River cottaging

Once again, life other than the reality that is the internet has forced me to neglect The Gravel Farm, but I do have reasons.

I have been doing stuff. Mainly stuff involving work and nappies, but stuff nevertheless.

I've also been away!

Last week, as a sort of well done for not eschewing my responsibilities by being there for some children I allegedly fathered, I got to escape for a couple of nights down to East Devon to spend some time with the denizens of River Cottage.

For those of you not familiar with River Cottage, it is essentially a telly programme where a tousle-haired single-minded chap called Hugh guilts people into killing animals and eating every last part of them, only nicely and in such a way that the animals die with smiles on their faces, happily whispering "This is how I dreamed of going" as they expire.

Not only is it a form of entertainment, but it is also a working concern, a smallholding that developed into a business which concentrates on farming and cooking, with particular emphasis on growing their own ingredients and local sourcing of sustainable foodstuffs. And it's set in a pretty corner of Devon:



As a christmas present, I had been given a day out with John Wright, who is the River Cottage seashore and mushroom foraging expert. He has a blog.

I've been a fan of Mr Wright's since having been given a copy of his superbly written book Edible Seashore, which is both entertaining and informative, tricking you into learning things by being fun to read. Sneaky really.

I was quite excited at the prospect of seeing which natural habitat we would be taken to, which remote corner of the wild we would visit to glean the secrets of potentially edible vegetable species.

Straight away, we had a look round a car park.

Er . . .

John explained that car parks were often full of interesting plants, possibly due to the "edge effect" of management, where spaces are created (presumably for cars) which allow varieties of vegetation to grow that might otherwise be shaded out by other, more dominant species.

For a moment, I became concerned that the day out was to be one of convenience for the coach driver, and we would spend the entire time scouting the car park like vegetarian doggers, but John explained this was just the start and, from then on, the shore line beckoned!

We listened eagerly for advice on what we could safely snaffle.

The first plant he took great delight in describing to us was Water Hemlock:

Now, forget your deadly mushrooms with suitably terrifying names like Destroying Angel, Death Cap, Fly Agaric and Nasty Colin (possibly). Although they can turn your liver and kidneys into little more than interesting purple lumps for the coroner to identify after 3 days, water hemlock makes the toxins in these fungi look like Maltesers by comparison.

Even if eaten in relatively small amounts (e.g. a bite) it can cause a bit of a tremor, a bit of a seizure, and then a substantial amount of death in just a couple of hours.

A. Couple. Of. Hours.

And this stuff grows all over the place.

That's okay, I thought. Nature provides. It will no doubt be brightly coloured and vivid, like poison arrow frogs and various species of snake that let you know eating them is likely to be both bad for you and them, so why not come to a mutually beneficial arrangement and steer clear of each other, thank you very much.

Yep, show us this strange deadly plant, I thought, and I will commit it's dazzling foliage and obvious warning signs to memory.

So John showed us some:

And it looks like parsley.

Death Parsley.

Water Hemlock is obviously more of the "eat me and I'll teach you a lesson that neither of us will be around to learn from" school of natural wonders. It might not survive an attack by the committed or suicidal vegetarian, but this egregious salad ingredient will damn well take you with it.

After showing us what not to eat, John then moved on to more comestible sorts of plant life, including one of which no bad can ever be said of it; wild hops:

We momentarily bowed our heads in respect to this awesome plant, giving silent thanks to the glorious gift bestowed on us by its more domesticated descendants; beer.

As promised, we then made our way to the beach so John could tell us what things were good to eat and what weren't.

To tell the truth, there's not much in the way of poisonous seaweeds, and most things are probably edible on the seashore if you're adventurous enough and haven't got a sense of smell. Or taste. Or touch. John was there to show us the more appetising things we could get our teeth into however.

Like gutweed:

That's right, gutweed.

It's the green stuff on the rock that looks like Shrek sneezed on it.

