Week 33 - Draw A Picture

Here ya go...

So that's my week 33 Challen.... no? Just kidding you!

Now this week's Challenge is a bit of an odd one - given that we spent about 3 years of our first 6 doing nothing other than drawing pictures, I bet, like me, the last time you drew anything was - er - when you were six.

Except if you are my big sister Helen, of course, who not only has drawn pictures since that age, but also charges good money for doing so.

We did so many drawings at that age not just to do all that tedious learning about coordination and as a precursor to writing, but also because we enjoyed it - drawing was fun!

So why do so few of us do it now? Because we think we are no good at it? Is it talent, or is it practice? Talent, undoubtedly plays a large part in producing a pleasing pic, but lets see what a little bit of practise can do - and lets see if it's as much fun now as when I was at primary school.

My first efforts did not bode well - although partly this was my choice of subject. Domino cat was rubbish as a life model - staying sphinx-like for about 2 minutes before wandering off.

Oliver cat less of a fidget, but black cats are like black blobs to my untrained eye. 

I went for some still life instead, and think I have a fairly recognisable trug, and passable beetroot and garlic, even if the courgettes on the left look like sausages. 

Then headed into the garden to have a go at the tomato plants, but got bored of all that wibbly wobbly green foliage.

So this evening I had a crack at emulating a print of Louis Degas 'Bird with a Bare Bum' which I have hanging in the bedroom. Actually, I'm not altogether sure that's what the original is called, but it's my house - my name.

And here's my go.

What have we learned? That drawing takes concentration - you have to immerse yourself in it. This makes it very therapeutic - mindless hobbies where you can daydream (e.g. winter digging on the plot) are restful in their own way, but hobbies that you have to give your full attention to (e.g. riding) mean that for that time, you can't worry about any cares or the stresses of life.

Oh - and that Helen's pretty safe from competition...

So that's my week 33 Challenge - done!

Week 32 - Enter an Allotment Show

You might think that this Challenge is not too tough as I already have the allotment bit, and we do, indeed, have an annual show; however, it does take a considerable amount of planning and forethought in order to participate properly!

I'm happy to enter any and all classes where I have something to enter, pretty much regardless of quality - don't get me wrong, I'm as competitive as the next one in the queue, but I also know that I want to encourage people who may be reluctant to 'join in' something like this, thinking there is some sort of mystique to showing veg.

No, there isn't - you just take the best you have, present it properly, and pay your 25p entry. Job done. Classes with stiff competition might make your - say - runner beans look a bit rubbish, but there will be some classes that - actually - you've got some good stuff in there! Not to mention that some classes will be less popular, so even if your spring onions are so-so - if there are only two or three entries, you are going to get a second or third, regardless. 

It's not just the veg classes - domestic classes are fun too. I bake a bit anyway, so it's not a hardship to make a nice fruit cake a couple of weeks in advance and take that down; and the show schedule always includes a 'cake from supplied recipe' so everyone is doing the same thing there.

The only thing that I find can cause a bit of a panic is the timing - before now, I've been down to pick things on the Show morning so it's as fresh as possible, then find myself in the kitchen with an hour to go surrounded by 5lb of runner beans feverishly sorting through to find the 7 best matching ones.

No - that does not make for a fun day.  So now, I leave everything alone for a week before hand then go down on the Saturday for a grand picking session. Saturday evening sees me sorting through beans, potatoes, beetroot, courgettes, rhubarb and anything else I have ready to enter, and chose the best. Over a glass of wine - hurrah!

Sunday morning, I pack everything into the car and off we go to stage the entries. Big sister Helen visits for the weekend, and her and mum come along with their entries too.

Everything is staged by 2pm, then the judges do their stuff for a couple of hours whilst we have a mooch round the site, listen to the band and enjoy the barbecue and a couple of drinks at the bar.

