The time I went on a French exchange

I was about 14 years old, I think. No, younger. I guess 12 or 13. I signed up to go on the French exchange trip at school. Goodness knows why. I wasn’t any good at French. I was in the third set of five in my year so I was by no means a high flyer. Anyway, I think it was partly because a friend, Sarah, said she was going on it so maybe I thought it’d be way fun.

The girl I stayed with (maybe her name was Collete or Marie or something, I don’t know) lived on a little farm thing and they didn’t lock their doors or worry about leaving the car running. It baffled me. Collete/Marie must have thought us dirt-poor when she came to stay in England and was given a small room in my Mum’s flat.

There was a lamp thing in the room I was given at Collete/Marie’s house which you touched and it turned on or off. This was the highlight of my French exchange.

As I was at a girls’ school, we combined the trip with the local boys’ school and we all went on a coach together with a few of the teachers. God, they must have had an awful time with us pre-teens, all giggling and working out which boys we fancied the most.

There was one boy on the trip called Stephen Fanning. I think that was his name. Anyway, we all teased him. I forget why. He must have shown a weakness that we, predictably, jumped upon. He was getting on quite well with one of the French students on the exchange and so we teased him about that too.

On the coach ride home, he finally flipped. Like, absolutely… flipped. And he said something along the lines of, “Well, I don’t care what you all think because I’ve got a girlfriend in France and we love each other!”

Well! Readers! I don’t even need to tell you how that story ended! Needless to say, the teasing increased. By 500% percent.

Another thing I remember was a guy called Seb telling me he’d been given coffee in a bowl by the family he was staying with. I spent the rest of the trip praying I wouldn’t be handed coffee in a bowl by anyone.

We also went to a little theme park. They had a pirate ship ride and as the place was empty, we kept shouting, “Encore!” once the ride had finished. We stayed on there for 11 cycles of the ride. When we got off, a girl called Danielle vomited next to a bin. Next to. Not in. Next to.

I didn’t really learn any French. Collete/Marie had good enough English that she translated for me. I did, however, learn the French version of the Macarena dance and develop a crush on a boy called Graeme who I saw five years later walking down the street and his jaw was all square-y. Had it always been square-y?

The pub quiz (part 2)

On Tuesday last week, Danda and a friend and I decided it was time we went and won the pub quiz cause the prize was £490. So we went. And we won. And they gave us some drinks vouchers and kept the money. Apparently the way they do it, so you have to get picked from a hat to win, is called a ‘snowball’ prize.

We did not get picked from the hat so we didn’t get a chance to answer the question or win the money. We were gutted.

So, three days ago, with new resolve, we decided it was time to go and win that money. Off we went, to the pub quiz, to get that money.

We were answering the questions really well. The inventor of something or other was called Birdseye… True. What was Fred Flintstone’s favourite sport? Bowling. What did the Earl of Sandwich create whilst gambling? The sandwich. Et cetera. Et cetera.

We missed a few more than last time because there wasn’t a customer from the deli helping out after having a few drinks, like last time. But overall, we ended up with half a point more than we had the previous week, when we won.

The quizmaster came around to collect the papers and we looked at him, hopefully. He looked at our score.

“Is ours the highest score?” we asked.

“It is, yeh.” He only had one more paper to collect so we were hopefully we could win.

“But you know you get docked five points, right,” he said, as though it were no big deal.

My face fell. Danda laughed at my devastated face and described me as “a kid who’s had all her sweets taken away.”

“Why?” I asked, in confusion.

“Because you won last week.”

So now we are to be penalised for being clever?! We’ve answered those questions and we’ve got that score. Stop bullying us! Give us our 96.5 points!

It’s hard being penalised for having a massive brain and winning at everything.

So when he added everything up and read out the scores, we came second… Rude.

And then we didn’t get picked out of the hat to answer the question to win the money. We didn’t actually know the answer anyway.

We’ve decided that next week is our week. We’ll win the quiz then we’ll get the question and we’ll get the money and then we’ll be loaded and I’ll go off and buy a farm. That’s right. A farm. With my one third of the £510 prize….