Apparently, that is the source of genuine crispy seaweed, not the shaved cabbage or spinach usually offered by chinese restaurants. We collected some and had it prepared for us later that day, and it really was very good.

Seaweed is marvellous stuff, and there are lots of edible types other than just lava bread. One type we tried straight from the rock was called pepper dulse, and it really tasted like peppery mustard, or mustardy pepper maybe. Whatever, this unassuming little plant paid for its tastiness as we kept nibbling at it for the rest of the day.

Another useful seaweed is carrageen, valued for it's use as a setting agent in puddings, like a sort of vegetarian gelatin. I was given the post of Officer In Charge Of Carrageen Acquisition and the appropriate accoutrement (a big white bucket). An hour or so later and I examined our haul:

Mmmm . . . tasty.

Okay, so it looked more like Tina Turner's wig than a viable foodstuff, but when it had been boiled up (or down, or out, or something) and used to make our pudding later that day, none could complain when it appeared in a delicious panna cotta:

The day was not all about plants, for they are restricted in their ambulatory ability and therefore of limited challenge to the skilled huntsmen and dedicated forager.

For this reason we moved on to the big game, and went hunting animals:

The bucket on the left contains numerous brown shrimp we caught by swishing a shrimp net through the sands in thigh deep water, and the bucket on the other left (your right, as the crow flies) contains a couple of shore crabs and a velvet swimming crab.

Now, I've been fishing for these critters since I was a child, and became adept at using a crab line loaded with bacon rind, hauling them up and comparing size and numbers with other like minded children before declaring myself the winner (invariably) and releasing them back into the sea, happily full of pig fat and half trained to get caught again the following day.

It's a good job I didn't realise just how palatable these poor buggers were, because if I had I wouldn't have let many of them go, I can tell you. They would've all ended up the way these ones did:

The crabs have a decent amount of meat on them, considering their size, and the shrimps, although tiny, are extremely tasty. Because they're small, you can forego the peeling and just eat them whole, but I felt it better to peel their faces off in order to remove that accusing look common to most crustaceans after they've been boiled.

You know the look.

We retired back to River Cottage HQ for a cookery demonstration (which I didn't need because I live near a supermarket and have a microwave), a superb dinner, punctuated by samples of our own collected ingredients only cooked by proper chefs who really knew their way around the Very Hot Cupboards that all kitchens seem to have.

Apparently I've even got one in mine.

The day was hugely enjoyable, and shared with lots of people genuinely interested in flora and fauna of the seaside, as well as how to eat it for free. The staff were knowledgeable and attentive, and seemed to genuinely enjoy having us around, which might just demonstrate an astute grasp of customer service but was appreciated nonetheless.

An agreeable conclusion was finishing the day off with a beer made specifically for River Cottage by one of my favourite breweries. Stinger is crafted from nettles and leaves a slightly disconcerting but nevertheless pleasing tingling sensation on the tongue:


More importantly than that though, is the fact that it's beer.

That evening, I did a spot of fossil hunting in Charmouth, had a bath at my B&B, took my book and walked into Lyme Regis, found a small quiet pub and wallowed in what can only be described as the splendour of solitude.

These sorts of days don't come along very often, so it pays to make the most of them.

Roast host posts ghost post

I am extraordinarily honoured to be the subject of Eddie Bluelights interview over at Clouds and Silvery Linings.

Eddie has taken on the mantle of interviewing bloggers about why they do that thing that they do, and future interviewees are chosen at the condemnation commendation of previous victims honoured guests.

For this reason, the subjects tend to be of stratospheric ability, and so it seems apt that levels should be taken down a peg or two.

Hence my effort.

Due to extra-blogospheric commitments, my current posting rate is lower than a moles bumhole, which I'm hoping to rectify when social services step in to help me look after my kids. Should be any day now.

Despite this weeks dubious choice, I urge you to visit Eddie's blog because of its charm and quality.

