieties ripening on our allotments, as I have walked along the path above them with the dogs each day. It brought it home to me that even though I am a keen gardener I had absolutely no idea what varieties they were, nor when they were supposed to be harvested. The people who had planted them originally are long since gone and with them knowledge of the trees identity and how best to care for them. Subsequently the allotment trees are a neglected bunch and - if for no other reason - my newly-frugal self was not going to watch such bounty go to waste! It prompted me to begin making up for lost time by finding out as much as possible about our humble British apple.

Since 1950, almost two-thirds (57%) of England's orchard area has been lost, arguably due to a lack of economic viability and the subsequent grubbing up of trees to make way for more profitable crops. All over the country, trees that had been developed to suit the climatic conditions of distinct geographical areas have been destroyed and the cultural traditions that had developed alongside them have largely died out too. The game of apple bobbing - trying to catch an apple using only your teeth as it floats in a bowl of water - has probably only survived because it has become linked with Halloween but even then has become overshadowed by the pumpkin lantern, imported from America. Apple varieties can only be perpetuated by taking graft wood from each type of tree. You can grow apples from seed but they will produce an entirely new variety as the genetic make up - a combination of both the blossoming and pollinating parents - will be entirely unique. So once the last tree of a particular variety dies out then its line becomes extinct. Though some apples can pollinate themselves to a certain extent, they all produce more fruit with another tree nearby that flowers at the same time. Diploid trees cannot fruit without another tree to pollinate them - hence apple varieties are ascribed a number or letter to indicate their flowering period - and trees that require two other pollinators are known as triploids. Given such seemingly complex growing requirements, it's a wonder then that so many apple varieties have survived until today.

In 1990, the charity, Common Ground, held it's first Apple Day to bring to the public's attention the importance of conserving those orchards that remain. It uses the apple "as a symbol of the physical, cultural and genetic diversity we should not let slip away". Today - October 21st - has become known as 'Apple Day' countrywide and is now celebrating it's nineteenth year. Apple-related events are held all over Britain during September and October and many offer the opportunity to have your own apple varieties identified. We took thirteen pairs of apples along to our nearest event at Wragby, near Lincoln, at the beginning of October. Identifiers usually ask for two typical specimens and some for a sample of foliage as well so we duly bagged and labelled our hoard to avoid mix-ups on the day. We felt a little guilty taking so many but had contacted the organisers in advance to check that this would be ok. Those doing the identifying came from the charity, East of England Apples and Orchards Project, which specialises in varieties bred within the counties of Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Essex and Hertfordshire. Events such as these provide them with information about what varieties are surviving where within the region but also provide an opportunity to chance upon fruit of those varieties thought to be lost. When our turn came we were delighted to find that we had twelve different types of apple and amongst them two old Lincolnshire varieties. They were a mixture of dessert, cookers and dual-purpose types (those that sweeten with age) with some early and some late varieties. The British apple season actually begins with varieties such as Discovery in July/August, through early desserts, like Worcester Pearmain, to late types that have good keeping qualities like Laxton's Superb. Kept under the right conditions, certain kinds can still be eaten until the following May. It certainly makes you think twice about buying antipodean apples for most of the year with their accompanying carbon size nines! 

 

While we were at the event we also watched apples being crushed in a press to make juice, bought some quince, discovered which butterfly likes to sun itself in our pear tree and met a lady who would like to run a course in basket-making in our town. Apart from our purchase of half a dozen quince - and, of course, the petrol - it cost us nothing and made a really interesting day out. There are still a number of events on Common Ground's website coming up this weekend and beyond across the country; if you like the idea - and particulary if you have unknown apples of your own - this link will take you to the Apple Day Events page. Not all events offer the identification service so check with individual organisers before travelling.