Things I learned at Waltham Place (Part 2)

1. The way to cut an onion without all the tears is to first half it, then peel each half, then slice it, leaving you with the two ends. The chemicals that make you cry are released when you cut the end off which has the roots so if you cut that off first, all the chemicals will be released, hence all the sobbing while chopping.

2. Sorrel is way tasty!

3. Nettle soup is surprisingly bright green.

4. Cows will let you know if they like you or not. If you put your hand out low, they will come over and smell it, rather like a dog. If they lick, then you’re in there. If they lick your face, then you’ve really pulled. If, however, they shake their horns at you, it means they definitely do not like you.

5. Chickens have a self programmed ‘bedtime’. Without any prompting, at the bedtime, all the chickens, on cue, will run to the coop together and go inside to bed.

6. Commercially produced bread is full of additives, one of which is put in to delay the arrival of mould when it is getting old. Yet it will start to grow mould after just a few days. Homemade bread, however, has no additives and, so far, I have had it for five days and there isn’t even a suggestion of mould.

7. Adrian, the chef at Waltham Place, spent six months working at the Savoy. There were 65 chefs working in the kitchen there and all the cooking terms were in French. You either picked up French very quickly or you got bollocked for doing everything wrong!

P.S. Part 1 can be found here.

Sorrel soup, rye bread and bluebells (or: Back to my spiritual home)

“Every day is like a day on the farm. Every meal is a feast. That’s a day in the Marine Corps.”

Well, not the Marine Corps at all. My favourite farm.

What’s that you say? You don’t have a favourite farm? Pffft. All the cool kids have a favourite farm. And mine is Waltham Place.

I went there in March on a fruit preserving course and had been itching to get back. Since getting my groceries from Abel and Cole, I am totally on the soup scene, for using up the leftover vegetables the day before my new delivery. So when I saw the soup and bread course, I booked myself in straight away!

After my last traumatic journey to the farm, this time around was relatively easy. In fact, on the bus to the farm, I saw the exact same two ladies who had rescued me last time and went and thanked them again.

Arriving at the farm, I saw the familiar faces of Nikki and Adrian, who run the courses. You feel you are in safe hands as they gently take control, ensuring everyone has tea and biscuits and helping the group of strangers to gel.

We got straight into some chat about what makes good or bad bread, the fact that bread has been around for thousands of years and about mixing your dough with the end of the wooden spoon.

Apparently that’s how the Italian grandmothers in Tuscany do things!

I mixed and kneaded and shaped and then left it to prove in the warm kitchen….

…before starting on some sorrel soup.

I’ve not eaten – and certainly never cooked with – sorrel so I was a little nervous but Adrian ripped off a leaf tip and got munching, encouraging me to do the same. And it was surprisingly tasty – lemony but not sharp. More like a salad dressing which had been made with lemon. It was bursting with flavour. I couldn’t believe I’d never eaten it.

After making and straining the soup…

…the bread was also finished proving and baking. Mine was a rye bread made with a sourdough starter Adrian had been brewing up for five days.

We each then quickly threw together another loaf. I did a plaited white loaf next (which I got started on before I could photograph it, sorry!).

Then we had a fabulous lunch of our own soups and a previously baked loaf for dipping. It was so good. Sorrel soup, people! It’s the way of the future! Lemony but savoury. It didn’t need any seasoning as it has such a rich rounded flavour of its own.

Then we went for a lovely walk around the estate, which was much greener than my last visit…

The chickens!

One of the cows! (Danda says I can have a cow, although it’s still a no on the chicken.)

Any day now, this place will be head height with long grasses and colour!

The Japanese garden will soon be looking lovely too.

The lime tree lined walk.

The blanket of bluebells starting to cover the forest floor.

We returned to the centre, oversaw the baking of our second breads (one person had decided to mark his with what can only be described as a nipple, a bread nipple, if you will….)

…and sat down for some well earned tea and cake…

A coffee cake on the left and a fruity tray bake on the right. Both were delicious, obviously.

