November reading...

I do love a blog post where the writer gives a little summary/review of the books they've read or just dipped into that month - it's often not the sort of books I'd read myself, but that's fine, we're all different and never more so than in our reading tastes! Anyway, I was inspired to see if I could start doing the same thing - mostly because of just finding them interesting sorts of posts, but also because I wonder if it will actually encourage me to read a bit more, and scroll a bit less...

The book I started the month with was Lianne Moriarty's Truly Madly Guilty - I've read her books before, she has a real talent for writing a suspenseful book, and this one is no exception. The subject is an event that occurred at a barbecue, and the fallout created by that event - yet cleverly it isn't until two thirds of the way through that you find out what the event actually was. The chapters before that fill in background, and deal with some of the aftermath - but all without giving even the faintest of clues as to what actually happened - very skilfully written! I did find I struggled a tiny bit with this one - in part because I struggled to actually like some of the main characters very much - that said, it was gripping enough that I did persevere. Not one for me to keep - I'll pass it to my Mum to read and she will then send it back to the charity shop. 

Next up, Val McDermid “The Last Temptation” - a favourite author and genre of mine, I love a police based crime thriller, and Val writes an excellent story with cleverly constructed characters - invariably including the supporting cast. This was no exception - weaving two separate strands together in a way that allows the lead characters to do their thing. The twin storylines allow the suspense to continue right into the final few pages as well. This book was picked up from a book exchange and I will be keeping it as it’s definitely something I will re-read in the future. 

Moving on - T.M.Logan's The Daughter was similarly full of suspense and I barely wanted to put it down, rocketing through it in just a few days. The premise of a missing person that the Police weren't interested in investigating because "they're an adult who can make their own decisions" - in this case a young woman in her first term at University - felt perfectly believable as we've all heard of stories like that after all. The full picture gradually becoming apparent and building to a gripping last few chapters with a really unexpected twist made this a real page-turner, for me. The Author's name felt familiar to me but as far as I can see I've not read any of their other novels - I will certainly be keeping an eye for them in the future though. This one, meanwhile, will head to my Mum to read as I think she'll enjoy it, too. 

The last book I finished this month was David Baldacci’s The Fix - another from an author I’m quite a fan of, and again in the Police/thriller genre. This is part of his series featuring Amos Decker - an FBI agent with a photographic memory - along other quirks. Whilst not entirely a likeable character, he has a backstory that enables the reader to feel sympathy for him and that, combined with a gripping storyline, makes these extremely readable books. Baldacci has a particular talent for keeping the suspense going the the final pages too  - something he makes good use of here. An excellent read which will go to join the others from the same author on the shelf. 

Robyn

November in the garden…

 

The last of these posts for this year, I think, although in spite of the darker evenings and far colder temperatures, it’s been a fairly productive garden month. 

We started with a surprising amount of colour still present - the nasturtiums, slow to get going this year, finally started producing flowers with abandon, the Rose Campion was still producing flowers, and the ever enthusiastic Campanula was also still predictably throwing in the occasional burst of blue, too! Regardless, it was time to begin a bit of clearing back  - first the runner beans, the obelisk and frames needed dismantling so the pants were chopping back to a foot or so above the ground and chopped up for composting - which left the bin VERY full! 

Two bags of compost were dug out of the base of the bin to make room for for at least a bit more in the top - the great news is that what we dug out was glorious stuff - black and crumbly, and with few worms present which suggests they’ve done their job and moved up to fresher layers above. Those we found were relocated straight to the top!

Growbags have been split open and upended straight into the main veggie bed as a mulch layer - the winter frosts will help them break down into the soil and the roots will rot down, with any remaining nutrients absorbed into the soil. Tomato pots have been emptied and the contents used in the same way - but only onto areas where we know we won’t want to grow either toms or potatoes in future years, although we haven’t seen any signs of blight we’d sooner not take the risk! 

The remaining tomatoes on the plants had been picked and set on the windowsill to ripen as I mentioned last month - we’ve found in previous years that the living room windowsill is a good spot for this, bright and relatively cool. I got a further batch of pasta sauce from those too - more home grown delight to see us into the winter months. We also stripped the chilli plants, eventually giving up on the hope that any more would ripen to red - the hours of sunshine had just got too short to allow it. I clearly remember taking a photo of those  but there is no sign of it now, annoyingly. We got a great harvest though  - all the more pleasing as these were the “Bishop’s Crown” seeds - free from the gardening magazine we subscribe to. No real heat to speak of but a beautiful flavour. 

