beanie for wool week

July 31, 2019July 31, 2019 ~ Gillie ~ Leave a comment

58 days to go! 58 days until I climb aboard the ferry from Aberdeen to Lerwick and head to my first ever Shetland Wool Week.

Let me take you back to the beginning. Some time in 2018 I saw a link for the Loch Ness Knit Fest. Since we used to have a house near Ardgay in Sutherland and been going to the Highlands since the heady days of the race to the last Ballachulish ferry (or the Glencoe Death Race as my mother called it) it didn’t take long to persuade Stuart that this would be the perfect birthday present. And it was, we took a cottage just outside Dingwall, Bea and Eloise joined us for a couple of days up from Glasgow as did a friend heading home to Thurso from the south. We revisited some old haunts and I had a whole day at the Loch Ness Knit Fest.

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A little purchase from Tine and Floyd at LNKF that became a fishing hat for Stuart.

Loch Ness Knit Fest is, imho, a standout amongst the many wool events sprouting up. It’s not vast, but every stall is an interesting, independent supplier. No big companies offloading unsold stock, or row after row of identical mass produced rubbish (Knitting and Stitching Fairs I am looking at you). But real people with a passion to share, to talk and spread the wooly word.

The little things make the difference, plenty of places to sit, from tables to to big squishy sofas and chairs, homemade soup and cakes and a floor show from highland dancers and musicians to talks on sheep farming to spinning silk.

And it was here I discovered three new potential wooly destinations. Shetland Wool Week, Prjónagleði – Iceland Knit Fest and Fanø Knit Festival in Denmark. We had already had a holiday booked in Iceland in January, which provided for some serious wool research but did mean that punting for Prjónagleði was unlikely to be a goer. A quick email to my Danish godmother and I had all the information I needed about Fanø together with the contact details of one of her friends who would be delighted to accompany me.

It helps to have a partner who is as obsessed with fishing as you are with wool if you want to tour some of the best yarn festivals. So it was that we booked ourselves into a beautiful cottage in Sandwick, and waited for the ferry timetable and festival tickets to be released. Meanwhile Stuart researched fishing and made friends with the husband of a fellow knitter from Texas and sorted out several days of loch and seafish bothering.

Now the ferry is booked (hurry up LNER and release the October train tickets!), the workshops are booked, the birthday dinner is booked (The String) So it was time to get on and finish the Roadside Beanie, designed by Oliver Henry, this year’s wool week patron.

And I have,

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With a golden sun in the middle.

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And guess what … only 58 days to go!

Love Gillie x

vital mending

July 26, 2019July 26, 2019 ~ Gillie ~ 2 Comments

I have a couple of free days, days where all I actually HAVE to do are the usual minutiae of life, no appointments, no deadlines. Perfect for spinning or knitting.

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Only it’s not. It’s too hot to be playing with wool, and I am not knitting with this on my lap.

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I’m not complaining about the weather (well I was when I was stuck in my daughter’s car for over an hour, no idea how to get home, with no air con, no map (who doesn’t have a map in their car) and no phone charger, so no google maps either). I was complaining about a lot then.

I have been doing a spot of decluttering over the past week (stay with me, there is a sequitur). Finally, those irritating things around the house have tipped me over the edge and they are all allocated to new homes (divided between the local Clothing bank and a friend who runs charity sales every week – she ought to be on the route to canonisation if you are reading this up there!) Even our old fridge (working but surplus to requirements), a duvet, some linen and a memory foam mattress went somewhere where they will be appreciated rather than snarled at as we pass by.

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Yesterday I decided it was time to face my studio, which is rather overstocked. Part of the overstock is the pile of mending that has been waiting patiently for attention. Top of the pile is a dress I made out of two dresses that no longer fitted. It’s a summer dress, it’s cool (as in temperature, I wouldn’t dream of aspiring to social or fashion coolness) and perfect for the railway track melting temperatures we are currently experiencing. Well it would be if I mended it. So I did.

