Amble and Northumberland

Posted on October 19, 2021 by nicdempsey

I took my camera on holiday and then didn’t take it out of the bag. So these are all imperfect iphone snaps.

Amble Sunset
Spurellis – the best ice cream
Barter Books
Warkworth Castle
Warkworth Castle (the beer cellar)
Attack Swan – Woodhorn
Woodhorn Museum – I always view this as a warning from history
The Baltic – Newcastle
Woodhorn Museum – I think the N is for Northumberland but I’m calling it mine!
Sheep on the walk to Dunstanburgh
Dunstanburgh Castle
Amble Harbour

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Monday Miscellany: Home and Work

Posted on October 18, 2021 by nicdempsey

Happy Monday!

As all things must, my holiday ended on Saturday when we came home. It’s lovely to be home but sad to leave. We popped into to see Ben, Lu, the nephews and Barney on the way back, Barney had lots of fun trying to steal Ma’s handbag, labradors are thieving little gits, lovely but thieving little gits!

View from Dunstanburgh

If there was ever proof needed that I was raised by my mother, then my being completely unpacked with my first load of washing on within an hour of being home, is pretty much all the proof you need. (She is the woman that had completely unpacked all her possessions with packing boxes away within a day after she moved house. I used to think I wasn’t like her at all but as I get older, it’s happening!)

The clocks go back in two weeks and I can already feel myself changing into the person I am in the winter. Which is tired and more likely to be a funsponge, last winter was slightly easier on me as I was full time working from home, this year, as we’re now doing a hybrid work pattern I have to be in at least twice a week and the run up to Christmas and year end is usually manic so it’ll be at least three days a week and busy. I’ve been gearing up to this since the end of August but I do need to get serious and make sure that I have bedtime, housekeeping and exercise routines nailed down.

So ‘boring’ routine, work and preparing for the birthday/Christmas onslaught! Feels like a good week in the offing, I do need to do the ironing and the hoovering today but after that it’s all gravy!

Have a good week!

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Friday Links: Holiday Edition

Posted on October 15, 2021 by nicdempsey

Happy Friday!

Can migraines be untangled by new medical thinking? Peter Goadsby is a hero, if you have access to BBC Sounds look up the episode of ‘The Life Scientific’ he’s on, it’s fabulous.

On the far side of borders, a new Ireland is taking shape

The Saudi takeover of Newcastle United is a symptom of England’s political failures

Francesco Totti: ‘In my time football was made of love. Today it’s more business’. Ah Francesco Totti. Ma has a thing for Maldini but my heart belongs to Totti….

People want bold economic change – the tragedy is, Labour hasn’t realised this

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Cooking from the Plot: Vegetable Quiche

Posted on October 14, 2021 by nicdempsey

I’ve been dealing with a surfeit of vegetables for the last month. The summer squash decided to go mental, the greens are abundant right now, there’s a lot.

Veg overload

I came across a recipe for roasted vegetable quiche which had a basic template of two cups of cooked vegetables a cup of milk, four eggs and a cup of cheese. Easy to remember and very adaptable.

I have a brilliant pasty recipe from the River Cottage Veg Everyday (125g of butter, 250g flour and about 75ml milk). That makes two crusts in a 9in flan pan.

Crust

I blind bake it and add two cups of cooked veg, roasted courgettes and chard stir fried with garlic and salt. I mostly use parmesan and cheddar for the cheese but I have also used feta.

Eggs and milk
Ready for the oven

I put it in a medium hot oven for about 35 minutes and volia, quiche.

Quiche a couple of days after I cooked it!
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Monday Miscellany: Out of Office

Posted on October 11, 2021 by nicdempsey

Happy Monday!

It’s an unwritten rule that the last week of work before a holiday is always busier than you want or expect it to be, last week was no exception.

Amble Sunset

I did a day in the Southampton Office, a day in the London office and three mad days at home. I knew it would be busy, I’ve recently stepped up the support I give to two more members of staff to make it more formal and less ad hoc and the work is fine (I’ve been saying that I need more to do!) but it’s the change in headspace that supporting more people requires that has been an adjustment. I also still want to do all the other stuff I do and so it’s been a journey. I’m getting there and I’ll have it nailed in a month or two. But September and October (so far) have been a stretch and I was ready for a break!

But first I needed to get there! By midnight on Friday, I was mostly packed and had a mostly empty fridge, so on Saturday morning I was as ready as I was going to be (and I remembered my walking boots – which is more than I can say for Mother!) and we were off.

Spurrelis Ice Cream is the best ice cream

We’ve had a walk or two around the harbour and a visit to Spurrelis and The Old Boat House. The plan for the week, is Alnwick today for Barter Books (and Warkworth on the way back), Newcastle and the Baltic on Tuesday, Hauxley Nature Reserve and Woodhorn Museum on Wednesday. Depending on the weather we’re thinking about Holy Island and on Friday, we’ll do the walk from Craster to Dunstanburgh Castle.

It’s just the kind of time away that I need!

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Friday Links: Everything Sucks

Posted on October 8, 2021 by nicdempsey

Happy Friday!

It’s been a while.

