September

All summer long, the cottage has been filled with the turbulence of our three teenage boys and all their visiting friends, fellow students, girlfriends, friends-friends, and cousins. So, September and the start of the autumn term, has given me a real taste of empty-nest syndrome. Son number three is staying on at school to take his Scottish Highers and is thankfully still living at home - but his elder brothers have both flown the nest to their respective universities in Edinburgh. Mr Country-Cottage and I are very proud - but feel the cottage is suddenly too quiet.

We decided to solve the problem of a too quiet life – by introducing a new and very noisy member to the family. We now have a rather handsome pure bred Welsommer cockerel to entertain and protect our three hens. He crows very loudly every morning at dawn. It’s a good job we don’t have neighbours!

What shall we call our cockerel..?

The new cockerel needs a name and, bearing in mind that the hens are named Kylie, Britney, and Beyonce, we would favour keeping with the theme of popular stars. So, this is where you come in, dear cottage-blog reader. Do click on this month’s poll to choose a name for him!

And, our other animal news is that on the 2nd of the month, it was wee Ruby’s first birthday!

Wee Ruby is one year old this month...

This month, interest has been expressed in knowing more about the cottage, so I thought I’d tell you a little about it’s fascinating history. It was built as a shepherd’s cottage in the mid 1800’s from the very same pink sandstone used to build nearby Drumlanrig Castle. Until we bought it twenty years ago, the cottage was owned by the estate of the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry. We bought it in a derelict state. Before it fell into decline, however, it was lived in over very many years by families who were born here, happily brought up their children here, and died here.

Years ago, at the end of our lane, there was once a local school and schoolhouse. Both are now privately owned houses. So our own children, and all the children in the outlying farms and cottages, have to travel six miles into the village for their schooling. That is also where we go for the nearest shop and post office. The nearest supermarket is well over twenty miles away!

The aerial photograph below, taken by the Ordinance Survey in 1964, shows our shepherd's cottage being lived in by a family who worked the land. You can see the neat rows of cabbages and potatoes growing on the patch of land opposite the cottage and the greenhouse/potting shed in the garden. I suspect it was these keen gardeners who originally planted the blackcurrant bushes which still thrive today.

The next photograph was also taken by the Ordinance Survey but in 2004. You can see that we have bought a bit more land, expanded the boundaries, and built an extension to accommodate our growing family. In 2004, we were still to landscape the garden and to begin planting vegetables of our own, but this photograph shows the cottage more or less as it stands today.

To give you an idea of how the cottage looked when we bought it derelict from The Estate, these photos show the kitchen before and after. The sandstone fireplace which now houses the Aga is an original feature found behind the crumbling brick façade of the previous century fire and oven housing. What a find!

Above: Original Kitchen vs now and the cottage hallway in 1990..!

In the garden this month, I’m still picking tomatoes from the greenhouse. The peppers are doing very well but are all still green. They will go from green, to yellow, to red as they ripen over the next few weeks. The pumpkin was doing marvellously until wee Ruby thought it was a football for her to play with on the lawn. It goes without saying therefore that we won’t be having a home-grown pumpkin at Halloween this year. The weather in September has been much improved and I have spent some time in the garden doing a last sowing of salad, rocket, and coriander. Plants to admire this month have been the flowering Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ and the white-scented Prunus, which has taken over from the Buddlia in the garden as the focus for butterflies.

The White Flowering Prunus

Sedum, Autumn Joy

Recipe for September: Oven Baked Squash Frittata

A frittata practically cooks itself and is an excellent supper dish.

I cook mine by lining an oven dish with butter or olive oil rubbed greaseproof paper and letting the oven do all the hard work. This month, I’m using seasonal squash instead of my usual potato as the main ingredient and the result is texturally sublime.