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Then I hemmed a pair of trousers, sewed on quite a lot of buttons, ran up a few seams and done! I love the colours. Now I have to wash and iron it all.

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I, like many of my generation, was fortunate enough to have been brought up in a family where mending was the norm. There were times when my mother’s frugal ways mortified the arrogant youth in me. Grating up soap heels to make new bars was something I don’t believe any of my friends did on a Saturday afternoon. But guess what I still do it.

I’m not banging a new drum in saying that we have become a throwaway society, but we have done it at remarkable speed. Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could become a mending society just as quickly. Actually, it wouldn’t just be lovely …. it’s vital.

Love Gillie x

gooseberry

July 22, 2019 ~ Gillie ~ 2 Comments

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When we first moved into this house, back in 2000, my husband got a great deal on some gooseberry canes. He likes a good deal, these were the days before the internet and online selling really took off and much joy was derived from scouring the weekly Ad-mags for bargains to help in the two year rebuild and renovation of the house and grounds. So we were the proud owners of some 50 gooseberry canes. Yes, that is correct, no typo. Fifty canes.

We had the space and there was a perfect spot for them by the secret garden. However, as even the most beginner of gardeners will know. Gooseberries need to be pruned and trimmed or they turn into sharp-thorned triffids.

Ours became, over time, sharp-thorned triffids, and the sharper the thorns and the triffidier (I do like that word) they became the less inclined we were to brave the gooseberry patch and whip them under control.

This spring the battle of Gooseberry Green began and we won. 2019-07-22 14.06.44

I wasn’t expecting much of a harvest this year. I was mistaken. We have had several small bucketloads already and there are plenty more to come. Thus far I have made mackerel and horseradish sauce for the lovely fresh mackerel Stuart has been catching.

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Then gooseberry and lemon curd, gooseberry fool and still there are more to come. So if you are passing, pop in and go home with a bag of goosgogs :_

Gooseberry and Horseradish sauce

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Gooseberries – a good couple of handfuls
Caster sugar to taste
Horseradish – I used homemade fermented horseradish but you could use fresh grated or a standard jar of creamed horseradish

It’s hardly a recipe but here goes. Put the fruit in a heavy bottom pan with a splash of water (only a splash). Add roughly one tablespoon of sugar to each handful of gooseberries. Stir over a gentle heat until the fruit is soft and squishy. Add horseradish to taste, I like it quite hot, but even if you don’t, a little gives it a lovely zing. Cool and pour into clean jars. Keep in the fridge and use within a week.

Gooseberry Fool

Gooseberries
Caster sugar to taste
Double cream
Full fat greek yoghurt

Another recipe that is hardly a recipe. Prepare the fruit as above. Whip the cream until stiff. Add yoghurt, I use equal quantities of whipped cream and yoghurt. Stir in cooked fruit. Pop in a bowl and put in the fridge for at least an hour before serving.

Gooseberry and Lemon curd

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500g gooseberries
100ml lemon juice
125g unsalted butter
450g granulated sugar
4 medium or 5 large eggs

This is a proper recipe and comes from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Place the fruit in a heavy bottomed pan with the lemon juice and cook gently until squishy. Push through a fine sieve to obtain a puree.

Put the puree, butter and sugar in a Bain Marie and heat gently until the butter is melted and the mixture rich and shiny.

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Leave to cool, you don’t want gooseberry scrambled eggs.

Beat the eggs and whisk into the cooled fruit sugar and butter mixture. Replace over the Bain Marie and stir constantly until the mixture is thick and creamy. If you have a thermometer, it will need to reach about 84C before it starts to thicken. Don’t be tempted to rush this stage, or it will curdle. If it does start to curdle whip it off the heat and whisk as fast as you can and cross your fingers!

When thick pour into sterilised jars and spread thickly over your breakfast toast!

