Wednesday 4 November 2015

Awesome Autumn - Oct/Nov 2015


We were delighted to have another chance to stay at Jenny's in Stradishall with Trix and May whilst she was in New Zealand (see previous post).  We had the pleasure of hanging here for just over four weeks before heading back to New Zealand ourselves.  


We were really looking forward to spending autumn here as, being out in the country, there are a lot of hedgerows to be looted.  Talk about a foragers dream come true.

We couldn't believe the quality and size of the blackberries around the fields where we walked the doggies daily.  These soon became fodder for breakfast: blackberry compote, muesli and yoghurt.  The compote was also yummy drizzled over fresh scones (although my first attempt at scones was one of my epic failures - even the chooks having a hard time with them).
We made blackberry vodka and sloe vodka.



There is the most beautiful quince tree in the yard, so lush with quince that they are bowing the branches quite badly.  These were most enjoyed baked with butter and soft brown sugar.  Enjoy with some succulent roast pork.


A cock pheasant had the misfortune to cross our path on our first day here.  Roasted whole this time.  Similar to roast chicken of course, but MUCH tastier.


We gathered a lot of wild mushrooms also.  Rule of thumb is if you can positively ID it in the edible family you can eat it.  http://www.wildfooduk.com/mushroom-guides/  If not, chuck it out.  We enjoyed Honey Fungus, Field Mushroom and Wood Blewits.  They were all cooked into soups, omelette, pearl barley risotto and quite simply on toast.


Cheeky little critters
Sweet chestnuts and walnuts
There were also lots of nut trees fruiting at this time.  We were delighted to come upon a sweet chestnut tree whilst out walking with the girls one morning.  The last one of many that the other walkers and/or squirrels hadn't discovered yet.
We spent a night in Leiston on the east coast and did some fishing off the beach in Sizewell.  It wasn't particularly warm - although the weather this autumn has been great in general - but yes, we did catch some fish .... two bass and six whiting, all too small to keep so we bought some skate wings and dabs from the local fisherman Noel.  Delicious!


Another couple of interesting things happened during this time.  We spent a morning at home with a film crew being interviewed and videoed for a promo on behalf of Trusted Housesitters www.trustedhousesitters.com  The dogs, chickens and ducks were all impeccably behaved and enjoyed the attention immensely.  It was an interesting process for us too.  Not sure how much, if any, of the footage will be used but I can't wait to find out!  

We were also interviewed by a freelance journalist for an article about Housesitting to be featured in Saga Magazine (just quietly, a UK lifestyle rag for the over fifties!  See the article on our "Really useful links for visitors" tab. Not sure what all the interest in Housesitting is all of a sudden, but hey, any publicity is good publicity .... so they say.

You can now view the article by following the link in our LINKS section