We have plans to reorganise things a little in the garden come the spring - with the compost bin being relocated to allow for more room for sun loving tomatoes, peppers and chillies. We’ve also started planning the things we want to grow, and noting any seeds we will need to purchase. I have to track down more of the little bush tomatoes I like, and there are a few other things recommended by various gardening pals I want to try as well.

See you for the next “in the garden” post in the spring! 

Robyn

A World Apart - East London in the 1970s

MrEH and I had plans for Friday evening that involved us being in Central London - for one of the LT Museum’s “Hidden London Hangout” podcasts - but in front of a live audience. We’ve been wanting to get to one of these for a while - this is the third they have done as far as I recall, but the previous two have been on days we have already had other plans.   MrEH announced well ahead of time that he intended to use the day as one of his required days of working from the office, a sensible move as otherwise he would have struggled to get into town in time after finishing his working day, so I decided I may as well travel in with him - saving myself on travel costs. 

While still in the process of deciding what to do with my day, I spotted on the excellent Ian Visits newsletter email  that a gallery in Bethnal Green was running an exhibition of photographs taken in London’s east end during the 1970s - from:the detail given both in the email and on a linked BBC news site article it looked utterly fascinating, so I immediately started structuring my plan around going for a look. 

The gallery is on Roman Road - just a stone’s throw from where MrEH lived when we were first together in fact, and a walk along from where I elected to hop off the bus was fascinating seeing what had changed, and what was still much as I remembered. 

The exhibition - A World Apart - shows the work of a dozen photographers who worked with local communities in Whitechapel, Wapping, Spitalfields, Stepney and thereabouts, documenting the changes as the continuation of the post-war drive to rebuild saw buildings torn down and new immigrants began influencing the shops and businesses. Some of the photographers lived in the areas they were working in and those they were photographing were friends and neighbours and well as subjects, meaning they could achieve a level of trust and relaxation - something which really comes across in the images. 

The common link between the photographs is that they have all been exhibited previously at the time they were taken, in various spaces in the East End - theatres, laundrettes and libraries  all hosted shows. This is the first time they’ve all been seen together though, and they paint a powerful picture of the time, as the communities welcomed the new Bengali & Caribbean incomers. Indeed, that integration stands out as a theme through the exhibition with black, white and brown faces seen working and playing together. 

“A World Apart” exhibition can be seen at the Four Corners Gallery, Roman Road, Bethnal Green until 6th December 2025.

October in the garden…

 It’s been quite a busy month, with more harvesting, more planting, and plenty of colour. 

First up, the front garden is looking glorious at the moment - aiming for a colour palette of mainly pinks, reds and blues has worked wonderfully with a lovely range of colours right through from the vivid pink provided by a stunning Salvia, through the orangey red of a Heuchera which took forever to get going, but finally seems to have settled in, through to another Salvia - deep purple this time. Admittedly I did seize the chance while MrEH’s back was turned at the Farmer’s market of buying a tray of bright orange violas, but somehow even they work well in the mix! 

Out the back, and we’ve still been eating plenty of homegrown stuff this month. The runner beans - although beginning to tail off - have still been providing regular pickings, and I have been picking regular tomatoes as well, with several batches of home made tomato sauce being turned out, and plenty of cherry toms for eating with my lunches. We’ve had the last few courgettes and the final cucumbers as well - with cucumbers being one crop we’ve been self sufficient in all summer, always pleasing! 

We’re probably both agreed that our favourite crop of this year has been the sweet peppers - something which we didn’t even have any real faith we’d have any joy with at all, and only really grew as a curiosity. They’ve done well though with at least a couple of fruit per plant, with some of them reach a good size, too - look…

Easily as good as anything you’d buy in the supermarket we reckon - and tasty too, with a lovely sweet crunch. 

We had to re-sow our cabbages after the pesky slugs noshed the first lot - the second attempt were closely guarded and kept in the mini greenhouse though and survived to be planted out - since they’ve been in we’ve lost a few but the majority seem to be thriving so that’s good news. I need to do some reading up to establish whether we should protect them from frost or if they should be hardy enough not to worry about it. We have a Chinese cabbage variety, and a classic British “Wheeler’s imperial” with both lots of seeds being freebies from our magazine subscription. 

The month ended with making a start on clearing things back for the winter - and notably harvesting all the remaining tomatoes - hopefully those will ripen indoors on the windowsill!