Love Gillie x

and it’s from the old we travel to the new

July 18, 2019October 2, 2019 ~ Gillie ~ 7 Comments

Yesterday I cried on and off most of the evening, went to bed and cried a little bit more. Woke up at 2.30am and failed to go back to sleep for another 2 hours as my mind wove its way through memories. Had a near one died? No. Was a loved one diagnosed with terminal illness? No. Were we about to declare bankruptcy? No. The source of my sadness … a friend moved to the other end of the country.

We make friends at many different stages in our lives. When we are young children our friends are mainly determined by our parents, they tend to be the children of their own friends. We start to take control of our friendships at nursery and then school. Some of our most enduring relationships are made at that time and I can include two friends I know I could call in the middle of the night from that era. However, most of those don’t last the strains of time, travel and growing up. During university and the early career years friends come and go as we move jobs, towns and even countries before we finally settle down in a career and/or a family.

It was at this stage in my life that this friendship was born. I had moved to Durham from Scotland, newly married and with a toddler daughter following my husband’s medical career to his first consultant post. She had just returned to Durham after a decade away, with three young children following her husband’s medical career to his first consultant post. We both had a ribald sense of humour seasoned with plenty of sarcasm and an instant understanding of what is was like to be the non-working, non-medical wife of a hospital consultant (in those days – fairly shit – you are pretty much a non-person in the eyes of many of their colleagues of all ranks). It transpired our husbands had been at the same college at Cambridge (although like most men they couldn’t remember) Our children were about to start in the same class at the same school. Hello new friend.

Like all relationships we moved along with the tides and there would be periods when we didn’t see each other as much. Once children became old enough to have outside interests and hobbies and husbands senior enough to be rarely around as they are sought after for conferences and committees across the country free time for coffee with friends is in short supply. Thank goodness for friends with more time who arranged dinner parties etc.

Then finally the children gained driving licences and then moved away to university. We began a regular knitting and stitching group, six friends with a wicked sense of humour and a mutual love of knitting and stitching. Ladies in Stitches was born. Twice a month we spent the day at my friend’s house and upped the yarn and thread ante. I learned to crochet, a dyed in the wool (no pun intended) stitcher learned to knit and has just completed her first pair of socks.

My friend introduced me to crewel work and I am still inordinately proud of my first ever attempt.

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I rediscovered ribbon embroidery.

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Another, a seriously accomplished crafter and professional seamstress took up lace work knitting with astonishing speed and equally astonishing skill.

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We had in-jokes. At least five other people reading this will appreciate the significance of the squirrel!

We had days out to festivals, exhibitions, gardens, we opened each other’s eyes, we learned from each other, we had a lot of fun and we supported each other quietly as we did so. As each of us faced crises of sometimes quite frightening severity Ladies in Stitches wove a small part of the overall net that caught our fall.

Then a little part unravelled. My friend announced that they were moving to the other end of the country. It made perfect sense, that was where all their children lived, including her new grandchild. Having brought my own children up without grandparents within 300 miles I understood, but my lower lip wobbled just a little.

They sold their house but without somewhere to move to down south they were looking to rent. Lo and behold the tenants in our Barn had just left and they moved in next door. My girls thought it was hysterical. When they were younger the house next door to one of their friend’s in a nearby village came up for sale. They were desperate for us to buy it so they could live next door to their best friend, they planned on digging tunnels between the houses for ease of access!

We didn’t need tunnels. For a glorious year I had a good friend (and their two lovely dogs one of whom became bosom buddies with Poppy) a mere couple of yards away. We didn’t live in each other’s pockets but the kettle was often on.

It couldn’t go on forever. Yesterday she started the next stage in her journey and I wish her nothing but love and good fortune. I am mourning the death of one friendship and learning to love the birth of a different one. I am 55 years old, I have lived in this part of the world for 25 years, longer than I have ever lived anywhere in my entire life, I have been married for 25 years and this friendship has spanned almost all the time I have been married and lived here and so is intrinsically linked to a major part of my life so far. It is hard to unpick it and re-work it into a different form.

But I will.

