Stravaiging

Two Northumberland Beauties

In October I wrote about being in Yorkshire. In that same North of England trip I also caught up with two rather talented women who run businesses closer to home.

Northumberland is a county of contrasts - city life, beaches and castles, fishing communities, the largest reservoir and man made forest in England, high hills and empty moorlands. It borders Scotland and as the crow flies is only three miles from my village!

Surfacing

Books. My little world would be much smaller without them and I know I am far from alone in that feeling.

So many authors, so many subjects, never enough time to fully indulge our reading desires.

I've just read 'Surfacing'.

Kathleen Jamie has a wondrous grasp of lilting language. Her words describe times past, the everyday, the detail, the immensity of space and the tiniest scratch of a bird’s beak.

Her collections of essays transport you into the natural world with such a lightness of touch; you are gathered in and effortlessly carried along by her prose.

 

Here is the last paragraph of the last tale where she is standing still, lost in a wood.

‘Green ferns in the groin of an oak. Green moss cloaking a stone. Voice of a crow. Voice of a chiding wren. A smirr of rain too soft to possess a voice. Voice of the shrew, the black slug. Voice of the forest. Did you hear something move out the corner of your eye? The same moth come back? Or another leaf falling?

You are not lost, just melodramatic. The path is at your feet, see?

Now carry on.’

In 2004 the position of Makar (National Poet for Scotland) was authorised by the Scottish Parliament.

Kathleen Jamie became our fourth Makar in August 2021.

Do explore her few precious books.

Glimpses of the Past

Last week I had the good fortune to be in Halifax.

Yorkshire is packed with textile history from wool to cotton to silk and I have only explored a fraction of it so far.

Let me share my visits to The Piece Hall and to Shibden Hall with you...

Courgette Cake Season

I like cake. Specifically I like interesting cakes/loaves with lots of flavour. (No Victoria sponges here, thank you, and buttercream about once a year)

Courgettes/zucchini are everywhere you look at this time of the year in the UK and incorporating one in a cake makes sense (to me!). This obliging cake is adaptable, freezes easily, can act as breakfast or dessert too and is an easy one to whizz up and bake while the oven is hot for a meal.

It uses eggs but I may make a vegan version soon and amend the recipe.

Here's a PDF of the recipe