Holi on a winter white day

Some of my  friends are celebrating Holi today.

I rather like this Hindu festival - it's fun and always make me smile even though it can be quite chaotic.

Celebrating the energy of the season and new life, it's known as the Festival of Colours. So how do you celebrate it? Well at its simplest, you gather with family, friends and neighbours , smear them all  with paint and throw coloured dye and powder around and over each other.

 

 

 

Of course there's far more to it than that to this annual tradition celebrating the start of spring, but a bonfire to gather around marks the start of the festivities.



 

 

No one is allowed to escape having paint over their face, it's all part of the fun and this is one of the most joyous and friendly of festivals. I love it, especially as during Holi, your religion or caste don't matter,  everyone joins together and has fun in a sea of colour.

 

 



The photos above are from a few years back, but today is totally different...its a white and snowy world.

 

 

I'm at home in my tiny, silent village, I didn't see one car on my walk down the hill towards the next village, probably because no cars can get up the hill.

Sheet ice under fresh snow and a high gradient don't make driving easy, and the only sound I can hear is the wind rattling through the trees sounding very sinister.

Elsewhere though, there is music, colour, joy and laughter today and tomorrow ,so a very happy Holi to you all.

 

February days

Yesterday was cold and dank, with a high windchill factor. I left the village early to do my weekly shop at the bakers and the supermarket. I dashed home with car heater on high and windscreen wipers banging to and fro fiercely as the rain lashed down.

I couldn't get warm all day, and when I climbed the stairs to bed last night, hot water bottle in my hand, there was such a gale a howling and growling around the cottage, I couldn't get to sleep. My bones ached and I wished for spring, summer and sunshine, before giving myself a talking to. After all those days will come and life's too short to wish time away.

At least it was sunny this morning as I walked the dogs, Boo, Eric and Winnie, although the biting wind inspired us to walk just that little bit faster. Before going inside though, I had a quick walk around the garden in the sunshine to check for wind damage.

None fortunately, but I noticed the dusky pink hellebore at the side of the house has not come up this year after eighteen years of long and loyal service. I swore. The purity, beautyand hardiness of all the snowdrops at this, the grimmest time of the year, made me feel thankful though.

 

 

The pot on the table in the courtyard filled with iris reticulata was a welcome sight too....such a vivid splash of colour before the tete a tete daffodils open, followed by the bluebells.

Meanwhile it was lovely to see the crab apple beginning to blossom , a sign that spring will come.



Sometimes it 's the little things that change your mood. I came into the house feeling much more cheerful, until the hailstorm, with the hail hitting the sitting room windowpanes like bullets. Then came the sleet....

IMAGES: DO NOT PUBLISH OR DELETE

Days before Christmas - gifts for gardeners

 

As I write this, looking out onto a white world, it really does feel wintry, and yes, so Christmassy. With only thirteen days to go until the big day though, I can assure you I'm not one of those who is already smiling smugly knowing that every single card has been written and every present chosen and wrapped.

 

Oh no, this year I'm one of the "Oh it can't be that time already, and what the hell am I going to buy for x, y and z " gang. Before you start tut-tutting though, I have bought the cards, and even written over half of them.

 

So if you're like me and a little tardy shall we say, I thought I would suggest some perfect presents for anyone interested in gardening. ....items that I've already road tested by reviewing,and by buying.

 

Firstly, if anyone asks me what I would like for Christmas, books are usually top of my list. Cookbooks, gardening books, history books, novels by favourite authors, or book tokens make me a very appreciative person!

 

Here, I've chosen three gardening books which have made me smile, think and given me inspiration.

 

The first is "The Hidden Life of Trees" by Peter Wohlleben. I have loved reading this paperback which talks about trees not only communicating with each other through their roots, but supporting each other. In the author's eyes, trees in forests form a real society where older trees look after younger ones and other trees close by.

 

 

 

 

 

Apparently, they can definitely feel pain (and I am now so dreadfully guilty about having my old ash tree chopped down after it was severely damaged by Storm Doris.) I'm not surprised at that statement but do they have emotions? Peter Wohlleben says they have, and his book is so persuasive, I believe him.

 

This is a fascinating book about why trees growing in a forest grow stronger and can learn from each other. It may sound provocative, but I'll be certainly looking at trees in a different way.

Published by William Collins Books and costing £9.99, this will certainly get you talking over Christmas! 