Love Gillie x

sore muscle salve

July 14, 2019July 14, 2019 ~ Gillie ~ 3 Comments

I can bend my fingers in weird ways and and despite my deceptively large size am quite the bendiest person in my yoga class. While once, when I was much younger, this was something of which to be proud and to show off, now I am still bendy but a lot wiser, and have a pilates personal trainer to work on building muscle strength to hold those joint in place.

Being hypermobile has many disadvantages from a tendency to be flatfooted and twist over on one’s ankle (tick), to gut and bowel problems (those connective tissues just aren’t up to the task) (tick), thin skin that heals poorly (tick) to full scale Erlers Danlos Syndrome (fortunately for me no tick as this can be pretty horrible).

As I have got older some joints flake out more than others. A recent development has been my shoulders. Quick anatomy lesson, shoulder joints the most shallow and most mobile joints in the human body and is essentially held in place by ligaments, which in my case are long past their sell by date. Net result, gravity has a tendency to pull the ball out of the socket (subluxation) and not surprisingly it hurts!

As one of the assignments for the Herbology Certificate and the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh was to create a herbal remedy so it didn’t take long for me to chose something that I could use on my very sore arms and shoulders. Here is a précis of my assignment, I do hope it is of help to someone else too.

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GINGER, CAYENNE AND TURMERIC SALVE

Ingredients

15ml Ginger root infused oil*
15ml Red chilli (cayenne) infused oil*
15ml Turmeric root infused oil*
6g Beeswax granules

Method

Melt the beeswax granules in a bain marie over a low heat.
Add the infused oils and mix thoroughly.
Remove from heat and pour into clean jar.
Wait until salve is cooled and solid and then secure jar lid.

(Storage 6 months)

* To make infused oil

50g Chopped/grated plant material
500ml Sunflower oil

Method

Place oil and plant material in a bain marie over the lowest heat possible.
Cover bain marie tightly (tin foil is excellent)
Leave for 3 hours (check water in bain marie regularly)
Remove from heat and leave still covered in a warm place overnight (I use the shelf above the aga)
Strain through a muslin and decant into dark glass bottle.

(Storage 6 months)

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At least 115 constituents have been identified in ginger, of which the highest percentage are gingerols. Research has shown that some gingerols exhibit analgesic and potent anti-inflammatory effects. This is achieved through a variety of actions:

Thermogenesis (heat production), partially attributed to –
Vasodilation increasing blood supply to the afflicted area;
Modulation of calcium levels affecting heat-pain receptors.

There have been some inconsistencies in clinical trials and the use of ginger in alleviating inflammation, osteoarthritis, and rheumatism. However, the positive results, particularly in double blind, placebo controlled trials have prompted further research and there is a theory that ginger acts in a similar way to non-steroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs) by inhibiting cooxygenases (COX) production and thus the production of prostaglandins which in turn promote pain, inflammation and fever. However, prostaglandins are also vital in the protection of the stomach lining and long-term use of NSAIDs can lead to ulceration of the stomach. Most NSAIDs inhibit both COX1 and COX2, however it is COX1 that is required for stomach and intestinal lining protection and it would appear that ginger falls into the selective inhibition group and inhibits only COX2, therefore acting as an effective anti-inflammatory but not having an undesirable effect on the gut lining. Clearly this is of relevance when comparing remedies that are taken systemically rather than topically (as this one is) however it is a valuable property of ginger compared to most NSAIDs on the market.

There is also some evidence to suggest that ginger can have a role in the reduction of pro-inflammatory cytokines which promote inflammation in body tissue, of relevance here in their role in the promotion of joint inflammation.

Cayenne is a very powerful systemic stimulant, regulating blood flow and energising and stimulating the heart. In this respect, it encourages blood flow to the peripheral areas and is an effective remedy for peripheral muscular pain and cramps.

The active ingredient in cayenne is capsaicin, a pungent alkaloid with analgesic properties through the release of neuropeptides which control the peripheral neurons. There has been extensive clinical research in the relationship between capsaicin, Substance P, serotonin, somastatin and the pain pathway. One theory is that it produces a rapid release of Substance P which is required for the production of pain, but the release is so concentrated and rapid that Substance P is depleted from the neurons and the pain threshold released.