Robyn 

The end of an era?

 I've mentioned on here before my involvement with the Campaign for Real Ale and specifically with the Great British Beer Festival. My Dad was a CAMRA member from the early days of the Campaign, and got involved with our then local branch's beer festival "Pigs Ear" pretty much as soon as it started running. Inevitably that lead to me getting involved as well - initially working on the charity stall in the foyer, then when we relocated to a new venue without the space to have the stall, I moved on to initially working in the kitchen and then once I was actually old enough to be working in the main hall, the glasses stand. A few years on saw me shifting to the admin side - looking after press & PR, and assisting with the finances during the festival itself. It was at Pigs that I met MrEH, and there again that, a few years later, we agreed to go on our first date. Yep - it has a lot to answer for! 

A dramatic sky lighting up Olympia’s roof…

At the time we started going out MrEH was already involved with the Great British Beer Festival, having done the Bar Manager's Training Course there, and then become a Deputy Manager on one of the bars. I'd never particularly felt any urge to go and volunteer there, but at his encouragement reluctantly agreed to go along. First reactions weren't great, but at the point where he realised I was about to pack it in and head home, he suggested that there would be a role for me "behind the scenes" on their bar - so on the basis that I didn't have to serve the public, I agreed to give it another try, and sure enough, I found that the atmosphere of working with a good team of people was thoroughly enjoyable. Gradually I started adding to my knowledge, being taught the cellaring process and learning to take care of the beer that would subsequently be served to the customers (although almost never by me!), and when original Bar Manager Dave decided to move on to a new role a couple of years later leaving the bar in the hands of MrEH and his co-manager Bobbie, she asked me to step up to the role of Deputy Manager, and I agreed. The following year saw MrEH and Bobbie each taking on a bar of their own, and I became senior Deputy on MrEH's team, where I've been since. (Until this year, but more of that shortly!) 

An early team shot…

The team is the best aspect of the festival by miles - a group of people who, over the years, have become really close friends. Each year we get together for that week - and it's as though we've never been apart. It doesn't matter if we've not seen one another in the interim (although many of us do) for that period of time, it's working alongside some of your very best mates. 

2025 team - unexpectedly “Robyn’s Bar!”

In 2018 we were approached by a member of the Working Party - the committee who organise the festival from the ground up each year - and asked whether we would consider taking on responsibility for the ordering of the British Beer. To everyone's surprise, after a bit of thought we said yes, taking on the role from our predecessors ahead of the 2019 event. It is a massive amount of work, taking up a good amount of our time from November each year through to the end of August following the festival, but it's also been ludicrously rewarding curating a list of beers that we feel the public will enjoy.  We’ve found beers and breweries we’ve never heard of before, given small breweries an opportunity to see their beers showcased at the National flagship festival, and increased the range of styles to include far more dark beer options than there were before. Almost across the board, our selections have been applauded, which is a great reward for the hard work as it’s always good knowing you’ve got things right! 

Times have been getting increasingly harder in the world of festivals though, and none less than when you’re trying to put on a national festival that is primarily intended to appeal to the general public rather than mainly CAMRA members. Covid hit everyone hard, but we lost two years of festivals and a huge amount of momentum - plus the sea-change in people’s working patterns hit us hard - we used to do well from people heading to the festival after work, of taking an afternoon off to come along with colleagues. Now people work from home more and those outings are less prevalent - meaning that we were finding footfall decreasing and the venue emptying out from 8pm on. Then came a forced move of venues from Olympia in London (affected by building works that meant trying to hold the event there was not practical) - another year missed as by the time it became apparent that Olympia wasn’t going to work there was sufficient time to re-plan for elsewhere for 2024. 

Beer mat art for a social media post…

Now it’s become apparent that this year’s Festival at the NEC may well be the end of the road for The GBBF - although the festival itself received good comments about the beer and even some aspects of the venue, the attendance simply wasn’t what we needed, and it proved impossible to even break even, never mind making any sort of profit. From my perspective it was an unexpectedly hectic one - with MrEH being taken ill a couple of days before we were due to travel to Birmingham that left me (because if course he insisted I still needed to go!) not only looking after the Beer Order side of things on my own (on site we have responsibility for the two wet stock teams looking after logistics - getting the beer to where it needs to be within the venue, and dealing with collecting the empty casks and kegs at the end - and Stock Control - monitoring the sales on each bar and helping manage stock levels on the brewery bars, specifically) but also stepping up as Manager of our bar too. A tall order, and one that saw me spending the first few days running around like a mad thing trying to keep ALL the plates spinning! Thankfully MrEH was well enough by the Tuesday that he was able to join me and take over the beer order side of things, leaving me to complete my first festival as a Bar Manager with at least a little less stress. As always the team had my back throughout - they’re such a good bunch. Same with the wet stock teams - quite honestly they don’t really need me getting under their feet anyway! 

