It`s Friday eat a pie day.

The feeling you get coming home from work on a Friday should be somehow harvested , made into a drug and administered free on the NHS. it must be chemical.

 Monday morning the snarled up traffic with grumpy white van men,  bleary eyed school children dawdling along with heavy hearts seems like a silent movie night at a school for the blind. The apathy cloud rolls over the Howgill Fells and it takes two hail Marys and a double espresso to pull me out of my bed.

I love my life and all the days in between Monday to Friday. But Friday night is mine.

I remember all the Halcyon Fridays of my youth in York. Going to the "cinema" aka The hansome Cab, The Tiger, Fibbers, Ziggys dressed in neon shades with dodgy perm bobbling in the wind. The Spanish inquisition   ensued at home as to the exact plot line of "Clockwise" or whichever movie I had supposedly watched. Mind you as I got older the cinema was more dangerous! Everyone smoked and snogged the film away...bliss.

Then I fell in love and Fridays were about waiting. Waiting for my parents to go out, waiting for my truelove to arrive...on his bike. Firelit snuggles on the sofa and Napoletana pizza.

Saturday mornings were equally golden. I worked in Fred`s home bakery with a marvellous woman called Alma. We got on famously from the start, and I can honestly say that making sandwiches out of French sticks, listening to Radio York and getting the bread orders ready was one of the most satisfying jobs I`ve ever had. Give us this day our daily bread...really mattered to the old and bold who came into the shop for a little chat and a bloomer. When I left at 12.30 I was ladened with Big bertha cream cakes and Pies and pasties and I went round to a very dear friends house for Saturday lunch and pots and pots of tea. It was a golden time, like a sanctuary to me and showed me what sort of family I wanted for my own.

University all mingled into one, it was Friday everyday and I met Matty there who came to build my new family and be at the centre of all the Friday nights to come. Tonight I am exhausted but there is red wine by the fire and lasagne in the oven and  all the promise of a little golden time with those I love for the next 48 hours. Friday, eat a pie day indeed.

I haven`t been to the shops Lasagne

This is really what`s for dinner Clarey!

Lasagne sheets

1 jar of posh pasta sauce

1 chorizo sausage

1 pack of ham

All the end bits of cheese in the fridge

1 can of tomato soup

Bechamel sauce, 1tbs flour,1tbs butter, single cream, parmesan cheese

Make the white sauce, add any cheese you like and a tsp of English mustard.

layer the lasagne with ham, chorizo tomato sauce,soup, all the cheeses and then finally the white sauce. season with loads of black pepper and bung in the oven for 30 mins until bubbling and ready to be snaffled on the sofa in front of a warm fire, with a hot man at your side and a big glass of red to make you smile that it`s wine o`clock at last.

The Windfalls

The best things in life are free , like the laughter you create dancing in the kitchen with your children to wear them out before bedtime.The look of pure love on your little ones face when you come to pick them up after a hard day at school. Or first love , you know the one you said you`d love  forever and really meant it. Only time and circumstance turns our heartfelt promises into untruths. I love this time of year when you can forage for blackberries and windfall apples. Some things that are unexpected and free , taste so much better for being so. When I was fourteen I had a lovely boyfriend Wocko, who I now know to be a mega successful lawyer and I hope and pray he is happy and loved. He really was the one who got away. I think he might have had a few teenage spots, didn`t we all. Every time I look at a spotty banana I think of him- the spotty ones are always the sweetest!

Tomorrow we shall "plough the fields and scatter" at church, like I have done for the last 40 years every Autumn.It is Harvest everyday for us though isn`t it really. I`ll always remember a little girl I taught who had a tough life. She would horrify the other children in circle time telling us about the sniffer dogs who came to her house that weekend, or her Mum getting done for shoplifting. She wore a camel gilet to school one day it was suede with a fluffy fur lining and she looked an angel in it. "They took back all the other stuff mi Mam robbed , but they didn`t get my jacket", she beamed. When it was Harvest she brought in a plastic bag full  of windfall apples she had picked on her way to school. If there is a God in Heaven he would have been beaming down at her that day, because her gift was the most precious Harvest gift I think I have ever seen. When it was Christmas she brought me a present - a Mr Kiplings mince pie she had wrapped up herself in some shiny silver foil. I think teaching is hard work sometimes but then once or twice in a career it delivers the most precious of gifts at times when we need them most.

Windfall crumble

Take a few manky apples and blackberries and wash them thoroughly, especially if you live near Sellafield like we do!!

Stew them in a little sugar, water and splash of white wine, sprinkle on cinnamon.

To make the crumble rub 100g butter into 175g of self raising flour. Stir in 6oz of muscavado sugar and 25g of oats for a crunchy crumble.

Bake in a medium oven for 20 mins until golden, serve with vanilla custard and be grateful for every free mouthful!! xx

Does anybody really like Christmas cake?


