Christmas fever.

It won’t have escaped your notice that Christmas has started early, very early, this year. Already on houses around here - not in Westdean I hasten to add, much too refined for that, but in simple Seaford - there are Santas and snowmen and god knows what twinkling on every frontage. And you can’t buy a Christmas tree for love or money though goodness knows why they’re being decorated so soon because every needle will be on the floor by mid December. Still, you can’t blame people for trying to cheer themselves up after what we’ve had to endure this year.

And Bay and Sophie cheered us up immensely a few days ago. Through the post came this wonderful Advent calendar, a combined effort that they’d been working on throughout lockdown:

But just as we’d opened door 5 our Christmas spirit was shattered by Taz the dog barking furiously at something. He’d spotted an intruder. A heron had managed to evade the netting covering the pond and, I suspect because no trace of five golden orfe, one large koi and a multitude of lesser goldfish have been seen since, had gobbled up the pond’s entire contents. And then this damn bird, because its head got tangled in the net, demanded to be rescued and released, only to return later in the hope of gorging anything left. So today, instead of traipsing round the forest in search of greenery for our front door wreath (you see, we like to enter into the spirit of Christmas too) I spent the entire day putting a skirt around the netting in a belated attempt to foil the blasted thing.

Anyway, back to thoughts of Christmas proper. Asked on WhatsApp what would be the highlight of their main meal on Christmas Day I received a variety of answers from our far flung family: Scotch egg…got to be turkey…roast porchetta with roasty potatoes & sprouts from the allotment…as much as possible…nut roast, red cabbage, sprouts, veg sausage for non nut roast lovers…mushroom wellington…takeaway from the pub…catch a passing pigeon…forgot to mention fresh figs with the porchetta. We’re having roast heron.

...hee iv feree fis dog.

This baffled spellcheck. But it’s how a five year old spells and wots rong wiv vat? I reckon granddaughter Bay’s months ahead of schedule whatever spellcheck thinks and here’s the proof. If you want the translation - if indeed you need a translation - it’s at the end of this musing.

Bay’s also a pretty good cook. Her latest creation is cheese and marmite scones and mum Sophie has written the recipe out to save Bay and her readers a bit of time.

125g cheddar cheese

55g butter

225g self raising flour

1tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

120ml milk

3tsp marmite

Put flour, baking powder, cayenne, butter and three quarters of the cheese into a mixer/bowl. Blitz. Add the milk and blitz again...it’ll form a dough very quickly so as soon as it comes together stop blitzing. (The less you do with a scone dough, the lighter they will be.)

Put the dough into a floured surface and flatten a bit with your hands and spread the marmite across the top, and sprinkle your leftover cheese. Roll it up and then flatten enough to be able to cut out circles with a dough cutter. Again you want to avoid handling the dough too much, and the dough doesn’t need to be perfectly flat! 

Put on baking sheet and into oven at 180 degrees for around 12 mins.

So much for their pleasures this week. Nephew Jasper - the oldest of quite a few of them (blimey, 50 a couple of months ago) - told me he’d got much amusement from a photo I emailed him of his father’s misspent youth, taken the day before I photographed a rather more illustrious group of musicians.

Keeping this in the family - no-one else seems to have had much pleasure this week - another brother, Simon (or Choppers to his siblings for no better reason than as a reflexion of his soccer skills, being likened to Chopper Harris of Chelsea fame) suggested the latest news on the vaccine front surely amounted to relief for all and pleasure unbounded. Of course, but amusement too when coupled with Trump taking credit not only for the vaccine but for the rise of the Dow Jones: “The stock market’s just broken 30,000,” he said, “never been broken, that number. That’s a sacred number, 30,000. Nobody thought they’d ever see it.” It’s risen because you’re going, chump, that’s all.

Rosie says the arrival of winter gives her a particular pleasure: she and the dogs in front of a blazing fire with tea and crumpets, buttered thinly with patum peperium (the crumpets not the dogs). While Gemma (more family I’m afraid) got her joy this week by baking a giant Jaffa cake for no better reason than a local pal had cooked her a giant burger followed by an even gianter KitKat a week or two before. Bash meanwhile continues to admire sunrises and churn out an endless supply of plywood wardrobes to as many locals as he can shake a stick at and solicit a sovereign from.

Oh, and what about me? I’ve been wandering around the forest and local countryside, taking the odd aimless picture or two, because that’s what we’ve all been driven to, thanks to this damn virus. 

