Powkie's Footsteps

The spring has finally made itself felt along the river here and the greenery is spurting out of the ground almost pathologically fast - I cannot see how these spindly tendrils will last long enough to bear flowers and fruit and reproduce.

The plants and trees seem to grow overnight and it reminds me of the tales my mother told me about visiting the rhubarb cathedrals in the triangle - lit only by candles, she describes how the growth was audible, in sinister vegetable creaks. The monks rhubarb must surely do the same thing; from alien, granular pod one day to a full umbrella the next..

Bob the greyhound and I set off up the river to find a dooking pool for swims when the sea is too rough - last Autumn I spotted, round a corner of a rocky outcropping, the distinctive smooth and dark water of a decent pool, but couldn't stop to have a dunk because I was with my neices who were on a mission to explore the rest of the river and its banks, on our way home.

Bob is tolerant of posing amongst the Monk's Rhubarb, he is a speedy force of nature too, so he is at home.

We started our walk about a mile from the possible pond and using mixed terrain - sometimes on the bank, sometimes in the pebbly shallows and sandy "beaches" of the river we waded and trudged through the bright green light of the canopy over the water - the heron was disturbed and flew off, rather like a teradacytil in shape, and in the tidal part of the river it is permitted to fish, I believe, although the heron does not pay attention to these boundaries.

We found the pool, fed by its own short but thick waterfall, the water must be over six feet deep and I wish I had come prepared for a dip.

Foam, sweet foam

Air temperature 22 deg C, water temperature 10 deg C, which is now comfortingly into 2 digits, very arbitrary of course, because in Farenheit it has been in 2 digits since minus 20 C, but it is just a little lift and it feels like summer is arriving, at long last.

I wish my camera was working - there would be some sumptuous shots of the clear skies of Berwickshire this morning, and the duvet of haar mist covering the sea to the horizon and nestling up to the edges of the cliffs, fluffing and filling the bays and warming the toes of Torness power station. The mist gradually cleared and left one of those silky days where the sea blends into the sky and invites a dip.

I could hear the waves crashing on the rocks before I saw them - the "Ladies" was surrounded by breakers  and Green End Gully at 5pm was infested with snorkellers, 2 no., whom I forgave when they chatted helpfully. They had been in "The Ladies" with just fins, masks, and snorkels, to me it looked like Scyllla and Charybdis. They said it was full of bubbles, but I decided to go in the Gully, ouching because I had forgotten my sea shoes which protect my poor feet and their lumpy ganglions from sharp pebbles on the way in and out. The water felt a tiny bit warmer that last week, so I didn't follow my full improvised hakka/bushido routine to get my blood up and scare myself into the water. Other Half says this ritual is not intimidating, but rather funny.

The water was seething in eddies around the rocks and was covered in foam, I found myself inside a Heston Blumenthal dish, this is the fish course I had on my birthday; "Sound of the Sea", acompanied by a shell which contained an MP3 player and had earphones to listen to the sounds of waves on a beach.  You would have to try the dish to get the full effect, or try a dip in Green End Gully after a Northerly blow, snacking on floating bits of sea-lettuce as they come close.

While I was swimming, Bob the greyhound was trying hard to keep an eye on me - but he was on the grass in the sunshine so he was nodding off, as he was sitting there, lurching awake when his head lolled.  I swam to and fro for about 15 minutes, thinking that lengths in a swimming pool never felt as good as this, gasping with the waves smacking my face and floating on the tow of the sea moving towards the shore and then out towards the open sea. The swimming mask is a great thing, I have almost 180 degree vision which is good when I am worried about Porbeagles. I saw one last summer off Heugh Ness, quite a distinctive shape and motion, just not mistakeable for anything else. As I walked back up the rocks to the way home I saw a small boat out in the bay and thought how lovely it looked, it was then that OH rang to say that it was him in that little boat and was going to catch something for supper. He is out with the retired smoke-house owner; I think they set off with Mustad feathers so I will be interested to see what they catch.

On the way home I told Bob the Greyhound that I thought that days were not much better than this- a happy but poignant thing to consider, so to add to my joy, I had a whisky and ginger when I got home and put on some cool and groovy tunes. Other Half brought home the bacon, or fish, rather, in the form of a bucket of coal-fish, or coley so I heated up some new potatoes in a bit of butter. Coley is what posh southern ladies feed their cats. I enjoyed "woman with cats" translated as "spinster", I think it was the writers on Have I Got News For You, words delivered by Kathy Burke.  Anyway, coley when cooked, does not go bright white so is a bit of a hurdle for conservative eaters - it's more like mackerel in appearance, but more like cod in taste, but oh, so mild. I'm going to leave the other half bucketful in the fridge to see if it matures like a flat fish.

Note to self: must stop doing punny post titles. Not big or clever.

