GROWING GARLIC

 I was told that you should plant garlic on the shortest day - 21st December and havrvest it on the longest day -21st June.  Well I was a bit busy 4 days before Christmas to be messing around planting garlic so popped mine in some time in November.

 The first year on the allotment I ordered garlic bulbs from the seed catalogue and then saved one to plant last year.  They were divided up into individual cloves and planted around the edge of the bed. I pulled them up as close as I could to mid summers day, and laid them out to dry.  I then strung them up and popped them in the shed to keep cool.  Must remember to keep one to plant again this year.

LONDON 2012

Saturday 4th August.  The day we went to the Olympics - with tickets!!

 Arriving at the park.

 In front of the main stadium.

We met up with Alice who had arrived to do her volunteering in the water polo.  We waited ages to go in the Coca Cola tower, which was a waste of time except for at the very top they took our picture holding the torch.

We saw  Dani King, Joanna Rowsell and Laura Trott win the Woman's Team Pusuit race.

The velodrome was very warm, they have to keep it hot for the cyclists, I was pleased about that as I expected it to be cold and air conditioned, but it was lovely.  It was also absolutely deafening when the crowd cheered and shouted as the teams raced.  So exciting, and even better when you understood what the races were and what was happening.

Oh Yes!  Paul and Stella McCartney were in the audience as well..........

A Capital Day out

HOW TO BE PART OF THE OLYMPICS AND JOIN IN THE FUN WITHOUT ACTUALY ATTEDNING AN EVENT!


1.  Dress up in Union Jacks

 2. Get the train to Stratford

3. Get as close as you can to the Olympic Park without a ticket and find a giant screen and deck chairs and enjoy a cup of tea

 4. Take the DLR to Royal Victoria and catch the Emiriates Airline

5. Hop off at North Greenwich and catch the river taxi up the Thames

6. Head to Hyde Park to watch the games on the big screens, add some good company, a picnic rug, sun shine, something to eat and Bradley Wiggins winning the time trial.


7. Head back to Stratford and stand all the way home as the train is so full!

Even Nelson has got a Union Jack hat on!


 

LONDON 2012

So excited! Decorated the front of the house with bunting, flags and paperchains.  Have my Union Jack earrings in.   Only one and half hours until the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony starts.
So looking forward to next week when we have tickets to the velodrome to watch the cycling.  

Good luck to team GB!

A day out in Londres and Olympic park

I popped to London yesterday to meet up with Alice and do a bit of shopping.
I got an early train to Stratford and the first thing I noticed when I arrived were lots of signs directing me to the "OLYMPIC PARK".  The Olympics are so near, less than 3 weeks now and London is ready.
After topping up my Oyster Card I got the tube to Bethnall Green to meet Alice.  We then caught the number 8 bus to Roman Road Market.  We had no idea how far it was and spent the journey catching up on news and scanning the streets to see where we needed to get off.  I spotted the sign above the street, which I recognised from the website.  I also told Alice the bit of history about this road that I had read.  Roman Road is the oldest known trade route in Britain.  It was the road to Colchester and Queen Boudica came up this road to burn the Romans in London.  Quite a link with home!

 We soon stopped for a cuppa, so cheap here!  2 cups of tea and a croissant (with jam) was the same price as they tried to charge me at the NEC in Birmingham, just £3.90 and they were mugs!
We spent over an hour walking from one end to the other looking at the stalls, mainly clothes, some shoes, jewellery, fruit and veg and some household.  Most of the clothes stalls were things from New Look, M&S, Next, ACOS and Top Shop
We then walked back and bought what we had chosen.  A handbag each, a dress and top for me and 3 tops for Alice.  She also bought two pillows, which was not our best purchase as the bag was so big and bulky we get bashing into people.
We had lunch in another cafe, chicken and pesto pannini for Alice and a mozzarella, tomato and olive toasted wrap for me, oh and another cuppa all for £7.50 and they say London is expensive?
We then got the bus and tube back to Stratford and made our way to the Olympic Park entrance were I left Alice to go and take part in her volunteer training.
We walked along the Olympic street with all the shops full of Union Jack clothes.  Past the posh shops like Prada  -who is going to pop in there on their way to watch an event? One of the restaurants is Jamie Oliver Italian, I bet that will be packed soon. We could also see the ORBIT this is structure that you can get the lift up and see a view of the whole area, I think that I need to book a ticket for that too.

 Here we are with models of one of the mascots.  Is this Wenlock or Mandeville?  I am sure in 3 weeks time we will all know.
The whole area is feeling really exciting and buzzing with anticipation, I can't wait until we go to the velodrome.

MORE ELDERFLOWERS!

last weekend I picked some elderflowers from the hedgerows around the allotment and started off some elderflower cordial.

I found this recipe a couple of years ago on the Internet from someone called Gavin.

Pour 2.5 pints of boiling water over 20 flower heads, 3.5 lbs sugar, 2tsp citric acid and a sliced lemon, stir until sugar is dissolved and cover.  stir twice daily for 5 days, strain and bottle  -simple!
Or so I thought, but thinking I was being very clever I added the flowers that I had strained from the champagne to the cordial and it began to ferment -whoops!  I had to pour boiling water on to kill of the yeast which diluted the cordial.  it is not as sweet as normal but I think it could be even better.

Champagne update:

The bottles are beginning to feel harder which means that it is fermenting, should be ready next week!

ELDERFLOWERS

I noticed last week that the hedgerows are full of Elderflowers and it is time to make the wine and cordial.  AND the Elderflower Champagne, I tried it last year and it was an absolute disasaster, the bottles exploded in the garage and covered everything in a sticky glass fragment mess.  I was NOT popular.
I had followed the Quick Elderflower Champagne recipie in Sarah Ravens book, Food for Friends and Family, normaly the recipies in this book are very good.  However this one says to add dried yeast and I think that it was too much and also to store in glass wire top bottle.
This year I searched for a new recipie and found Elderflower Champagne at the Farm in my Pocket blog.  The recpie has no added yeast and suggests using plastic coke bottles.  The build up of gas can be released by unscrewing the lid a little bit.
I now have 3 large coke bottles of Elderflower Champagne starting to brew, after one day I can see little bubbles around the top.

Lets hope that it works this time!