philmayfield

Very easy to confuse a minor with a miner!

Have you tried the water jet cat scarers Rog? Available from Amazon.

Sorry, I was just copying Notty Ash’s wording.

That brings back memories. Mackesons were used for the school trips at Mellish and Pascoe’s, the electrical people in Bulwell, used to supply the public address system on school sports days.

Nature is cruel.

My grandmother used to sprinkle sugar on a salad. I didn’t get that. Our local strawberry growers, Starkey’s in Southwell, have dug up their strawberry beds as they can no longer get the cheap foreign labour to pick them.

We’re great users and growers of herbs as well. It is the finest sea salt and freshly ground black pepper that we sprinkle.

A tomato salad without the seasoning to enhance the flavour? Well chacun a son gout!

There’s nothing nicer than fresh, home grown tomatoes. Soon I’ll be lunching daily on tomato salads. Sliced tomatoes, olive oil, wine vinegar, pepper and salt, garnished with chopped chives, with wholemeal bread to mop up the ‘gravy’.

Action man of the Lincolnshire fens!

It must be pretty quiet in Asda at 6am. You must have been the only customers in the store! Do they open especially for you?

It’s bitterly cold here with the addition of the wind chill. I’ve got loads of outdoor work to do but can’t fire myself up to face the elements. No doubt Rog is outside, stripped to the waist, braving the Lincolnshire gales and digging his garden! Good on yer Rog!

It’s probably the old wartime airfield at Sandtoff. I flew into there many years ago. They did a good Yorkshire fry up!

Ah Garlic coffee! We had a subsidiary company in Dublin and one of the directors claimed that his cousin, who worked at the Shelbourne hotel, was the inventor. I thought it was a load of Blarney! Back in the day the Riverside flats were the upmarket place to live. Now they look like a concrete prison block.

We used to go to the Chateau regularly. One night I paused my meal to play the drums as a member of the group hadn’t turned up. I’m not a trained drummer but can turn my hand to most things in an emergency!

Letterbox size?

Back in their heyday Pork Farms’ pies were as good as Dickinson and Morris’s although the latter claim to be the originator of the Melton pork pie. Nowadays pies bought from the supermarkets have the similar mass produced aura about them and you have to seek out the smaller makers to get a ‘proper’ pie. Jack Bailey at Upper Broughton was my favourite but he closed a few years ago. It’s an interesting quest to find the perfect pie. Now the pork pie season is upon us I shall pursue my investigations further.

Not secret consignments of Pork Farms pies I hope.

I thought it was going to be a jelly-filled pork pie.

That’s what posh people call it Rog.

I had my car washed by the Albanians in Newark last week. The best part is being leathered dry by the two ladies. I always leave a generous tip!

The original reason for the jelly in a pork pie was to preserve the meat and keep it moist. Eating it is optional. You can, if you desire, eat the paper in which it’s wrapped!

See, no accounting for taste, I don’t like the jelly!

There’s a market every Monday in Bakewell Rog. It was excellent last time we visited but that would be over 5 years ago. Bakewell’s a nice town to visit in any case but I was talking on Saturday to someone who lives there who said it’s become very ‘touristy’. There used to be ample parking on the water meadows, just a short walk from the town centre.

My favourite pork pies now are from Mike Malony of Tuxford. I used to get them from Gonalston Farm Shop but since that burned down it means a 40 mile round trip. That’s a long way just for a pork pie!