PS In case you’ve forgotten: There is a very bad dog he is a very fierce dog.

Callicarpa, pancakes and Ocado.

Who might have guessed that my Loyal Readers would find their weekly pleasure in such a variety of things but there you are. Lockdown has a strange effect on us all. You’d be less surprised to know that animals feature too when it comes to this week’s pleasures. But more of them later.

However, as these lockdown musings are becoming slightly personal I thought it might be interesting for you to know what the qualifies you to become a Loyal Reader of my musings and perhaps to know a little more about your fellow followers. Well, to begin with you’ve all been lumbered whether you like it or not, selected either by me for generally being good eggs or for being foolish enough to suggest you might be interested in receiving them. I have to admit there are some who have been ‘volunteered’ into the group which is jolly bad luck, particularly as there is no unsubscribe option, but there you are. Console yourselves, you’re a member of a very select band.

Now onto what’s given you pleasure this week: Vanessa chose a Callicarpa bush as hers, albeit a remembered pleasure as it resides in the Chelsea Pensioners Ranelagh Garden which is annoyingly shut thanks to you know what. Rosie and I met Vanessa on one of the several holidays we’ve had with Art Pursuits, a small company started by the wonderful Dr Joachim Strupp who had immense knowledge of the history of art and the precious ability to communicate it with fun and enthusiasm. Sadly he died in a car crash a year or two ago and the company hasn’t been the same since. For old times sake - and to educate anyone who doesn’t know what a callicarpa looks like - from (l-r) here’s one, Vanessa & Rosie and Joachim.

Bash (son and Co-Heir) cooked and ate pancakes and reported that he’d broken his tooth, apparently not on a pancake but on a piece of crusty sourdough. I assume the pleasure was the pancake, not the prospect of a visit to the dentist, but it goes to show that these cookery fads - quinoa, labneh, sumac, za’atar, tahini, arugula, chia - even if you can spell them have hidden dangers.

Kim Yashar-Bish’s one word pleasure was Ocado. We know what she means: ordering groceries online is more than a pleasure, it’s a necessity these days, especially if you’re as hard working as Kim and her husband Mahmut are. For those that don’t know, they own a shop in Brighton that’s a treasure trove and the answer to a maiden’s prayer especially when it comes to Christmas. Just click on this link and be amazed: https://www.yashar-bish.com/ 

Now for the animals: Lesley, who we met when she worked with us at Pots and Pithoi, emailed to say ‘Having lost our beloved Labrador Monty just before lockdown in March - as ever his timing was perfect as visits to the vet became nigh on impossible after that - I am very much enjoying taking out a dear little mongrel of Greek extraction who lives in our lane.  His owner suggested it as I was looking lost! As befits a dog who originated in the sunshine, he really hates the rain and has to be forced out.  He'd probably be happier with a glass of ouzo and a kebab listening to Demis Roussos. He lives with three Border Collies and so doesn't need me, but I need him for my essential dog fix!’  As a reminder of happier times here’s Lesley with Monty, taken when he was brand new in 2004. I don’t think Lesley will mind me revealing that Monty was, on walks, both openly gay and an obsessive collector of plastic bottles. Hope the greek mongrel is less brazen.

Gemma the lino print genius and Bash’s other half has merely posted a link that’s given her pleasure and amusement. Cat lovers, click on this: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CHQcublAg4p/?igshid=8qbu1ctv7xyl

My pleasure this week? More animals and listening to Andrew Cotter, commentator and owner of Olive and Mabel. He was on Clive Anderson’s radio 4 show yesterday evening promoting a book featuring his dogs. If you haven’t seen his brilliant videos, click on this link. It’ll give you enough pleasure to see you through this next week of lockdown, notwithstanding Boris. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPhpJuraz14  

Cummings and goings.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist after all this week’s shenanigans. But what about all the comings and goings - and pleasures - of my loyal readers over the last seven days? Well, my niece Tanya was persuaded by her three children - Rosy, Sonny and Dylan - that it would be a highly educational experience to allow them to sit up all night to watch the American election results coming in. Particularly if it was accompanied by an endless supply of waffles, burgers, popcorn and ice cream. Cunning plan, kids. And what satisfaction and pleasure to pull it off.

Which, after all, is what we all need in lockdown. Brother Gary told me he’d got great pleasure by skidaddling to the Isle of Wight just a few minutes before it began particularly as he’d have to bend the rules to return five days later. He gloatingly sent me these pictures but as I haven’t heard from him since I can only assume he’s been rumbled.

