Words from my shed

July 9, 2010

So sorry for the lengthy gap in posts this summer but as you know I’ve been bashing out text for the new book (a delicious one it will be too, with hundreds of simple recipes and ideas for eating and living ). I’ve just about got to the end. Hooray! It’s a marathon having to write down all the exciting things I want to say, plus getting all the facts and figures correct. Food recipes are particularly onerous, because they have to be supplied in metric, imperial and US measures. It’s also a test to imagine frosts and hot pies when I can hear the hose pipe hissing and my bare legs are stuck with heat to the slatted chair seat. You will all, please, have to buy thousands and thousands of copies so that the sweat and toil will have been worth it. Actually, I would buy it for Oscar’s fish soup recipe alone.

We finished the luscious photography a month or so ago. For the writing part I now retreat to the shed with ear phones and the dog under my feet for company. Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean and the Hallelujah Chorus are good surges of energy for teasing out first sentences. The comforting hot shed wood smell and a breeze wafting through the open doorway, also help with getting into the writing zone, and when the flow of words sets like super glue there’re always the tomato seedlings to plant out. Very late, I know, but grown from a pack of discount seeds that my husband picked up on offer at the marvellous Lidl.

Every couple of thousand words or so, or less if the going is tough, I pedal with relief down to the Lido and join the fantastically variegated swathe of south London: all races and ages, a jumble of buggies, beach towels, tattoos, Boden bikinis, sun cream, and sparkling water. And no hint of trouble. You just don’t get that sort of casual yet joyous public celebration of the space we live in, in the countryside. After a few bracing lengths and some sunning under my favourite Olhao straw hat, it’s back to the piles of paper , a piece of cake or two, and hopefully more inspiration.

The show of pink, blowsy scented roses has been sublime. The severe winter seems to have spurred garden life into over production, but luckily also killed off pests like greenfly. The Constance Sprys, seen here, are as heavenly as ever, as too are the shocking pink Gertrude Jekyll blooms, and the white Icebergs are as frothy as a bridal bouquet from one of our location fashion shoots.

I love the roses in all their stages of growth, even when they’re in retreat and the petals are twisting and shrivelling. I am an eagle eyed dead header though, because I want to encourage the bushes to produce more flowers later on in the season. And just as I am beginning to feel rather sad that the garden has lost its vibrancy, the lavenders flower in a blast of purples and mauves – a magnet for the bees whose buzzing soundtrack fills the late afternoon. I haven’t yet found my hive for hosting, but I am even more determined to install one after reading that according to the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, three of the 25 british species of bumblebees are extinct and half of the remainder have shown serious declines often up to 70 percent since the 1970s .

I am irritated by the foxes who come and toss my gardening gloves about the place, and then pee all over them, but the feeling is cancelled out by the appearance of more colourful invaders such as this gorgeous poppy, that seeded itself bang in front of my kitchen window. And then there is the heady fragrance of my neighbour’s jasmine which has slunk over the fence, all trailing green tendrils and white star like flowers. I cut a handful for a glass by my bed and the room fills with their scent at night.

The scents of the summer garden are also exquisitely intensified in the heat. The border on the left crowded with wild strawberries is sweet like strawberry jam. They have been self seeding since we arrived in the house seven years ago. Perfect for a doll’s tea party, or just picking on my rounds between the flower beds.

I think that rainbow chard is extraordinary in its colourfulness, particularly when it looks from a distance, like any other kind of cabbagey spinachy plant. I have been growing chard for the last year or so, and it really doesn’t need very much attention, apart from picking regularly to stop the heads from bolting and going to seed. I like to steam it very very lightly and eat with oil and lemon.

If I was to only grow one thing in my little vegetable patch, it would be rocket. I just keep on sowing it through the summer, and it just keeps producing more and more delicious peppery leaves for salads. NB there’s a new site called urban gardeners where you can exchange veg garden chat with other city dwellers.

The unusual summer heat this year, calls for daily salads and I toss rocket leaves with tomatoes, goats cheese, chopped peppers , cucumbers and anything else that’s in the fridge. Basil leaves from the flower pots by the shed, also join one of these summery amalgamations and maybe a handful of oniony chives snipped finely with scissors.