I recommended queen of post titles Madame DeFarge and king of a sizeable percentage of Glesga Jimmy Questionable Parentage as my two choices for future interviews, but the marvellous Madame was interviewed just last week, and one of her recommendations was said Jimmy. This demonstrates my ability to be behind the times in every media, not just fashion and cuisine.

Many thanks to Mr London Street for his kind words during his interview.

Right, I've got to go. I've just spilled some prawn cocktail on my kipper tie.

Early Selling Centre

Having small children, we made what seems to be a compulsory visit to Early Learning Centre.

Actually, the name is quite clever, because I almost typed "THE Early Learning Centre" which makes it sound like an officially sanctioned educational establishment, rather than a shop.

So there we were, looking to get educated with plastic ovens, plastic lawnmowers, plastic animals, plastic cars, plastic computers and plastic synchotrons, all of which, almost without exception, went beep.

Oh man, the beeping.

So many toys in Early Learning Centre beep like a censored Chubby Brown clip. I think it's supposed to be "stimulating" for a child's brain. That's the buzzword for toys, used when something can't really be described as educational but the manufacturers want to express the dubious benefits of their device.

A seizure inducing salve to the hyperactive child is just stimulating.

Also, the words "encourages hand-eye coordination" were prevalent on many boxes, which seems to be the ultimate catchphrase for making parents think a bright orange toy with pictures of animals that go "SQUEEEEEEE AK AK AK!" is in fact improving their child's motor control.

Well, so does picking your nose, if you're a kid, and nasal excavation has the added incentive that ham-fistedness often results in exciting haemorrhage.

Blood almost always results in a lesson learned somewhere along the line.

Before beeps led to madness and madness led to rage which would inevitably drive me to do something unspeakable in a toy shop, I dragged my boy over to a quieter aisle, where tableau's of frozen figures looked down on us and demanded a child use their imagination to bring them to life, rather than a supply of electrons.

Mind you, for a shop that pertains to supply to the younger version of human, there were some surprisingly odd thematic choices:



You're never too young to learn about a screaming witch holding a tormented human skull whilst a snarling wraith curls around bones behind her. Age 3-8.

Dubious, I looked for something more . . . realistic.

Dinosaurs!

Kids love dinosaurs, and they are approaching educational, although we all know that, when they are played with, they will almost certainly be hunting baddies by shooting lasers out of their eyes.

*nods in appreciative reverie*

I picked up a stegosaurus, which seemed anatomically accurate and was a simple, nicely coloured slab of resin with no batteries, no flashing lights and a distinct lack of screaming beeps:



Just as I was about to hand it to my son in order to gauge his reaction, a warning label caught my eye:



A choking hazard?

I'm not sure what sort of child could choke down a stegosaurus the size of fist, but I am sure I never want to meet such a child. I deferred to caution and put it back next to an 18 inch high pachycephalosaurus with a sign warning you it might get stuck under your contact lens.

My son pointed excitedly at a Makka Pakka.

You know. A Makka Pakka.

For those ignorant in the Tolkien-esque pseudo-legends of In The Night Garden, Makka Pakka is a . . .

Actually, I haven't got a fucking clue.

It's some sort of fat, stone collecting monkey:



Obviously, one must turn the head so it's pointing backwards for maximum hilarity.

We left The Academy Of Early Learning without buying anything, although I must say I did learn a few things.

On our way home, we went to our local supermarket where I noted that they are still selling terrifying man-hunting equipment only marketing it using even scarier kids, if anything:



Of course, I'm not going to buy anything that gives my offspring a tactical advantage, particularly at night.

Postal vote

Well, we've had an election.

Choices for us in England:

Labour Party: Currently running the country, and have been doing for 13 years so should have acheived some sort of Utopia by now, with an unelected leader who is serious, fairly unpopular for ambiguous reasons based on stuff all politicians do, and according to my Mum looks like the Gruffalo. Used to represent the "working classes" but now somewhere slightly left of right.