The Tories are cheering the voyage to a Brexit promised land that doesn’t exist. This.

Access to the Tory party is being bought by a new class of tycoon funders

All women know they are prey – and that no one with any authority seems to care. I was having this conversation this weekend. Women are constantly risk assessing their safety, we don’t even notice we’re doing it.

Trashing the planet and hiding the money isn’t a perversion of capitalism. It is capitalism

The Pandora papers have exposed the ‘for sale’ sign hanging over Britain

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Allotment Adventures: Lots of Produce, Not Much Work

Posted on October 6, 2021 by nicdempsey

We’ve not spend a lot of time on the plot for the past couple of weeks. The weather has been weird, I’ve been busy, Ma’s knee has been playing up.

The allotment feels like it’s been more productive in the last four weeks, than it’s been all summer.

September haul

We are still getting a couple of strawberries, the raspberries are producing, the summer squash and courgettes had a resurgence. The autumn crops are also starting (and finishing) cauliflowers grew and are done (next year, I’ll probably end up freezing some, this year they went into soup!), the cabbages, kale, chard and broccoli are producing. And we are getting turnips, which are much nicer than we expected!

October haul

Last week I also called time for the winter squash, back in June I was thinking that I might not get any winter squash, there were nine, and two little ones I’ve left and will pick up this week. It’s not a patch on last year’s haul but I’ll take it!

Winter Squash

There is always work to do and we won’t get to any of it until the week after next but the main things to get done in October are:

  • Build a polytunnel
  • Repot the blueberries
  • Sow garlic
  • Sow onions
  • Sow broad beans
  • Weeding and tidying up

October is the time when lots of allotmenteers stop for the winter. That has never been how we do it and why we have always tried to have food plants to overwinter. Winter is time to get the structure of the plot sorted, we do less work but we still work. I’m hoping that this is the last year we’ll need to work too much on the structure, there’s the poly, replacing some of the beds and hopefully the last year of moving fruit bushes and roses. Then I would like at least a couple of years of calm and just gardening (famous last words!)

Jasmine, still alive, growing well

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Monday Miscellany: So very busy

Posted on October 5, 2021 by nicdempsey

Happy Monday!

People, last week was wildly busy. In fact the last couple of weeks have been pretty busy and I have a case of Autumn coming on. Which is why posting has been scanty this for the last couple of weeks!

I worked from home on Monday and that was pretty intense but gave me a chance to do some stuff at home, which was great because then it felt that all I did at home from then was eat, wash and sleep. I did a couple of 12 hour work days and I don’t enjoy leaving the house in the dark and coming home in the dark!

Tube at 7am

However, I think the planning day went well, the highlight of my day was buying 20 sandwiches from Pret! Then on Friday, the whole team spent a day on Black Down helping preserve the heath. Which was lovely and we got really lucky with the weather.

View

From there I went to see Christelle and Mike (and the dogs!), it was a most unusual night for us because I couldn’t drink (too much drinking at the team dinner the night before, not enough sleep all week and menopause = a Nic that could not drink!) but it was another late night.

Cute puppy

On Saturday, I went home and stayed there because the weather was filthy. I was also in bed by 9pm because I was done.

On Sunday, I went to the plot, to do not much work but to collect vegetables.

Winter squash

Followed by a long bus journey to see Ma and offload some veg!

This week (ok it’s late Tuesday, two days are gone already!), I have loads of work and a trip to Southampton tomorrow. I also need to pack for holiday. That (and as much sleep as I can manage) is the plan for this week.

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Monday Miscellany: Missing in action

Posted on September 27, 2021 by nicdempsey

Happy Monday!

There was no miscellany last week because the week before wasn’t a great week, I had a migraine on Monday night, Tuesday morning, Tuesday afternoon and Tuesday late evening. They’ve been getting worse and are the reason that I finally decided to get HRT. But you can’t start the HRT until you have a period. Look I’m aware that all of this stuff might be difficult to read, but talking about menopause needs to be normal. I knew about it, but no one really talked about it, even Ma just carried on through it and we need to talk about it because it’s horrible and it shouldn’t be secret. Women can’t be prepared if no one ever talks about it!

All that to say that said period arrived last weekend and I’ve now started HRT, which can take up to three months to kick in and thank goodness, I’m going to save you the gory details but I had to change the bed four times last week (I’ve only just caught up with the laundry). I cancelled going to Christelle’s because it’s hard enough to deal with this in my own house without the fear of destroying someone else’s bedding.

So this week was quite and I was a space cadet. One of the godchildren came to see me on Tuesday and had a positive COVID test on Wednesday. So I’ve mostly been at home. I’ve been testing negative and it had better stay that way because I a really busy week next week and have to be in the office for a lot of it.

In happier news, I have three weeks until my holiday. Yes, we’re going to Amble again, no I don’t get bored of it, it’s sea and sky and castles and space and it’s beautiful, even when the weather is terrible and it’s raining.

There had better be enough petrol!

This week is going to go fast, so I’m just going to try and keep up..

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Sunday Music: Son’s Gonna Rise – Citizen Cope

Posted on September 19, 2021 by nicdempsey
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