Wet stock teams! 

So what happens from here then? We don’t officially know yet - but we’ve been told that there will be no festival under the GBBF Brand in 2026. Realistically, while there may be some form of national festival again at some stage in the future it’s unlikely to be in the same mould, and so chances are that leaves us without a role going forwards anyway. Whatever happens now though being involved with it has been an incredible experience, we’ve met some wonderful people, worked in some iconic places and had huge amounts of fun with it - but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that the thought of a little more free time to explore other options in life isn’t quite appealing. Even things as simple as being able to do the whole of the Royal International Air Tattoo in July without feeling guilty for leaving all the work with MrEH will be quite a change! 

For now at least, au revoir GBBF - it’s been a blast! 

Robyn

September in the Garden

 Well here we are yet again, approaching the end of another growing season, and yet right now, we're still harvesting. I'll probably use next month's post to review how things have gone for the year, and to note some things that we've already discussed that we'll do differently next year, as for now it seems right to focus on the current season.

The weather this month has been a mixed bag - between some gloriously sunny days and still quite a lack of rain a lot of the time, we've also seen winds strong enough to demolish the tall runner bean wigwam built around our lovely metal obelisk, and rain sufficient to pretty much refill the completely empty water butt. That's been helped by the new log store roof and guttering completely filling the large blue trug that it feels into a couple of times at the start of the month as well. We're also seen the first couple of frosts towards the end of the month - so far not reaching the ground, but very much evident on the shed and office roof. 

We're still drowning in beans - and in spite of the collapse of the wigwam the ones we planted elsewhere have not only continued producing, but are even still flowering! They look very pretty clambering over the  arches, too. 

Before the wigwam collapsed we did spot some small insects crawling about on the beans - it appeared that we'd had several batches hatch, and a bit of research suggested that they were probably shield bugs of a non-native variety, and that they might well be interested in noshing their way through our crop, so those were dealt with in the best way we could muster - by cutting off the affected areas from the plants and dumping the lot into the garden waste bin! 

The Nasturtiums finally started growing properly - although sadly so late that we suspect they will be frosted and die before we get the benefit of many flowers and the resulting seeds (which are a great ingredient for piccalilli!). If you look in the very top of that photo you can also see that next door have entirely put us to shame with their sunflowers as well - they've had some giants this year, and the battle lines are very much drawn now, for next year we WILL be upping our game! 

The last of the tatties have now been dug and again we've been impressed with the size of some of them - of they weren't quite badly affected by scab they'd be great for jacket potatoes! Allowing that they were grown in a narrow strip of freshly dug soil they've done amazingly though - and of course in the usual way they've also done a huge amount to improve and break up that soil as well - we're intending to re-use that area for cabbages before the year is out. 

All in all, not a bad month. Now if we could just get a last couple of weeks of warmer temperatures and just a little more sunshine, we might even persuade the final courgettes to give us a last-minute glut! 

Robyn

A job well done...

So I mentioned in my August in the Garden post about the work we’d been planning on the old log store area. When we moved in it was part full of logs - but a lot of them were rotten due to the fact that water was easily getting in and soaking them - and we rapidly realised that if we wanted to use them, we’d do best to move them into the shed, where we've been keeping our supplies ever since. When we looked at it properly a lot of the issues were fairly apparent - the roof was made from rough chipboard which had long since pretty much rotted. The base was made from the same material - giving the dual issue of a roof that was allowing water to leak straight in, and a solid base refusing the let it drain out again! 

The "assorted rubbish" store - as it became for a while...

Since moving in we’ve been thinking through how best to deal with it, and also starting to salvage materials for the task where we’ve been able to. A storage cupboard being cleared out at my place of work yielded a number of lengths of sturdy timber, and some clearance out the back of the garden revealed a pair of wooden doors that looked suspiciously as though they may even at some stage in the past have been fitted to the log store! We had no plans to replace them, but we did realise quite fast that they might make a nice robust base for a new roof. We already had various wood screws kicking around - some purchased for previous projects, and others salvaged from dismantling things previously. The final part of the jigsaw was realising quite how well two leftover slatted timber decking tiles from when we did up the balcony at the old flat fitted to form a new base - there was going to be a gap between them but we figured we could easily enough work out a way of filling that. There were always going to be some things we’d need to buy - some form of roof covering and the means of fitting it, notably. The timber would always need treating too, but as you’ll recall from recent posts, we’ve been working on repainting the shed and office anyway, so the various bits for the log store were all given a few coats of the same “Cornflower” colour being liberally applied elsewhere. 