A white room and tulips

May 12, 2010

Very very late in getting this post out,  but  my fingers have been  racing over the key board writing text  for the book.  Driven by a  surge of fear and enjoyment  I plug into Al Green’s   ‘Let’s Stay Together ‘ and try not to be distracted by   You Tube  comedy clips and the latest  updates from THAT  volcano. The spewings of which,  we were lucky to avoid returning from Olhao, where,  hooray!  the  room on top is complete and wonderful.  Filipe Monteiro of White Terraces is the  architect of this little white  gem. From   simple  white wooden beams   to  curved detail  on the stairs up to the roof, he has  cleverly  interpreted  traditional Olhao building features to make the structure look as if  it has been there for ever. And together  with his gang of men, Mr  Martinho  is  the builder from  heaven.

In Olhao market, spring is here with the juiciest oranges billowing herbs and plump ‘favas’ broad bean pods. The fish market is full of fish because it’s Friday, and there’s the fresh ozone sea smell  rising from wet slabs displaying everything from the anonymous  ‘pescado’, 1 euro kg, so ordinary it doesn’t deserve a name,  to thick white fillets of corvina 16 euros kg. From their perches on cranes, and spires, the storks are gnashing their  great beaks in mating calls, sparrows twitter and the 11am  hooter whines like an air raid siren : the boats have come in.

In London the garden is  green and glossy, and the tulips are bursting out in bloom with more vigour than I remember. Maybe it was because winter was so long and so hard that all growing things seem to have extra reserves of energy to launch themselves into the new season.  Against all these signs of nature’s renewal, it is particularly sad and poignant to hear of the sudden death of mother, and brilliant   garden and interiors writer Elspeth Thompson.  What a great loss.  A fellow blogger, she was most encouraging to me.  At the very least she will live on through her evocative  words and thoughts.

I never quite know what will come up on the tulip front, and I’m really pleased that the black Parrot tulips from last season have reappeared. Watching them go through the budding bit  to  their unfurling into  a whirl of feathery petals the colour of dark beetroots is absorbing

Black Parrot tulips in bud and full frilly bloom

Unfurled ‘Blue’ parrot tulips, look  like striped fruit drops from an old fashioned confectioner or even a head of salad radicchio.  Where’s the blue?!  and  when they are in full bloom the striped effect fades into an all over fuschia pink.

New to the garden this year, and from another really good value bulb order from Crocus the single late tulip,  Violet Beauty, is more of a slender, elegant thing than its  more wayward and feathery Parrot  tulip companions.

Seaweed Prints and Sourdough

March 28, 2010

Only a few piles of dog eared admin remain before we can escape to Olhao and the new room on top. On the way to the post office, mimosa and forsythia are fizzing with yellow. It seems a little wasteful to be leaving behind the first budding and greening signs of spring but the draw of sand between toes and sardines are tantalizing too. And after more technology malfunctions (I won’t even go there) parking ticket angst, missed train connections, and near hospitalisation involving clogs on a down escalator, I’m ready to walk there, let alone fly .

Just have to get in a session of dough making for pizza (artichoke hearts, green olives and parmesan, is my current favourite) and other homemade creations (see here my sister in law’s divine rye sourdough bread) to illustrate my new book. The four legged paparazzo is enjoying the cooking sessions too, hanging around the worktop for crumbs, and helping herself to the subject matter of a flapjack shot when no one’s looking. It’s all go putting together the pages, and the deadline is no tiny speck in the distance anymore. But that’s good, too, because it means the weeks are slipping away until the backpacker daughter returns.

When I’m back first stop will be gorgeous fabrics at the V&A exhibition, Quilts 1700-2010. Might even get round to a spot of quiltmaking with pretty seaweed prints from the museum’s collection of archive printed cotton. Check out more print ideas from Printand pattern.blogspot.com and Liberty prints at knockdown prices in the new range for American chain store Target .

