Ok so I`m back, and like the proverbial bad penny I get the guilt trip and think..well fiddlesticks.. I didnt post..

I sincerely ..well you know...

Anyway, lets see whats been going on? HA..I expect like me everyone has been foolishly busy, lets face it the world wide slump has affected people in ways that are unimaginable..

To those that have lost jobs, or know of family and friends that have you have my heartfelt best wishes that things come aright sooner rather than later.

Here in the UK strikes abound, this in turn is killing business.. its a no win situation it would seem..

I owe Yama something in the post, but I darent post it, theres a backdrop of 3 million letters and parcels just from todays postal strike alone, in the summer there were strikes and there are still letters and parcels missing..

There are millions of letters and parcels gathering dust from the summer..

Whilst I`m sure I dont know or even understand the full reasons behind these mail strikes I do know of friends with small businesses that have gone to the wall.

Todays news was that the UK has been in the deepest recession since 1955! and theres little good news..

Anyway, on a little bit more of a high note I was invited to the premier in london of "Up in the Air" with George Clooney..

After the film we were speaking with jason reitman who was the producer, despite what has been suggested about the film being a *rom com* rhe..jason stated that it took him 6 years, it started in the all time high for spending ect ect, but ended in the world wide crash of recents months, here is an intelligent director..he MAY have started with a rom com.. but he used his brains and in so doing has made an utterly funny, poignant, terrbly sad and then tongue in cheek film.

Its not a *girly* film, its brilliant, and what has made it so is that at the end there are real people..I wont spoil it if you havent seen it..but Jason said he advertised in  detroit for real people to tell him what occured to them..

(I know it sounds ambiguous but I really dont wish to spoil the film..)

Its a brilliant, witty film and I suspect it will stay the course ...

Go and see the film its really great.. for those that travel you will find excrutiatingly funny in places.

Ok I know that in some parts of the globe its Spring thats thinking of sneaking up, but you know our weather here in the UK has been sneaky for a rather long time...

I`l have something to say to the weather sprites!!!

In a nutshell..(ok slight jest there as my cob-nut tree is begining to drop its nuts) the rain has been a blight, what? no asparagus...err no..it all rotted from being water-logged.

Err, those apples look ripe to me.. its July!...err yes, and unfortunatly the wasps have discovered apples are a great home....ok..I say looking around arching a finely chissled eyebrow........, so what about the peaches and the apricots?..err wellll...you know the wasps... *The eyebrow arches further*!

RIGHT.... What about my potatoes...err well they sort have gone funny....

What do you mean....funny... Well its a bit like this..they went funny and green, bobbly and quite peculiar, it looked oddily eerie and nasty.

So what you are saying is, that growing our own has been a none starter this year hmmm...?

Well look at it this way, you`ve had years and years of loverrrly crops its only a year...

So that is my conversation with one weather sprite...

It was a seriously disastrous year regarding the fruit and veggies here in the East of England,  I got to eat one peach, my plums seems curiously untouched, so I shall be picking them and making jam!

Oh and I must confess that early spring, before it all started going down-hill I gathered lots of Elderflower  heads and made some truly delicious elderflower cordial.

Ye Olde Recipieeeee

(Seriously its so easy!!)

Collect about 20 heads of the creamy white flowers of the Elder

rinse carefully for bugs.

*Note here, collect in the morning just after the dew has dried off, and make sure there are no brown dead or dying bits.

I packet of Chemist bought Citric Acid..*see note*

(*In the uk the packets are very small I use all the contents if your packets are huge, then use just a little over 1 teaspoon*

1 lemon, slice it but it doesnt need to be cut perfectly, its not seen in the end product!

3.5 pounds of sugar  white (think that translates to 1.5 kilos?)

2.5 pints of boiling water

Now place all ingredients into a clean china or plastic bowl, pour over the boiling water stir until sugar is dissolved, skim off the top any twiggy bits or anything that shouldnt be there.

