Martha's Marvellous Munchies

"I had to buy a new mop bucket because my old one got smashed by a marrow." That's surely not a sentence many people get to say even once in a lifetime. The marrow in question was left, with a group of its friends, at the back of church by an anonymous donor.  It weighed 7 lb, about the same as a newborn baby, but was decidedly less cute and a lot thicker-skinned.  I adopted it and brought it home. Presumably Theo was just curious about this giant vegetable that I'd left on the counter.  At any rate, he was reaching for that or something else, and shortly afterwards I found a sheepish 3-year-old, a wrecked mop bucket, and a remarkably unscathed marrow lying on the floor. A few days later, I got my revenge on the marrow by turning it into chutney.  This recipe from BBC Good Food made plenty, and used up over half of the vegetable.  The rest I peeled, chunked, and stashed in the freezer for now.  I have vague ideas of making marrow and ginger j...

Write, they say.  And keep writing.  Every day if possible.  That's what you do if you want to be a writer. Right, I say.  Writing.  I'll get to it as soon as I've done the shopping cleaned the bathrooms called some volunteers mowed the lawn hung up the washing got some exercise spent time with my family.  Um.  Maybe tomorrow. So writing has slid backwards from being a priority, when I called Cafes with Kids my job and reviewed a cafe every week, to a sideline, now that I'm the other side of the counter and, once again, calling cafe management my job.  And, as a bonus feature, actually getting paid for it.  It's exciting.  It's rewarding.  It's also all-consuming and completely exhausting, at least in these first few weeks when I'm trying to learn everything and everyone all at once.  That breathing space seems a long time ago already. But sometimes you have to carve out space for who you want to be as well as who ...

Theo and I sat perched on a rocky step in the sunshine.  Somewhere above us, Graham and Toby climbed higher up the path, while behind us, a waterfall splashed noisily down the hillside.  In front of us the land spread out in patches of green and grey and purple, sun-bright and dappled with cloud.  I drew in a deep breath.  We were definitely on holiday. Our usual last-minute AirBnB searching had led us to a cottage on the corner of the Yorkshire Dales.  Technically we were in Cumbria, but this area is far less popular than the more famous Lake District, with the guides tending to use words like "under-rated" and "little-known".  We certainly didn't have the place to ourselves, but then the weather that first day would have dragged the most reluctant walker out of doors.  Or just about.  You can see how enthusiastic our little walkers were! Cows.  On an A-road.  Definitely under-rated. The target that first day w...

Six weeks sounds like a long time when you're at the beginning, doesn't it?  But it's a lot less long when you're halfway through, wondering where the time went.  Here's what we did with some of it. The males of the family (including my dad) went to see the truck racing at Donington, the first Saturday.  They came back full of truck excitement - and with bigger hands than usual!  Meanwhile, my mum and I went for a nice peaceful walk. Next day, Theo was a little tired. Later that week, we drove to Dove Dale and climbed Thorpe Cloud in the rain, which helpfully and unexpectedly ceased just as we got to the top.  We were able to have lunch with a view and without getting soaked.  A kestrel came and hovered nearby, looking as if it were hung from the sky by an invisible string. Coming down, the boys decided that running was the way to go.  This is my new favourite picture of me with them. We also went to a tractor festival (oh yes,...

Those neat little sprouts in my previous garden post are now great floppy plants, overflowing their boxes like leafy fountains.  Theo has been particularly keen on picking things, sometimes before they're ready!  So, what harvest have we had? Peas I was really pleased with the peas.  Every couple of days we could go out and grab a boxful of fat green pods - and it was fun popping them and seeing how many peas were inside.  The boys and their friends from next door happily ate them straight from the pod, and we had them raw in salads, cooked as a side, and even made into pea fritters.  Their season finished early so I've put some more carrots, onions and rocket in their place. Strawberries We only really had enough to pick a few and eat them one by one.  However, we went to Scaddows Farm and picked LOADS, so we haven't felt short of strawberries. Carrots and spring onions The spring onions have done well, and got lovely and ...

I was eight when the Berlin Wall came down. For many of my contemporaries, it was the first big political event they remember seeing on TV.  We didn't have a television then, so I don't even have that hazy recollection.  As I got older, I became aware that many European maps I looked at were no longer correct.  The big splodge on the right emblazoned with the ominous letters U.S.S.R. had now dissolved into smaller countries with unknown names: Belarus, Lithuania, Moldova.  Something called the Iron Curtain had disappeared.  And Germany was now one big country again, no longer split between East and West. Our history lessons at school focussed heavily on the First and Second World Wars, with odd excursions to the Romans, or motte and bailey castles, or Henry the Eighth.  It wasn't until I studied German A-level that I heard about the Berlin airlift , and my first reaction was: "Why did no one ever tell me about this?!"  Up until then I had alwa...

Belton House.  Biggest adventure playground ever.  Seriously.  You start at one end with the seesaw which pumps water for a splash pad, and go past the treehouse and rope bridges, and cross over the miniature railway, and discover the giant glockenspiel and spinning wheel, and hop over some stepping stones, and it still goes on.  We gave up and had lunch without ever finding the end, and went off to draw pictures in the beautiful gardens instead.   And that was only a short stop on the way to the real holiday in Norfolk.  We were headed to a little house in Heacham, just a few minutes from the beach.  It was a bit cool and breezy that first evening, but you've got to paddle and dig, haven't you? The sun set beautifully over the sea, and we tucked Toby and Theo up into their bunk bed - which according to them, was the best bit of the whole holiday. The next day we got a perfect beach day.  We drove to Wells-next-the-Sea...