Nettle champ from Ulster ...

I should begin by praising the humble stinging nettle. It's a plant that most of us uproot from our gardens and take detours around when we find it in our path, but it's really rather amazing.

I mean just think about the mechanics of what it does: its hollow stinging hairs act like tiny hypodermic needles injecting a venom, made up of histamine and other chemicals, into the skin of passing animals. It does this to deter them from touching it or interfering with its growth cycle. It's a clever, defensive, "keep off my patch" mechanism that works brilliantly well.

In Ireland we've eaten fresh spring nettles since forever. Cooking destroys their sting, and - hey presto - you're left with is a delicious green vegetable, that contains more iron that spinach, is high in protein and loaded with vitamin C. It really is a bit of a superfood, but it's best eaten early in the season as they develop gritty particles called cystoliths later on as the leaves age. These cystoliths can cause urinary tract infections so, please, don't eat them after the end of June. 

Right now, though, I'd say the fresh green leaves are just about perfect for harvesting.

When I was a little girl my mum used to make nettle infusions as a hair tonic in the spring time. We'd pour it over our hair as a final rinse. The nettles made the hair shine, and they are also supposed to help control dandruff and scalp disorders. If you'd like to make some all you have to do is gather an armful of nettles and wash them in the sink. Chop them into manageable sized pieces with your kitchen scissors and place them in a saucepan with a couple of pints/ a litre of water. Bring the mixture to the boil, then turn down the heat and allow them to simmer for a few minutes. When they're done drain off the liquid and leave to cool. Once it's cooled down, add a drop of lavender oil to make it smell better, and then simply use it as a final rinse when you wash your hair. 

People have been making clothes out of nettles for the better part of two millennia. Do you remember in Hans Christian Andersen's Wild Swans how Eliza had to weave eleven shirts from the churchyard nettles to free her wild swan brothers from their stepmother's wicked spell? 

In cloth-making the nettles are processed in a manner very similar to the way in which flax is treated to produce a tough, hard-wearing material, not dissimilar to linen. Sadly it went out of fashion as a fabric way back in the sixteenth century with the arrival of cotton. During the First World War, however, some of the German soldiers' uniforms were made from nettle fabric as there was a shortage of cotton. There's been a bit of a resurgence of interest in it in more recent times. There's a lot of chat about it being an environmentally friendly material as they don't need to use agrochemicals given how robust our lovely native nettles are. 

But my own personal favourite thing to do with nettles is to make Nettle Champ. Champ is a big thing back home in Ulster. It's the Ulster version of Colcannon. You can find my recipe for Colcannon here: Recipe for Colcannon

If you'd like to turn your hand to making some nettle champ here's what you'll need:

Ingredients for Nettle Champ for four people:

Several handfuls of nettle tops

6 medium to large potatoes

200 ml of milk

150 g of butter 

1 large spring onion

Salt and pepper to taste 

Now, just a word or two about cutting nettles. You need to wear a pair of thick rubber gloves to cut them, and you need to wash them carefully. It's best to gather them from somewhere wild where they won't have been doused with any toxic pesticides. I'd also steer clear of the grass verges along the roadsides as they're going to be contaminated with all the nasties from passing vehicle emissions. I take the first four or five inches of the plant, using my kitchen scissors to cut them, and then lift them into a basket using the scissors like tongs to grip the stems. Avoid any unhealthy-looking brown leaves.

When you get them home wash them carefully. Cut off the green leaves and discard the stems. 

Peel the potatoes, chop the spring onion and boil them together until the potatoes are cooked.

Whilst the potatoes are cooking put the nettle leaves and the milk in a saucepan and bring to the boil, turn the heat down and let them simmer gently for seven or eight minutes. Then leave to one side.

When the potatoes have cooked, drain them and leave them to steam off any remaining moisture. Mash them with the spring onions, and season to taste. Add all of the nettles and then the milk, a little at a time, mashing as you go to achieve a light fluffy puree. Depending on which potatoes you use you may not need all the milk. Stop when you've achieved the desired, lightly-whipped consistency, and before you end up with something soupy. 