 


A glossy, beautifully photographed and well-written book is a joy, and this is one of my favourite gardening books this year. Ideal for a present, "The Secret Gardens of  East Anglia" by Barbara Segall and photographed by Marcus Harpur shortly before his death this summer, is packed with inspiration.

Although these gardens are described as secret, many of them open their gates for charity each year.
The photographs here are beguiling , capturing the wonderful light in this part of the country, secret corners, lavish borders, and grand vistas.

  Barbara takes you on a magical journey through such different landscapes with stories of how these gardens were designed or evolved. It's as if she's introducing you to the owners and you are there in the gardens with them having a private tour. You also get a feel of the challenges involved too....which I always relish, because then I don't feel so inadequate when things go wrong.



There's only one garden in this book that I've actually visited, and that's The Manor at Hemingford Grey in Cambridgeshire, so I was particularly interested to read Barbara's take on this. Her opening sentence is
"If only gardens could talk. Were it so, then the garden at the Manor, Hemingford Grey would have more stories to tell than most, for it surrounds the atmospheric home of the late Lucy Boston, an acclaimed writer of children's novels."

That sets the tone for this garden and house with the echoes of ghosts throughout the centuries, both real and imagined, but as well as dealing with the historical and fanciful, there's practicality too with the names of striking plants.

A fair number of the gardens selected are quite large, some are rather grand and I'd love to see inside the houses too - but then I'm insatiably curious. However, there are so many ideas that could be scaled down successfully to smaller plots and there are lots of ideas to be inspired by.

Whether you are seduced by a parterre, a rose bower, a knot garden , a herb garden, terraces, kitchen gardens, or innovative planting, there's something for everyone in this book. Barbara's keen eyes have spotted everything...and I know because I've actually walked around a couple of other gardens with her. She immediately hones on little pockets of beauty or will stand and stare, taking in  the bigger picture.

I'm already planning to visit some of the gardens featured next spring and summer.
The Secret Gardens in East Anglia" by Barbara Segall and photographed by Marcus Harpur is published by Frances Lincoln and costs £20.00.


"Growing Self Sufficiency " by Sally Nex is an ideal present for anyone thinking about growing their own fruit and vegetables, and taking things one step further.

Written in a very straightforward, engaging style, this introductory guide gives immediate suggestions of what Sally calls "the easy hits" - the things you can grow on a window sill or an allotment and get immediate success.

This book then romps through how to sow, plant, make a hot box, grow your own drinks or medicine cabinet or even how to take on a few animals for meat and eggs.

Broad brushstrokes may be, but Sally is enthusiastic and motivating through each chapter, and she knows what she's talking about, moving on from a tiny handkerchief London garden to keeping chickens and sheep and acres of land. An enjoyable read and I've picked up some useful tips. This book could be the springboard for someone to dive into a life of self-sufficiency!
Growing Self Sufficiency by Sally Nex is published by Green Books and costs £17.99


Onto a very practical present now for the gardener in your life - a pair of gardening gloves. Now don't go thinking these are the gardening equivalent of being given socks and pants for Christmas. These aren't just any garden gloves  - when I was given these back in September, it was like finding the Holy Grail.

I've got through so many pairs of gardening gloves in the past...cheap cotton ones for the summer and when I say the summer, they last for exactly that long, one summer only.

I tried thicker gloves, always finding the right fit a problem and tried gloves which made my hands sweat terribly. I've never found the right pair specifically for dealing with thistles, holly, brambles, and my ever expanding collection of nettles on the allotment until now.

These though fit wonderfully well, I haven't had a single scratch on my hands (a miracle, they're warm enough in December, and they still look remarkably good considering how much I've been using them.

Tough Touch Ladies deerskin gardening gloves, from Gold Leaf Gloves cost around £25 depending on where you buy them. Men's gloves in the same range are available too.

Onto some stocking filler presents now, and I love these seed tins full of seeds from Suttons for successional sowing. Try saying that on air....I did try but made a real hash of it. I must have sounded as if I was drunk but obviously, that wasn't the case darlings....

  There are six different varieties of veg seeds to sow- carrots, red and white spring onions, beetroots, and spring onions and each tin costs £4.95 for 2,000 seeds divided into three different packets. Very practical. If you buy all six though, the cost is £24.95.

 

 

I always think you're never too old or too young to get a kick out of watching something grow, and these packets of seeds would be lovely for children to sow. Brightly packaged, there's added value with a paper tape measure in with the sunflower seeds, and bug stickers to accompany the calendula seeds for example..