Then the moment of truth - not so hot for me in the domestic classes this year - in fact big sister Helen's fruit cake beat mine , but I had some good results in the veg classes, so I'm very pleased about that.

I've sent Helen back to the south coast home with courgettes, beans, cake, garlic and wine, mum and my neighbours have been offloaded with rhubarb, beans and spare cake; and all I need to do now is work out how to get another few pounds of beans in the freezer and how to deal with the courgette mountain...

But my week 32 Challenge - is done!

Week 31 - Clean out the Fridge

I used to have a fridge/freezer, which had the fridge bit at the top, so seeing exactly what was in there was a doddle. Now I have an undercounter fridge which seems to have more hidden corners in it - although Domino cat does find it more convenient for browsing should the door be open for more than a second or two.

I suspect that the collection of half used jars that lurk in the back might need some scrutiny, and I noticed a couple of ring marks on the shelves the other day. That coupled with the top door shelf containing a piece of ginger which shrinks and dries a little more each day of the several months that it has been there, along with a wizened half a lemon means that the fridge could do with a clear out and a good clean.

A half remembered piece of information about bicarbonate of soda made me go and have a look online about fridge cleaning, and sure enough Ch4 'DIY - Cleaning Tips - How to Clean a Fridge' stared off by detailing the every week task of 'removing fridge shelves and compartments and wash them in warm soapy water, then rinse & dry...'

Every week. Blimey! Best get the marigolds on and look sharp!

My stocktake revealed a jar of elderly pickle, which went in the batch of ratatouille I was making; a lock'n'lock of homemade tomato/pepper sauce, also elderly. That went in the ratatouille too. A few capers were left in the jar, which I chucked in the salad I had for tea; but the tomato puree kept - no one takes any notice of the 'once opened eat within 5 days' on tomato puree tubes, do they?

I put the two unopened jars of redcurrant jelly in the cupboard & kept out the open one; and I chucked away the ginger & half lemon.

All shelves duly washed with warm soapy water; the body of the fridge wiped down with bicarb of soda (2tsp to a litre, if you were wondering). I pulled the fridge out, cleaning the outer surfaces, and the (rather revolting) floor underneath. I even dusted the grill thing at the back.

Then put it all back together again - and I have a shiny tidy fridge - so that's my week 31 Challenge - done!

Week 30 - Re-arrange the Wine Rack

When I started making wine, I used to put the bottles in any old spare corner in the garage. In hindsight, that wasn't that sensible - with the car taking up most of the room, the floor space for wine bottles is limited; and I think we can all see the dangers of me bumbling around in the dark recesses of a garage strewn with bottles.

So I put up a shelf and a wine rack and devised a simple system of putting the bottles which had been made longest at the bottom, the newer bottles added at the top.

When I'd drunk the entire bottom row, I moved everything down one, like a giant game of Tetris. The system meant that I could just grab the bottle lowest on the rack and not have to fiddle around pulling bottles out to find the next in line to be drunk.

This worked really well as long as I keep all my wines for the same amount of time (a year) before drinking. A problem arises, though, when some wines can be drunk before 12 months (tea bag wines in - say - three months) and some need longer (parsnip wine benefits from 2 years in the bottle) - so the little sticky dot I put on the top of each cork so I can see at a glance what it is, and the 'month made' don't actually reflect when I can drink the stuff.

So this week's Challenge has been to get all the bottles out of the rack, replace the sticky dot with one that gives the month to be drunk not the month made, then put them all back in the rack in order of drinking date.

It's a little thing, but it's so much easier to just be able to grab the lowest bottle on the rack and know it's ready to go, rather than squeezing past the car and having to take the torch out to read the labels until I find one that's had it's 'maturing' time.

So that's my week 30 Challenge done - cheers!

Week 29 - Make a Batch of Jam or Jelly

I'm not very good at making jams and jellies - it's the setting point bit. I guess that it's one of those 'practice makes perfect' things, but I don't practice very much as I'm not very good at it - a catch 22 situation. 

