Lunch for the [deputy] landlord...

Baked beans, cottage style.

Two pork ribs, trimmed off a bit to make supper tomorrow, and a piece of smoked bacon, chopped - browned over the fire for 5 minutes or so.

Added a chopped onion, garlic, then a few minutes later, a tablespoon of brown sugar.

Opened tin of tomatoes - and sod it, the new 99p tin opener doesn't work. Curse Robert Dyas then open tin with brute force.

Add 'tin opener' to the shopping list chalked onto the mantel piece.

Added tomatoes to pan. Wiped the fine spray of tomato juice from my face. I probably look like Paul Bettany in Gangster No. 1. The tin died hard...

Added black pepper, bay leaf, majoram - no salt, salt hardens beans.

Added bowl of white beans soaked overnight and water from kettle.

Brought to boil for 10 minutes.

Now, if I had a hay-box, i'd have slid it in there and left it for 4 hours. I don't, so the pot went into the lpg stove in the back-kitchen.

Mmm - lovely smells. Time for breakfast, and a 2 hour stint at the keyboard

Only two hours work today - i'll have to do better tomorrow. Most of the day was taken up with learning to drive a landrover, then carrying stuff up to the cottage in it - an old windsor chair, a zinc chest to store food in, etc.

Home made baked beans taste remarkably like heinz, oddly enough.

Picked a pocket full of blackberries on the way home - i'm eating them with greek yogurt.

Called home to hereford - it's still summer down there as far as the fruit is concerned.

Reading: Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L Sayers. Silly book. Nothing like as strange and funny as Nine Tailors. Just a lot of unlikable suspects and some train timetables. And almost NO Bunter...

I wonder if I should learn learn to fly-fish. There's salmon in that river..

Bah - turns out I can post to this blog from the cottage, but not moderate or comment - so that will just have to hang on until I have babysitting duties at the bottom of the hill and can use a real computer.

Meanwhile, either:
A - it's a mild night.
B - i'm toughening up.
C - the place is finally warming through.
D - any combination of the above.

I know this to be the case as I just found myself with no clothes on while getting ready for bed. Didn't manage that when I was here in july!

The pop-pop-snap-hiss of a log fire is one of the loveliest sounds in the world. Seriously.

Just clocking off - 4 hours work on step-outline, trying to make sense of the different stories that make up the whole.

Nice egg and a pot of tea, then a few chapters of Bleak House, which i've had on the go since I got stuck overnight at JFK overnight in June.

Landlord climbing up for lunch tomorrow, so I am soaking beans.

Have to remember to borrow the sewing machine on Saturday and finish putting curtains up before I freeze.

I've cracked under the strain of living wild.

I just caught myself collecting sheeps' wool from the gate to leave out for my mice, so they won't be tempted to carry off my socks. Commit me, now.

I and da mice are v v cosy

It's 8.30, and almost dark (still some reflected light in the sky).

As of 5pm yesterday I am now living full-time in the Stone Caravan. October. Bloody awful timing - although, to be honest, August was almost as cold!

The composting loo is working, the water filter is doing its work and the fire seems to be just warm enough for comfort – although I am looking at a pot belly stove that I can install in a month or two...

Just went to make tea and found a disgruntled mouse in the recycling bin. I had to help him out, which probably induced a mouse-sized heart attack of terror...

Running a live test…

I am updating this by email from the North Cloister of Westminster Abbey (a delightful spot with a healthy draft and a fairtrade coffee offering to mitigate the chill of the stone seating.

It's good to know that the Abbey still resembles nothing so much as a national auction house, the bays are crammed hugger-mugger with beds, chairs, stacked portraits, chipped busts and broken vases, all in magically odd conjuction with each other. There is the same tender shock at recognising long dead affection in the portrait of a child, or a faded postcard from the front, lost in the back of a drawer. Poet's corner is, of course, the book section…

Happy New Year everyone!

Wednesday was the first day of the 3rd Millenium in the Ethiopian Calendar (which is based on the Coptic Church calendar).

I spent Tuesday evening in Trafalgar Square, with what looked like at least 3000 Ethiopians and their friends, partying "like it's 1999" for the very last time.

September is a great time to start the year. It's still warm enough to sit out and barbecue and drink wine at midnight.

Roman Wall Blues
 
 
Over the heather the wet wind blows,
I've lice in my tunic and a cold in my nose.

The rain comes pattering out of the sky,
I'm a Wall soldier, I don't know why.

The mist creeps over the hard grey stone,
My girl's in Tungria; I sleep alone.

Aulus goes hanging around her place,
I don't like his manners, I don't like his face.

Piso's a Christian, he worships a fish;
There'd be no kissing if he had his wish.

She gave me a ring but I diced it away;
I want my girl and I want my pay.

When I'm a veteran with only one eye
I shall do nothing but look at the sky.

WH Auden

Hmmm... I have been trying to find a way to update this on-site, from the hilltop, but Blogger is not really PDA friendly.

I have to solve this, as I will now be on the hill for much longer.

'Cos - I got the bursary!!!!!!!!!! For the next 4 month I am a full-time paid up commissioned writer in a stone caravan.

Just as well - the application process (3 - 4 hours a day writing, on top of a 10 hour working day, with long-haul travel thrown in, for 35 days) - almost finished me. I spent 10 days in a darkened room if conjunctivitis straight afterwards.

I was contemplating giving up one of the following:

• The long-houred Job (but even eccentric hermits need an income)
• The Writing (but I would probably go insane)
• The Cottage...

But, for the next few month I don't have to make that choice...

I was heading up the hill again in a week, to live and write in the cottage over October/November.

I am a little worried about Foot and Mouth. This is a very very hard time for hill farmer, as September is the month when the harvest the lambs, just before the grass on the hill dies back. They are at a standstill, with no cash coming in after a year's work, and no way to feed the excess stock through the winter. Walking through the pastures daily carries minuscule risk, but I don't want to do anything to cause more distress or concern to my neighbours at the moment.