Spring garden notes:
Divide agapanthus: I have an extended family of agapanthus plants that came stashed in a suitcase from Spain and are now packed tightly in a pot like chocolate fish in a tin, which is how they like it. This year, though, division is necessary to keep the plants vigorous and I cut them down the middle with a fork and plant the new half in a fresh container.
Feed shrubs and climbers: I started with the standard roses, and have now worked in more compost and bonemeal around the shrub and climbing roses, and gorgeous pale lilac wisteria at the front of the house.

Sow seedlings half hardy under cover: Nicotiana and zinnia seeds saved from last year are germinating in a tray on the windowsill. Sow less than think as a pinch of seed goes a long way.

Prepare trenches for beans and ‘chitted’ potatoes and dig in muck or compost (on another sea salty note, I remember my grandmother lined her bean trenches with seaweed and newspaper to conserve moisture).

Sweet and utilitarian

March 1, 2010

Bother! I’d hoped to get my post out before the end of February. I am diverted from my laptop to equip the eldest daughter with ‘wedding ring’, door wedge, extending washing line and all the other stuff for the gap year female traveller. It is like losing a limb when she walks through Terminal 5 departures, but I can get in the bathroom now. And in the way that life sometimes seems to synchronise itself, my new book contract is signed and the deadline is just about the date she returns. Publication is next spring, but I’ll give you some sneak previews along the way.

Some design notes:I won’t ever tire of gingham, it’s a really inexpensive way to add a spot of spring colour to the home: a simple pull on chair cover ,say . My temple is MacCulloch & Wallis who sell online as well as from a shop crowded with young fashion students in central London. Look out, too for enamel alphabet letters and numbers from Hyperkit, more timeless simple design. RIP Lucienne Day one of our great designers, known for her painterly and simple Fifties’ fabrics. I also have a passion for the stacking Polyprop chairs that her husband Robin Day designed, and can still be picked up from secondhand shops and markets.

There are walking babies, crawling babies, sicky babies and back-up babies modelling shoes in the house, and so I escape to the garden. It’s looking spare (an understatement) but crocuses like bright fruit drops are pushing through. I prune the roses with vigour giving the 4 standards the equivalent of a military short back and sides. But they will flower well and spread without looking wild and untidy. They have a good feed with shovels of rich earthy compost from the bottom of the bin. It’s so cold I can’t be bothered to dig it in, but it’s raining so the nutrients will wash down to where the roots need it .

The room on top in Olhao is nearing completion after the builders have ducked and dived the thrashing winds and rains of the Algarve’s worst weather in 30 years. It’s a whole new vista up here. In the distance, a band of cobalt sea beneath a grey blue sky, tv aerials, flapping laundry, a silver winding mesh of homing pigeons, the fizzing pink of an almond tree. And all with the Olhao soundtrack of dogs barking, bells, and the strains of a fado song on next door’s radio. NB The dearth of photographic evidence is due to further gadget malfunction, this time, my newly acquired i-phone, a marvellous invention, when it works

The blues and greens of the seaside are exhilarating but no less than the rolling hills and valleys on the drive to see my Dad in Somerset: a mossy palette as if from a Farrow and Ball paint chart. And then there is more heavenly natural colour at the Van Gogh exhibition, where my rushhour Friday stress melts before the artist’s drawings and paintings of French gardens and vegetable patches

What with all the backpacking details I almost leave the marmalade making too late, but am saved by the last boxful of Sevilles at the local greengrocer. Soon the kitchen is a bittersweet aromatic fug and the mind only focused on the job. No wonder DH Lawrence said “I got the blues thinking of the future so I left off and made some marmalade.” I read though that 80% of marmalade eaters are over 45. Don’t you think we should champion the young to get boiling and stirring? It’s such a pity that marmalade has that fusty old major at the breakfast table image.

I pot the marmalade in recycled jars that I save and store under the sink. Holding one’s golden efforts in a simple glass jar topped with a cellophane lid and decorated with a homemade label is pure pleasure; so, too, is a slice of bread topped with marmalade and a spoonful of creme fraiche.