Very long time friend Hazel emailed to say her great pleasure last week, and indeed throughout the first lockdown as well, was playing online bridge with her pals and enjoying much laughter over FaceTime & WhatsApp at the same time. Not so funny was putting her back out unloading her Sainsbury’s delivery a day later though I suspect the crates of bottles were heavier than she thought. Her evening pleasure came from seeing her son Oli, his wife Katie, their son William for Halloween and ‘for hearing night-time rutting in the nearby woods’. The mind is quietly boggling.

Bay, Sophie’s daughter, has a mind that is clearly unboggled. Here’s her contribution to the world of learning, telling us that an algorithm is a set of instructions:

Rosie’s sister Pippi rang to say she’s derived immense pleasure from being able to get into the garden after all the recent rain and just potter about planting bulbs, bagging up leaves, mixing rotted leaf mould with wood ash to spread on her beds and spotting all the different fungi that are popping up everywhere. And, she said, especial pleasure from receiving her jungle monkeys print from Gemma. But as you’ve seen the monkeys before, here’s another of Gem’s bonkers but brilliant lino prints:

As for Rosie and me, we both got pleasure from the garden as well. Rosie decided a while ago that we needed to terrace one of the beds in front of the house so we lined up a local flint specialist Richard Bartlett to build a wall. To make The Long House great again. Here’s the living proof, from start to finish:

And I have more or less completed the daunting task of replacing the veg garden’s ten raised beds. All that remains is to top the beds up with compost and remove the debris of rotting wood to the top of the garden to make a wildlife hotel for bugs, insects, beetles and anything else that cares to take up residence.

All of which goes to show that pleasure comes from the simplest of things. A shaft of sunlight from behind a cloud, the smell of baking bread, muddling about in the garden. Or just hoodwinking your parents. Especially that.

Moments of pleasure.

Here we go again. Another lockdown. Yippee.

Still, it gives me the excuse to start up my weekly musings once more, as I warned you I would if the short summer break turned out to be nothing more than a chance for people to ignore the virus and reinfect the nation. But - and apologies for the cliche - we are where we are, so let’s try to make the best of things. And with that in mind I suggested to members of my family that they should supply me, every seven days, with something that has given them pleasure that week. It could be something they’ve created, painted, made, cooked, drawn, written, thought, photographed, seen…in short anything I can incorporate in my weekly musing.

Rosie was the first to respond: she said it was such a lovely surprise to see Bash and Gemma for only the second time this year when they popped here for the night after coming all the way from Somerset to install one of Bash’s masterpieces for a client in Surrey.

Sophie was next: her highlight was getting ready for halloween, cooking with daughter Bay, making Bay’s bat costume and tricking and treating with Bay’s pals.

Bash’s most pleasurable moment of the week was the successful installation of his wardrobe for his Dorking client. He said: ‘pleasurable because it went in exactly how it should have, looked good, nothing went wrong, sun shone, went in in half the time we thought, then we got to hang out for a day in sunny Sussex with the parents’. 

As for Gemma, who is not only Bash’s wife, employee, illustrator extraordinaire, lino cutter and print maker of undiscovered genius, her moment was ‘I processed these last night - they're my reason to be cheerful because, well GOLD INK. I've been meaning to print a black on gold version of this for ages and I can't believe it's taken me this long!’

And for me, up until this evening my most pleasurable moment was a simple one: kicking autumn leaves as I walked along with the dogs keeping me company. But the confirmation tonight of Joe Biden’s triumph over that vain, narcissistic, arrogant, misogynistic, bullying, self important, pathetic little man has won my vote. But to clear the nasty taste in my mouth here’s a few views of Friston Forest anyway.

Now it’s your turn. For the next few weeks I’m relying on all my loyal readers to supply me with the most pleasurable moment of your last seven days. It’ll give you something to think about each week and perhaps become a sort of discipline that might help pass the time and keep a sense of sanity and fun in a chaotic world. Please do.

A question of balance.