Your champ should be served with a well in the middle into which you place a dollop of butter, which melts to create a wonderful, salty, yellow reservoir. It makes a great accompaniment to a Sunday roast.

Delicious! 

When I was a child, this was a restorative dish that my grandmothers or my mum would make when I was off-colour. And to this day it is my ultimate comfort food.

If you have any left over (which is highly unlikely, but just saying that you had ...) you could save it in the fridge. Next morning shape the champ into little balls, and flatten them to make pancake shapes. Dust these with flour and fry them gently in the frying pan as part of a fried breakfast.

Delicious again! 

Clearly none of this is good for your cholesterol levels, but the odd little treat every now and then is good for morale. I mean what's the point in living to be a hundred and five if you're going to be as miserable as sin? 

Enjoy!

 Bonny x

The New Inn, Coleford, Near Credition, Devon

I love their sense of irony down here in Devon. They call our local pub the New Inn. New Inn? It's a thirteenth century coaching inn ... so to my way of thinking there's nothing remotely new about it. Maybe the explanation is that it was just a little bit newer than the cave down the road where Bronze Age man used to brew up his fire water.

You can find it in Coleford, a tiny hamlet set amidst the rolling, green hills of Mid Devon. It's a picturesque, timeless sort of a place. In the old days it used to be on the main road, but these days it's an out-of-the-way spot that you're unlikely to stumble upon by accident.

They say that King Charles I passed through on 27th July, 1644 when the English Civil War was raging all around. He's supposed to have reviewed his mounted troops standing on the porch of the house at the end with the lamppost outside, and then he was on his way to spend the night down the road in the neighbouring village of Bow.

What's in a name? Who cares if the New Inn isn't that new? It's a fabulous little watering hole that looks like a traditional country pub and acts like a traditional country pub. It isn't one of those pretentious gastro pubs without a soul where they serve up fancy-pants continental-inspired food on weirdly shaped plates. The food is wholesome British fare, and full-on delicious at that. They source most of their ingredients locally. There's Clannaborough red ruby beef from a farm just 2 miles' away, Creedy Carver ducks from another farm 5 miles in the opposite direction, best Devon sausages from a rare breeds farm in the Exe Valley, fresh mussels from the Teign and Exe estuaries, crab from Brixham, seasonal salads and vegetables from West Country farms and, most wicked of all, Devon clotted cream in the desserts.

We tend towards the wine menu rather than the ales and beers, but they hold a Real Ale Casque Award and stock a selection of local ales on tap such as Stag Ale from Exmoor and Dartmoor Ale.

You can even bring your dog to dinner if he's a well behaved pooch. What's not to like? Nothing. That's what.

We've been coming here for years. We rock up when we can't face cooking at home. The landlord and landlady, George and Carole, are terrific hosts. We've spent a New Year's Eve in here partying. We've come to celebrate Halloween when they put on a spectacular display of carved pumpkins. When friends come down from London this is where we take them to see an authentic West Country pub. This is our local, and it always feels friendly, comfortable and welcoming whatever the occasion, whatever the weather.

In the cold depths of winter they've got a cosy fire burning inside, and for those balmy summer nights there's a terrace outside with a little steam running by, complete with weeping willows and a pretty little garden. If you're lonely they've even got an Amazon Blue parrot called Captain that you can talk to. He holds court beside the bar and greets all comers with a loud "Hullo".

On the last Friday of every month from April to October they do a special hog-roast, which is epic. The poor old porker is cooked whole on a spit, and served up with all the trimmings. It's usually a buffet service, and  everyone in the village comes along and queues patiently to load up their plates, and then the greedy folk sneak back for seconds.

The last hog roast of the season is usually a special Halloween party where everyone, guests and staff alike, comes dressed up as a ghoul or a phantom. And, as I've said, they display the most incredible carved pumpkins that I have ever seen.