When sugar has dissolved cover with a clean cloth.

Now place it somewhere cool, and stir the next day.

This is where some people differ, some say leave up to 5 days, quite honestly my friends nor I have ever done this and the fragrance, taste and all around colour is beautiful, so I leave mine for 2 days MAX! mostly its 24 hrs.

So, all is well with the highly scented cordial, now please ensure that your bottles are VERY clean.

I like clear cordial, so I strain it a few times, I use clean tea towels, and pour the first time into another bowl, all the bits are left in the 1st tea-towel, then I use another tea towel and strain it back into the original bowl and do this a couple of more times to ensure no bits and clea colour.

Then its a case of bottling, once again clean bottles with tight seels.

To drink, you pour some cordial in a glass and top up with water, fizzy, or even try as a mixer to spirits, I even put some in some beer and it was lovely!

It does not keep....

 So my advice is that you freeze some, in cubes or those little plastic bags ect then you can have it over winter!

Ok..so *that* saying..watching for the bad word faerie to bleep me,.,.chuckles.

Sooooooooo..In stony stratford the small town that is just down the road and around the corner from Wicken, there are a few watering holes... (pubs), two of which are named... The C***K and the other just down the way a bit is called The Bull, each has a painted picture of each animal hence you wouldnt need to guess too hard..

Now these two drinking establishments prior to the mid 1600s were coaching inns, as seen by the rather tall and wide entrances, any way, the rule of thumb around here has been to say that rival travellors that would stagger from one of the pubs to the other embellishing stories they had heard in each would be talking a load of rubbish...

So prevelant was this story that it is hard to work out if this is not the case, of course with many things such as this there is little or no coroborating evidence but its certainly kept close by the townsfolk of Stony Stratford!

The town has had a very long history, it was the crossing over the great river ouse for prehistoric man, the romans, famous for their straight roads built a road called Watling Street which runs from London to Holyhead!

Danish marauders were fought here by King Edward the Elder, further kings frequently held their courts here and dear Queen Eleanors funeral cortege also rested here on the journey down from Nottingham to London..

A house still standing here in the main high street was where king richard 3rd did the nasty on poor uncrowned Edward 5th sealing his fate in the infamous tower of london..

John Wesley preached in the town and the tree where he did so is still preserved, although I`m not convinced that its the same tree though....its not far from the pub ( a matter of a few feet) called the Crown where fans of "Withnail and I" will perhaps know that the pub in the film called The King Henry is not in Penrith, but was filmed here in Stony, as was the tea shop, this was filmed in the chemist just opposit the crown pub!

“We want the finest wines available to humanity, and we want them here, and we want them now.”

Hear Hear I say....L

Well I thought I would put a little down about the village that I live in, its name is Wicken, and of course with such ancient villages they did not start out in the way we see today, Wicken was originally Wick Dive and the other Wick Hamon another spelling was Wyke for these two medieval villages, although there has been evidence found of a prehistoric ring ditch, there are also plenty of roman villa remains to be found and indeed dug up in and around this area.

The first mention of the villages was in 1086..from the centre of the village of course there ran tracks one in particular leading to my home, this is now called the wicken road although from the opposite end its called the deanshanger road (dual road name from one village to another)

I live in the portion of Wicken that is called Dagnall or rather laterly called dagnall farm, this was a truly medieval hamlet at the time but like with all things they either shrink or expand with age, Dagnall got smaller, and all that remains is the barn I live in and 3 other homes along the drive, the rest is left to fields.

There are many pages of information about this tiny portion of England, even down to the next village or rather town, but one..called Stoney Stratford..for those that like going to ren faires the history in and around stoney stratford is of great historical interest, including the origins of the saying...

"Thats a c--k and bull story"....

I`l enlighten you next time...when the "Time Team" with Tony Robinson come to wicken and find all sorts of interesting things..but dont find some of the things dug up around here previously!....