The method:

Use the middle of the roasting oven on a range cooker or turn up the oven to moderately hot at 180 degrees C, 350 degrees F, or Gas 5-6. Chop up whatever squash variety you have to hand into cubes and together with a sliced onion, I used a red one for a fabulous colour contrast, roast until soft and golden/caramelised. Scrape into a mixing bowl and add grated or crumbled cheese for a contrasting flavour. Again, use whatever you have to hand, cheddar, feta, mozzarella: it will all taste good. Scatter in a handful of rosemary with rocket, spinach or watercress for texture and beat in the eggs – as many as you need for how many you are feeding and the capacity of your oven dish. Pour the whole mixture into the greased greaseproof paper lined oven dish and bake until it is fluffy, set, and a little bit wobbly on top. Turn out onto a plate or slice into wedges for serving. This is fantastic with a seasonal pickle or chutney!

Next month, in October, I’ll be looking forward to the golden days of Autumn closing in. Already, the leaves of the deciduous trees in the woodland opposite the cottage are starting to curl and dry with the increasingly shorter days. I feel there is something comforting about the gathering in of crops at this time and the enthusiastic collecting of fallen wood for the log fire. The village thanksgiving festival, celebrated every year in October to signify the end of the harvest, and known locally as ‘The Cairn’ is the official start of the long winter ahead in this part of Scotland. No doubt, I’ll have lots to tell you about it all next month…

Janice

August

From the bonny bells of heather, They brewed a drink longsyne,
Was sweeter far than honey,Was stronger far than wine…
From Heather Ale, by Robert Louis Stevenson

You know it’s August here at the cottage when the hills all around are carpeted with vibrant purple flowering heather - that tough traditionally Scottish plant used for centuries to thatch cottages, fuel the fire, to make ale, tea, honey, as well as being woven into fences around the croft. Today, here on the shooting estate, the heather is managed by game-keepers to ensure it is plentiful enough to feed the grouse and so maintain the local shooting industry. Which, come the Glorious Twelfth, is the reason we have so many tweed-clad trained guns trooping past our cottage and through our blooming heather until the grouse shooting season ends in mid-December!

In the cottage garden, early in the month, we harvested our not-so-early potatoes. I was a little late in putting them in the ground this year but this didn’t stop us getting several buckets full of delicious potatoes in return, which I have used, stored, and even frozen ready for roasting later in the year. As I might have expected, Polly and Ruby, who have made a great job of digging up the flower beds this month while persuing mice, voles, or even frogs and toads, wanted to help me dig them up.

Also in the garden, despite a summer of torrential rain and little sunshine, the Buddleia has been taking centre stage by flowering magnificently and attracting plenty of butterflies into the garden – which I then have to keep ‘rescuing’ when they flutter into the greenhouse!

The hens have been disgruntled with the wet weather throughout August. They hate it when their feathers get wet and, instead of trouncing through the muddy fields after juicy worms and bugs, they sit all dedraggled looking under the henhouse, complaining loudly. I do hope September offers us more in the way of sunshine...

Socially, the highlight of the month was a village wedding. Robert and Laura, a local farmer and his new wife, were married amongst the August summer flowers in their farmhouse garden and with the magnificent heather-clad hills behind them. Afterwards, they held a reception for everyone living in a twenty five mile radius, in their cattle barn. Except that, despite what it sounds like, this was no traditional barn dance! Everyone was taken by surprise when, upon entering through the flower festooned barn door, they suddenly arrived into a sumptuously decorated silk-lined and glass-chandelier lit marquee, fully carpeted except for the bedecked dance floor and stage, over which tiny lights sparkled and resembled a midnight sky. Seating was at one of the dozens of tables set for a what turned out to be a fabulous evening of celebration, great food, lots of drinking, and dancing to a live band. Not a hay bale or stray heifer in sight – and the only green wellies and waterproof jackets - were the ones Mr County Cottage and I took from the back of our Landrover at around two o’clock that morning in order to walk home over the hills. Congratulations to Robert and Laura and thank your for sharing your special day with us all in such fine style!