Auld Reekie

Just back from a dook at Green End Gully where the sea has been whipped into a froth, a fresh, sweet end to an exciting day. At lunchtime we drove away from a small private medical clinic in a bit of a lather - Long Suffering had just passed his medical certificate for sea-farers, always a bit of worry for anyone not a vegetarian fell-runner. Feeling our way back East through Edinburgh (after London) is a bit like a combination of a benign video game and orienteering, without a Satnav, that is, and what delightful places we found, so little of Edinburgh is iredeemable, unlike parts of Greater London.  Our behaviour was pretty irredeemable however- in a traffic queue we heard a taxi hooting, and in harmony, he a tenor-baritone, me a dodgy alto, we gave voice "TW*T!!" And found ourselves ashamed because the cabbie was just attracting a friend's attention in order to have a chat. Edinburgh drivers are incredibly laid back, while I was waiting I saw a woman change her mind about her chosen turning off a mini-roundabout, so she just reversed back through the roundabout to where she came from and the set off again; the driver in the car behind just reversed to give her room and then carried on without even banging his hands on the steering wheel, a paragon of patience and compassion.

Anway, lunch outside my favourite Turkish, "Truva", in Leith, LS relaxed in the sunshine for the first time this year and Bob the greyhound enjoyed lying on the pavement and being admired. I went indoors and was smiled at indulgently by obvious greyhound appreciators; lovely when I get beamed at merely for housing a retired athlete. I wonder if Mrs Lynford Christie enjoys the same approbation.  My brother used to own a leg of a racing greyhound bitch and it was during the time that the trainers stopped injecting testosterone, I wondered if that was because of concerns about excessive facial hair.

Something about having spent 30 years in London makes me shift into warp drive when I get into a city - I wish I could just dawdle like the other tourists. I made a lightening raid on a superb cheesemongers in Victoria Street, Mellis, that is and had a great chat with the lovely boys in there.  Corra Linn is a sheeps cheese http://www.cheesechap.com/2012/04/ij-mellis-scotlands-answer-to-neals.html made in Lanarkshire, the closest I can find in Scotland to pecorino. I am making it into a wild garlic pesto with rapeseed oil, I also bought some Isle of Mull Cheddar, but the year-old Corra Linn is lovely but almost gone now. The current new stock is still deeply complex but much "cheesier", strangely, without the fruitiness and the crystalline bite of the vintage stuff. I am hoping to persuade Mellis to "cellar" one for me, just like my brother's wine merchants care for his claret. Also has the effect of stopping me eating it.

Wild Food Self Delivers, Again

Part 1
Last year as I was typing away, a collared dove topped itself by flying into the french window next to me, it was a bit of a shock, especially for the bird. My first thought was that I'd have to finish it off; death to me was even newer then, so I steeled myself. However, by the time I got to the bird it was stone dead, floppy neck and everything. I stood a few minutes wondering what to do until the Warner Bros effect hit (seeing wild/living things in one's mind'e eye as a tasty treat, steaming on a grand platter with cheffy paper crowns on feet/ribs) so I put the little corpse in the utility room until it had cooled down and stiffened up and crossed the River Styx from wildlife to free meat. It went into the deep freeze plucked and drawn and finally into a pigeon rillettes dish which was pretty good, lots of pork fat (same source as my first ham) and some lovely warm spices, prob a River Cottage recipe.

As you probably know, pigeons mate for life so while the one was safely frozen, waiting for more to join it (my plumber is a crack shot so we trade red wine for pigeons, or "cushies" as they are called here) the widow/er would sit on the power line outside my kitchen window and gaze (accusingly, I thought) at me from above. I was tempted to have a go at it with the air-gun but it's too built up here.

Part 2
This whole story came to an end yesterday when the greyhound and I turned into our back lane to go home and there, almost immobile on the ground was the second dove. It would have been easy to walk past, despite the dog's interest but as the bird didn't move when we got close I decided to act rather than leave it to be tortured to death by a cat (we have particularly some cruel sadists here). The dog caught hold of it and I wrung its neck, but, as usual with things that have such non-central nervous systems, it didn't seem dead so I had to have another go, and typical Tweedy heavy-handed novice, I pulled its head off entirely this time, surely that means it's dead? But the message still didn't get through to the body for a minute or so. Just like chickens I suppose. Anyway, the greyhound got an early supper, in the lane there is just a scattering of feathers, nothing wasted apart from the crop. The dog loves the ends of the feathers too.

Sherbet Skin and Tonic

If you mix and gin and tonic, say 1 to 2 (okay, it's a breakfast stiffener) then if the gin comes out of the fridge at about 3 degrees and the tonic sits in the utility room at about 10, then the temperature of the whole drink will be about 7.5 degrees, about the same temperature as the North Sea was this afternoon. That's according to a diver, anyway. I managed about 5 minutes before my hands went numb and decided to get out to enjoy the instant endorphin hit. Following this addictive sharp-focus and total-wellbeing stage is the sherbet, when my skin is re-filled with blood from my core and starts to feel a bit fizzy.

