Village Christmas party

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Hannah

Here is my design for the village Christmas card. We’re doing it as a fundraiser for the village hall. The hall is a wonderful little place but the toilets freeze in winter and we all wrap up warm to go inside it. It’s also a valuable lesson in funding bureaucracy. We’re in the crazy situation of not being able to get enough money to rebuild the hall but we can get more funding than it would cost to rebuild it, to refurbish it. It seems daft to put in new heating when we could put up new walls to keep the current heating in!

Last night was the village childrens’ Christmas party planning meeting. How old is so-and-so now? What’s the name of the new baby over the way? Who should be Father Christmas? It has to be someone outside the village so that the children don’t recognise him. One man wins hands down because he comes with his own outfit. I’m on cheese rolls and cocktail sausages.

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Waste not, want not

Posted on November 7, 2011 by Hannah

Yesterday morning was beautiful, crisp, and frosty. We got into minus numbers on the thermometer but the sun was out so the day seemed to glow, reflecting off the oranges and golds of the autumn leaves. Morning fog rolled down crevices in the hills but soon dispersed as the day warmed up.

The major news on the farm is that there is a SparrowHawk around. Apparently it was seen carrying off a Coal Tit from one of the bird tables. Hearing that carries a strange mixture of thrill and sadness. How wonderful that there is a SparrowHawk around but I’m also sad for the Coal Tit. It was, after all, one of these cheeky little birds that hid a sunflower seed in the gable end of the farm house, which is now cheerfully growing at right angles. Nature’s a funny old thing.

Big Dreamer has turned my disastrous Cinder Toffee to a useful end. Yesterday he brewed it as beer! I’ve drawn his brewing paraphernalia here for you. I’ve learnt to avoid the kitchen when he’s in the middle of a brewing and bottling session. As long as the kitchen is back to normal afterwards I’d rather not know what goes on. The kitchen ceiling still bears the scars of one particularly traumatic cider-making episode. For those with an interest in such things his essential ingredients for this batch of beer were ginger, treacle, and cinder toffee. I’ll let you know the outcome!

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Bonfire Night

Posted on November 6, 2011 by Hannah

Bonfire night! I love it! I don’t suppose I’m that bothered about Guy Fawkes etc but I do love sitting out under a starry sky beside a bonfire. We don’t do fireworks as we’re on the farm. Our indefatigable next door neighbour can’t understand why people blow up good money! But we did have sparklers and had lots of stuff to burn from some of our garden activities over the summer. I felt a bizarre sense of satisfaction at burning a particularly prickly bush I’d wrestled with in July. Here is a picture of our fire bin blaze.

We made parkin and cinder toffee to accompany our festivities. Last year’s parkin was dry and stodgy. Big Dreamer was polite about it but would only eat it with custard. This year I opted for Delia Smith and she didn’t fail us. Here is her recipe (or at least my corrupted version of it):

  • 8oz medium oatmeal
  • 4oz SR flour
  • pinch of salt
  • 7oz golden syrup
  • 1oz black treacle plus 1 tsp
  • 4oz marg
  • 4 oz soft brown sugar
  • 2 level tsp ground ginger
  • 1 large egg, beaten
  • 1 tbsp milk

Melt the syrups, marg and sugar, but don’t boil. Add this to the dry ingredients. Add the egg, then the milk and bake at 140 degrees C. I have to be careful with Delia on oven temperatures as she puts the fahrenheit temperature first then the centigrade one in brackets. I came a-cropper with my mince meat last year and baked it at 220 degrees centrigrade. My beautiful Le Creuset took a long time to recover from the experience.

I have to say I was disappointed with the cinder toffee and I’m even more disappointed that I have to say that. It’s essentially just sugar and syrup melted up together and then some bicarb added. I don’t know if it’s because I knew the bicarb was there but all I could taste was bicarb and sugar. Do any of you wise folks know if it was my recipe or if that’s just how it tastes? Big Dreamer said he didn’t know what I was talking about so it’s all his as far as I’m concerned.

The best bit of the evening for me was when we were all caught by a strange sound coming through the evening air. We raised our heads and far above us we could see a skein of migrating geese calling to each other. I wondered what their view must be like from up there, of all those bonfires across the country. I don’t suppose they were too keen on the fireworks though.


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A Borders Scene

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Hannah

Now the clocks have changed we are coming home in the dark. We follow the trail of headlights over black wet tarmac. Little Owl has loved catching glimpses of the moon through the car windows this week. She shouts and claps and cheers as it flits in and out of her line of sight. The kitchen is warm and steamy as we cook our evening meal. It is, however, surprisingly mild here at the moment which means we are getting a beautifully long display from the Autumn trees. Here is a scene I have drawn for the Robert Smail’s Print Works project which we have been doing at college.

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Inspiring soup

Posted on October 29, 2011 by Hannah

First a big apology to any of you who might have followed a link to the Storytelling Centre on my last post and come up with something quite odd. It seems that their Homepage had been hacked. They do know about it now. So, again, sorry to anyone who may have been offended by the content of the link. The link on my post now goes to their About page and seems to be safe.