Every so often I am reminded of the infamous Seminal Moments speech that I made at my 60th birthday party. I’m not going to reveal what they were but I blotted my copybook in a big way because not one of them involved our children, either their births or indeed any mention of them at all. Easy enough to understand why I’m not allowed to forget it. That’s no reason, of course, why past musings so often contain pictures of daughter Sophie and granddaughter Bay but poor old son Sebastian (Bash to all and sundry) and his lovely wife Gemma rarely get a mention. So, to do a bit of settling of old sores, this is about them. And here they are:

And this is where they live, in Axbridge, Somerset:

And this is what they do: Bash is a carpenter and makes bespoke plywood furniture (very fashionable) and Gemma, according to her Instagram profile, is a lino and woodcut printer, furniture maker and community cinema host. Here’s just some of their work:

Maybe I should explain the ‘cinema host’ bit. Their house was once a Georgian coaching inn & then the Red Lion pub for over 250 years until it closed and was bought about twenty years ago by a couple who found the public bar complete with full ashtrays and pints of beer left over from its last night of trading two years earlier. The story goes that they were inspired by the slope of the Mendip Hills to install a cinema on part of the ground floor - it sounds bonkers to me but the Lottery Fund fell for it and coughed up the money - and now an audience of 36 sit regularly, at least till Covid, to happily watch art house films there. Gemma and Bash inherited the cinema when they bought the house and have taken on the running of it. Luckily they enjoy choosing the films and, well, they’re young and full of vigour.

And they need to be because the house requires one heck of a lot of work done to it. Already they’ve ripped out an old bathroom and installed a new one, repointed one of the outside walls, remade a window frame or two, repaired part of the roof, updated plumbing and lighting and that’s not all…there’s a half acre of garden to look after too. And Gemma wants chickens and they’ve already got two cats running their lives.

Do find the time to visit their websites (themoderncarpenter.com and gemmatrickey.com): not only to see their work but to get a glimpse into their talented, inventive, humorous, quirky, energetic and quite mad minds. But what do I know…I can’t even remember my own children.

Of this and that.

Blimey, doesn’t time fly. I last did a bit of musing at the fag-end of July and here we are now shuffling our way towards autumn. So what’s been happening that’s prevented me taking up my pen? Not a lot in all honesty though it’s mainly been the weather - too nice to waste time indoors. Oh, and the cricket…six test matches and a host of T20’s and ODI’s which meant keeping an eye on the telly every so often. Perhaps the best thing is to tell you what happened domestically, locally and horticulturally in the hope I can make it interesting.

Let’s start on the home front: the paddock’s annual haircut. The trick is to spot a fair-weather window and go for it. This year I was lucky: I began the cutting with my wonderful Tracmaster on August 31 and three days later the debris had been raked up and burnt and the job was complete. The only fly in the ointment was some fool from afar that thought my bonfire was a forest fire and called the local brigade who arrived - bells clanging and hoses at the ready - for, embarrassingly, the second time in a fortnight. Two weeks earlier another of my bonfires had prompted a dog walker to alert the Newhaven brigade and they too had turned up hoses in hand. To spoil their fun I’ve learnt now to email them with my bonfire’s map reference and warn them I’m about to make smoke.

We also had Sophie and granddaughter Bay staying here a couple of times. Bay, besides being enchanting most of the time, has decided she’s an artist. I’ll leave you to be the judge..here are some of her offerings:

She’s also a quick learner. She now knows what a helleborine is, and where fluff comes from:

Locally we’ve had problems with the Environment Agency once more, who have allowed the shingle to build up at the exit of the Cuckmere River and are refusing to allow the local farmers - who have the money, equipment and willingness - to clear it. Which means, cometh the rains, the water will be unable to get to the sea, will back up and flood the valley. Just like last year. So that’s something to look forward to.

But before that happens, this is what the Cuckmere Valley looks like in summer. Who needs Tuscany?

As for the garden during the last few weeks, it’s been mixed blessings. The echium pininana, having delighted us and the bees all summer long, finally fell over in the wind, the dahlias have struggled in the drought, the squirrels have nicked every one of the 35 walnuts (though I’ve retrieved six of them while weeding, haha), our olive crop is intact, some of our second crop of figs are beginning to ripen, the raspberry beetles have eaten more raspberries than we have, the cucumbers have been prolific but the courgettes have sulked and the days are getting shorter and foggier.

But today it’s rained for the first time in weeks so Rosie’s been preparing for her next exhibition in the greenhouse (her sculpture exhibition was a sellout) and I’ve had a chance to do this. And not mentioned Boris once. 

Life after lockdown.