Clinical trials have also shown that capsaicin has anti-inflammatory properties at a level to that of diclofenac, and like ginger, it does so without affecting the gastric mucosa, in fact it has been shown to have a digestive stimulant action and aid in the uptake of micronutrients through the intestinal wall.

The anti-arthritic effects of turmeric include the inhibition of joint inflammation and bone erosion. Clinical trials have shown that turmeric has a positive effect on tissue inflammation and pain control in osteo-arthritis, in post-operative molar tooth removal, in rheumatoid arthritis,

The main ingredient in turmeric is a volatile oil containing tumerone and a number of agents producing the vivid yellow colour called curcuminoids which are found in natural anti-oxidants. It is the curcuminoid curcumin which is the main active ingredient in turmeric. Precisely what the mechanism of action of curcumin is has not been fully determined. However, it is believed to be a similar COX2 blocking mechanism as demonstrated by ginger.

However, the question is does it work? Well for me yes it did. Pain relief within 30 minutes which lasted for approximately 4 hours.

NB: I am not qualified herbalist, for further information regarding the constituents please consult the references below

Bode AM, Dong Z. The Amazing and Mighty Ginger in Benzie IFF, Wachtel-Galor S, editors. Herbal Medicine: Biomolecular and Clinical Aspects. CRC Press/Taylor and Francis 2011
Grieve, M. A Modern Herbal. Tiger Books 1992
Griggs, B. The Green Witch. Vermillion 2000
Hoffman, D. Holistic Herbal. Thorsons 1990
McVicar, J. Jekka’s Complete Herb Book. Kyle Cathie 1997
Prasad S, Aggawal BB. Turmeric the Golden Spice: From Traditional Medicine to Modern Medicine in Benzie IFF, Wachtel-Galor S, editors. Herbal Medicine: Biomolecular and Clinical Aspects. CRC Press/Taylor and Francis 2011
Wong, J. A Year with James Wong. Collins 2010
Wood, M. The Earthwise Herbal Volume I. North Atlantic Books 2008
Wood, M. The Earthwise Herbal Volume II. North Atlantic Books 2009
Wood, M. The Earthwise Herbal Repertory North Atlantic Books 2016
Dinarello, CA. Proinflammatory Cytokines. Chest Vol 118, No 2: 503-508
Srinivasan, K. Biological Activities of Red Pepper (Capsicum annum) and its Pungent Principle Capsaicin: A Review. Crit. Rev. Food Sci. Nutr. 2016 Jul 3;56(9):1488-500
Karlapudi V, Prasad Mungara AVV, Sengupta K, Davis BA, Raychaudhuri SP. A Placebo-Controlled Double-Blind Study Demonstrates the Clinical Efficacy of a Novel Herbal Formulation for Relieving Joint Discomfort in Human Subjects with Osteoarthritis of Knee. J. Med. Food. 2018 May;21(5):511-520
Maulina T, Diana H, Cahyanto A, Amaliya A. The efficicacy of curcumin in managing acute inflammation pain on post-surgical removal of impacted third molars patients: A randomised controlled trial. J. Oral. Rehabil. 2018 Sep;45(9):677-683
Haroyan A, Mukuchyan V, Mkrtchyan N, Minasyan N, Gasparyan S, Sargsyan A, Narimanyan M, Hovhannisyan A. Efficacy and safety of curcumin and its combination with boswellic acid in osteroarthritis: a comparative, randomized, double-bline, placebo-controlled study. BMC Complement. Altern. Med. 2018 Jan 9;18(1):7
Comblain F, Barthélémy N, Lefèbvre M, Schwartz C, Lesponne I, Serisier S, Feugier A, Balligand M, Henrotin Y. A randomized, double-blind, prospective, placebo-controlled study of the efficacy of a diet supplemented with curcuminoids extract, hydrolyzed collagen and green tea extract in owner’s dogs with osteoarthritis. BMC Vet. Res. 2017 Dec 20;13(1):395
Amalraj A, Varma K, Jacob J, Divya C, Kunnumakkara AB, Stohs SJ, Gopi S. A Novel Highly Bioavailable Curcumin Formulation Improves Symptoms and Diagnostic Indicators in Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Two-Dose, Three-Arm, and Parallel-Group Study. J. Med. Food. 17 Oct;20(10):1022-1030.
Srivastava S, Saksena AK, Khattri S, Kumar S, Dagur RS. Curcuma longa extract reduces inflammatory and oxidative stress biomarkers in osteoarthritis of knee: a four-month, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial. Inflammopharmacology. 2016 Dec;24(6):377-388
Asha J, Ronggian W, Mian Z, Ping W. Mechanisms of the Anti-inflammatory Effect of Curcumin: PPAR- µActivation. PPAR Res. 2007; 2007: 89369
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Capsaicin
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/substance%20P

