Observations from a Hill

  Powis Castle today: a visit to the gardens, museum and café only, as the castle itself is currently closed for rewiring and general refurbishments. We first joined the National Trust on our initial visit to the place thirty years ago, and the gardens are always a joy to see, more sculpture than landscape: Land Art initiated centuries before the late twentieth century term was coined. The upkeep of the gardens alone must cost an absolute fortune, but I guess that's part of the point of being a member of the Trust in the first place. At least these days the hoi polloi get to see and appreciate the artistry of their peers from former times, and not just the landed and monied who started the project in the first place. However one views these grandiose statements of wealth and privilege in terms of historical social inequality and injustice, the wanton abandonment or active destruction of such places would deny the part that the far less privileged artisans and labourers, who actuall...

Coffee and cake this morning at Berry's Café in Church Stretton, and very nice it was too. We had a good mooch around the antiques emporium in the town, looking for one of those very large Willow pattern meat dishes with the juice/gravy/sauce well at one end, for next Christmas Day's lunch, at which we aim to either repeat the haunch of hogget extravaganza, or maybe even push the boat out for slow-cooked beef ribs. We haven't decided on the meat yet, but have our sights on the right and proper receptacle from which to serve it. Unfortunately, this time we struck out in our search. I remember one such dish in the family, growing up, but in those days the only size cuts of meat we could afford would all have fitted in the sauce well of the thing, and so it was always consigned to decorative rather than practical usage...  

Our first visit of the week to The White Horse in Clun [blog posts passim] this lunchtime. Eschewing a full Sunday roast, having already had coffee and cake at the newly-reopened Poppy House Café in Bishop's Castle - very good espresso and a slice of cherry Bakewell - we opted instead for our continuing favourites from the pub's Light Bites menu: in my case the above sausage and chips; good honest pub grub, well cooked from great produce and in a portion small enough not to render one speechless with bloat. As always, their locally-sourced sausages were great and the chips homemade, not frozen. I washed mine down with a pint of the inestimable Clun Pale, brewed on the premises: a beer without equal by my measure, and one of the cheapest pints you'll find anywhere. The pub is open at all proper pub hours, has a great landlord in Jack, and most importantly has that particular comradely atmosphere found only in a pukka British public house. And as I've mentioned once or tw...

  Just a brief throwaway diary post tonight, as is my usual custom when relocating to Shropshire for a short break. The blue remembered hills are still here, and for the time-being at least, so is our little bolt-hole off the beaten track down here. How much longer the place will be available to rent, we can't be sure, as the owner is ten years older than us, and we ain't young ourselves, folks. Still, here we are again for a few days, so I'll keep you posted as we do and see stuff at the epicentre of my family's origins and their travels to and from the greater part of the Midlands over the last centuries: the Marches straddle the border between England and Wales, with Welsh speaking Oswestry in England and English speaking Welshpool in Wales. From Gloucestershire to Denbighshire via Shropshire; my lot certainly got around a bit in the old days...

I'm a kind of glass-half-full sort of bloke: an eternal optimist, and a believer in the basic humanity of our species. I'm also a realist with a keen sense of historical context: as a species, aside from great art, music and literature - the good stuff - we've also inflicted great harms on ourselves as humans, and on the home planet we all share, rent-free, from the Universe itself. The ultimate social housing project. Except that socialism has never been good enough for the more selfish and venal amongst us. So we continue to tread a path that will ultimately destroy us all. This is the currently-trending parallel narrative of the 'threat' of A.I to the our species and death by the 'others'. By the the way, it's interesting to note that this dystopian narrative arc includes only us and our creation; Artificial Intelligence. It ignores the vast majority of creation that exponentially outnumbers us here on Earth, and which almost certainly would be better...

  Just a quick one tonight, literally - at least that is in terms of food: what else could I possibly be referring to at my age? - I've been assembling a raft of inspirational recipe ideas to try recently in my on-going grail quest to recreate a good, old-school, British-Indian, West Midlands curry-house Madras at home, and I've parsed out a number of techniques that I think I can assemble into a decent simulacrum of said dish from. I think a few days in the kitchen might suffice to secure my ultimate goal, now so armed. However, in the meantime I would like to offer a word of praise to a homegrown [Welsh] brand of readymade south-asian-food-alikes. Pictured is the wrapper from a particularly decent butter chicken that has formed the last two evening's repast for me. I have to say that I would have passed it by on the shelves of the local Tesco Express were it not for the price reduction. I have to give it its due and say that for the money and convenience it was pretty dam...