Porridge and blankets

January 13, 2010

The snow woman is limbo dancing in the garden (her structure undermined in a temporary thaw) and the skiers have returned from the Brockwell Park slopes. Welcome to 2010 and the weird world of weather. For the last two weeks we Londoners, together with the rest of the country have been grappling with the biggest freeze-up for years.

This one is maybe not as punishing as the winter of 1947 when people were using pneumatic drills to dig up frozen parsnips and 20 foot snowdrifts cut off thousands, but it is bad enough to inflict an itchy collection of chilblains upon my 15 year old‚Äö?Ñ?¥s toes. The red and swollen effects have been hastened by her unenthusiasm for sensible (ie uncool) walking boots. I explain (the without judgement style of explaining) that Top Shop pumps are probably not the best option for negociating ankle height slush, grit and skating rink pavements.

Even if the footwear advice is not exactly welcomed at least the suggestion that everyone keeps warm with hot bowls of porridge at breakfast is met with approval; not only comforting but the ideal vehicle for large amounts of dark muscovado sugar or golden syrup. I make it with roughly one cup of oats to three cups of water. Bring the ingredients to the boil in a saucepan and simmer gently, stirring occasionally, until creamy. Honey, butter, cream, creme fraiche or chopped dates are other delights to eat with porridge.

The hyacinth bulbs I potted some weeks ago are throwing delicious scent around the room, and this, combined with the wood smoke from the fire gives the house the feeling of a rural oasis…….. I can almost hear the sheep bleating.

Reading in bed at night, swathed in an array of colourful wraps and blankets to keep warm, I’m told I look like an eccentric aunt. How romantic. One of my favourites is a cotton cellular example that I dyed lilac to pep up its hospital look. I’d like to add one of Donna Wilson’s takes on traditional Scottish blankets to the pile. And if I was to introduce some colour to my bedding themes, then Dorma’s new duck egg blue cotton sheets would be perfect.

I’m the first to bang on about the false economy of buying cheap gadgets. But when my iron was lost on one of the shoots a few months ago, as a stop gap I nipped down to the electrical shop and bought the cheapest one I could find. In short, a mistake highlighted when I swished, rather than sweated, through the creases with the new Phillips model that has replaced the bad buy. With the windows steamy, a cup of Earl Grey, and the afternoon play going in the background, I soon got through the stack of pre-washed tea towels to be made up into linen tablecloths, orders for which are flying out of my online shop.

Linen sheets and peppermint creams

December 17, 2009

8.00am: a fairy tale encounter with iced petals and snow flakes when I venture into the garden this morning to prod a blocked drain. A mucky distraction from the business of Christmas shopping which is something that I always intend to get done without getting stressed over, but never quite manage to pull off. It would be wise not read all those Christmas gift guides which swamp the reader with choices and possibilities that make decision making even more problematic. At least they’re not all about solid gold teapots these days, and hey, the Rolser (shopping on wheels vehicle of choice in Olhao) was even in the Eco Gift part of the Observer magazine.

The shop floors of the Nation, though, continue to be choked with over packaged Starbucks gift boxes and pile ‘em high towers of celebrity memoirs. And talking of books, real ones, I have just ordered several copies of the Little Stranger by Sarah Waters . It’s supposed to be a good eerie read – perfect for a snug holiday afternoon.

I know that all the mags are telling us to make our own presents, but it’s not quite as simple as that. You need time to create a handsewn bag for Aunt Olive or a knitted mohair scarf for your nearest and dearest. I know it’s all about the thought but setting yourself the task of homemade gifts for everyone can induce similar palpitating stress to battling through Oxford Street department stores. The way I do it is to do a bit of shop bought and a bit of homemade, and try to give appropriately. I can’t see my 20 year old wowing over a box of peppermint creams but know that if they’re prettily wrapped in tissue, will really please a girl friend or grandparent.