A lift back to the station from a fellow course student would have finished the day off nicely, apart from the 3.5 hour journey home because of train delays. But even that couldn’t ruin the loveliness of the day 🙂

G is for…

GARDEN!

I have utilised two of my recent blogging themes today (Trying To Be Useful and AtoZ) to tell you about the latest exciting developments in my garden.

Simon Gear, in Going Greener, told me to start a compost heap, which I love the idea of and have been meaning to do for ages anyway. Then my Abel and Cole deliveries started and there were little hints in their booklet, of what to recycle etc. One of the things they mentioned was composting. So it seemed like I was being nudged into finally actually doing it and I took the plunge and started searching around online for a good composting option.

Before long, I came across the Wiggly Wigglers and started to get excited. I’d heard about composting by using worms and on this site, I found a starter kit for £32 which would get me started on using worms to make compost out of my old scraps of food waste.

The basic principle is this. I put my old food in the top, the worms eat the old food, the worms do a poo, the poo is compost that I can use in my garden, to grow my tomatoes and herbs and chillies.

It’s like having a small farm containing only worms in a bin, kind of. So just the worms. And no other animals. And no eggs or milk. Just the compost. So sort of like a small farm. Sort of.

My next garden-related challenge from Simon Gear was a challenge to grow my own veggies. Now, the tomatoes, herbs and chillies are a standard summer installation in the garden so I decided to expand a little more, to step out of my gardening comfort zone.

A friend recently told me about a grow-your-own oyster mushroom farm thing so I checked it out again and decided it fitted well with my instructions and have ordered one. The idea goes something like this – soak a paperback book in water, scatter the mushroom seeds inbetween the pages, put it in the bag they send with the seeds, leave it on a windowsill, watch your mushrooms grow. Apparently I will get about three crops from it.

Books and mushrooms, what’s not to love?!

I shall report back on both the worm farm and the mushrooms. They are due to arrive in the post any day now. Oo, you should get some too! Then we can compare notes on how our baby worms are doing, like mothers in the playground.

P. S. Following on from previous posts, I have not been to a supermarket for 12 days. So for 12 days, I have only bought or eaten food that was grown locally, by people who I have taken the time to do some research about. It feels great. I have also not taken a bath, since I was told to shower instead.

E is for….

EGGS!

Eggs come from chickens, which are the key to my imaginary life. In my imaginary life, I have chickens in my garden. Currently Danda is blocking the acquisition of a chicken for the back garden.

What’s that? My garden’s only the size of a small room and the chicken would have hardly any space to walk around? Yeh, ok. Way to rain on my parade. I’ll never become a farmer if I’m up against such constant negativity.

Anyway, back to chickens and eggs and my alternate universe life where I live on a farm. My day on my farm goes as such….

At 7am I leap out of bed, bright as a daisy and ready for the day ahead. I can’t wait to go and see my beloved cows and chickens and piggywigs.

“Good morning, dears!” I sing, Julie-Andrews-esque, sailing effortlessly from field to field, greeting my animals, who love me for my Mother Earth qualities. Never mind that when I was actually on a farm, I was mostly tramping through soggy mud and vaguely tried to stroke a cow on it’s nose but it turned its head and licked me instead and its spit was all supergluey and disgusting on my fingers.

But it will be different on my farm. I will be at one with nature and glide around, happy and loving.

After greeting the day and my animals, I will approach the chickens who, rather than clucking frantically and heading in the opposite direction, will swarm around me, cooing affectionately while I make my way to the coop and collect some eggs.

While returning to the farmhouse, I will pass the cows, kneel briefly with a mug and get some milk (cause it’s really easy, right? And only takes a minute or so and there’s no faffing around with buckets or stalls, is there? Good, I thought not). The cows look at me, doe-eyed with love, and moo to send me on my merry way to breakfast.

I arrive in my lovely kitchen with a rustic flagstone floor, shout out to Danda and put the kettle on to make tea. I crack and scramble the eggs and toast some of the seeded bloomer bread I made the night before. Danda and I eat scrambled eggs with toast and drink tea with our fresh milk. Our toast is buttered with the butter I made from churning the fresh cow’s milk yesterday.

