No business like show business

Locals among you will know it was one of the highlights of our year in the Somerfords last Saturday, and I'm sorry I haven't got round to reporting back before now, but I've been – well, rather busy, one way and another.

It had been raining just about continuously for the three weeks before, and Emma, the Horse & Pony Secretary's, phone was hot from people ringing in from Hampshire, Herefordshire and Hertfordshire to find out whether it was still going to be on.

"Of course it'll still be on," she told them all blithely. "Well, you know that field..." It's true, there's something a bit magic about the Show Field. It can be bucketing down with rain for weeks, but somehow the water just drains away.

"It's always nice for the Show," said Debbie in the shop (mind you, I thought to myself, it wasn't last year...)

Anyway, it turned out that neither Emma's nor Debbie's unbridled optimism was misplaced, for Saturday morning dawned clear and bright and, apart from a bit of a puddle near the gate where the horseboxes had been coming and going since the crack of dawn, all was dry and the going, as racing people say, could not have been better.

Entries for the Industrial and Horticultural sections started arriving long before eight, and there was hot competition, particularly in the Men Only Sponge Cake class – I don't think I've ever seen such a large collection of Victoria Sandwiches in one place – big ones, small ones, supremely airy ones, ones with generously jammy fillings – and I'm beginning to wonder whether there aren't rather a lot of men about with perhaps a bit too much time on their hands. Either that, or a few with a very strong will to win...

John was looking confident as he arrived with his giant marrows, which had just been modest courgettes before he went away on holiday – it's amazing what three weeks of rain can do – clouds and silver linings and all that.





Onions were arranged, beans were assembled, jams, pickles, flower arrangements and pasta pictures were all brought along to impress the judges....







The little funfair was set up and before long sausages were sizzling and pink clouds of candy floss was being whirled round sticks sending sticky, sweet, savoury smells mingling with a top note of diesel as the dodgems were cranked up.


The door of the Horticultural tent was zipped firmly shut and everything went very quiet while the judges perused, deliberated, measured and compared – for what seemed like hours. And then, and then... Finally, the door was unzipped again and the crowds surged in to find out who had won the perpetual cup (Ross, as it turned out, and well-deserved, too), whose jams had passed muster and of course who had managed to produce the biggest marrow...





(sorry, Adam).




So much jam and so little time...


...and some very confused alpacas.




And, of course, I can't not mention the dog show (in which, yet again, there was a terrible travesty of justice in the Dog With the Waggiest Tail class, but I'll try my best to rise above it...) Best In Show was a very smart Grand Vendeen Griffon all the way from Oxford, and there was a well-deserved third in Most Appealing Eyes (well, if I'd have had two, it would obviously been a first...)

Feeling smug as a slug in a spud

It’s almost been like Spring Watch at our place this week, although admittedly it’s the wrong time of year and we haven’t got Bill Oddie in a hide down the bottom of the garden. Alex’s friend has got a hedgehog in his garden, and she’s just produced a couple of tiny, prickly babies. As far as we can see, there’s at least two, although we don’t want to get too close.

And as I walked over to Little Somerford to pick up my car from Richard on Friday, I noticed a pair of velvety ears poking up through a sea of barley in one of the fields by the railway line. A young faun, which could only have been a couple of meters away, suddenly noticed he was not alone and turned tail, bouncing gracefully away towards cover. The dog, at silly mid-off, gave chase, but he wasn’t nearly quick or tall enough – his wildly flailing ears bounced ridiculously through the long grass before he reluctantly gave up the ghost.

Later that day, Alex found what looked like a very fat tube-web spider under the sofa. We spooned it up into his magnifying bug viewer where it obligingly laid an enormous egg, which it wrapped up into a parcel. I’m not sure how the baby spiders are supposed to get out when they do eventually emerge – it says in our spider book that spiderweb is stronger than steel rope, once it’s had a chance to harden. Still, I suppose it must know what it’s doing. We’ll keep you posted.

Down on the allotments this evening, several dusky black swifts were skimming the veg patches while I dug up the last of my early potatoes. Swifts are only here for a few short months and apparently never land on the earth – if they did, they wouldn’t be able to take off again, they even sleep on the wing. I’ve been growing veg for a little while now, but I still never cease to find it amazing how just four little seed potatoes tucked away in a corner of Adam and Cheryl’s allotment can somehow manage to produce all this. I really didn’t do an awful lot – just popped down whenever I remembered and raked up the soil a couple of times.

I pedalled back home, feeling slightly smug and wobbling slightly under the weight of all my spuds, where I rustled up a courgette quiche (thanks Cheryl for the courgettes and Suzy for the eggs). I popped some of my freshly dug potatoes on to boil with a couple of sprigs of mint, marvelling at how clever I’d been to rustle up such a quick, delicious meal with just about everything sourced from less than a mile away (ok, the flour and the butter did come from Somerfield). This, surely, was what the good life was all about. It was only towards the end of supper when the rude awakening came. I’ll give you a clue – what’s the one thing that’s possibly worse than finding a slug in your dinner? That’s right: finding half a slug.

