Way back in 2006, Nairn had just arrived and I had got it into my head that we needed to move house. It’s worth noting here that I come up with ridiculously impractical hair-brained schemes on a fairly regular basis and end up completely convinced that it’ll happen (recent examples include: buying a bus and driving around Europe with the kids for a year and ripping apart the lower half of the house in order to build a new kitchen) when they are so unlikely that it’ll never happen. So when I started musing on moving house, in the back of my head I had it sorted that it was never going to happen.

Except…

Except I found this house. It was charitably described by the estate agents as “in need of internal decoration” which was the understatement of the century. The chap who lived here previously had been a heavy smoker and after his death, his son had ripped up all the flooring and thrown magnolia paint over the entirety of the house to get it ready for sale. Unfortunately, the nicotine had seeped through the paint leaving the whole house tinged brown and greasy to the touch. The kitchen consisted of two cupboards and a sink, the bathroom was a hideous browny pink monstrosity and the central heating needed completely overhauled.

The one thing it really had going for it was the garden. These are the original photos we took on our first viewing:

and I was sold. For some reason – maybe eight years of living in flats – I was obsessed with the idea of having a garden for the kids to play in and when I stepped out the back door into this wonderland, my mind started doing calculations to work out if we could afford to live here. We left the viewing with me amped up and energised, Bob quietly enthused but cautious and with Findlay having made some friends already. To cut a long and dull story short, we bought the house, sold our flat and completed both sales within five weeks so that Findlay was in situ ready to start Primary 1 at the local school.

Four years on and the garden doesn’t look like that lush green paradise anymore. In my infinite wisdom (again), I directed Bob to pull up all the shrubs that ran the length of the garden without considering the effect this would have on the drainage. What happened was that our clay soil couldn’t cope with the rain and snow and we ended up with a swamp-like mass where our lawn used to be. Added to this, the hens are not exactly what you’d call garden-friendly and over two years they devoured every single green thing left in the garden. After this year’s snow, we have been left with not a single solitary blade of grass in the garden and the worst thing is that it’s all our own fault.

When I looked at our home on google maps recently, I nearly died of embarrassment. All of our neighbours have beautiful gardens and then there was our barren swamp with our bright orange Eglu Cube. Combined with the loss of our hens and my fear that letting the children play outside will mean squished babies, Bob & I decided that it was time to make the garden a priority.

In an ironic twist, Bob’s parents had decided to take a leaf out of our book and grow vegetables again and offered us many of their plants which we collected earlier in the week. Bob dug them into our swamp and I took a few snaps. Apologies for them being cameraphone pictures:

This one probably demonstrates our clay soil the best. In this picture there’s an apple tree, a pear tree and the plants that Bob’s parents gave us (Hostas, Irises and others which I’ve forgotten already!)

Greer’s placenta Cherry Tree

I can’t remember what this is – possibly a lilac?

I *think* this is a blueberry bush

Apple mint

Rhubarb

Blackcurrant bush (which Nairn destroyed last year by sitting on it)

So as you can guess by my exemplary explanation skills, my gardening knowledge still needs a lot of work but I’m really feeling enthused by the possibilities open to us by having this wonderful space available. I’m really embarrassed at the state we have managed to get this beautiful space into by sheer lack of knowledge and so I hope in time that we can turn this garden back into the masterpiece that drew us here in the first place. Wish us luck!

For any of you with disasterous gardens and no time/energy to deal with it you may want to consider Landshare,  a scheme devised by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall to match up unused growing space with people who want to grow their own veg but have no access to space. It’s a great cause and one which has my support.

Posted under interior decorating

Three posts in three days! You lot really are lucky!

So Sunday was my “get stuff done” day and this was the last thing that I made. I made a HUGE pot because at 35 weeks pregnant I want to have a stack of frozen meals ready to go after the baby arrives. I wouldn’t say we’re really arsey about what the kids eat, but in general every night time meal is prepared from scratch because I want to make sure that at least once a day they are getting a meal that I’m happy with. This meal makes me really happy because there’s loads of veg in it and the kids absolutely love it. The addition of root veg means that this curry casserole is nice and sweet and your choice of curry paste will determine how spicy it is. We used a balti curry paste which gave it nice flavour without blowing our heads off!

This recipe fed the five of us plus I froze easily enough for us to have another two meals. I used the biggest soup pan that I own and it was practically full so you might want to adjust your quantities if you’re only making one meal, but this is fab if like me you like having a freezer full of healthy meals that are prepared in a few minutes.

You will need:
4tbsp olive oil
2 onions, sliced
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1.5kg potatoes, cubed
8 good-sized carrots, cut into chunks
4 parsnips, cut into chunks
Half a swede, cut into chunks
One butternut squash, cut into chunks
4tbsp curry paste
250g red split lentils
3 litres stock (chicken or vegetable)

Put the oil in your pan, tip in the onion and garlic and cook over a medium heat for 3-4 minutes until softened. Tip in all your chopped veg, turn up the heat and cook for another few minutes until the vegetables are golden. Add in your curry paste, make sure your vegetables are well coated and keep stirring over the next few minutes while you make up your stock. Add in your stock, bring to the boil then reduce the heat. Add the lentils, cover your pan and simmer for 15-20 minutes until all the veg has softened and your sauce is nice and thick. Keep an eye on things because there’s so much veg in this that it could absorb all the stock and leave you sauceless! If it’s drying up, add more stock half a pint at a time with a tsp curry powder.

We served it up with wholegrain rice, naan bread and a dollop of natural yoghurt on the top. Absolutely gorgeous!

Posted under cooking