Love Gillie x

tour de fleece

July 11, 2019 ~ Gillie ~ 2 Comments

Today is stage 6 of the Tour de France and all 160.5 km of it is pretty steep. However, whilst Giulio Ciccone et al are spinning their wheels from Mulhouse to La Planche des Belle Filles, I and thousands of other people are spinning their wheels for yarn.

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The Tour de Fleece was started by Star Athina and a few friends back in 2006 The idea was to dedicate 21 days in July to spinning, and maybe watch a little cycling too. Flash forward 14 years and there are thousands of spinners all around the world, spinning on thousands of different wheels and drop spindles all united in their desire to meet whatever personal challenge they have set themselves.

This is my first Tour de Fleece. Mainly because although I have done a little drop spinning, I haven’t done much and I only learned to spin on a wheel earlier this year (with the lovely Katie Seal of Sealy MacWheely in Kirkintilloch).

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However, I have been making up for lost time, and whilst my new (to me) wheel is being given the once over by the superb Dr John, Physician to spinning wheels of distinction, I am currently spinning on Frankie, a wheel belonging to his lovely wife Carol.

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There are teams you can join, prizes, challenges and all sorts going on. I am starting small. I am a member of the FB group which is as close to a team membership as I have got and my challenge (met so far) is to spin a minimum of 30 minutes per day.

At the moment I am getting myself by into the spin of things (pun intended) by using up some Blue Faced Leicester which is nice and easy. But I have some lovely fleece I bought in Iceland

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and a fabulous top and batt (which I designed myself)

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from Sealy MacWheely

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and when I am confident enough I shall move over to them. I can’t wait!

Love Gillie x

herbal loose ends

July 8, 2019July 14, 2019 ~ Gillie ~ Leave a comment

At this time of year you can usually find me either grubbing around in the garden and hedgerows collecting herbs or in the kitchen infusing, decocting and generally making remedies for the year ahead.

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Today was a catch up day. I have several tinctures that are ready to be bottled up. A tincture is a simple method to harvest the medicinal qualities of a herb. All you need is the herb itself and base solvent. The most common solvent is alcohol as it has the ability to dissolve almost all the constituents of most plants and acts as a preservative at the same time. If you prefer not to use alcohol then vinegar or glycerine can be substituted. Vodka is my preferred tincture solvent, a minimum of 37-40% proof. I have bought much stronger vodka in Romania and Latvia where is was quite reasonably priced compared to the UK.

The common home method for making a tincture is to fill a small jar with the chopped herb and cover with the solvent liquid. There are guidelines for different ratios of herb to solvent (see Hoffmann or Bartram for details). I tend to use the common method but I do make a note of the strength of alcohol used.

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Earlier this summer I had put aside :

Turmeric
Ginger
Chilli
Chickweed
Lemon balm
Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris)
Hawthorn leaves
Motherwort
Dandelion leaf and root
Lemon balm and basil in witchazel

So much of this morning was spent bottling up and labelling. I add the plant (Latin name if there is a risk of confusion), date of bottling, solvent and place the plant was harvested.