It just dawned on me yesterday that the C word "Christmas" is not so far away. Of course we all have mountains to climb and obstacles in our lives to overleap before then that sometimes seem too much to bear. It`s the same every year and yet miraculously the year turns like a glittering sand timer and the hope and expectations of a happy time ahead in itself is enough to guide us through the dark days of Autumn.
I am not going to get trussed up like a rather anxious turkey worrying about being perfect this year. I am not. End of. Sometimes the best of times cannot be gift wrapped or planned, or bought- they just happen because of all the Love we have stored like squirrels over the years. My store of love is a larder full of nuts ie my family and the traditions we cling onto and the mere memories of days that are no more but were filled with special people.
I am not making a Christmas cake or buying boxes of chocolate biscuits this year. I do it in October like a good girl and then the adorables in my house badger me for months asking if they can have a slice or a handful. "No!" I say we`re saving them for Christmas. Of course when they do get brought out on Christmas day after lunch and turkey butties , nobody wants them anyway as they are too full!
 Does anybody really like Christmas cake anyway?
But maybe...It`s the smells and the stirring and the little helpers wanting to lick the bowl when making it that are evocative of Christmases past when we were young and carefree. So maybe I will make one to ensure my children have cinnammon flavoured happy memories of their Mum in years to come if ever they need a happy thought to cheer them. When it is cooked and iced and fed with brandy if anyone wants a slice and it`s only October they can have one! Because today is the best day we have and we need to eat ,drink and be merry more often than once a year if you ask me.


I`m going to make some Damson gin today for Chrimbo and urge you to do the same!

Damson Gin

2lbs Damson washed and pricked
2litre pop bottle or a few clean coffee jars
1litre gin (Aldis finest will do)
6-8oz sugar
Prick the Damsons and pop into the bottle/jars. Add the sugar and Gin. For the first few days tilt the bottle to ensure the sugar dissolves. Put into a dark cupboard for 3 months (Chrimbo!!) and then decant and strain before putting into a decanter or little bottles to give as the best gifts ever.

I feel much more optimistic now I know I am going to make someone (like my children`s teachers) a really special gift.

Rain rain go away!

I don`t know why I let myself be talked into moving miles away from my friends and family without first doing some meteorological investigations. "The Lakes" should have given the game away I suppose as they certainly don`t fill themselves. No, the rain it raineth everyday in Kendal. If you watch the weather forecast there`s always a rain cloud (probably superglued) right on top of Kendal! It`s so debilitating and the Kendal bouffant frizzy hair look is so not a good one.I think the biggest trauma has been having to buy an anorak , in York I had a nice umbrella to pop up before I alighted from a nice dry taxi and tottered up the Stonegate cobbles in my high heels to a nice warm pub.In Cumbria I find myself having indepth conversations with shop assistants about breathability and if the rain will bead off my raincoat. I just want an animal print fun fur affair!

A town mouse I shall always be...

Rant over and log fire crackling in the hearth , curtains firmly swooshed and amber tealights twinkling in their diwas, I feel so different now. In Autumn the change of the seasons can leave you with a sense of loss, darkness is on the way and the Summer has faded like the sandal strap tan on your toes. It is a time when we cannot go rushing up mountains after dinner , or garden until our backs give way. Salads are shelved and bring on the comfort food that`s what I say! Comfort and Joy whatever the weather, even far from home as long as we`re together. That`s the reason that I stay , because to my little family we are already home. They love the mountains, the Lakes , the muddy welly walks before lunch.Lately on these dark nights I have been revisiting a childhood favourite with Jemima. She adores Worzel Gummidge! "A slice of cake and a cup of tea suits Aunt Sally and that suits me..."

Happiness rests on such little things, a cuddle with your Mummy and a nice sweet cup of tea and a slice of cake is cooking up firelight teatime memories for my own special ones. For me my best teatime memory  has to be Battenburg cake at my Nanna`s house,tea with sugar lumps, gas fire hissing and then a game of rummy or two on a little table she put up for us in front of the fire.Then we would crackle as we got into bed as the floor was cold but the mattress was sizzling from the electric blanket she so kindly put on for us. I`m sure it rained just as much in my childhood in York as it does now , but the grown ups who loved and protected me with an all encompassing umbrella of love never let the rain make them grizzle! 

So I must put on my anorak and hiking boots and splash through the puddles in my life until a sunny spell blows in.

Pork fillet

1 long pork fillet (looks like an alien)

handful of interesting mushrooms

1 pot of double cream

sherry

garlic

butter

red onions

thyme

wholegrain mustard

Seal the pork fillet on all sides in a heavy pan in a knob of butter. Then pop into a medium oven for 30 mins until roasted , add a sprig of two of thyme and garlic cloves as well. To make the sauce add the meat juices to a pan with a sliced onion ,mushrooms and a  spoon of mustard , pot of cream pepper and sherry, heat until a silky sauce is formed. Serve the sauce on the pork, cut into medallions. I know it sounds Plebian but I love this one with french fries to soak up the sauce and a few Green beans for goodness sake!

I haven`t written my blog for weeks as I have been too busy being happy and just living life. It feels good to write it once again and let you all know that the minute we realise that we are all connected and noone is truly alone, then difficult days seem suddenly a little easier and a little sunnier too. :)xx