Worst wife, Floddies and Michael Foot, aka Cato

I may not the be the worst wife so far in this household(I am no 3 ) but I am in line to be the worst at Brookfield Bowls Club. The fantastic women there do the teas, which means shopping to a strict budget, washing, chopping, preparing , setting out, clearing away, cleaning kitchen etc, plus often playing bowls before or after, all with incredible efficiency and speed- well, I am just a nincompoop by comparison.. But at least I take my turn, which puts me one step up the ladder.And those who are hopeless at domestic tasks do make those who excel feel good ,maybe.?

Glut time with courgettes, so time for Floddies, most days. Here's how. Grate about 6 courgettes, add chopped red onion or spring onions, parsley, chili if you like, pepper and salt and squashed garlic. Mix in one beaten egg and about 3 tablespoons of plain flour. Fry spoonfuls, flattening the Floddies as you go. Quantities are flexible and mine turn out different each time.

Aneurin Bevan is quoted in Michael foots biog(by Mervyn Jones)-"Always address yourself to the strength your opponents case, not the weakness." Current Labour leadership contenders might reflect on this.

Friends of my childhood and the Queen's corsets

My partner Mike T served his time as a tool maker at the Vickers Armstrong Aircraft company, the site of which is now a housing estate. He says that my new bra from Rigby and Peter , who hold the Royal Warrant ,is soundly engineered, even a bit over engineered. So it should be for £66.75. I didn't see the Queen waiting for new underpinnings. Nothing so vulgar as a tape measure is used, just mirrors on all sides and assistants, competent and kind, who look at droopy women all day long and send them out into the world hoisted, harnessed and happy.
Then to the Chez Gerard restaurant behind the National Theatre for a reunion with school friends. We first met 60 years ago,nervous new boys and girls at Bishopshalt School in Hillingdon. I wore a second hand WAAF coat , a home made satchel and scratchy wool stockings-so much for the levelling effect of the uniform. We all caught the work ethic, learned to listen to classical music, survived ballroom dancing lessons,always put the date and year on our History homework so that future historians would be able to place it,found out how to use an index and always, and I mean always, got our homework in on time. So lovely to see them all.

By election

OK, here we go again. A by election for the City Council in Castle Ward, Leicester South . Committee rooms are at our house(where else?)I will make shed loads of egg sandwiches, find two banana cakes in the freezer, haul a steady pasting table down from the loft, hope that the Stakanovite agent Patrick arrives to set everything up, look for extra loo rolls, make notices re where to find tea, coffee milk etc, answer the phone, answer the phone again, check emails, make more sandwiches, boost the ( excellent) candidates spirits, discourage workers from sitting around chatting-I will achieve this by not having too many chairs, say thank you to everybody and not miss any one out, keep a list of all helpers, recruit those helpers who are not party members, watch the computer generated knock up sheets appearing and learn how to do it-than fall into bed out on my feet. Luckily I can do most of this on autopilot.Lets hope-no, not hope, work-for a Labour win. More tomorrow.

Red Shelley, Thomas Cromwell, Peter Mandelson et al

Finished reading Wolf Hall today, all 650 small print pages. I no longer feel obliged to finish a book , on the grounds that time is running out on me for the books that i really do ant to read. So a duffer gets ditched.Did Cromwell know about Machiavelli, I wonder? He went to Italy according to Hilary Mantel, and he applied many of the hints in The prince to his dealings with Cranmer and Henry , and especially Anne.
I am resolved not to buy either Blair or Mandel sons books. I resisted Campbell's, and sales only encourage more of these these out pourings. So, to reread Red Shelley instead. Paul foot , the author(but you knew that, didn't you?) wrote"If Shelley's great revolutionary poetry--can get to work on the imaginations of the hundreds of thousands of people who have had enough of our rotten society--if that poetry can inspire them--then there is no telling what will happen."So its Shelley versus The Sun-good.
Picked 6 pounds of dessert goosegogs

Water retaining granules, radishes, sea salt and butter

Made by Hanging Garden Range, water storage granules are the very thing for making the best use of every drop of H2O. Expensive( about £6 ) but you only need a teaspoonful or so per plant pot. Otherwise the precious water just leaks out the bottom . I will try them in the sweet pea trench next year. They are sometimes sold off at B and Q at the end of the summer.
Summer starter-radishes(any sort, but not too big) washed and trimmed, then left for an hour or so in ice cold water. Drain and dry, then serve with a small pat of unsalted butter per person and a little pile of sea salt on each plate. These are so good that nobody talks

Michael Foot and Reddening Gooseberries

Reading Mervyn Jones, " Michael Foot. "At the 1979 Durham Miners Gala, Michael Mackintosh Foot said-"We need to summon the strength, unity and intelligence of the whole Labour movement to resist wherever we can, and to search out the only safe road for ourselves and for others too, the road of democratic socialism. It would be tragic and unforgivable if at such a moment we turned aside from this supreme task to tear ourelves in pieces, if we supposed that what is needed is a constitutional wrangle within the Labour Party." Leadership contenders, take note.
Reddening gooseberries are almost ready for picking. I will make a goosebery fool--from the French " fouler"-to crush. It does not mean someone profligate and health fool hardy enough to use a pint of cream at one go. You can use 0% fat yoghourt, but who would want to?

Mint and Thomas Cromwell

Mint in the new potatoes? I think so, but what sort? I grow Bowles mint which I think is the best for cooking, and apple mint(very similar) for tea. You need to crush the mint with your hands and then add the boiling water. Makes you smell of mint sauce all day though. I plant the herb in pots as it is a thuggish and invasive plant, but mint really prefers a long root run. In pots it is more likely to succumb to the rust. I have grown and lost orange mint , eau -de- cologne mint and pineapple mint-would love a small root if anyone can help.
Finished reading Wolf Hall- a cracking read. Hilary Mantel writes -"Cromwell was a visionary, but a practical one: one of those rare people who can both grasp the big picture and nail down the details." I shall look for this quality(but not only this one) before casting my two votes for the next Labour Leader.

Seasonality

Our father used to plant a gross of January Kings all through the 1940s and 1950s. For our family of six, this meant eating cabbage three times a week, every week. Our mother cooked it at a very slow simmer, with equal amounts of salt and bi-carbonate of soda. But it is not true, as my brother alleges, that she put the sprouts for Sunday dinner on by Thursday teatime. But she did mash them with a potato masher. We did not get scurvy, or anything else much for that matter. Our diet-loads of carbohydrates, home grown veg and minimal protein( meat rationed until the mid 1950s) looks OK to modern notions, although we did eat bread and sugar as a treat. Eating home produced food often means eating the same things most days. Our mother regarded sausage toad and sausage and mash as two quite different dinners.

Gallows humour

To Blaby Labour Party today for a fundraiser-cake, music and quizzes. I dredged this joke from my folk memory
An old man is sick and he fears that his days are numbered. He asks his weeping wife to bring him his Labour Party and trade union cards and he tears them up in front of her." I'm finished with this-I'm a Tory now," he announced. His wife is horrified." But why, Fred? You've been a Labour man all you life and the union has been everything to you. Why this? " Well, I'm not long for this world, and its better that one of theirs goes rather than one of ours."

A False Start

Ok dear readers. I had a poorly thaoght out name and no energy. So Nate has sorted this out, and I will go from here. I am heatrened that so many Socilaists turn to gardening. I think it is because, when left politics gos sour ,and it does, youcan at leasthave mutuality, support, beauty and coopeartion in the garden. and the rythm of the seasons givs you hope that thing will improve.