 

Once our apples had been identified, we were free to bring them all home again and rather than waste them - which rather defeated the purpose of having them identified in the first place - we have steadily been working our way through the 'eaters' and are only now progressing to the cookers and dual-purpose varieties. The lovely man who identified our apples for us also made us a list to bring home naming each variety, it's place of origin and approximate date of breeding and when each variety was ready for picking. This has provided an excellent starting point for further research of my own into the varieties we have. Pictured above is an Ellison's Orange, named after the Reverend Ellison of Bracebridge Heath, on the outskirts of Lincoln. It should have been picked in September and we had to collect windfalls to take with us on the day. A dessert apple, it really does look like this in real life with its wonderful tiger stripes of deep red on a lighter red background. The flesh is quite soft and it is supposed to make a good juicing apple. Just as well, really, as I have a bowlful of further windfalls sitting underneath my dining room table!

 

The Egremont Russet possibly needs no introduction as it is grown commercially and is probably one of the better known British varieties. It's rough skin and golden colour are more akin to a pear than an apple and it has a drier texture than most dessert apples. We like to eat them with Lincolnshire Poacher smoked cheese after our evening meal and Hector is very fond of this variety, too. After the strong winds recently, many from the allotment tree had fallen, so I picked what was left on the tree. We have a very useful picker, which we bought to pick our pears last year, that consists of a bag held open by a rigid ring of plastic with protruding 'fingers'. Between two of the fingers is a sharp metal blade which acts to cut through the stalk of the apple/pear, allowing it to fall into the safety of the bag. This is attached to an extendable metal pole which allows you to reach where ladders can't. As I was picking one of the russets, I accidentally knocked a neighbouring one off and it hit the floor and bruised badly. Cultivating my maxim of 'waste not, want not', I ate the unbruised half there and then. It was quite delicious (even without the cheese)!

 

According to Laxton Brothers catalogue from the early 1900's, Lord Lambourne, shown above, is the best apple they ever produced. Many of their other apples are preceded by the prefix 'Laxton's' - such as Laxton's Superb, which we also have on the allotments - but for some reason this one is different. It is indeed a wonderful variety. A very large dessert apple, we almost mistook it for a cooker even though we had been told by other allotment holders how wonderful it tasted. Two trees grow next to each other, so we took fruit from each, hence thirteen pairs of apples and twelve varieties, as I mentioned earlier. Lucky is the chap who rents this plot to have doubled up on his good fortune!

 

As for cookers, we have several late-keeping varieties. There's Lane's Prince Albert,(pictured above) with it's squeaky skin and an enviable reputation for juicing and Newton Wonder, which is the traditional apple for mincemeat and also makes a mean apple sauce. We know this because we tried it yesterday with pork chops and we didn't need to add any sugar, either. Annie Elizabeth was once very popular for stewing, as it's 'quarters never break', but fell out of favour with the rise of the ubiquitous Bramley. We have a Bramley, too, but this one is a crimson type that turns very red as it ripens (see below).

 

As we become more aware of the enjoyment of eating seasonally, it would seem to have health benefits too. The Ribston Pippin, a variety bred in Yorkshire, has more vitamin C in one apple than is contained in a whole pound of Golden Delicious. Also, when you are about to eat an apple it is better to leave the skin on. Apple skin contains five times more antioxidants - which help to remove free radicals from the bloodstream - than the flesh. Farmer's markets are a good place to get hold of British varieties to try and with a bumper harvest becoming available now there has never been a better time to do so. I'm hoping to add some apple recipes to the Tried and Tested page quite soon and also to add details of a very informative book on apples to the book list.

Until then, whatever you're doing, I hope you have a ...

A colourful life

Last week, I discovered a blog I hadn't previously seen called 'Finding Simplicity', after Sharon - the author - left a comment on this blog. Her blog has been running for about the same length of time as mine and she writes some very well-researched, thought-provoking stuff about her endeavours to live a more simple life. One of the posts that particularly caught my eye is called Six years of change, where she examines a list of things she felt she couldn't live without six years ago to see whether they still hold true today. I've added Finding Simplicity to my typelist of Sites to Inform, Inspire and Delight if you'd like to catch up with Sharon yourself.