Conservatives: Smarmy, rich-representing group who believe they have the natural in-bred (often literally) right to rule, but led by a charismatic geezer called Dave who my Mum says looks like Data off of Star Trek only made all out of Silly Putty. Trying to appear somewhere in the political middle ground in order to get the serfs to vote for them, they are in reality just waiting for an opportunity to make the rich richer and to suck the very life-juices from the still warm corpses of the majority of the populace. And that's not opinion, that's scientific fact that is.

Liberal Democrats: Not likely to win as they said they would have to raise taxes slightly to improve the country's plight, and there's no room for truth in politics so, despite a recent surge in popularity on telly, they're as likely to get in as a clone of Chairman Mao dressed up as Hitler and singing "La Marseillaise".

Others: Mad, bad, deluded, optimistic, pessimistic, fascist, socialist, religious, single-issue, and unlikely to get a seat anywhere except in the viewing gallery at the House of Commons. Shame really.

As I've yet to set up my Anarchist Hedonism Party due to red tape and my own inflexibly comprehensive set of rules, I did my dutiful thing and went to the polling station to put my X in the box.

With a pencil.

Now, I'm no expert in vote fraud, but I've heard that it is in fact now possible to REMOVE pencil marks and replace them with a facsimile that is almost indistinguishable from the original. Terrifying thought.

Happily, concerns about possible vote-fixing will be mollified because there is an observer in force at the village hall, in the form of a chap called Martin. He is supremely qualified for the position of election security enforcement because he has a beard and once worked at the local dairy, so has experience of herding.

Anyway, I made my way to the voting booth, which was a shallow wooden box not unlike an upright coffin, told a confused elderly chap next to me who to vote for (he was very grateful) and then put my ballot paper in the high-tech storage device (a wooden box with a slot in the top sitting on a paste table).

Then, in a weak moment of post-voting indecision, I suffered a bout of political angst and tried to get my ballot paper out of the box to change it, before being thrown out by Martin and threatened with a damn good milking if I ever tried that sort of thing again.

I tend to have a policy of voting for the least likely party to get in.

This means that, this time next year when whoever is attempting to lead the country suddenly finds that they can't actually keep the absurd promises they made to get our vote find that, actually, in the harsh light of day and COMPLETELY due to the mismanagement of the previous incumbents, they're either going to continue along exactly as their predecessors did or actually make things a bit worse, I can say "Well, I didn't vote for them" and smile smugly as I queue in line for free soup.

----------------

P.s. Looks like the conservatives have got in, so we're a classless society again apparently. Not enough of a majority to win outright so, for the first time since 1974 it's going to be a hung parliament.

Four years of being run by a huge committee.

Ooh dear . . .

Inflated ego

I'm basically a genius at entertaining children me. I've got no evidence to support this, but I've got no evidence to support the fact that I'm good at Mongolian throat singing either, but I presume I am.

I've never actually, specifically tried Mongolian throat singing, but for some things you just know you'll be extra good at should you ever attempt them, and that's one of them.

Also bricklaying, fencing and beastiality.

And hunting monkeys with blow darts.

So you can imagine my consternation when, after glancing at the instructions for well over a second, I attempted to create a balloon flower for my offspring and the result wasn't quite the epitome of floral perfection that I'd intended.

Must've been a dodgy balloon. Or too much argon in the air.

Yeah. I'm going with that:

Crime and Fun-ishment

A couple of days ago I was enjoying the blue skies with, for the first time that I can remember, not a single vapour trail from high-flying jets thanks to the Icelandic volcano Eksvskdfmkjhsdfkj erupting and turning Europe into a no-fly zone.

It was quite peaceful.

Of course, there was an underlying current of worry for the UK, because it would've been a perfect time for an enemy invasion, what with our planes grounded and both our naval ships detailed to picking up stranded tourists from Spain. We would have been defenceless, allowing the intruding forces to fly unhindered over our land, to sail into our ports, and to launch their offensive.

And there are plenty of nations out there who covet our . . . er . . .

Actually, I can't think of anyone who would want to invade the UK anymore.

Why would they?