HOME MADE PEPPERMINT CREAMS: 1 egg white 450g icing sugar, juice of half a lemon, 5 or 6 drops of peppermint flavouring, the mere driplet of green colouring (or they’ll look gruesome and lurid). Beat the egg white until fluffy, and add all the other ingredients to make a ball of green paste. Roll out to half an inch thick and cut out shapes. I like mine round, but stars and hearts would be good for christmas too. Decorate with silver balls and leave the creams to dry on greaseproof paper overnight
Christmas biscuits are also a winner, and can be thrown together in half an hour, left to cool and either eaten for tea or wrapped up as a gift. Watch me making a batch on my latest YouTube

I have in mind, a ‘present to myself’ set of Volga linen sheets. But the car needs to be fixed and what sort of parent lets their children drive off in a dodgy vehicle? This business of feeling responsible for your offspring, doesn’t diminish as they get older, quite honestly you feel even more protective towards them as they hurl themselves around the world on gap year travels and hit party nights in drink sodden University cities.

Another way of giving beautiful presents without spending a fortune is to have a rummage around charity shops for someone elses old glass. I set myself a visual style guide: no crystal glass, nothing coloured and always simple in shape. In this way it makes the hunt easier and defines the ‘look’.

Seagulls patterned like Fairisle jumpers swoop over the house in Olhao, where the ‘ room on top’ is emerging from piles of rubble and bricks. I’m not going to post the ‘works in progress’ pictures because they don’t look much fun, only to me. I will wait for a ‘before’ and ‘after’ show. Dare I say it, but it might take less time than we thought because Mr Martinho got off to a roaring start when a violent storm was forecast. It didn’t appear but, because there were more hands on the job in anticipation, the men were able to take down the old roof, and construct the building’s cement platform in just a few days. I like the way they have put all the old tiles to one side for reuse.

I’ll leave you at the end of the year, with a plate of plump aromatic lemons, as typical an element of winter, as the rickety wagons of roasting chestnuts in the twinkly Olhao cobbled streets.

Bulbs in the shed

November 26, 2009

It has been a glorious Indian summer of an autumn: crisp golden leaves catching in my hair and tumbling across the grass as I walk in the park. But now the clouds have burst to soak the leaf fall which pastes the streets like papier mache. London is good at this time of year quieter, more mellow. In the deepening shadows the city squares and churchyards seem more secret, invitations into the past.

At weekends it’s hat, scarf and ribbed tights weather. Dark sunday afternoons are for eating cake and idling at an exhibition. I really really recommend the visual magic at The Museum of Everything, showing unseen artists, who create their work outside the eyes and ears of the art world. Take Judith Scott, who made sculpture from household objects entirely hidden by being wound-about over and over by wool and yarn. Scott had Down’s syndrome, and only communicated through these things. They’re very convincing, together with the spirit drawings of medium Madge Gill, and the ceramic recycled kingdom of Indian roads worker Nek Chand. The works are unintentional, delicate and profound.

What a contrast at Tate Modern where Pop Life: Art in a Material World is billed as a foray into the world of the celebrity artist. It includes Andy Warhol wallpaper, Damien Hirst’s golden spot paintings, a reconstruction of Keith Harings’s Pop Shop and some unappealing top shelf stuff in the over 18s’ room. The artist as commercial brand continues to flow into the shop where Tracey Emin white mugs are a whopping ¬¨¬£15.00. It all left me feeling rather flat and anxious to go home and do something nourishing like collect the bean and nicotiana seeds from the pods I’ve been drying by the boiler.

I wake up to the door bell and a postman (something of a rarity during the recent post strikes) bearing a cardboard box with perforated holes from Crocus. It’s the tulip bulbs: Lilac Perfection, Tulipa White Parrot and Tulipa Violet Beauty. All to be planted asap. Six inches isn’t too deep too keep out the the foxes and squirrels who enjoy a crunchy bulb or two..or three….or more. By the way, bulbs are poisonous if eaten by humans and can be irritating to the skin.

A couple of weeks ago I planted up of bowls with specially forced bulbs of hyacinths, paper whites, and crocuses so we will hopefully be surrounded by gorgeous scent and colour over christmas.The secret is to keep them cool and in the dark to let them develop good roots before bringing them into the warmth and light.