 

Reading Sharon's list prompted me to consider what might have been on my own list of things, that I felt were really vital to my life, as recently as twelve months ago. At that time any list of mine - had I written one - would have been bound to include 'retail therapy trips' and 'my credit card' in the top ten. Given that my family (including my dogs), a roof over my head and enough money to live on would have been on both lists, my new list would abandon the retail therapy and credit card and in their place would be 'our allotment' and 'time to do things properly'. Above both of these, though, would be 'colour'!

It will come as no surprise to regular readers that colour is such a vital ingredient in my life, given that this entire blog is such a visual feast of it. In fact, my appreciation of colour has developed further as a direct result of taking photographs for Being Creative. How the eye - and subsequently the brain - interprets colour depends on the changing light levels throughout the day and even the sun's changing position in the sky as we pass through the seasons. Depending upon when you photograph flowers, for instance - with their intoxicating combination of colour and scent - their brightness can scorch your retina at one extreme or look totally washed out at the other. My love of colour has become so profound, that I like to think that if I were cut in half, it would reveal a rainbow of colours running through my body, rather like the lettering in a stick of rock! I feel it has become part of the very fibre of my being.

One of the most wonderful things about colour - from the point of view of this blog - is that it is free to everyone who has the gift of sight; that is to say, almost all of us, yet it is a potential source of joy that is frequently overlooked. Our society encourages us to provide lots of bright and stimulating colours for babies and young children - just look at the colours of Playmobil - but similarly expects those children to abandon them in favour of more muted, serious tones as they become adults. Most of the paint and furnishing fabrics that are sold in this country are in subtle 'neutral' tones. I am going to stick my neck out here, though - like the child who announced the emperor to be devoid of clothing - and suggest that they are just dull. Where is the joy in waking up to a bedroom full of beige? My particular bete noir is magnolia. I imagine this is a highly popular shade, since all new buildings seem to be painted with it but for me, it's blend of pink, blue and yellow tones emulate the skin colour of someone who is very poorly indeed. How relaxing is that to live with?

My faith in both IKEA - through its catalogue - and Country Living magazine rose a notch this week after they both encouraged readers to embrace colour in their lives. IKEA's war cry of "Be brave not beige" mirrors my own maxim that 'life is too short for beige' and Suzy Smith has stuck her neck out -long overdue in my opinion - by writing, "Enough of quietly tasteful interiors and gardens: what everyone needs is an injection of colour to mark the last days of summer with a flourish". Here, here!!! To be honest, colour has only become so enjoyable to me, on a conscious level, in the last ten years. Before that I probably regarded it like most other people; nice in small doses but a minefield of possible expensive mistakes. Strangely, what changed my mind was going to work in a school. When I first started there, the library was a very small, under-used room which was painted in a shade which was possibly related to lilac but looked for all the world like something that had run in the wash. Everytime I came into the room my heart sank when I saw it. I persuaded the then head to let me re-paint it and selected a warm shade, the colour of vanilla ice cream. As the library increased in popularity I asked for, and was granted, a much bigger room at roughly the same time as the old head decided the whole school should be painted in the school colours of blue and yellow. Instead of primrose and navy, I bought turquoise for the walls and golden yellow for the noticeboards and painted it all myself. The room faced south and east and caught the sun for the entire day. The tranquility of the turquoise made for a most relaxing environment and even the Ofsted inspectors chose to write their reports in there in preference to the rooms they had been allocated!

Secondly, wherever I've lived and whatever I've been doing, I have always participated in fundraising of one kind or another and I gravitated towards this in my library role, playing an active part on the College Council. Quite early on in my time there, a Year 7 girl came to me and asked if we could raise money towards finding a cure for breast cancer, as her mum's best friend was suffering from the disease. Noting that pink was the colour chosen to represent the relevant charities, we held a Think Pink day throughout the school. I liked to play my part on such days and felt I should be suitably attired, though I had always associated pink with being an insipid shade knitted up for baby girls by doting grandmothers. Once I started wearing it - in several of it's many hues - I found it both suited my colouring and lifted my spirits. To the children - and my fellow staff - I became synonymous with pink!