Anyway…

For me, finding inspiring things is like stirring a big pot of soup. I’m merrily stirring, thinking I’m doing okay, and then I find a new ingredient. It’s right at the back of the dark cupboard and I can’t believe I haven’t seen it before. This new ingredient smells incredible and looks wonderful and I simply must have it in my soup. So I impulsively chuck it in and the soup’s never the same again and always sooo much better. I’m not talking about stealing other people’s stuff but about taking it in, turning it around in wonder, and letting it naturally influence all the things that are going on in my head.

Okay, for some of you I just went way too arty-farty for your liking and that’s fine. Basically, it’s just a way in to explaining how excited I get in sharing around some lovely new ingredients I’ve found recently. Take a look/listen at these:

Rima Staines. She’s a brilliant illustrator and generally creative sort who I think is very exciting. Follow this link to get to her website (note: it’s a little confusing but you have to actually click on the signpost saying ‘The Hermitage’ to enter it): http://www.the-hermitage.org.uk/

Telling the Bees. Really ace folky band. You can catch some of their songs on their myspace page here: http://www.myspace.com/tellingthebees

Polly Paulusma. Another great folky singer. Check some of her songs out here: http://www.myspace.com/pollypaulusma

The Secret of Kells. A beautifully animated film about celtic Britian. We watched recently for one of our film nights. You can get a good idea of what I’m talking about by clicking on trailer here: http://newvideo.com/secretofkells/

PS All these links seem to be safe…for now!

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Hermes

Posted on October 28, 2011 by Hannah

Yesterday evening the farm was bathed in the pink light of the setting sun. That’s a good sign right? Shepherd’s delight and all that. So, hopefully no snow just yet. But then this morning it was also bathed in pink light. Now that’s Shepherd’s warning isn’t it? The ‘will it/won’t it be the worst winter for 60 years’ is the main topic of conversation in these parts, and not even the weather itself seems to have made up its mind.

Here is an illustration I did for a project that is going on at the Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh from November 3rd. The Centre brought together scientists and storytellers to look at retelling the story of the beginning of the universe in a more accessible way. My illustration is for the story Hermes and the Messengers of Light. In the story Hermes is described as the choreographer of the universe and this is what I thought he might look like. Check out their website here.

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Little Owl’s Breakfast

Posted on October 27, 2011 by Hannah

We have started doing an on-line drawing surgery at college where we post drawings into a private blog and post comments on each other’s work. I thought I’d start posting my drawings up here too so that I can get some comments from you fine folks. Here is my first submission. Little Owl decided I wasn’t quick enough in getting her breakfast (too busy sketching her!) so she thought she’d sort herself out.

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Not for the faint-hearted

Posted on October 26, 2011 by Hannah

Here is another image from my illustrated map project that I had been working on at college. I got my grades for it today and am very happy with them. There’s always so much more to learn but I’m getting better at embracing it rather than feeling overwhelmed.

There are bellows emerging from the cattle sheds on the farm. I remember the same noises this time last year. We wondered what on earth was happening. Faint-hearted readers turn away now: the young bulls are being castrated. When Big Dreamer found this out last year he spent the whole evening with his legs tightly crossed and his eyes bulging at every moan we heard from over the farmyard. Poor man.

On a brighter note, Little Owl is to be a chick in her Christmas play. I’m relying on Big Dreamer’s mum for the design of the wings. From birthday cakes through to fancy dress everyone needs a mother-in-law like mine.

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Autumn chores

Posted on October 22, 2011 by Hannah

My arch enemies, the rabbits, had dug a big new hole under one of the pine trees at the end of our garden. Yes, actually inside the garden! The new burrow looked quite similar to Peter Rabbit’s burrow under the tree roots but I had to put aside sentimental feelings because I know from bitter experience that if I give an inch, they’ll take a mile. So today we took spades and filled it. There is a whole entire farm outside our garden so I hope they get the hint and move out.

Today was a blustery autumn day so after using our spades on the burrow we used them on the vegetable patch and soon warmed up. We pulled up the last few beetroot and dug in the manure that had been donated to us from the farm. I am assured it is an excellent vintage and has been stewing away for at least two years! We used the beetroot greens as an alternative to spinach in the fish pie we had for tea. It turned the creamy contents the colour of a marie-rose sauce. We can definitely recommend the substitution.

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Christmas Cards

Posted on October 19, 2011 by Hannah


My Christmas cards are now on sale in my shop so do go and have a look. They feature my inky drawings of holly and mistletoe. The hand-lettered greeting on the front reads ‘Peace on Earth’. Apologies to those of you who get sniffy about Christmas cards going on sale in October. I wasn’t going to do it yet but the Christmas feeling sort of hijacked me in the garden this evening. I’d taken out the ash tray from the fire to empty into the compost and it was such a cold clear night. The stars were incredible and my breath was an icy cloud. My imagination carried me off and I was standing on the last page of Lucy and Tom’s Christmas, looking out of the window at the stars above, with the words ‘Peace on Earth’ written in an arch over the top of the page. So, you see, it had to be done didn’t it?

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