And would you believe it they've even got a resident ghost? This being the English countryside you'd probably feel a bit short-changed if they didn't have one.  His name is Sebastian, and the word is that he used to be a monk way back in the old days when he was alive and mortal. I've heard two versions as to how spooky Sebastian met his personal Waterloo.

The first is that he overheard a gang of brigands arguing over their ale cups about how they would share the proceeds of their cattle rustling. Sebastian, being a civic-minded chap, intervened and threatened to spill the beans, whereupon they lured him outside and slit his throat to keep him quiet.

The second version features Sebastian as a clerical Lothario who had seduced a local girl. Full of passion, one dark and moonless night, he made his way for an illicit rendezvous with his lovely lady, took a wrong turn and tumbled headlong into the little stream that runs through the village. There his ardour was cooled and his life was lost. Although one of the barmaids told me that he didn't die in the stream. He was instead apprehended and put in a gibbet.

Whatever the way of it,  he's still supposed to hang out in room 3. Some guests have reported seeing him, and sensing a dreadful chill as his shadow passed silently by.

Now I must say, for the record, that we have spent several nights in the New Inn when we've had the builders in, and I am sorry to report that Sebastian has never had the decency to show up and give me something sensational to write about.

If you'd like to spend the night at the New Inn and link up with Sebastian there are loads of lovely walks that you could go on to work up an appetite for dinner. Just strike out in any direction, and you'll find yourself in wonderful rolling countryside. The Two Moors Way, which links Exmoor with Dartmoor passes close by. You can't go wrong.

Have a great time if you do decide to stop by.

All the best,

Bonny x

Bluebells in Osterley Park

If you go down in the woods today you're sure of a big surprise ... 

... cos all the bluebells are bluebelling ... and it's totally epic!

Yesterday morning, in the glorious sunshine, Maxi and I set out with some of our chums in search of a bluebell wood. We thought we'd check out Osterley Park as they were running an official guided tour of their bluebells later in the day - at a time that unfortunately didn't work for any of us.

And we weren't disappointed. We found loads of beautiful bluebells all over the place, their sweet perfume mixing with that of the hawthorne and the freshly cut grass on the lawns to create a scent that was the very essence of English springtime.

Did you know that we have more bluebells in Britain than anywhere else in the world? That's proper bluebells, or Hyacinthoides non-scripta, to give them their la-di-da botanical name. They only grow in North Western Europe, and here in Britain we have about half of the worldwide population of these little beauties. 

Please don't confuse them with their ill-mannered cousins, the Spanish bluebells. These larger, stronger impostors have no smell, and threaten the survival of our delicate native bells through hybridisation. 

You can tell a proper British bluebell by its pollen, which is creamy white in colour. All these other interloper bluebells have green or blue pollen. A true British bluebell can also be distinguished by its strong, sweet, heavenly fragrance. 

They are an indicator species used to evaluate whether or not a woodland can be classified as ancient. They love to grow in deciduous forests, where their bulbs give them a competitive advantage over rivals, such as the dandelion and cow parsley. With the nutrients that the bulbs contain they are able to germinate in colder conditions, and, hence to flower ahead of the others, taking advantage of the sunlight before the leaf canopy closes over.  One concern for their survival is that climate change will allow these rivals to germinate earlier in the year, robbing the bluebells of their early-start advantage. For the past 50 years the botanists at Kew have been making a note of when their first bluebell opens. This date can vary by several weeks, depending on how cold the previous winter has been. They think that the average first opening dates have advanced by as much as two weeks over the course of the past 30 years. Spring would appear to be getting earlier and earlier.

They're protected these days under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which prohibits landowners from removing wild bluebells from their land to sell, or anyone else from randomly digging them up when they're wandering around in the countryside. Bluebell bulbs may only be traded by those who have a special licence allowing them to do so.

I'm all for conserving them. They are the quintessential British flower. Moreover, they're greatly favoured by the fairy folk. According to old folklore the ringing of the bluebells is a means by which the little folk can be summoned, but woe betide any mere mortal who hears the bluebells ring, for they will surely be dead within a year. 