Now for some trumpet blowing: Remodelista editor, Sarah Lonsdale has voted my blog as one of her top ten eclectic design blogs. And I’m ‘Queen of Simple’, no less, in Grazia magazine where there’s a piece on the house in Olhao. Speaking of which, hooray! hooray! almost a year to the day, we have the licence to start work on The Room on Top. Who knows what will be in store, once Mr Martinho’s gang arrive and start the heavy work? I will keep you posted.

A room isn’t a room without Farrow and Ball’s ‘Teresa’s Green’, it’s my current passion, having just re-painted the tv room. A room isn’t a room without a dog, but unlike paint which can be painted over if you get fed up with it, a dog is for life. Should be, but round here ‘weapon’ dogs roam the streets with hoodied youths who can’t look after themselves, let along something on four legs. We found a sad, abandoned and emaciated staffie with sores and trailing claws who clambered wearily into the back of the car and let me take her to Battersea Dogs Home. If you want to rescue her she is Brindle/White SBTX

What with all the leaves pouring off the trees it seems a little unseasonal to be to picking remnants of a summer flower garden: a few rose heads, nasturtiums and so on. I hope it’s not because of climate change. But then Pepys describes roses blooming in his London garden in the middle of December, and that was hundreds of years ago before we’d begun to stifle the planet. Anyway, it’s good to press the petals between the pages of the telephone directory for simple decorations that you can stick on your christmas cards.

The warm conditions followed by wet this autumn have been a fungi foragers dream. My family really got into searching for porcini, (penny buns) field mushrooms, chanterelles, blewitts and parasols when we lived in Spain. These are edible mushrooms that are quite easy to identify. The locals there were crafty so and sos and thought nothing of raiding their neighbours’ fields before daylight.

On a stroll through Berkshire parkland we found parasols (actually umbrella shaped) poking up beneath gnarled trunked oak trees. They’re very tasty fried in a little butter with parsley, but as with all edible mushrooms you shouldn’t eat them in large quantities because they’re hard to digest.

Beautiful and Useful

October 18, 2009

I am on a no waste campaign after listening to Tristram Stuart at a Studioilse Kitchen Table Talk, about the shocking way in which we waste food. His book Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal reveals how much food gets chucked away right across the food supply system. Consider just this one fact: from the bread and other grain-based products that British households throw away each year, Stuart estimates it would be possible to alleviate the hunger of 30 million people. That sounds at first like an improbably large number ‚Äö?Ñ?¨ until one considers that British households chuck away 2.6bn slices of bread each year.

I was brought up with the concept of not wasting food because both my parents were world war 11 children, but my daughter sees little harm in binning a perfectly good but one day out of date yoghurt, “Mum, you’ll give us all food poisoning” she protests, sinking her teeth into a Big Mac.

Tristram would give the thumbs up, though, to my apple gathering in the garden. We have had three apple puddings and as many crumbles in the last fortnight. Not only have copious sheets of the Guardian been recycled, but the trays of newspaper wrapped apples in the cellar will last weeks.I’m planning to send a specimen – fruit and leaves – to the National Fruit Collection who for a tenner, will attempt to identify it. The tree’s pretty old so I’m hoping its some long lost variety.

The 19C architect and designer William Morris’s belief ‘Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful’ is a resourceful, and anti-waste idea to embrace now. That doesn’t mean you have to buy exquisite and expensive: think of the humble pudding basin, it looks good and serves its function for very little money. Similarly, a useful junk piece with intrinsically good bones, can be given a facelifit with a lick of paint.

See my latest Youtube where I perk up a rather gloomy looking side table, rescued from a local skip. This is a good way, too, of using up paint that you might have left over- another way of reducing waste. Don’t worry if all you have is emulsion. I know that paint purists wouldn’t approve but I use it all the time to paint bits of furniture. A water based primer, and two top coats of colour is all that you need. Here I’ve used Little Greene’s Salix which is a pale greeny blue colour.