It’s been a busy month here at The Long House, what with dog walking, trying to count butterflies and chatting to passers-by. So as a little light relief I spent a few days giving the rambling rose Banksiae Lutea a damn good haircut. The poor old thing produced more dead wood than flowers this May, mainly, we suspect, because of the lack of water at crucial times over the past twelve months. We reckoned the only thing to do was to hack it back in the hope that it would induce substantial new growth during this autumn. As you can see from the left hand photos below, most years it flowers spectacularly but this year’s effort (the next one) was so feeble that drastic action was called for despite being the wrong time of year to do it. Kill or cure, just like Boris’s  lockdown theory.

Talking of which, Rosie too needed a damn good haircut thanks to the banishing of hairdressers to outer darkness. It’s only fair to do a comparison job on her as well.

As for butterflies, it’s been a spectacular year for them though it baffles me how we are expected to sit for 15 minutes and count them. There are so many flitting hither and thither that trying to identify them is extremely tricky especially as they unhelpfully keep their wings together when they’re still. However, patience is my middle name and here are just a few of the many I’ve managed to photograph.

Dog walking of course is the perfect chance to admire the countryside around here and it would be remiss not make you envious. But it also provides a few surprises too: like the idiots that think a tinder-dry forest is a good place for a barbecue. And even more odd: the health and safety fiend who, out of the thousands of trees in the forest, chose to point out the dangers of a few saplings by labelling them with ‘fragile’ stickers. Mr Crawshaw would be proud.

  But with the ending of lockdown certain things are beginning to return to normal: our aphidologist pals Bob and Bob came to the garden a couple of weeks ago to search for rare undiscovered species and left very excited but sadly their find turned out to be a mere Myzus langei. But I thought you might like to see it nonetheless.

The garden, meanwhile, is anything but normal: lack of rain has not only done for the Banksiae but for most of the things we’d expect to be flowering at the end of July. Still, here’s the best of what we’ve got:

Isolation week twelve. They think it's all over...

…well, if it is I’ll eat my sunhat. But Boris and his gang have decided so the great British public have taken him at his word. And what have we got? Roads clogged, beaches packed, large scale public gatherings, litter all over the place and utter confusion about who can visit who and what can open and what can’t. Let alone who’s got a job and who hasn’t. And already covid cases are starting to rise and our Prime Minister is urging people to stop taking liberties. Better to ask who should be blaming who.

I have to admit we did our own little share of liberty taking last week: during the three days of stonkingly hot weather we actually shared some bottles of rosé with our self-isolating neighbours and daringly invited some friends for lunch. And I took the car to Windover Hill - all of 3 miles away - to walk the South Downs Way and see some different views of our wonderful countryside.

Meanwhile, the poor old garden is completely frazzled thanks to this extraordinary heat. Crisp brown grass and drooping plants and a total lack of rain has made the whole place look as if it’s late July. No bad thing perhaps that our garden openings have hit the deck.

Even so there’s plenty to still enjoy and enough to keep us busy. So what with one thing and another I think it’s about time to end these weekly isolation musings. Though don’t worry, I might change my mind when the inevitable spike occurs. 

Isolation week eleven. Just muddling along.

Over the last few months we’ve all just about come to terms with this damn pandemic and our reactions have changed from the initial blind panic to today some kind of acceptance, even boredom with it. Along the way the pace of life has slowed until now, when in past years Rosie and I would have been at our very busiest period of garden openings and every minute of every day would have been spent weeding, mowing, trimming, deadheading, cake making we are now struggling to find the incentive to do things. Not that there aren’t things to do, the same things, but the necessity to do them has disappeared. So we just do this and that, and muddle through the days.

Such torpitude explains why this weekly musing is several days later than it should be though only the most loyal reader will realise (or care). Instead I’ve been loitering around the garden a bit more than usual, watching the birds nicking the wild cherries and especially enjoying the quite sensational smells: the roses, the sweet peas, the trachelospermum and the philadelphus, which combine to reassure us that it’s OK to just sit and enjoy the moment and not worry about the watering that needs to be done later. 

Mind you, the incessant dry weather has stopped the grass growing and the weeds sprouting so that’s a couple of jobs that don’t need doing anyway. But I’d prefer rain to fall than the lawns turn crisp and brown and the plants and flowers flop to their death. Yesterday, when thunderstorms and torrential rain had fallen all over the country, here south of the Downs hardly a drop fell. We’re known as The Sunshine Coast and it’s no misnomer: the South Downs is a climatic barrier to the weather from the rest of Sussex and rain seldom falls on Westdean.

The trouble is this combination of languor and sluggishness is tinged with a guilt that I really should be doing something worthwhile. But what? That’s even more troubling.

All photographs © Robin Lloyd