If you go down in the woods today you better not go alone

It's lovely down in the woods today but safer to stay at home ...

In the olden days people were scared of walking through the bluebells, believing that they were sewn together with fairy enchantment, kind of like a magical mine field, where anything could happen if you stood on a trigger point.

Maybe there was some point to all this folklore in that the lovely bluebells contain toxic glycosides, which are poisonous to humans. Lots of folk have felt very poorly when they've confused their bluebell bulbs for wild garlic down the ages, and even cows, dogs and horses have suffered digestive problems after having a munch on bluebell leaves. Their sap can trigger contact dermatitis, so maybe there was a good reason why people used to believe it was unlucky to pick the wild bluebells that grew in the woods. They must have felt pretty unlucky when their hands turned red and started to itch like mad before they'd even got home with their posy. And, in an earlier age, it's easy to see how the little folk might just have got the blame ... .

Down the years, however, some of the braver souls were able to get over their fear of the fairies and put bluebell sap to good use. Apart from being highly toxic, it's also very sticky. As a result archers have been using it to stick feathers on their arrows since the Bronze Age. The Elizabethans used it to make a glue for binding the pages of their books into the spines. It was particularly good in this context as all the poison kept the insects at bay that might otherwise have munched their way through the parchment - although it probably wasn't a good idea to lick your finger too often as you turned the pages way back then. The Elizabethans also crushed bluebell bulbs to make starch for their very grand ruffs and collars and sleeves. 

If you'd like to go and check out a bluebell wood over the bank holiday weekend the nice people at the Woodland Trust have put together a search engine that can find all the bluebell woods in your area. You just have to type in your postcode. You can find it here: Find a bluebell wood near you.

And, now, I think the last word on the subject should go to Emily Brontë:

The Bluebell is the sweetest flower

That waves in summer air;

Its blossoms have the mightiest power

To soothe my spirit's care.

Just remember not to linger too long or the fairy folk might get you!

Bonny x

Operation War Diary ...

Would you like to become a Citizen Historian?

If so, the good folk at National Archives down in Kew need you now. They're crowd sourcing a project to map out one and a half million pages of war diaries from the First World War. The idea is to mark up dates, names and important details, so that they can be searched more easily by historians and interested amateurs.  You don't need any special qualifications, other than an ability to read and use a computer. You don't need to go along in person; they want your help on-line.

So what are these war diaries anyway? Well, the War Diary or Intelligence Summary, was a diary kept by each unit during operations with a view to compiling an official history of the campaign, and allowing the Top Brass to learn from any mistakes that might have been made for the benefit of doing it all better in future campaigns. They chronicle what took place on a daily basis, and give an immediate and dynamic window into the world of the regular Tommy fighting in the trenches of the Western Front. Life and death is chronicled. Sometimes individuals are named, but mostly it's kept on a general business-of-the-unit level.

Yesterday I volunteered an hour or two of my time to help out.

Recruitment poster for the Seaforths, which I strongly suspect post-dates WWI

After a ten minute on-line tutorial I was let loose on the war diary of the 4th Division, 10th Infantry Brigade, 2nd Battalion of the Seaforth Highlanders. My boys had been mobilised on 23rd August, 1914 and sent out as part of the British Expeditionary Force to lead the charge.

Cap badge of the Seaforth Highlanders
(Their motto translates as "Aid the King")

I was hooked from the start. This was history recorded first hand by an eye-witness as it unfolded. In my mind's eye I could see the movie reel playing as I followed what they were doing, where they were (I was immediately off for my big road atlas of France to understand exactly where they were), who they were with and what the weather and conditions on the ground were like.

Moreover, it was humbling to read such a matter-of-fact account of what took place. There was no self-pity, no hyperbole, just a sense of honest, decent men trying to do their workaday best and get the job done.

Their War Diary was written in a neat, easy-to-read hand. I did not learn the name of the man that it belonged to, but he was evidently a compassionate, well-educated person. I dearly hope that he made it through the war.