 

 

 

 

Obviously, there's lots of other seed collections from other seed companies which are available which would also make fabulous prezzies too!



So, Happy Christmas shopping....and whatever you buy for the gardeners in your life, remember to treat yourself at the end of your shopping expeditions too.  I find a glass of fizz always perks me up a right treat.....Cheers!

 

Days of Christmas - best books for gardeners

Days of past, present and future at Winstanley House

If you want to go to out to eat in Leicester these days, there's so much more choice than say ten years ago. Some of the big boy chains moved in, some small independents are flourishing, some have fallen by the wayside.

 I couldn't have forecast ten years ago where the latest restaurant would open though. It's called the Black Iron at Winstanley House and is two miles away from the city centre set in one hundred and sixty acres of public parkland. Next to a housing estate.There's a hotel as well, with huge function rooms for up to four hundred people, ripe and ready for the wedding market.

It's a far cry from a number of years ago, when the building was in a sorry state. Neglected and unloved for years, no one quite knew what to do it  - a crying shame for somewhere which meant so much to many people.

The Winstanleys were local landowners who commissioned the house in 1775, and who lived here
for a hundred and fifty years. Then, thousands of local children went to school here from 1932 until 1996.

But that's in the past....years of work and £2 million later, it was the press launch. My friend Tim and I were whisked straight thorough Reception

 to the dining room, oh so tastefully done in shades of grey.

Menus were promptly presented with a flourish and our orders taken for drinks. Yes, let's mention them first because I was pleasantly surprised with the wine list. An inviting long list with interesting wines I'd not heard of before. Tim and I both loved the Zapa Oak aged  Malbec....which was far classier than the £24 price tag would lead you to believe.

So onto dinner....a set meal with three courses....

I decided to go for the vegetarian option and began with the beetroot salad. Pretty on the plate, four very finely sliced heritage varieties of beetroot were dressed with honey and hazelnuts. Crunchy, light and tasty.

The mains was a courgette flan with perfectly roasted vegetables, but the flan needed something  added. Not enough flavour for me, and it was a fairly dry plate...a puddle of a sauce would have been welcome. I improvised and swiped some of the delicious peppercorn sauce which was served with Tim's " fantastic" - his words -rib eye steak. To be fair I also quality control tested a few of the dripping fries on his plate too. It's a wonder I didn't steal the whole lot.

As for the dessert, well here I have to apologise here as this photo doesn't do this rich, moist, tangy toffee pudding justice. This did everything a sticky thing like this should do, but without making me feel as if I needed a lie down afterwards.

 

 

 

So, an enjoyable meal, followed by a fleeting trip to the bar with lots of animated chat about the food , the décor etc.

 

I couldn't help but admire the lights before being whisked off for a sneaky peek  at what the accommodation in the hotel is like.

I can sum this up in a few words.

Sleek, stylish and as fresh as paint. Literally so fresh as paint we could still smell it.

There's so much attention to detail here, even in the ladies loos....somewhere I always check out whenever I'm on a press trip or visit. These are impeccable.



 

 

There endeth my initial visit, but a couple of weeks later I was back, together with four hundred visitors who were all at school here in the dim, distant and less glossy past. I was there to record a radio feature,  they were all there to see what had been done to their old school and to reminisce. The noise levels were off the Richter scale as they laughed and gossiped and everyone I spoke to was blown away by the transformation of this building.

 

 

The acid test of reviewing anywhere is to ask yourself the question "Would I go back and would I take my friends?" Well yes, and I fancy trying the bar menu one lunchtime. I even know what I want to eat.

There again, I've also got my eye on the bottomless brunch. Cooked breakfast ( full English or steak and eggs anyone?) plus unlimited Prosecco, beer or soft drinks for an hour, all for £20. That would do me, but not on a school day obviously - the ghosts of previous headmasters might not approve.....



Gelato days - when the Maestri Gelatieri came to town

It may be Autumn, but last weekend I was taken back to Italian summer evenings on the shores of Lake Garda, to afternoons of stifling heat in Florence, and stolen moments outside Leicester Cathedral on warm, sunny lunch breaks.

So what's brought on these memories, I hear you ask. Well, it's the taste of gelato. Not just any gelato, though. I'm talking about the creamy, silky texture, the richness, and the sheer genius of the marriage of flavours which tickle your tongue, slide down your throat, and leave you with a smile on your face.

