Crab Apple Jelly

Our beautiful little home has a fabulous big lawn with beautiful flower garden and fruit trees. Through the archway at the back is the landlord's orchard in which we have been given free reign to pick whatever we like...

 I hate seeing things go to waste so have recently been making apple pies and apple sauce but without the family around to feed, I just have to stop cooking. However, the other day I found that the crab apple tree was laden with fruit ready for picking.

 There is something so satisfying about cooking the produce from your land. (well, someone else's land technically but we wont split hairs).

 I haven't made crab apple jelly before but the end result looks great.  Like most jams it just takes fruit, sugar and lemon juice, a lot of boiling, some skimming and then you're done. I did feel a bit sick pouring all that sugar into the pot when I have been so busy trying to keep sugar OUT of our food, but the end result is so beautiful.  Satisfaction is a beautiful jar of homemade jam.

A day in York

Yesterday I went to York. It's an easy 1.5 hour journey from Peterborough on the train.  I went because David was off to a meeting there and I thought we might be able to catch up for lunch, didn't happen.  However, I had a great day mooching around on my own.  Thankfully I had worn my leather jacket as it was cold even at 10am when I arrived. My first mission was to find a cafe with GOOD coffee.  I was distracted as I passed the museum gates (one of my possibilities for the day) by a sign advertising a guided walk at 10.30am.  That was it! I now knew what I'd be doing for the next couple of hours. I whipped across the road and found a fab deli/cafe  Cabra Verde. I just had a coffee but it was great and the cakes and treats on display looked very tempting but for once I was good. This will be a place to return to on future visits.

Back to the park gates where I met up with John, a lovely retired man who is passionate about York, literature, history and coins (I'm sure he had many other hobbies too but we didn't have time to get onto those!!).  John charged the man standing next to me for my ticket as well before I explained that we were not together - the man looked very relieved! I love these sorts of tours because you find out so many fun facts that you would never know about just walking around with a guide book.  And so we set off on the Snickets, Ginnels and Walls tour with John who had an old leather satchel out of which he pulled coins found in actual sites around York, old books, photos and maps. He had stories of famous people from York, including Judi Dench (one of my favourite actresses) whose career started in York. Having worked at the library and then as a tour guide in the Minster, John had a wealth of information about the place. We visited the Kings Manor (below) where Henry VIII stayed when in York. We even got to see York's tiniest window which is said to be where the king's bathroom was. One of the fun things was that he pointed out many places where the city has been altered to meet tourists expectations. Tourism is York's major industry and the town was full of thousands of them yesterday.  But John  had photographic evidence of streets that were asphalted in the 50's and now are cobble stoned, once derelict buildings now prettied up to look like marvelous old shops and even one of the town entrance arches bearing arrow slits facing into the town (really, they were going to shoot their own?), where previously there had been arched windows - again verified by old artwork. It was a fun 2 and a bit hours and John was a great guide.
The rest of my afternoon I wandered the streets, checked out a few lovely stores and walked a part of the city wall. The walkway around the city wall did not exist when the wall was first built (thank you John for the info).  Apparently, wooden scaffold would be used on the inside of the city wall so that if the wall was breached the scaffold could be pulled away so that the enemy faced a large drop. It wasn't until ladies in crinolines started visiting York that the walkway was built for them to take in the views of the city and its surrounds.
It was back to the train station and the 16.02 to Peterborough. David jumped aboard at the last minute so we got to enjoy the ride home together, mostly through fields, some still being harvested, nice views, sunshine, sleepiness. We are loving the train travel, so comfortable, easy and FAST.
And my favourite sign of the day.......

Burghley Horse Trials

Waking up it was wet, wet, wet outside so we weren't sure what the day would hold when we were going to an outdoor event.  However hard it had rained overnight though, it managed to rain itself out and we ended up with a dry day that got warmer and warmer as it progressed.  We set off to Burghley around 9am and took the back roads in and across the fields of the estate. We are still amazed by the numbers of people that are at events. Apparently 160,000 people go to the horse trials over a 4 day period so its pretty busy.  We went on Saturday which is the cross country event day so there would have been around 40,000 people there.  It is quite spectacular. 
The event itself doesn't start till 11am but prior to that everyone heads to the shops and the score boards. Serious money is spent there!! It was fabulous to look at and very tempting.... you could buy anything related to horses  from clothing, boots, hats, to horse equipment and feed, horse trailers, and then there was everything unrelated but that would make you look fabulous anyway, Rolex watches, Aga ovens (go figure - "I brought my Aga at Burghley"), designer jewellery, cashmere clothing, leather everything and the list went on. I think my favourite thing was the alpaca scarves in the most beautiful colours and the finest weave.  I should have taken a few more shots of the fashion for the day, often involving tweed, hunter boots and sleeveless quilted vests.  There were some fabulous suits, but we couldn't choose which one suited His lordship the best.
Next to the shopping were the food outlets and oh my, there was some amazing goodies there. Massive wheels of cheese, amazing pies filled with wonderful concoctions, juices, cakes, fudges, the biggest meringues you have EVER seen (yes we did share one and it was delicious but oh so sweet). I settled on paella and David had a wonderful pie with mash to warm us up for the start of the event.
 Basically we walked the course and it took us the rest of the day. The course is about 6.5km long, up and down hills, with a couple of areas with big screen TV's to watch the action. I am so glad I have watched this all on TV before coming because when you are on the course you only see one rider for no more than about 20 seconds as they appear down the track, leap what jump or jumps are there and then thunder past you. It is all thrilling, but you then have to wait another 5 minutes for the next horse and rider.  We sat down by one of the big screens and it was great to see the rider coming through the preceding jumps and then heading onto the next ones.