"Cornflower" blue paint - and a completed structure

The one thing we had no solid idea how to go about was dealing with the roofing - and we kicked various ideas around before eventually settling on what seemed like the simplest solution, roofing felt. The complication here was that neither of us had so much of an ounce of experience about dealing with it - however, we adopted a somewhat cavalier approach of "well, how hard can it be?" - perhaps not the best approach, however, in the absence of wanting to take the "pay the nice man" approach, it was the only option we had. 

MrEH fixing the roofing felt in place

The first step involved lots of measuring, and a fair bit of painting. We wanted to slightly enlarge the roof area, to create more of an overhang and so more cover from rain actually blowing in, and that also required an additional bit of timber being fixed to one side, too. To avoid the risk of it rotting from the base, that needed fixing in a way that left it sitting above the ground. Most of the existing frame was in pretty good condition, and the side panels too - but removal of the old chipboard roof really showed how much damage had been caused to the cladding on the side of the office by getting drenched every time it rained - we weren't going to be able to replace that cladding, so took the only option available to us - with it being (thankfully) bone dry currently, we slapped on as much wood preservative as we could persuade the remaining wood to absorb, and hoped for the best. A couple of additional supports for the new roof were required - the old ones having totally rotted away - and those were swiftly fashioned from some of the free-to-us timber. 

Some spending was inevitable, and after a bit of shopping around for best prices, off we trotted to a local DIY superstore, emerging a little later - and £90 lighter - with a roll of roofing felt, the correct nails to fix it in place, a roll of flashing tape, some fixing plates for the side panel, some mastic and a guttering set specifically designed for smaller roof areas - we'd intended looking at what guttering options might be open to us but weren't expecting to actually buy anything in that line, however a special offer of £25 for a set that would do everything we wanted seemed a good deal. We also opted to pay a little more for a roll of felt with a longer expected lifespan - 15 years rather than just 5 for the most basic option.

Beautiful old tools inherited from my Dad...

It then just (ha!) remained to put everything together. Handily, and in part thanks to my lovely Dad, who was never knowingly under-tooled, we had all the various bits of kit that we needed for the task - and I thoroughly enjoyed using some of his old equipment too - including a VERY old yardstick which I suspect originally belonged to one or other grandfather! The work bench in the photos was also his - I can remember this being in regular use during my childhood, along with the electric drill we also used (and which you can see in the picture) which is still going strong! We were glad of having replaced our old jigsaw recently too - this made the cutting down of the various items far quicker, particularly as one of the doors-turned-roof-panels had to be cut. While MrEH worked at getting various parts in place, drilled and fixed, I turned my hand to making a further cut to the bit of old door that was being discarded, and with the addition of get another free-to-us piece of timber drilled in place, that filled the gap in the base perfectly - once again fitting the brief of allowing airflow. With the structure finally complete, we faced our nemesis - the roof covering! As it happened, "how hard can it be" turned out to be "not very" - much to our surprise the felt was incredibly easy to work with, and beyond a few head-scratching moments over how exactly to fit the felt into and around the various corners, that was almost the easiest part of the task! the final steps were to add the flashing tape around the top (had we realised quite how much this would look like duct-tape we would have bought a different colour!) and then fix the guttering and downpipe in place. 

The finished project.

To say we're impressed with the result we've achieved would in honesty be an understatement. We're accustomed of thinking of ourselves as not really being people who are good at DIY, but we've surprised ourselves here. I'd be lying if I didn't say that at one stage we were indeed considering paying someone else to do it for us, but when we thought it through, it seemed to be a false economy - we wanted the ability to store more logs as that would mean bulk-buying = moneysaving. If we paid out more than we had to to sort the storage though, it was going to take a long while to recoup that spend. In the event, we've ended up with a solid and (hopefully!) watertight structure for well under £100 plus the cost of a couple of days of work. We're almost hoping for a bit of rain now so we can see if the guttering works OK - and if we need a bigger bucket! 

Robyn