The rest of my day is spent as such. I visit the vegetable garden later that morning, to gather asparagus and tomatoes and potatoes and chard, which I will make into some kind of new potato salad for lunch. I also collect leeks and carrots to make soup with.

I visit the little pigs for some fun really, to watch them snuffling about and rolling over in the mud. Ah, my farm life gives me such glee.

I tend to the roses and the lavender and notice, with pleasure, that the bees are swarming around, collecting nectar.

This reminds me to check on the new hives so off I go. Rather than stinging and causing me to swear, the bees buzz a friendly hello and clear out of the hive, hovering politely nearby until I finish and they can return. I find a glut of honey and extract it with ease. None of the honey drips on me and none of the bees are angry.

“Have it,” they buzz, smiles on their little bee faces. “It is a gift.”

I accept their gift, graciously taking it to the kitchen (it comes already in jars, right? That’s what’s in bee hives, isn’t it? Pre-packed jars of honey) and think what to make with it, for I am very Mother Earthy and like to make everything from scratch using the lovely gifts that the earth has presented me with. I make some breakfast muffins for the following day using the honey and I also glaze some apple slices and gently roast them for later this evening.

As there is a deer cull at the moment, the farmer next door has brought me some venison, which I have minced and mixed with lots of herbs and am currently in the process of making into sausages, because I make everything from scratch and am never pressed for time and never burn things and people always rave about my sausage making skills.

Before the sun sets and I start cooking my venison sausages, I skip around the farm saying goodnight to each animal individually. The chickens hug my ankles with their wings and offer me presents of eggs, which I take back to the kitchen to make into custard for having with the apple slices later.

Tired, but fulfilled and relaxed, Danda and I eat our dinner in front of the log fire and listen to the sounds of the cows mooing.

Being a farmer would totally suit me. I’d be ace at it, as is obvious from this post, cause I well know exactly how to be farmer. Isn’t that obvious? I can’t believe Danda won’t let me get a chicken and have eggs in the morning. It’s like he doesn’t realise that this whole post could become a reality, if only I had a chicken.

I’m being stifled here. Stifled.

Things I learned at Waltham Place

1. Chickens lay eggs when it’s sunny. They’re like solar panels. They only work with sunshine. In the winter, they don’t lay because there is no sun. They are designed to have a break for a few months of the year. Battery farmed chickens are kept indoors with the lights on so that they will lay all year round. That is why they die sooner. They are not being given a break while it is winter. That’s also why the yolks in battery farmed eggs are all pale and yellowy, cause the chickens are quite weak and their diet isn’t very natural. The farmers give them commercially produced feed so their eggs are not as good quality.

2. During the time when it is sunny, chickens lay eggs all the time, regardless of the presence of a male to fertilise. That is the difference between just eggs and potential baby chickens. When there’s a potential baby chicken in an egg, after being laid, the chicken has to ‘go broody’ and sit on it for 24 days, turning it every day. If the chicken lays the egg but then potters off outside and leaves the egg, it will not become a chicken. At Waltham Place, these are the eggs they then take for cooking with. This eases any guilt I may have felt about eating scrambled baby chickens on toast for breakfast.

3. Buttermilk is not the liquid that gets squeezed out of the butter once you have finished churning it. As a butter-maker myself, I had it on good authority that this was buttermilk and so used it in recipes which asked me for it. Who looks stupid now, hey?

4. My Living Responsibly project looks so feeble in comparison to the self-sufficiency at Waltham Place. The air miles on the food I usually buy are ridiculous! I shall make an effort, at least a couple of times after April when the farm shop opens, to go over there and buy things. That way I know the food miles are minuscule, compared with my fruit and vegetables flown in from different continents. I will also make an effort to look on the packets and buy as locally as possible.

5. I want a chicken in my garden.

6. A cow would be good too, for the milk. Milk from the shop will feel like a poor compromise now.

7. Cows from different regions have different personalities! It’s true. The Jersey cows which are new to Waltham Place are apparently a lot more ‘protective’ of their young than the local ones.