Instead, if I have lots of fruit that needs making into something, it generally gets turned into wine. I'm quite good at that.

But as a consequence of spending all day yesterday fighting the bed containing a 6' high currant hedge with a pair of loppers in order to turn it back into a bed containing four bushes, I ended up with an awful lot of redcurrants and blackcurrants. There's certainly enough for wine and redcurrant jelly.

The recipe I have is rather vague (it's one of those that says 'simmer until cooked', and 'until you reach the setting point' as opposed to proper times. I mean, am I looking for the setting point after 3 minutes or 2 hours??) so I looked online and found that the sainted Delia has a super simple recipe.

You cook the currants for about 10 minutes, squashing them with the potato masher to get the juice out; add the same weight in warmed sugar, stirring till dissolved; then a rolling boil for 8 minutes; strain the lot through a muslin square and put into sterlised jam jars.

Marvelous!

A slight downside to the method is that the jelly starts to set as soon as it is being strained, so you can't hang around waiting before you put it in the jars. I am also rather skeptical about how solid it is going to get - I suspect that it might charitably be referred to as 'soft set', but I'll see in the morning once it has totally cooled.

No matter how the set is, one jar will be entered into the Hill Annual Show in a couple of weeks - and even if it doesn't do well, I've no doubt that it will taste superb!

So that's my week 29 Challenge - done!

Week 28 - Make a Scarecrow

For the last couple of years at the Hill there has been a 'dress your shed' competition, which didn't take off with a huge bang. Notable exceptions were Chris from down the bottom who turned her shed into a beach hut, and cheery Brian and Pauline, who's shed always looks smashing anyway.

The only thing that I was likely to transform my rickety toolshed into was a pile of kindling if I slammed the door a bit hard.

But this year, some inspired person came up with. the idea of a Scarecrow competition - what an excellent plan! Low cost, not too technically difficult, and anyone can knock something together.

Now I've never been particulary 'crafty' in a Blue Peter kind of way, but I have not let that deter me, and over the past couple of weeks, Granddad George the Scarecrow has come to life.

I stuffed an old pillowcase with scrunched up newspaper, put a stick through for his arms. I dressed him in a pair of trousers which didn't survive the cut from my wardrobe clearout a couple of weeks ago; and an old sweatshirt donated by the Next-doors.

His head is an old cotton shopper bag, sown into a round and stuffed with newspaper. He's wearing my gardening gloves and wellies - and a flat cap which I found in the drawer, but I can't remember where it came from.

I gave his face a lot of thought (this (above) looking a lot like that episode of Dr Who where Maureen Lipman steals peoples faces, but Domino cat not seeming to mind).

Wool hair, marker pen eyebrows and mouth, cane topper nose, and a bit of Avon's finest blusher, and he's ready to rock.

Challenge completed - I wonder if I'll win!

Week 27 - Join in with the Work Party

A couple of times a year we have a Work Party at the Hill allotments where I am the proud tenant of half plot 16a, whereby all plotholders are invited to help out with the general maintenance of the site. This is met with heartfelt groans by all, of course.

The Work Party taking place at this time of year is because our site competes for the Thorpe Memorial Trophy which the City of Birmingham awards to the best allotment site in Birmingham. It would be remiss of me not to mention at this point that we have won this competition twice in the past three years.

Judging takes place from tomorrow onwards, so it's a general pitch in - primarily by the hardworking committee, frankly; and some other plotholders too - in order to bring the site up to snuff. It's not the individual plots that are judged, but the site as a whole, so the access road, car park and communal areas all need to be neat and tidy.

Actually, there was not a bad turn out, and many hands do, indeed, make light work, and at the end of a busy couple of hours in the sunshine we had the car park hedges trimmed, the roadway weeded, accumulations of leaves swept up, and neat and tidy planted up troughs by the club house.






















A good job (and my week's Challenge) done!