Back in the garden, the new greenhouse, a welcome addition to the cottage garden this year, has been a saving grace for the tomato plants. Last year, grown outside against a sheltered wall, the tomatoes rotted on their vines before ripening due to the wet summer. This year, the summer has once again been wet and, not particularly warm either, but the tomatoes have thrived and are ripening nicely. They are full of flavour and delicious in salads and summer soups just now and, the end of seasonal glut, will keep us in tomato based sauces for some time to come. So, this month's recipe, made mostly from the contents of my greenhouse, is called Greenhouse Soup...

Greenhouse Soup.

Ingredients:
1 Medium sized onion, chopped.
3 medium sized potatoes, peeled and chopped.
Dash of olive oil/butter.
1 kilo or approx 2lb of tomatoes.
1 sweet red pepper
2pts or approx 1 litre of vegetable stock (I use stock made with Knorr Stock Cubes).
1 tablespoon of tomato puree.
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
Good handful of fresh basil, washed and torn up.

Method:
Wash peel and roughly chop the red pepper, tomato, and garlic. Place in a tin and sprinkle with olive oil. Roast in a hot oven until starting to blacken. Remove from oven and allow to cool – then you will then easily be able to peel away the skins and discard them. Put the onion and potato into a large soup pan and cook in a dash of oil/butter until softened. Prepare the vegetable stock cubes (2 or 3) by adding 2pts/ 1 litre of boiling water together with the tomato puree. Add the roasted vegetables to the onion and potato in the large pan and pour on the stock. Add the tinned tomatoes and torn basil leaves. Simmer for 20-30 minutes. Season to taste. Puree with a blender and serve up with your favourite crusty bread.

I hope you have enjoyed this month’s county cottage update. I’d love your comments and I have extended the preference poll until the end of September, so please do vote on what you’d like to see more of on a year in a country cottage blogspot before you click away!

Janice.

July

O flower of Scotland, when will we bee, your like again

They say, if you don’t like the weather in Scotland you should wait a minute… It’s very true that you can have all four seasons thrown at you in one day here. So, this month, when the sun was shining we went outside to enjoy the countryside – and when it wasn’t we stayed inside – with the Aga turned back on and the fire lit!

Polly and Ruby enjoy the July sunshine

At the start of the month, my dear mum came to stay for a couple of days with her little dog Bracken. Polly and Ruby were delighted to have the company of their boyfriend while mum and I went to explore nearby Drumlanrig Castle. As the castle is built entirely of pink sandstone, it is known locally as the Pink Palace. Nationally, the castle is known for its history, its antiques, and especially for its fabulous art collection. Drumlanrig was in the news a few years ago when one of its paintings, a priceless Da Vinci known as 'Madonna with the Yarnwinder', was stolen. Happily, the masterpiece has since been recovered and by the end of this year, it may be on display again. The formal gardens are also a great attraction and provide a lovely walk in the sunshine, so before mum and I went inside to enjoy our afternoon tea, I took a few photographs.

The formal gardens at Drumlanrig

Back home, the garden is blooming with annuals. My particular cottage garden favourites are the Antirrhinum or Snapdragon. I have memories of them from my childhood, when we used to pick them and use the flower heads as finger-puppets!

Another flower in the garden at this time of year is the one pictured below. It is a delicate tall, orchid-like plant, that enjoys having its roots in wet conditions. It self-seeds prolifically and, consequentially, the hedges and ditches are filled with them. It’s a breathtaking display to behold on a July day and I’ve seen motorists stop and get out of their cars just to admire them. But what are they? It’s not a trick question - we really do have no idea. So, if you can help us identify the mystery plant - please do!

A mystery plant in the garden...?

The hens have continued to enjoy roaming on the thistle festooned hills around the cottage. Sheep and their fully grown lambs, rabbits and their bright eyed kits, and a full compliment of pheasant and partridge, keep them company. In the July skies above the cottage, it is fun to see the swallows teaching their young ones how to master aerial acrobatics and, in the garden, it is fascinating to see the pied-wagtails demonstrating the best way to catch small flies and bugs from the clover heads and buttercups that cover our lawn.