This really was the most challenging dip of the year, (the New Year dip was toasty in comparison at about 14 degrees) because it really only gets cold in March. I am now full of confidence for the rest of the year having missed January and February because of the stormy seas; submitting to a mirror calm chilly sea is one thing, but being slapped about the face at the same time is too much. In the warm days floating in the sea and enjoying the kelp and fish I almosst miss the really cold swims -getting in the water is not so much of a challenge and being naturally lazy being able to swim in cold water is one of the few things I can be proud of. Never actually broken ice to swim, but would love to, one day, if only to say that I have done it.

Green End Gully at low tide - had to wait 10 minutes while the divers byoogered off, what a pain, there were 5 of them splashing about, each of them like a cross between Darth Vadar and some kind of cyber seal, couldn't even find a gap to get in the water, it was like cereal.

Windy and a Gail

Finally working out the label for a new product, heck, the first product which I hope will help me start a business doing foods here, have got a basic food hygiene exam on Wednesday and am swotting hard. Just because no one has ever really failed it doesn't mean that I can't. My feeling is that germs are generally underated as an ingredient so I am going to have to pretend to be clean and goodly for this exam then get back to my naturally organic approach to cooking.

The afternoon was taken up exercising retired greyhounds in Reston and my favourite LBB (little black bitch) has finally found a home. Gail has been waiting for the right family for about two years and I really wanted to adopt her but we don't have the room. She is not an elegant beast; she is also a bit thick with bulgy eyes but is brave and tough and thuddingly affectionate when she throws her chunky body against my thigh. I will miss her very much but I know she is going to live at the coast with her new love Walter, BBD (big black dog) with a couple who are already potty about her and won't mind if she nicks a sandwich or two. Had a bit of a blub when I took her muzzle off after our last ever giddy dash-about together in the exercise field.

Town meets Country

Just back from a shopping trip to an industrial estate at the back of Berwick; while Long Suffering was buying bits for the boat I took Bob the greyhound for a little walk up a hill away from the units - at the top near the railway was a field with some Shetlands, half asleep, and a man with a honey-coloured, rangy beast that looked like a hoond. Bob my greyhound spots his kin from a distance so we went to say "hello". What a dog we met! Long, strong legs, good broad front and deep chest, also biddable and very soft - a dog sold to the man by the travellers for "two hundred and fifty bar" he said. Magical to watch him running, he is called "Cookie" and although he is still too young to be bringing bunnies back he is sure to be a superb provider.

Cookie's parentage was not obvious, apart from lots of greyhound, but perhaps his almond eyes would be a give-away for a lurcher expert, funnily enough, the man looking after him had the same eyes, they do say that you pick a dog that looks like you.

Picking dogs; retired greyhounds such as Bob are not supposed to be used for rabbiting, not least because they are fragile (a bit like the balsa wood planes we used to make) and usually not smart enough to avoid barbed wire and other obstacles when focused, so I've always fancied owning a lurcher (or two), although I daresay Long Suffering would have something to say about this, perhaps "cough, cough, snort, snort" from his dog allergy...

The travellers who reared Cookie are hunkered down in a railway siding and keeping out of sight. I am still not sure where I stand on this whole thing - I wonder whether people ought to be given houses or land if their self-professed money-raising methods are, at best, borderline tax-legal and at worst proudly dodgy. What do you think Dr. Bob?

Next week I hope I can squeeze in a bitg of pesky pigeon purging at my friend P's down the coast; she has an infestation and I think netting might be the way to go, too near a wood with walkers for bang bangs. Thinking potted pigeon with some duck fat and some spices and things.

Crunch, crunch, shuffle, shuffle

My old greyhound is over his high temperature this morning and is eating a lamb bone behind me with great cracking relish. It's by Cross and Blackwell. I am supposed to be working on a website but find my feet jigging back and forth in a white-girl salsa to Ibrahim Ferrer whose CD arrived in post just now.
Down at the river the wild garlic is covering the earth and I have an appointment in an hour to meet a man about a cold store and food-prep premises down in the town.  The plan is to buy local rare breed pork and convert it into Italian style cured meats and sausages. There has already been some success; a half a pig (Tamworth/Saddle Back cross) was reared in a back garden in Reston (the whole pig was raised there, it later became a half-pig) a village about 5 miles away and has rendered, amongst other things, a huge tenderloin, a beautiful ham (now nearly all eaten) flesh dark as mahogany, melting and salty-sweet and creamy fat which seems to carry even more flavour.

The back fat was cured and then left to hang in a dark shed, whose roof, sadly, leaked and left the beautiful pearly blocks all green and furry, I didn't try eating it, it was just too far gone.

The shed failure led to discovery of an old boat-building shed being used by Long Suffering and his almost business partner, it's a draughty old place, but water tight and down by the river. It occurred that the moist cool air from the river and the occaisional Harr might mimic the soft mountain mists of Emilio-Romagna. So far it has, and I wonder if it is my imagination but the seaweed in the tidal part of the river might even have added a certain iodiny quality to the ham.