One of the greatest influences on me - in terms of deepening my passion for colour - has undoubtedly been the work of the designer, Tricia Guild. She takes her inspiration from nature and as such combines colours that are traditionally seen as conflicting, such as blue with green or red with pink and orange. As she quite rightly - in my view - points out, there are no clashes in nature! Her only UK shop -  on the King's Road in Chelsea - is a colourist's paradise and a joy to behold even if you don't buy anything. It does, however, sell fabrics, cushions, bedlinen, etc, of exceptional quality and their sales are legendary for their reductions, particularly towards the end of the sale period. Occasionally, some of it ends up in TK Maxx which saves you the expense of a rail ticket to London. The more frugal - or financially-challenged - amongst us can order her books from the library. I particularly recommend the titles Think Pink, which is about the power of colour to transform our environment and Private View, a collection of images and impressions that inspire her as a designer. While you're placing your library order, another book to whet your appetite for colour is The Gentle Art of Domesticity by Jane Brocket. Jane has a blog called Yarnstorm, which started out as a blog about knitting but soon encompassed other crafts as well as her love of baking and gardening. She also illustrates both the blog and her book with her own beautiful photographs. In addition to the wonderful colour there are a handful of recipes, one of which - Oaty Vanilla Biscuits - provides the perfect base for Nigel Slater's Strawberry Mascarpone Tart.

 

As I said earlier, I think a lot of people are scared of introducing colour into their lives for fear of making expensive mistakes.If you have never thought of yourself as someone who enjoys colour but would like to give it a whirl, try starting with a bunch of flowers - or even a single flower - in a shade that really appeals to you and keep looking at it now and again throughout the day to see how it makes you feel. Flowers are relatively cheap - or you can pick them from your garden, if you have one -  and either way they don't last, so you won't have to live with something you hate. The next step is to replace things you use regularly - once they wear out - with a colourful version. This could be anything from a tea towel to a dog lead or even a 'bag for life' from the supermarket. One of the best and cheapest ways to enjoy colour is by sowing a packet of seeds or bulbs. If you don't have a garden you could grow them in pots on your windowsill. If you want to go the whole hog and start re-decorating, paint is one of the cheapest mediums and can easily be painted over if you dislike the result. Better still is to paint a piece of lining piper with a matchpot of your chosen shade to see if you still like it over the space of a few days.

 

Our own house faces south, so gets plenty of light throughout the day, while the back can be quite dark, especially in winter. To maximise the available light, all the walls are painted white and colour has been added with soft furnishings - such as the rug above - and certain pieces of woodwork, like the doors or our kitchen cupboards. The impact that colour has on us will be different for everyone and discovering your own favourite combinations can be exciting in itself. Some time ago I banished black from my wardrobe, as even in the summer months it makes me look pale and drawn. Instead, I've discovered that both of my favourite colours to wear - most pinks and turquoise blue - combine much better with shades of brown, from caramel to chocolate. So I urge everyone who reads this - at a time of year when nature is at her most bold and brilliant - to embrace a little colour in your lives. As Tricia Guild so aptly states, "One of the joys of developing your sensitivity to colour is that every day offers an opportunity to savour the satisfaction of what colour can do; a shaft of sunlight illuminating the petals of a rose; the dusty sheen of black grapes on a blue ceramic plate. And life is always the richer for such moments."

