Frugal Feast Day! Lowen Dydh Sen Piran

 Happy St. Piran's Day!!!!  Today, is traditionally a day of feasting, drinking and celebrating Cornwall's patron saint. Spring is in the air and I've had a day to myself in the garden. I started the day with a trip to Cornwall's frugal emporium of Trago Mills, where I bought a poly tunnel 2 metres by 4 metres for £59. I've also bought three raised beds to go inside but I haven't put them together yet. My growing was not that successful last year, so I hope to grow more tomatoes and chilli peppers and I hope the poly tunnel will help. If not, it's a shed!!

 My fruit trees have come to life as has my rhubarb. I've topped up with fresh compost and left them alone as they are only in their first year. I feel so revived after spending time in my garden.

 Dearly Beloved has been missed by the dogs and as it's St Piran's day - we have to have pasties for supper and here is how you make them.

 Make your short crust pasty in the morning and chill it. You will need a ball of pastry, the size of your fist, for each pasty.

 You will need beef skirt and cut it into chunks - see above for size. These should be the largest chunks in your pasties.

 You will need three large finely chopped potatoes for four pasties, plus half a finely chopped swede.

 You will need as much onion as beef steak. They are the predominant ingredients. Usually, I show a pasty the steak, but it's a special day so we will have special pasties.

 You will need an egg, beaten with some milk. Now you have everything. Get your assembly line ready. A floured board and some spare flour too, plenty of salt and pepper. I always use white pepper in my pasties as black pepper can over power with a flavour of its own.

 Roll your pastry out into the size of a dessert plate. Don't fuss, it's going down your throat and not in the Tate! A small handful of potatoes and less of swede.

Next, sprinkle a larger amount of onions and the largest of the quartet is the steak. I always add the salt and pepper before the onion and steak,so it seasons the centre of the pasty.

 Now, brush the edge with a tiny amount of the egg wash. Fold it over and make sure you have a tight seal. It all stays moist as there are no gaps.

 You can see, it's a snug fit.

 Here is what 'crimping' looks like. You twist and fold in a flick of a wrist. One finger moves underneath the pastry, whilst your thumb and finger on your right hand fold and pushes down.

Below, is the finished result. Probably the scruffiest pasties I've ever made as I've tried to stuff too much in them. Never mind! They'll taste better than they look.

So, here's to everyone Cornish, where ever you are. If you went to watch the re-enactment of St Piran's arrival at Peranporth, or you too part in a parade, or if you dress up or in true Cornish style........getting 'slaughtered' tonight in a hostelry somewhere.....whether you are drinking: Tinners, Rattler, Betty Stogs, Cornish Mead, Tribute or scrumpy, let's all raise a glass - Lowender Kernow!



Hundreds of people meet on the dunes at Perranporth, to watch a play about St. Piran.

Tom Bawcock's eve!........Meur Ras Tom!

 In the far, far west of Cornwall. In the fishing area of Newlyn and  Lamorna, is the tiny fishing village of Mousehole - pronounced Mowzel. Those beautiful and barely changed villages are now delightful places to holiday, whereas, once the only living to be made was from fishing. The Cornish are a brave lot. The soil is so thin, it's barely worth farming and yet Cornish farmers get the first vegetables of the season into the shops to beat the English at their game. For hundreds of years, the Cornish miners blasted through solid rock to mine copper and tin. To this day, fishermen will risk an 'easterly' in 'ellish conditions to make a living.

 In times past, in fact so long ago that the date is forgotten, Mousehole was battered by storms for days and days and the fisherman couldn't get out. The tiny gardens gave all they could and people were living off salted pilchards. The village was facing starvation. An older man, a widower, called Tom Bawcock risked his life and almost a certain death, on a dash to sea, that others would think nothing more than a suicide mission.

 Reputedly, he came back with nine different types of fish. To this day, in Mousehole, he is remembered and celebrated. People eat 'star gazey pie', which is a mixture of any landed fish, mixed with a cheese sauce, mashed potatoes and boiled eggs. I love Pilchards, but eat them in the summer and autumn when they are at their best..............they're almost too difficult to get hold of as most of them are sold to the French and Spaniards.

 Every year, Mousehole lights up the harbour side and has done since the 1960s. The brave tale is best told by Antonia Barber in her beautiful children's book 'The Mousehole cat'. Children on holiday will often look for the Mousehole cat. I can still remember reading this to both of my children when they were tiny and them being enchanted by the story and the magical illustrations in the book. Enjoy the links below to the 'telling' of the tale. Happy Tom Bawcock's eve!

Click HERE for part one of the story.

Then! Click HERE for the second part of the story

And finally, Click HERE for the third part of the story.

Let it snow!

 We've had a little bit more snow, which in itself is not a problem. However, where ever anyone has walked or driven, it has compacted into at least an inch of solid ice. Nothing can stop on it, people are falling over and the only vehicles that can make it safely are tractors. There were no cars in Liskeard's main car park, except those that have been abandoned and a couple of tractors

We called on our neighbour before we left, but he didn't need anything. We only went out at all because I'm making marmalade and wanted some sugar.

 The picture above is of the solid ice. Some people are managing to move around the back roads with four wheel drive vehicles, however, they are still unable to stop unless they are travelling no faster than walking speed!

 I'm sure anyone reading this, who gets snow, year in year out, will think this is nothing. But! I'm 45 and this is only the second snowfall, where snow has settled and stayed in the last twenty years of my memory. Normally, the worst weather we get here, is frost. The council only puts salt/grit on the main roads and the rest get nothing at all. I'm not complaining as I can get any where I need to get on foot or by train. It's not that easy for some people to get around and they will have to wait until the ice has melted, and the warmer weather should return tomorrow.

