Stourhead Revisited

This week I had an overnight with a good friend in the small North Dorset town where I used to live, Gillingham. My friend is a National Trust volunteer at the nearby estate of Stourhead, one of the Trust's star properties. She had some brief business there, so we visited together and I met many of the workers there for the first time, both volunteers and employed. We went into the Estate Office and I saw a smidgeon of the enormous amount of work that goes into running the place. Multiply that by the number of large NT properties around the country and it's an immense undertaken.

After that we did a trip round the garden. Fortunately they now have a golf buggy plus volunteer driver which took us just over half way, as it would be tough for me to manage the mile long path all the way round the lake, and we got a running commentary, much of which I already knew but there is always something new to learn as well. I've spent many a happy hour at Stourhead and had lots of lovely memories brought to mind.

Stourhead on Radio 4

I was listening to BBC Radio 4's Eddie Mair on PM while I was cooking this evening. The programme is usually studio based, but tonight it was broadcast from Stourhead. This is a flagship property of the National Trust which lies only about 5 miles from our previous home, so listening to him talking to the head gardener made me feel quite  emotional. I've ssen all the views they were talking about over and over again in all seasons, but autumn is perhaps when it is at its most dramatic.

I've posted about the Stourhead garden before, but this has given me a lovely excuse to show it off again. The pics I've selected are winter ones becasue you can see more when many of the trees are bare.

Wordless Wednesday: Old Bridge at Stourhead

Another Stourhead Visit

We went back to Stourhead yesterday. For anyone who doesn’t know, this is a magnificent UK National Trust estate with a grand house and a beautiful landscaped garden surrounding a large lake. While the house is closed for the winter, the gardens are open all year round.

It’s about an hour’s drive from our new house, but my son and his girlfriend still live in the locality and we went to see them and ended up there. We didn’t actually go in because we didn’t have a lot of time, certainly not enough to justify the £7.40 each they would have to pay as non-members. Hubby and I have membership cards that entitle us to free entry. We used them there a lot when we lived close by.

You can still get a good view of Stourhead garden from the road at the bottom of the hill from the car park, and we got plenty of exercise trekking back up again. Then we popped into the restaurant for coffee and a snack, so they did get some of our cash. We also visited the farm shop for some of their delicious steak, cheese and c ream so all in all, they did quite well out of us. And we had a great evening meal when we got home again.

Anyway, I thought it was time to post some more Stourhead photos.

Stourhead and Growing Your Own

I took this picture of Stourhead this time last year.

This last week has been more about cooking than writing. After walking around Stourhead in beautiful sunshine on the Sunday, we stopped off at a little stall outside a house on the way home. They leave bagfuls of cooking apples for sale at £1 a bag, with a box to put your pounds in. We bought 2 bags. That’s quite a lot of apples to peel, core and cook.

We had them first with a delicious stale doughnut pudding, made like a bread and butter pudding with eggs and milk, then on another day with blueberries and custard. I have stewed apple in the fridge and the freezer and there are still four apples left to prepare.

Also, we’ve had a glut of runner beans in our garden. Actually we dithered about planting them this year because we were/are still trying to sell the house. But they went in on the reasoning that sods law says we won’t sell if we don’t plant them, but we might if we do. In any case whoever buys would be welcome to them. Too late now though.

The beans began to form the week before we went on holiday and we had our first feast on the delicious, small young ones. During the 16 days we were away, my neighbour looked after them for me, and I told her to help herself. She said she had picked some. After that they started to come thick and fast. We picked and ate them nearly every day through the rest of August and most of September. Several bagfuls were given away and eventually, last week, I had to blanch and freeze several more bags. I never think they are as nice after freezing, but I just can’t bear to throw them in the compost. I have spent hours stringing and slicing them. The plants are now due to come out but I found enough to go with our roastie meal again yesterday.

There’s nothing like eating your own produce, and we really don’t grow enough different things. Trying to move house has definitely put us off. I remember my dad working in our quite large back garden when I was young. He grew lots of beans and all sorts of other veggies – cabbages, sprouts, potatoes, carrots, onions, beetroot, marrows, etc. It’s becoming fashionable again in the UK to do this. Totnes in Devon was the first town to designate various areas for the community to grow extra produce, and others have followed suit.

We did have some home grown potatoes this August, that we had grown from just one that had gone too soft to cook and started growing tubors in my cupboard. We put it in a tub so it could have gone with us if we’d moved. When we came back from our holiday the leaves had died off so we emptied the tub and found about 3 lbs of good sized spuds that were really yummy when cooked.

I’d love to hear what you grow in your back yards or elsewhere, wherever you are.

On a completely different subject, why not pop over to Rebecca Laffar-Smith’s Writers’ Roundabout to see my guest post which is currently featured there? It gives hints for writers who want to ‘show, not tell’.