Cornucopia in The Candy

Firstly, dear reader(s), I apologise for the lack of blogging recently, but I have had some issues with my internet connection so couldn't get online at all at my last host's house, and I didn't have a mobile phone signal either! What did we do in the 'olden' days, when I was just a lass?

My last hosts were situated about 2 miles outside Oswestry in an area called The Candy Valley. It's quite a steep sided valley (obviously U-shaped and therefore glacial in origin) with a small stream flowing in the bottom. Near to this stands the house in which I was staying, which used to be a pub and, at some point in history, a corn mill. There is nothing to show that the building was once a mill except for the mill pond that has just been re-excavated and a couple of old grind stones propped against the wall.

My hosts, Lindsay and Anita, have been there about seven years and have made huge alterations to the house to make it into a comfortable home, and now they have turned their attention to becoming more self-sufficient. Their vegetable plot, although not enormous, is incredibly productive, particularly at this time of year with soft fruit. The secret apparently lies in mulching well in winter with wood ash and manure. I couldn't believe the raspberry canes - they were fully ten feet tall and had been pruned back because they were getting too tall. Even standing on tiptoe I couldn't reach the raspberries at the top! We picked raspberries every day while I was there and froze pounds of them on trays so that they would be free-running when stored in plastic containers. On the second day that I was there we harvested gooseberries - just two bushes yielded nearly fifty pounds of fruit, so we made five gallons of gooseberry wine, froze some whole and pureed a whole lot more as they took up less space in the freezer and can be used for gooseberry fool, ice cream or swirled into yoghurt - or my own special favourite - served as an accompaniment to fresh mackerel. (Don't say I don't give out useful tips and information in this blog!)

One morning Lindsay and I went out to look at the chickens and I found the most beautiful moth in the grass. I picked him up gently and cradled him in my hand where he sat quite happily while I took some (out of focus) photos. He had white legs and antennae and his body was sage green and magenta. I thought it was some kind of hawkmoth but wasn't sure, so Lindsay took me down the road to meet a neighbour of his who was a bit of an expert. He also took photos and looked it up in his moth book and it turned out to be an elephant hawk moth (if you've ever seen the caterpillars you would know why it is called 'elephant' - not only are they huge but when frightened they can puff up one end of their greyish body and look just like an elephant's trunk!). We then walked back down the road with the moth still sitting on my hand and Lindsay got his camera and took some photos - he is going to email them to me as mine are just not clear enough, although I shall post them on my Facebook album shortly. Eventually I persuaded the moth onto some rosebay willowherb (it's preferred food plant) where it's incredible colouration immediately rendered it virtually invisible.

I was only in the Candy Valley for a week, but on my last day there I helped make raspberry and redcurrant jelly as it was raining heavily nearly all day and we couldn't go out into the garden. I had hoped to have done some work with Lindsay's bees but the weather was too changeable to go into the hives, so I had to content myself with viewing their activity from a safe distance and sampling some of last year's honey crop - delicious!

I'm now heading back south towards Hereford for a week before I go back to my Mum's for a couple of weeks break and the Fairport Convention music festival at Cropredy in Oxfordshire!