I've eaten a lot of artisan gelato recently.

We're lucky in Leicester to have Gelato Village, an artisan gelato shop at an oh so handy location just around the corner from where I work. I'm very partial to flavours such as mango, pistachio and lemon and there are many others of course. At the end of October though, a team of ten Maestri Gelatieri came to town from Italy to share their passion and skills .

They were from all over Italy - some of the world's best gelato makers. Seven men and three women, most of whom had successful careers elsewhere before finding what they really wanted to do, which was to make gelato, in the traditional way, with their own hands and producing their own flavours. Now they were over here to share their favourite flavours and new sensations at Gelato Village..

"Come for  a meal" Laura Hadland from Thirst Media had said...."come and meet them all." So I did, over at Sapori in Anstey, a wonderful Italian restaurant which just happened to be Claudio Ranieri's favourite place when he was managing Leicester City Football Club. (I must just say I adored him- what a character, what a manager and oh how many mourned his departure.)

I digress, back to last Friday, and a noisy night with lots of feverish chat about food, wine, and yes, gelato in Italian, English and sign language.  Delicious Italian food too, for me a wild mushroom and goats cheese tartlet with cashew pesto, Italian fennel sausages and rigatoni followed by a sorrento lemon tart with a orange and carrot sorbet. Perfect.

Everyone was looking forward to their weekend organised by Antonio de Vecchi  and Daniele Taverna from Gelato Village and the Compagnia Gelatieri.

left to right Andrea Scarpati the owner of Sapori,  Raffaella Garavelli , Daniele Taverna and Antonio De Vecchi


They had all brought ingredients from their home regions, from Piedmont, the Marche, Milan, Lombardy and Perugia, to use with the non homogenised milk and cream from Red Poll rare breed cattle on the Belvoir Ridge Creamery farm in Leicestershire.

As soon as they arrived from Italy, they began to make, mix, create the most amazing selection of gelato flavours....

There were some big flavours which screamed "Eat me!" From the deeply rich Chocolate & Tuscan Cigar sorbetto to the subtle fig, almond and bay gelato, the stunningly refreshing and tangy quince and Franciacorta sparkling wine sorbetto and the Passito sweet white wine gelato.

Andrea Soban with his Biscotti Zaeti gelato...he studied law before becoming a gelato maker.

Yes, they were here to make, showcase and sell their creations but there were tastings and talks too, about the history of gelato and how they found their inspiration . According to Antonio Luzi pictured below, the gelato business in Italy is a very saturated market.

It was a busy weekend for all of the gelato makers. Some managed to get out to the Belvoir Ridge Creamery to see where the milk came from to make their gelato and that's what they were all very impressed with, the richness and quality of the milk.

Of course they went to Leicester Cathedral to see the tomb of  Richard III, but there wasn't time for them to really explore the city. There was just enough time for me to take Vera Castrovilli, Alessia Torselli and Raffaella Garavelli next door to one of my favourite places in Leicester, The Guildhall which they loved.

Vera and Alessia were both set designers in films and on stage, before fleeing their stressed careers, and Rafaella was in the corporate world flying all over Europe before returning to her home village and opening a gelateria.

Making gelato has made all three of them very happy.

I'm just as happy eating it, and really enjoyed tasting so many new flavours the weekend the Maestri Gelatieri came to town.. I do hope they come back one day......

Just to make your mouths water , here's the full list of the gelato and sorbetto flavours created for the  trip to Leicester

Paolo Brunelli made Crema Brunelli gelato with hazelnut & chocolate, and Ricotta Celeste a Pois gelato, flavoured with honey, coffee & lemon zest

From Matteo Carloni, there was Bacio gelato with hazelnut biscuits sandwiched with dark chocolate, and Malaga, a gelato made with a raisin & sweet wine custard

Vera Castrovilli & Alessia Torselli created Passito Erbaluce di Caluso, a gelato with sweet white wine

Raffaele Del Verme made a fig and chocolate gelato and a fig with almond and bay gelato

 

Raffaella Garavelli created a quince with Franciacorta sparkling wine sorbetto

From Antonio Luzi, there was a coffee gelato plus a spiced pear sorbetto

Andrea Soban made a Biscotto Zaeti gelato and Torrone, an Italian hazelnut nougat gelato.

Last but not least, Mirko Tognetti created a chocolate and tuscan cigar sorbetto and a Torta della Nonna gelato flavoured with pine nuts and cream.