It'd cost them a fortune, they'd have to take on all the responsibilities of our declining industry, our debts, our crappy roads, our obsession with half-building housing estates, our empty factories and abandoned shop units, GMTV and, not least, our moaning.

We moan a lot.

The only country that might consider invading would be the French, and they'd only do it because it's been a while and they're probably due one now anyway, but they've got volcano-induced problems of their own.

I put those fears to the back of my mind, yet retained a psychological and very British DEFCON 2 status, willing to take on any invading army with a series of loud tuts and an occasional disapproving shake of my head. I then proceeded to enjoy the day.

To the park!

Giving the missus a spot of peace and quiet so she can feed our new baby without interruption from our son is a daily mission at the moment. So, thank goodness the local council provides playgrounds, which are not just hunting grounds for catholic priests, but also provide much needed distraction for a high-need child with more energy than the Large Hadron Collider.

A couple of minutes of the swings, then on the slide, followed by the see-saw and the climbing frame, concluding with some mad Brownian-motion-like running around, screaming as loudly and as squeakily as is humanly possible, then repeating all of the above until tired, hungry and/or very, very grumpy.

My son is even worse.

I think play parks are pretty standard the world over. Somewhere for the little primates to get in touch with their inner monkey.

Climbing frames are particularly popular, and we've got this battered old wooden one which appears to have slipped the usually all-encompassing net of health and safety compromise:




Hang on, what's that . . ?

Down in the corner of the neck-wrenching lattice.



Is that . . . a handcuff?



A rusty handcuff?

Yep. Definitely a rusty handcuff, which sounds like a euphemism for something I wouldn't want to do.

Or would I?

Anyway, I'm no council planner, but I don't think handcuffs are standard playground accoutrement.

Maybe in Brazil, but not in South West England.

This seemed a little disconcerting. I'm presuming there is a simple, innocent explanation for the presence of the rusty cuff, such as a naked man the night before his wedding experiencing a spot of affectionate humiliation at the hands of drunks whom, just hours before, he had thought of as his friends.

But it could have been something more . . . blogworthy.

And, with the magical application of imagination, it will be!

I reckon there was an insanely exciting police chase, culminating in one stalwart Peeler nabbing a rum sort, but having no time to take him down to the nick and process him with due diligence and attention to appropriate form filling, what with another shout occurring on his manor, and so 'cuffed him to the nearest convenient metal appliance ready to be dealt with at leisure.

Unfortunately, the resourceful blaggard chewed his own hand off to facilitate his escape. Now, he haunts the swings, scaring children by showing them his bloody, tooth-marked stump, gently swaying to and fro and wailing because he can't hold on very well these days.

Now that's what I'm talking about.

Realistically speaking, policing round here is generally undertaken by people called Police Community Support Officers, who fight crime by being paid half as much as coppers and not having powers of arrest.

I'm also not sure they're actually authorised to do any running.

So, maybe it wasn't that.

Maybe it was a new community-based punishment initiative, designed to alleviate crowding in jail. A bit like community service, where instead of locking them up, you get criminals to undertake a relevant punishment as part of paying their debt to society and rehabilitating them at the same time.

Graffiti artists clean local walls, shoplifters scour supermarket car parks and give any dropped items back to their owners, and murderers reanimate corpses in council-funded eerie castles on craggy peaks.

I suppose you could handcuff a paedophile to a climbing frame, because that would be like sewing up a fat person's gob and then locking them in a bakery.

Punishment indeed.

Spawning a moo moo bench

You know when you're on the look out for photo opportunities, perhaps to test out a new camera, or maybe the one on your phone, or just because you're in a snap happy mood, or possibly because you haven't done a blog entry for a while and need to post something, anything, before it seizes up with internet rust and has to be waggled back and forth in a bath of WD40 whilst you try and remember what your old Dad told you about loosening up stiff old blogs, probably?

Yeah, you do.

Well, it can go two ways really, the picture hunt.

First, and this is the dread, nothing at all occurs.

And keeps on occurring.