Beanfeast

It's been a while, hasn't it, since my last post? In my defence, members of the jury, I would like it noted that I have been blessed/afflicted* with multiple gluts on my allotment and that what seems like my every waking moment has been spent dealing with them in one way or another. (* The first of any crop is a joy; 10lb of fiddly redcurrant-picking later, you're not so sure!) In the years prior to downshifting, I always harvested my blackcurrants and the redcurrants as well if I could claim them before the birds. The gooseberries never did much and the bush that cropped most prolifically usually succumbed to powdery mildew when the weather became humid. My harvesting - such as it was - entailed one quick burst of frenetic activity and then that was it. Somehow, although I'd sown more things this year, and in greater variety, my mind hadn't quite computed that this would involve more work at the other end. I'm not actually averse to work. I read a wonderful line in a novel last night that could easily have applied to me. It read "She has two paces, fast and stop, and she hasn't located the stop button yet!" What has taken me by surprise, is that in previous years, crops have ripened in a particular order, so that you could get one out of the way before dealing with the next. This year, the gooseberries were late and the redcurrants later, so that I have been picking them at the same time as the blackcurrants and the broad beans. Added to this, the regular rainfall has ensured a bumper harvest of everything. Reading back through this, it could be interpreted as a bit of a grumble; it isn't really. I'm delighted that everything has done so well, just a little frustrated that I can't pick and process it as fast as it seems to need doing!

I am particularly proud of my broad beans. I made a half-hearted attempt at growing them last year which resulted in a paltry crop, so this year I was firm in my resolve to do better. I sowed the seeds at the end of March in a bed that had previously been occupied by a row of potatoes. Prior to sowing, I added a good bit of homemade compost, that had rotted nicely in my black council bins. The seeds themselves were the variety 'Bunyard's Exhibition' and I paid 99p for a pack of Wilko's own brand, averaging 40 seeds to a pack. Not being a seasoned broad bean grower, I sowed a double row, 24" apart, with 12" between seeds, as it suggested on the packet. Once they'd germinated, the gaps between them did look rather large and I subsequently discovered that the accepted wisdom is to sow them at 6" between seeds. However, the greater spacing seems to have allowed each plant to develop into a strong specimen, with plenty of  flowers - and subsequently, beans - on each one, and with a well-spread root system to hold it up. I was loathe to nip the tips out as the plants kept on producing more and more flowers. Only a couple of plants in the twelve foot row were troubled with blackfly and a quick squirt of soft soap solution soon saw them off.

Just as the beans had started flowering, we found ourselves watching River Cottage Spring one evening with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. I must say we found the whole series inspiring but most particularly the recipes for the fruit and veg, which just happened to be the ones from which we were expecting bumper crops. Hugh was a little ahead of us in his bean harvest and we had to wait a few weeks before we could road test his recipe for Broad beans on toast. As our first pickings - in early July - coincided with my initial forays into breadmaking, I baked a sourdough loaf so we could make the type of toast the recipe recommends. I'm not a broad bean fan myself but Si' loves them and pronounced the recipe a big hit. If you try it out, just go easy on how much sourdough you toast, though, as it is very filling!

 

At first we just picked enough beans to eat at one meal, to ensure they were really fresh, but quite soon they all seemed to be ready faster than Si' could eat them, so we started picking them for the freezer. I think I am probably quite strange in that I really enjoy the quiet repetition of activities such as podding beans or picking blackcurrants. I think the pods themselves are a joy to behold with their soft, felted interiors to protect the swelling beans and they also provide an excellent bulky green addition to the compost heap. Our first 'big pick' weighed in at seven and a quarter pounds and the second one - last Sunday, when it was too hot to pick without a hat - was even heavier, at just over ten pounds. This is their gross weight (in pods) which is how we would have bought them from the greengrocer at a cost of 60p per pound. Not bad for a 99p packet of seeds!

We sat in the cool of our back garden later last Sunday afternoon to pod them and both dogs - who don't like to miss anything - came to oversee proceedings. One or two of the beans were marked so we set them to one side on the table. One of the problems of having very tall dogs is that the height of tables is no obstacle to them. They assumed the set aside beans had been put there for them and soon found they enjoyed the taste. I don't know of any other dogs who enjoy their fruit and veg like ours do, so I photographed them both to show I'm telling the truth! While Zephyr was happy to sit at our feet, nose amongst the empty pods, and have the occasional bean passed to him, Hector felt this was much too slow and decided to take to take the bean - rather than the bit - between his teeth. Not my usual standard of photo, I'm afraid, but it does rather capture the moment!