I take a little comfort from Dr Mark Porter’s comments on Case Notes earlier this week to the effect that stomach acid is actually stronger than car-battery acid, and therefore better at dissolving things. However, I’ve suddenly gone right off home-grown veg.

Hard rain's gonna fall

Well it didn’t rain on St Swithun’s day, as it happened – which is just as well as Coffee Pots had scheduled their annual summer outing for that day. However it has rained at some point every day since, and the forecast is – let’s say – less than hopeful. There is, however, a silver lining to these dark grey and billowing storm clouds as far as I’m concerned; our friends the Joneses have decided not to camp at Womad this weekend, so that means we don’t have to. We can’t camp without the Joneses, because they have a portable stove and we don’t. They also remember to bring things like towels and coolboxes and torches and spare inflatable pillows, which we invariably forget.

I’ve been treated to mutinous faces at breakfast every day this week as it gradually got wetter and wetter, and I pointed out that I really didn’t think it was a good idea to pitch a tent five miles up the road if we really didn’t have to. Apart from anything, there’s the hygiene facilities to contend with. For some reason, the words ‘swine’ and ‘flu’ keep popping into my head every time I think of the combination of 20,000 people from all over the world and about 30 portaloos with no running water or proper handwashing facilities. I know it’s wrong of me and probably hugely politically incorrect, but I do. It's no joking matter, though - someone from one of the villages nearby died of Swine Flu last week.

It’s interesting, though, how localised the weather seems to be. The forecast for Friday was hard rain all day, yet when I looked out, the garden was dry and there was barely a cloud in the sky. By the time we got to Malmesbury, though, there was rain of biblical proportions gushing down onto the roads and welling up in the gutters. When I got back to Lea, about 20 minutes later, the roads were bone dry and there was no sign of anyone even with an umbrella. The rain did get here, eventually, though. I was cleaning the church with Anne later that morning, and the most humungous storm broke out, gushing through the roof at the font-end and cutting off the electricity for a few minutes. It was all very dramatic until Anne produced a plastic bucket from the cupboard behind the pulpit and the gushing dwindled to a sporadic clattering.

St Swithun's Day

A removal van turned up this morning. I thought it must have got lost, at first, and taken a wrong turning down our lane, then I remembered our neighbours, Jane and Guy were leaving today. Guy has been the rector here for nearly 27 years. They’re not going very far – to Draycott Cerne, Kilvert country proper – but I’m sure it’ll be a wrench. It seems the Church has rules about clergy – once they’re retired, they have to move at least two miles from the benefice. It doesn’t seem to matter that the village isn’t getting another rector; at least not one who lives here – rules is rules. It’ll be odd not having them around. I know that life goes not backward, nor tarries with yesterday, but sometimes I wish it would tarry just a bit.

* * *













The allotments are looking particularly lovely this year. More plots than ever are being cultivated, the clover’s up and everything is growing like crazy. I think the prize for the prettiest allotment at the moment goes to Sarah, in the corner, with her waving hedge of cornflowers and Californian poppies – clouds of cobalt, red and gold – and a tubby little wigwam of sweet peas. Clare’s at the top – at least I think it’s Clare’s – is lovely, too, with its gold nasturtiums and scrambling runner beans in scarlet flower. And I do like Janice’s bunting. Funny how it’s the girls I’ve picked out. Philip’s very good at dahlias, usually but I think the slugs got to them this year.














There’s been another attack of Asbo animals. Bernard had had a mole, which he’s been trying to divert towards Trevor’s plot with an ingenious plastic-bottle device, but the mole’s having none of it. Up he keeps popping between Bernard’s cabbages. Meanwhile, Dick came down to his plot one morning to find a grass snake wedged in one of his wire cloches. The snake seems to have spotted a toad among the lettuces, dived in through one of the holes in the chicken wire, guzzled the toad, only to find it was now trapped by dint of a large, toad-shaped bulge too large to slither back through the chicken wire. Dick somehow managed to squeeze the toad out of the snake’s mouth and freed the snake, who took one look at what was left of his breakfast before slithering off. I'm not at all sure I'd have fancied any breakfast after that, either.

* * *

St Swithun was a champion of the poor and needy who lived in ninth-century Wessex.

I wonder whether it’s going to rain today?

With cordial thanks...

I finally got round to making my elderflower cordial. I would have made it earlier, but could I get citric acid either for love or money? I scoured the length and breadth of Malmesbury High Street – even good old Knees was sold out. It seems everybody had the same idea. The situation was even worse in Chippenham. I discovered there are other, more nefarious uses for citric acid and it's been withdrawn from sale from most of the high-street pharmacy chains.
“Do I look as though I'd be using it to cut cocaine?” I feel like asking. “I'm a respectable middle-aged woman!” Mind you, I'll be looking at those doughty matrons flocking along to the home preserving section at Knees in a different way, now.