 The things that struck me most was that these were some seriously courageous people riding these horses, the horses are all big but some of them are MASSIVE.  A couple fell off and one rode past with a bloody nose and then another one nearly lost it right in front of us and managed to hang onto the horse's neck and drag himself back on. Real adrenaline pumping action.
We walked along an avenue with the plaques of past winners.  It was very cool to see the Kiwi riders in there and particularly Mark Todd who is around 60 and was still competing that day - we gave him a good old Kiwi cheer as he went past. He is an amazing athlete to have competed at the top level of his sport for 25 years or more. There are not many sports that you can do that.
 
We had a great day, we were thoroughly exhausted at the end but we had a Pimms to sustain us half way round so it was all very manageable.

Edinburgh Fringe Festival

We had booked this weekend a while ago. That doesn't mean that too much was planned other than time off and tickets to shows. However, we like the mix of random and organised. Last Friday we left Peterborough around 9am and on the way decided we should stop somewhere about half way for a good break, food and a walk, it's about a 5.5 hour journey to Glasgow.  The first stop was for food at Cross Lanes Organic Farm.  We had spied this place from the road last time we travelled home from Scotland.  It might be the location or it could have been the grass roof with the sheep grazing on it that caught our eye.  It's a great building; positioned for the sun, grass roof one side, glass roof the other, hay bale building with reed water filtering system and best of all great food and coffee. Not to be forgotten is the organic meats, food and cheeses - some of which we had to take to Scotland with us.

After replenishing we crossed the road and drove into Barnard Castle, yes, that's the name of the town but there is a castle, or was, there.  We love walking around castle ruins, getting an impression of the size and how people used to live. This one would have been cold to live in but with stunning views up and over the river (great for spotting the enemy I guess). The town itself was gorgeous, this is definitely a good stopping point for us on our journeys north and next time we will head to the Bowes Museum for a visit.

As soon as we hit the border we headed into the worst rain we've been in since a tropical downpour in Queensland but it cleared quickly and the drive through to Glasgow and our very welcoming family was easy from there.
The next day we were up early and off to Edinburgh with the family. We took the park and ride option as there is such limited parking in Edinburgh.  We drove to Edinburgh airport and caught the tram into the centre of town for £3 return. The full tram was a good indicator of the volume of people in the city. They were everywhere! We had booked 5 events for the day. 

The first would have to be the standout for it's passion and intensity. I, Elizabeth is a 90 minute monologue of the actual words of Elizabeth 1. Rebecca Vaughan was a totally convincing queen and so passionate that she even had tears and snot (not nice but appropriate to the performance). A totally WOW show and had the 4 of us captivated from start to finish. This was followed by a photographic exhibition then kiwi, Jane Ashton's musical Promise and Promiscuity - a totally captivating energetic one woman show for anyone who enjoys Jane Austen.

We needed sustenance after the show and found ourselves at a fabulous place for lunch,  56 North.  It just so happens that this place has the largest selection of gins in Scotland, over a hundred from all over the world. Three of us selected our gins, then our mixer (yes there was a range of tonics) and then our garnish. It was a delightful lunchtime sip and was accompanied by a beautiful Ploughams Platter, yum indeed!


Late afternoon we went to the Assembly Hall at Mound Place which is in itself a fascinating building, and there we watched 5 guys and 1 girl throw themselves all round the stage and up in the air in Traces.  Their strength and agility was amazing. great show for David who happened to pick the seat which was at the end of their mats and where he was sometimes accompanied by a catcher in case they misjudged their tumbles. We tried to find somewhere for dinner but everything was booked out, we hadn't thought that one through, so we had to make do with fish and chips in a tiny chippie. That meal lead up to our final show which was a Nina Simone tribute, Soul Sessions. I really enjoyed it because I loved the story interwoven with the songs but it wasn't everyone's cup of tea.  At the end of all that we took ourselves back to Glasgow the way we had come and got in around 11.30pm. All exhausted.

Day Two dawned sunny yet again, the predicted rain disappeared and we enjoyed another superb day wandering Edinburgh.  This time we had nothing booked but we had the gorgeous Annie (another intrepid Kiwi) instead of the Scottish cousins, to accompany us for the day.  We wanted to just see the sights and we did; a book festival, numerous street performers (my pick would be Simeon Baker, a young Aussie percussion guitarist), people people and more people, the smallest pub, the groovy 70's caravan, a pub with our name - too full to go in, a castle (actually THE castle), beautiful houses, tweed shops, gardens and balconies, fabulous spaces to sit, and great food.                                            

   We finished the day satisfied that we had seen enough to fill us up for a while to come.  We are in love with Edinburgh and will go back to continue the journey......