When I do get around to mending things, the relief and sense of purpose, and happy thoughts of money saving are so huge that I don’t know why I didn’t do it long before. For the last year or so, the dog has been regularly falling through the Salvation Army Ercol sofa because the webbing has worn through in the middle. Being lightweight, the cat doesn’t have this problem, and humans know how to avoid the caved in bit. So I am so excited to have come across the Upholstery Supply Man who is sending me replacements.All I have to do is fit them……

My last swim at the lido was two weeks ago: the day golden and still with maturing shadows; the air warm but with a chill; the water sparkling and fresh. Wistful, now that there won’t be any swims until spring. But to look on the bright side of things there are the dahlias: old English teatime flouncy petals that make me think of Erdem’s digital floral printed dresses, one of which to waft about in, top of my current wish list.

The September issue

September 20, 2009

I have had an action packed summer: six teens and me, in Olhao. ( No time to paint my nails, let alone get a new blog post out) The heat, beach and three meals a day keep them out of trouble. There are a few ups and downs: livid red grazes from a failed mission to rescue a mobile phone, another you-learn-by-your-mistakes- episode with drinks in pretty colours, bags with keys and money left at shops, and spectacles washed away whilst frolicking in crashing waves.

The food side of things is more of a challenge Not that the gang are fussy, in fact they lap up everything from crab to clams but the sheer weight of daily supplies is in danger of destroying the Rolly Rolser shopping bag on wheels. This trusty accessory joins the fleet that Olhaons trundle over cobbles to the daily fish and vegetable market. Saturday is best when local farmers bring their own produce and I come home with exquisite olives, sprigs of mint, garlic strings and brilliant zinnias, one euro a bunch.
I am keen to get to grips with grilling sardines, and hang around peeling white washed alleys where old ladies and fishermen expertly fuss over their door step bbqs. The story: gray charocoal, not too much of it and a cup of water for damping unruly flames. This ensures light crispy skins, rather than the oily black charred offerings if the charcoal is red hot. As for preparation, the daily catch is so gleaming and rigid with freshness there’s not need to gut them. Salad to go with sardines includes our take on Italian panzanella made with stale bread, chopped tomatoes, cucumber, onion , parsley and a dressing with oil, balsamic vinegar, and garlic. Then there are lemon quarters to squeeze over the fish and bring out its flavour.

The teen gang leave with the exuberance with which they arrived, in a whirlwind of Kate Moss scent, suntans, tangled salt hair and flip flops. The house settles back into itself again, with the air of post party relief that comes from from sending everyone home in one piece. I have a few delicious mornings in bed with Alan Bennett’s witty and self deprecating memoir Untold Stories . Then it is planning the Room on Top project for which, 8 months on, I finally have planning permission. The very last little bureaucratic hurdle is the 3 month licence, which should be through next week. More finger crossing.

As I pack away t-shirts and cool dresses, I muse that that it’s one thing to have visual records of Olhao’s unmanicured charm, but another to convey the pot pourri of smells: overworked drains, rotting fish, the waft of a honeysuckle in a hidden courtyard; beery fisherman, lingering herb cologne, home cooked stews, the ozone and saltness of the sea air. They’re so evocative, so of the place, it’s hard to conjure them up mentally but London suburbaban street air seems so bland in comparison, even when the foxes have been having a party by the dustbins.

Back at the ranch in Tulse Hill, the house has been earning its keep and host to shoots, including one for SMA baby milk of feature film proportions (apologies to my neighbours) with baby models, back-up baby models, and crates of plastic flowers; the latter draped all over the garden to make it look more colourful. My son says why can’t it always look like that. I give him the look reserved for similar utterances about things not meeting his exacting standards.

Actually, the house is looking a bit bashed up after all the babies, cables, and cameras. So I am planning to do a bit of tidy up: repaint floorboards, and renew floor coverings with simple tactile rush matting, the sort we had at home in the sixties’. I am also debating one of Atlanta Bartlett’s white country tables from her new online store Pale and Interesting.
The vegetable garden has survived a month of sporadic watering and nurturing from family members who remained to look after the shoots. The lettuces didn’t stand a chance, but the potatoes (Pink Fir Apple) and (International Kidney) are plump; we eat the first earthy diggings, boiled in mint and tossed in butter.