Kylie, Britney, & Beyonce happily roam on the field and hill

In the vegetable garden, the runner beans are climbing up their bean poles and the little gem lettuce are all looking good. The tomatoes in the greenhouse are doing amazingly, displaying lots of lovely green tomatoes of differing sizes, which with care should start reddening up next month. The pumpkin is growing like a proverbial beanstalk and keeps flowering prolifically. I have to continually ‘nip them in the bud’ to make sure the plant's energy is directed towards the three biggest pumpkin buds to maximise potential for giant pumpkins come Autumn time!

Green tomatoes on the vine

Mid month, I attended a writer’s conference in Penrith, Cumbria. It was the Annual Romantic Novelist’s Association Conference and a wonderful opportunity for me to spend a whole weekend with fellow members and writer buddies. By day, I attended workshops and listened to talks from the industry professionals, top writers of women’s fiction, editors, agents, and publishers. In the evenings, I chatted to friends in the bar over a glass of wine and attended the late night kitchen parties afterwards. On the Saturday evening, I enjoyed the Annual Gala Dinner and on Sunday evening, I returned home to the cottage and to my family, having had an awful lot of fun, while learning much more about the craft of fiction writing. Hurray for the RNA!

While I was away in Penrith, Mr Country-Cottage was kept equally busy. As part of a champion Scottish axe-throwing team, he was booked to put on a demonstration of axe-throwing skills at the Village Gala, an important annual local event. I thought you might like to see a photo of the team, dressed in their tartan finery, and ready for action.

Ready for the Royal Highland Show, Edinburgh

The recipe for July is in celebration of my blackcurrant bushes, which are ‘currently’ weighed down with fruity produce - please do pardon the punnet! I will of course be making lots of jam and freezing as much of the surplus as I can manage to harvest. It’s handy having the boys home for the holidays in times like these. Blackcurrants freeze very well, and I think there is always something very special about defrosting them in the middle of winter, for a cheesecake topping or sorbet, and experiencing all the scents and flavours of a July day that has long gone.

So, here is the recipe for this month. It’s the one I use to make my own blackcurrant ice-cream. It’s a real taste of summer – whatever the weather.

Blackcurrant Ice-Cream
Ingredients:
1lb (450g) fresh blackcurrants
6 oz (175g) sugar
5 fl oz (150 ml) water
10 fl oz (175ml) double cream
You will also need a freezer proof plastic box with a lid and a nylon sieve.

Method.
Pile the blackcurrants, about one third at a time, into the sieve set over a mixing bowl, and mash with a wooden spoon until you have extracted all the pulp and only the stalks, pips and skins are left in the sieve.
Now place the sugar and the water in a saucepan over a medium heat, stir until all the sugar has dissolved, then let it come to the boil, and boil for 3 minutes exactly.
Remove from the heat and stir into the blackcurrant pulp.
Whip the cream until it just begins to thicken.
Fold the cream into the fruit mixture until thoroughly blended.
Pour it into the plastic box, and freeze in a freezer or in the ice-making compartment of a fridge turned to its coldest setting. As soon as the mixture begins to set (after about 3 hours) turn it out into a bowl and beat thoroughly. Then, return it to the freezer (in the box) until set, which will take about another 3 hours. Remove to the main part of the fridge about an hour before serving. Serves approx 6.

Next month, I’m sowing salad leaves and spicy rocket, to enjoy with our late summer salads. I’m hoping to harvest ripe tomatoes from the greenhouse and use up all the basil I’ve grown to go with them. Socially, we have a wedding to attend in early August and a dinner engagement mid-month, with some good friends. So, until the month end, do let me know what you enjoy about the country cottage blog. As you can see, I’ve gone all high-tech by adding the visitor map, a followers listing, and opinion poll that I hope you will all consider voting on.

Love, Janice