It's as if the world, in a sudden bout of anthropocentric concern, has decided that, with all the wars, disasters, diseases, accidents and what-not, there really should be a few minutes of inactivity as a sort of time-out so reality can catch its metaphorical breath.

So, for just a few moments, nothing interesting happens at all.

This can be a good thing, because maintaining the status quo is the secret of eternal happiness. Or at least it would be if things didn't change all the time.

So, a static universe can be viewed positively, unless you had your camera at the ready and were just waiting for something out of the ordinary to come along. Instead, you're left with an optical desert without so much as a prairie dog turd to catch your interest.

When this happens, one must take a photo of something anyway:



Ooh, frogspawn!

I like frogspawn, because it heralds the continuation of life, the warming of the year, the beauty of the cyclical nature of the biosphere, a small, encapsulated metaphor for the whole living world. It made my heart swell, the sap rise in my humors, and momentarily I felt at one with my animal brethren.

Then I thought realistically about just how many of those eggs will make it to adulthood and I got all depressed, so went off looking for something else to photograph with the pitiful effort that my Blackberry calls a camera.

There must be something, I thought as I walked through my local park, looking hither, yon, and then hither again for a picture.

And Cthulu bless those rambunctious teens who like nothing more than to torment a disabled elderly man by moving his garden furniture:



It's not right, but it does make for a good pic.

I took that picture yesterday, and went back today to see the elderly owner has taken to keeping the bench in his living room. It looked like quite a struggle getting it out so he could enjoy the April sunshine and I nearly took another photo for your enjoyment.

However, sense prevailed and I realised that, should I do that, it might not only mark me in an unfavourable light, but it would also mean standing up from behind the parked car I was crouching behind, and he might then ask for my help.

So, frogspawn and a roofiated seat. That's blogworthy I thought, and made my way home, a little sated.

Photographically speaking.

Later, it was time to drive a couple of hours up the motorway to see if the in laws would agree to let the children live with them so I could pursue a life of leisure. I hitched up the child wagon, put in some fresh straw and chew toys, locked them safely in and off we went.

Driving along. I used my phone.

Not for texting or making a phone call, because that is illegal and irresponsible and I cannot countenance anything other than obeying every law and statute passed by our superiors in authority. I even ensure I give the tail of any washed up dead whale I find to the queen, help pregnant ladies relieve themselves into policemens helmets whether they want to or not and, when in the city of York, keep a suspicious watchful eye out for medievally armed Scotsmen.

I was taking a photo, which is far safer, obviously.

This photo is unusual because, firstly, you can actually see some of the tarmac of the M6. Usually, the road surface is completely invisible 'neath a sea of immobile vehicles, noses pressed up to rears like the worlds biggest sycophant gathering.

For any foreign types unfamiliar with the nomenclature of British roads, a motorway is a large three or four lane road originally designed to allow vehicles to travel freely from place to place at 70 mph, but more recently a handy place to keep cars for extended periods whilst their occupants can enjoy entertainment in the form of roadworks.

The other (and main) reason the photo stands out is the cattle truck on the left, which had a song title relating to it's function as a cow transporter:



For those of you who can't read it, it says "We're all bound for moo moo land" which is a KLF lyric. Sort of.

Now, I think this is a good idea and vehicles having song titles on their paintwork which accurately reflect their cargo or function should become a modern tradition.

Fire Engines could have Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start The Fire" emblazoned on the side.

Yeah, that's right. Emblazoned.

RSPCA vans could have "Number of the Beast" by Iron Maiden; Ambulances might sport "Fix you" by Cold Play or perhaps "The Drugs Don't Work" by The Verve.

"Good Riddance" by Green Day could go on the back of bin lorries.

Or hearses.

Anyway, you get the idea. I quite obviously haven't given this much in the way of thought, but that's rarely stopped me pursuing daft ideas before so why should I give in now.

Motorway Maintenance Vehicles should be required to have "Highway To Hell" printed on them.

Suggestions anyone?