The first three (turmeric, ginger and chilli) are part of my personal treatment for muscular strain in my upper arms/shoulders as a result of hypermobility. I’ve made a very effective salve using these three ingredients and was interested to see if the tincture taken internally was as effective. I’ll do a post on the salve later this month.

Chickweed and lemon balm are both exceptionally good for skin irritations. Mugwort is bitter tonic and helps with digestive disorders, stimulating bile production whilst also providing a carminative action reducing gas in the digestive system. Hawthorn (more commonly the berries but also the leaves, I shall harvest the berries later in the year) and Motherwort are both cardiac tonics and whilst everyone knows dandelion as a diuretic few also know that it is an excellent source of potassium thus negating the need for potassium supplements required when synthetic diuretics are prescribed. (See Bartram or Hoffmann for detailed information on the herbs listed). Finally some of you will remember the lemon balm and basil witchazel tincture as the basis of my first attempt at home made insect repellent. I’ll let you know how it works!

The lemon balm infusion was ready to be turned into a salve.

60 ml Lemon balm infused oil
6 mg beeswax granules

Add both ingredients to a bowl over a pan of gently simmering water and stir until the beeswax is melted. Pour into clean jar and leave with the lid off until the salve is solid.

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Now, I have to bottle up the rest of the tinctures and get out in the garden and do some more harvesting, the sage and verbascum are vast and the mint needs my attention!

Love Gillie x

lovely left-overs

July 5, 2019October 2, 2019 ~ Gillie ~ Leave a comment

We have had a busy couple of days. On Wednesday we were here.

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That is Novak Djokovic serving at the end of the day on Centre Court.

The weather was perfect, the tennis excellent and the Pimms and knitting not bad either.

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We found a small but perfect airbnb The Pancras Parlour just around the corner from Kings Cross with, and this is very important, quite the most comfortable bed. There is nothing more irritating than a house/hotel who has scrimped on the bed. I was once told by a B&B owner in Tintern that when asked what made the perfect B&B (his was pretty darn close) he always replied The Bed and The Breakfast. He is right it really is that simple, anything else is a pleasant extra but get the bed (and in the case of a B&B the breakfast) wrong, then all the toiletries and fancy gizmos will never make up.

However, the previous day I had been hosting our bi-weekly Ladies in Stitches stitching group. In fact most of us were knitting this week, only one lady brought her stitching, but only after she completed her first pair of socks, we bring most people over to the knitting side at one point or another! And alongside all of that I have been suffering from a ghastly throat/chest virus, which a week later is still hanging on. Net result, by the time we returned home from London last night I was in no mood to cook a proper meal, supper was most definitely going to be a fridge left-over offering.

Sour mint lamb pockets (sounds so much better than left-overs)

left-over roast lamb sliced thinly
half a small red chilli
2 cloves of garlic
1 lemon (in this case rather in need of using up as I had zested it a couple of days a go for a madeira cake and it was looking rather sad)
2-4 tbsp mint sauce (our mint is going ballistic, I have masses of home made, if you use commercial mint sauce you might want to dilute it down or use slightly less
Left over gravy, if you don’t have gravy water or a little stock would be fine, you just want something to keep the meat moist.
Salad
Pitta bread
yoghurt

Layer the sliced lamb in a baking dish. The cake tin was already out so rather than dirty a new dish I used that!

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Sprinkle sliced chilli, minced garlic and mint sauce, squeeze the lemon over the top, repeat until all lamb used up.

Dollop the left over gravy over the top (or dribble a little water or stock over)

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I appreciate this doesn’t look too appetising. Stay with me! Cover tightly with tin foil and pop in a medium oven (180 C) for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile chop a couple of tomatoes and grab a few lettuce leaves. Warm the pitta breads.

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The lamb is ready. Stuff the pittas with lettuce and tomato, fill to the brim with lamb and top with a good sized tablespoon of thick yoghurt.

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This is a messy eat, serve with napkins!

Love Gillie x