Anyway, moving swiftly on... There really is nothing quite like home-made elderflower cordial. Infused with the fresh, delicate and slightly fruity scent of newly opened elderflowers in their very first flush, it's something that can only really be drunk in June. Wait until the flowers are fully open and perhaps just starting to go over, and it will just taste of – well, there really isn't any nicer way of putting it – wee. It doesn't keep, either, even when spiked with a liberal shake of citric acid you've got to drink it up in under a month.

I could have drunk all mine in one sitting, but that would just be greedy. So I've bottled it, and taken it round to say thank you to some of the allotment holders who've been plying me with asparagus and allowing my potatoes squatting rights on their beautifully-tended plots.

“Can you mix it with vodka?” was Adam's first question.

Here's the recipe - if you can find a sheltered elder on a north or east-facing slope, you might just be in time...

25 elderflower heads
3 litres boiling water
900g granulated sugar
2 unwaxed lemons, sliced
50g citric or tartaric acid

Carefully rinse the elderflower heads, picking out any small bugs and place them in a non-metallic bowl or a clean bucket with the sugar and sliced lemons. Pour the boiling water over the top, stir well and leave to cool. Once cooled, stir in the citric acid, then cover the lot with a clean tea towel and leave in a cool, dark place for 24 hours, stirring occasionally.

The next day, strain the cordial through a muslin-lined sieve and decant into sterilised bottles.

Keep it in the fridge for up to a month.

* * *

Mad as a bag of frogs

There are frogs in Frog Lane – at least there were last night. We were just doing a spot of gardening when my other half shouted over to come and look at something that was shuffling about in the bottom of a bag of compost. There they were, two little frogs looking very hot and slightly distguntled.

“They'll boil in there,” I said, and dragged the bag over to under the bench where there was a bit of shade.

Next morning, it was still hot as hot, and Brown Dog being particularly well-endowed in the fur department was skulking around the garden disconsolately looking for a spot of shade.

Ah yes, I could almost hear him thinking. Under the bench. And he flopped down squarely on top of the compost bag.

There Will Be Mud

The rain is coming down in stair rods this morning and Frog Lane is already a river, so I don't imagine there will be much gardening going on – well, for several reasons, really. The Garden Club – all twenty-something of them – have just set off for their annual gardens tour. This year the destination is Wales; Caernarfon, Penrhyn, Porthmadog, Bodnant and the famous ffestiniog steam railway... They'll just be tucking into their strawberry breakfast now, I should think, whilst whistling along the M4 towards the Severn Bridge. There was a lot of strawberry picking going on yesterday.

And for those of us left behind, what better day for tuning into Gardeners' Question Time, where there'll be some familiar voices amongst the questioners – Bernard, with his credit-crunch vegetables and my father-in-law with his unyielding blue clay. 3pm today, 2pm on Sunday, and for the rest of the week you'll be able to pick it up on the BBC iPlayer.

* * *

The National Gardens Scheme Open Gardens event at the weekend was a huge success – over 350 people came to visit and they all but ran out of cakes at the Mount House (although I think that may have had something to do with the fact that word had got around about Diane's fabulous cakes – and I can confirm, they were indeed fabulous, and I'm not given to easy praise where cakes are concerned). The gardens were of course spectacular, too. I wish someone would show me how to do a proper herbaceous border. Mine always just look like odd bits of plants dotted around interspersed by bits of earth the dog has had a bit of a dig at and flattened clumps of catmint that the cat has sat on. Ah well, maybe one day...

The secret life of beekeepers

A swarm of bees in May
is worth a load of hay
A swarm in June
is worth a silver spoon
A swarm in July
ain't worth a fly

I thought there were a lot of bees on Mrs Jones's geraniums at the NGS Open Gardens event this weekend. "Oooh," I thought. "John will be pleased." But I didn't realise quite how pleased until this morning, when I opened my monthly BeeMail.

John, for those of you who don't already know, is our local bee man. What he don't know about bees, ain't worth a swarm in July – heck, the man even makes his own hives. For the last couple of years he's been trying to establish a local bee colony, but as with the course of all things true-love related, it hasn't gone altogether smoothly. It was a bit of a struggle, I gather, finding somewhere for the bees to live – surprisingly, not all that many people seemed to be all that keen on having honey-producing yellow-and-black-striped neighbours who buzzed a lot. Monthly BeeMail updates have have featured details of some of John's ingenious ways of outwitting the dastardly varroa destructor mite (a swift dusting of icing sugar, apparently), the perils of pesticides and tricking the queen into laying eggs. Anyway, this month's news was that John had collected two swarms - without wearing gloves, apparently – one which looked as though it was on the brink of death following a stormy weekend and another found hanging from the roof of a bird feeder in Chippenham.

Over 5,000 bees in the second colony, he reckons. I wonder how many jars of honey that translates into...

My other news is that Brown Dog has a new hairstyle - very Didier Drogba, don't you think? No, he hasn't been to an expensive salon – I may be daft, but I'm not that daft. His new orange ball rolled accidentally into the river this afternoon and, being heavy, it sank to the bottom. It took him a while to realise I wasn't going to wade in and fish it out for him, and slightly longer to work out that he had to hold his breath if he was going to dive for it, but persistence payed off in the long run. The hairstyle was a bonus.