Before I got started, I googled around to find out a bit more about the Seaforths. As it turns out they were involved in the retreat from Le Cateau, which was a tactical retreat in late August 1914 by the British to a more strongly defended front further West, where they could make a better stand against the Germans. This became known as the Battle of the Frontiers, and I'm pretty sure it's the background to the War Diary pages that I read.

I took up their story on 25th August, 1914 when they were pulling back from Viesly. They marched "a very tiresome and wearisome march" of nine and a quarter miles through the night to the village of Haucourt, which was serving as Divisional Head Quarters for the tenth and twelfth Brigades of the Highlanders. It was a cold, wet night. The roads were "greasy", and because there weren't any ambulances they were forced to leave the dead and wounded in a cottage near Viesly. When they arrived at half past four in the morning they discovered that their transport supplies hadn't made it, so they weren't able to have breakfast or draw their food rations. I can imagine they must have been cold, wet, exhausted, hungry and demoralised to have lost the comrades who had been left behind.

By this time the village was packed with soldiers. There was hardly room to move. Their supplies eventually showed up at six a.m., but before they could settle down to eat they came under enemy attack. There was some confusion as they had thought the French were watching the front. The enemy moved into position, occupying a ridge to the north of the village. My boys in the second battalion were held in reserve as their comrades came under heavy fire.

"The rest of the Brigade and the 12th Brigade were very heavily engaged in front and lost fairly heavily from shrapnel and machine gun fire - Tremendous artillery duels took place at intervals throughout the day, our gunners behaving splendidly and never ceasing their fire though far outnumbered."

At about 4:30 p.m. they were joined in their trench by 3 French cavalry divisions, who had come to relieve them. Then at 6:00 p.m. they were ordered to retire through the valley between Caullery and Selvigny with orders that the Brigade would assemble at Selvigny. However, in pulling out of the trench, they came under heavy shrapnel fire and were forced to cross ground that had already been blown to bits by the enemy artillery. One officer, Captain KDM Machlachlan and twenty men were wounded in the withdrawal. This was the first time that they had come under heavy enemy fire, but "the movement was accomplished in perfect order and with great steadiness".

C company "with whom were the stretcher bearers" had received orders to withdraw via another route, and as a consequence they were unable to take four of their seriously injured colleagues, who were left behind.

I only completed four pages as I was terrified of missing something. I felt  responsible for ensuring that their tale was told properly, even though each page is checked by seven volunteers to make sure that any mistakes are spotted. Later today I'm going to go back to find out what happened next.

Wherever you are, and however little you think you know about the conflict, I'm sure you'd find the war diaries totally gripping.  If you'd like to help out you can log on here: Operation War Diary.

All the best for now,

Bonny x

Lucky Monday ...

Today I'm feeling very lucky, and it's all to do with technology. Normally technology and I enjoy a slightly fractious relationship, but not today. Today we are oscillating in perfect harmony, me and my technology.

Want to know what happened?

Well it all kicked off because I didn't frisk the pockets of my jeans very carefully before I did the laundry on Saturday. As a result, when I opened the washing machine door, the remote control for my camera tumbled into my laundry basket along with all the other soggy items that had just been through the spin cycle. Eeeek! I scooped it up feeling certain that it's next port of call would be the recycling bin, but then something made me pause and give it one last chance. I thought I'd let it sit on a shelf above a radiator to dry out ... just in case.

I wasn't holding out much hope. I spent all Sunday in denial, not mentioning what had happened to anyone. It's the sort of thing that my husband loves to take the Mickey over, but I held my peace, and didn't draw attention to what had happened to my little gizmo.

Then this morning, as I was doing a tidy-up, I thought I'd give it one last chance and see if it worked. I fired up the camera, pointed my remote control, pushed the button, and held my breath. Without any hesitation the autofocus whirred into action, the flash bulb lit up and the shutter clicked.

What a little treasure! It had survived the spin cycle!

Now that I'm on a roll, I think I'll go and buy a lottery ticket ... .

Happy Monday!

Bonny x