With my newly acquired 'bean grower' status, I am now planning ahead to the autumn, when it is possible to sow broad beans to overwinter, for an earlier crop in 2009. Given that our freezer is already full to bursting, investing in a chest freezer is also a distinct possibility for next season.

Libraries are wonderful places . . .

I used to have this quotation pinned to the library wall where I worked. I remember coming across it once in a catalogue of children's books and thinking how much it stressed the potential that libraries have to offer. Indeed, there really is nowhere like them, with their opportunities to sample every topic imaginable, free of charge, and they are a godsend to those living on a limited budget. On so many occasions I have come across books that have been recommended in magazines, or other books, and have subsequently been able to get hold of them through our county library service. I find the online catalogue particularly valuable, as I can search by keyword as well, so if I'm after books on breadmaking, as I was quite recently, I can look through everything they have on the subject, held in all the public libraries across Lincolnshire. To help me decide which titles will be most useful on any subject, I have the Amazon web page open simultaneously so that I can read other people's reviews and see how they've rated each title. It costs 25p to reserve a book from the online catalogue which, considering some of the books cost £25.00 to buy, counts as an incredible bargain in my book (excuse the pun)! Of course you only have the book on loan for a limited period but I think the beauty of this is that you are much more likely to read it, knowing there is a time limit, than if you actually bought the book and could read it whenever. The book then goes back to the library - rather than taking up space on your bookshelf - for other people to borrow which is, I suppose, the ultimate in recycling. I borrow all my fiction from the library but will often borrow non-fiction titles, prior to buying them, to see if I think I'll get the use out of them. Amazon's 'used and new' listings can often be a source of good buys here, as can Munn Books. They are both worth checking on a regular basis as their stock changes all the time.

It's hard to believe that public libraries, in this country, have only been around since the mid-nineteenth century, following the Public Libraries Act of 1850. Even then, they were restricted to larger towns and the amount of money that could be added to the rates to pay for them was capped. It was not until a further Public Libraries Act of 1919, that the foundations were laid for the public library service we have today. Our own town library, shown above, was opened in 1905, the year my grandfather was born. When I was little, the twin joys of a trip to the library were the coloured wooden chairs and picture book boxes in the children's library and being able to 'skate' up and down on the slippery floor of the foyer! Until I was a teenager, it still had it's original reading rooms with long wooden tables and shelves of encyclopedias. Given that I am such a frequent visitor  - and having liaised with them through my former job - I have become good friends with many of the staff there. They very kindly bring me their empty jam jars to recycle and in turn I 'test' my new baking recipes on them now and again. When I ran my school library, I was always encouraging pupils to join the public one to give them access to a wider range of books than one school library was able to provide. I suppose I had my ideal job, in many ways; taking such an enormous joy in books and reading myself, it was very rewarding to pass that enthusiasm on to my pupils. When they first started at the school, I always pointed out to them just how frequently I visited the town library to fuel my own passion for books. Judging by their shy smiles and greetings when I bumped into them there, I'm not entirely sure that they thought I'd been telling the truth!

2008 is the National Year of Reading and events are being held up and down the country to celebrate. Though books are at the centre of this, all reading 'counts, apparently, even reading blogs like this one, so you can pat yourself on the back if you've read this far for having participated. The year is divided into monthly themes and December's includes blogs, so I must get plenty of posts planned for then! Of course, libraries are not just for books. Ours has free computer access, CD's and DVD's to hire - at a cheaper rate than local hire shops - photocopying at 5p per sheet and noticeboards full of posters and cards promoting local events and services. You can even read the daily and weekly papers for free! Appointments can also be made to view their collection of historical documentation on the town, including old maps and postcards. In fact the more I write here, the more I realise - like most of us - that I could make much more use of our library than I do. My current borrowings seem to reflect my current interest in food and cooking, with a smattering of gardening, green living and fiction thrown in for variety. Just at the moment, though, they are having to compete for my attention with the growing amount of bounty that needs harvesting and storing from the allotment. It's as well really that I have all those recipe books from the library at the ready! News and recipes from the 'soft fruit glut' coming soon!!!