Cherry tomatoes, yellow courgettes, garlic and shallots have all performed far better than I’d dared hope, and I shall plait together a bundle of garlic for my friend’s birthday. Thanks, in part, to Lambeth council: it is their free compost bin that is the receptacle for the nicely rotted contents from the kitchen peelings.

Despite the jolly hard work of nurturing and tending to the nursery of delicate seedlings that started life next my desk, it is pure pleasure to see last year’s bean seeds curling and climbing up the wigwams, heavy with slender green pods.

Even the temperamental basil, that threatened to expire when I brought it outside too early is keeping us in supplies for pesto. The magical notion of producing so much from so little is exquisitely shown by a border of leggy nicotiana plants, whose delicate white flowers release intoxicating scent at nightfall. Weeks of sensual and visual pleasure from a packet of seeds is truly gratifying.

London might not have the laid back charms of a Portuguese fishing town, but there are more than enough autumn shows and exhibitions to divert post holiday blues. I am looking forward to the new ceramics gallery at the V&A , settles and benches by Studioilse on show at Leila’s Cafe, part of the London Design Festival , or booking a table at local home dining room the Salad Club. Don’t miss life on planet fashion in the endearing and irreverent documentary, The September issue which chronicles Vogue editor Anna Wintour’s preparations for the September 07 issue. I am agog because I once worked in an office below the Vogue fashion floor, and was terrified by the svelte things that tended the sample rails upstairs.

It’s the time of year, too, to think about hunkering down with warm blankets and cushions by the fire. I use a mix of calico and cuttings from Liberty floral cottons to make simple patch work covers. See my trusty sewing machine in action on my latest Youtube video which shows you how to make a simple bobbly trimmed tray cloth: an idea that could easily be put in the pipeline for diy christmas presents.

And if all you do is go for a walk, take a bag, the trees are heavy with fruit: crab apples, plums, sloes and so on, for a spot of autumnal jam making.

Wild swim

July 14, 2009

Good news! Elle Decoration, July Issue, has voted my blog as one of the best style blogs on the web: ” British style journalist Jane Cumberbatch’s blog is a feast of gorgeous photography and inspiring ideas, on everything from Ercol furniture to making shortbread. Her style is simple, relaxed and recession-friendly”. I’m in sartorial male blog company too, from Mr Peacock who offers tips on how to customise an Ikea sofa, to James Andrew a NY designer who dresses as hip as his surroundings and Jonathan Adler who’s mad about blue.
It’s sweatingly hot and steamy in the city but at Hampstead Ladies pond , spreading trees shade this North London oasis and swimmers become part of nature as they move between floating water lilies and small fleets of ducks with ducklings. It’s my first ever dip here, and it feels like heaven, so peaceful, and even though the dark water seems eerily bottomless, it is fresh and free from tangled weed.

Ben and Jerry’s or Haagen Dazs might be what the teenagers prefer to spoon into their wafer cones, but I live in hope that student budgets or even ennui with the packaged stuff, might nudge them towards making their own ice cream. It’s dead easy. See my latest YouTube for proof.

As all bee experts will testify, the global bee population has recently entered a catastrophic decline, in a syndrome despairingly known as “Colony Collapse Disorder”. Thriving bee farms are being turned overnight into ghost towns as workers mysteriously desert their queens and everyone is quoting Albert Einstein to the effect that if the bees go, the human race will perish four years later. Well you wouldn’t think there’s a buzz crisis in Tulse Hill the bees are positively crowding out my pom pom thistles and lavender bushes in their pollinating and honey making efforts. In fact, this year. Nevertheless, I’m going to do my bit and offer up a quiet spot by the shed to host a hive a brilliant initiative for urban beekeepers who need more space.

I’ve been communing with more bees at Das Kransbach spa where you can get stuck into some serious treatments or idle away the day in buzzing and knee tickling Alpine wild flower meadows. The boxy hives passed on the walk home are the source of sticky golden chunks of honeycomb for breakfast. Just as energising for the soul are the sublime rooms designed by Ilse Crawford and the simple back-to-nature saunas, and pools that lull guests into bliss. No spartan spa this is, either, with delicious cakes on trays at teatime.