I bought the sugar (79p a kilo! what a bargain!) and made nine jars of lemon marmalade. I'm making the orange marmalade later today. So, it can snow. I'm in doors, wrapped up warm, making marmalade.

I think it's warmer today!

 Most people in the country are feeling like the poor penguin.................very chilly!

Last winter, we can all remember the entire country being smothered in snow. This early snow fall has so far by passed Cornwall. Those may be my 'famous last words'! We are much luckier than some people in the country who are completely snow bound. 

We have a much warmer climate here in Cornwall, most of us grow palm trees, my garden has a few young small ones and bamboo and until the very hard frost still had fuchsias in bloom! I'm counting my blessings today as we have reached the balmy temperature of freezing, instead of being sub-zero. Long may this heat wave last!

They leave their mark!

 I grew up in Fowey. I am a Fowey girl! Sometimes I feel as if I'm a race apart. The Fowey so many of you know is not the Fowey I grew up in. Every one, to coin a Cornish phrase lived on their 'beam ends'. A 'beamer, is a Cornish beam trawler, not specific to Cornwall, but to fishing community, a beamer is a dangerous beast. They drop nets from either side, like two arms and trawl back. There's little or no fishing from Fowey that I know of, but in my childhood, plenty of people made their living from the sea. Everyone's dads 'work a' trawler'. 'down the docks' or 'way at sea'. No one had any money and fish was something you ate day in day out because it was cheaper than meat. Pollock was the length of the kitchen table, still steamed when gutted and filled the freezer. Fowey may be 'Michelin' starred and five starred now, but I loved the salty rough as guts Fowey I grew up in. If you lived on your 'beam ends' you were barely getting by.

I'm feeling really sad for bits of Fowey today as two Fowey boys, who left their mark died yesterday. Both on the same day. Both from terminal illness. Both before their time, but after a full life. Here's how they left their mark.

 It was the late 1980s, I had left a terrible marriage and was renting a tiny house in Fowey; on my own with my pre-school son. I lived on single parent benefit and we barely got by. The beam trawler men were the gentlemen of the sea compared to the scallopers, who dragged chains (I know, get off my back, it's environmentally disastrous, but they were less enlightened times and poor people had kids to feed) and dredged up the scallops. They lived in mud and would come ashore, looking like swamp monsters. After a three day trip away; Fowey fishermen would drink the Lugger dry and Fowey pubs were beer swilling, smoke filled and uncouth............and I'm being complimentary here. One such scalloper, who I knew as a school friend,  felt sorry for me and my boy.  If he dredged up sea coal, I would find boxes of it on my door step. If he had flat fish, usually Turbot, I would find a bag of them on my door step. Sometimes, I would have a net of scallops. There is something particularly moving about a benefactor, who gives without expecting anything in return, because they know someone is skint and having a hard time. He left this world yesterday.

Another part of my life, which happened some five years before that, also in Fowey. Teenagers have always been trouble and Fowey teenagers in the early 1980s were no exception. Summers seemed longer then. We drank more. We were reckless.

The river Fowey has fierce currents and is no place for drunk, reckless teenagers to be in, in the dark, after midnight, when no one was around. We'd got the passenger ferry over to Polruan, been to the sailing club disco, were all worse for wear and had missed the last ferry home. Stranded, we (almost eight of us, boys and girls, all of 17 and 18 years old) had 'borrowed' a couple of rowing boats, which we piled in and started to row back to Fowey. If we were sensible, we would have behaved ourselves. We were not. The dingy I was in capsized in the middle of the river and we were adrift, in a running tide, in the dark, with no one around.

The water was freezing and we soon lost sight of each other. Screaming must have been heard from the harbour side as the maroons flew into the sky. Within minutes, the Fowey lifeboat was looking for us. We were hauled on board by some very angry lifeboat men, none of whom wanted disturbing from a 'lock in' by stupid pissed up teenagers! I don't know who was the most furious; the crew or my dad. The man who pulled me out of that water that night, died yesterday. Two people who touched my life, one to bring me food and warmth when I had nothing and one who saved me from almost drowning, died on the same day, in the same Cornish town that shaped the person I am today. They leave their mark.

Mud unglorious mud!

 You may have noticed, whilst reading my blog, that I love Cornwall. Poor old place is very muddy still after yesterday's floods and looking very sorry for itself. The picture above, of Lostwithiel has the road, a small wall and the river Fowey to the left...........except the River Fowey spent all day getting in everyone's houses!

 Above, is the main street of Lostwithiel, full of mud. Stinky mud! At the far end of the picture is the hill that leads out of Lostwithiel to St. Austell and the river of rain ran down it. In the middle of the photo is the end of a terrace, a cream building and to the left of that is another steep road which runs in the Bodmin direction and a river of rain ran down that too. Debris, stone, mud, tree branches were all washed down in a matter of half an hour, making Lostwithiel impassable.

 Every street in the town is full of mud and almost every house on the river side of Lostwithiel has been damaged in some way or other.

 The photo above of Tanhouse road show the flood water cascading from someone's garden into the road below.

Above, is the photo of the A390, the main road from the A38 to St. Austell and the way most of us get to work. To the left of the lorry is a turning that takes people to the Eden Project, again, a really steep hill to Prideaux woods and again, debris and mud ran down the hill. There was no getting to work yesterday. A38, A390 and railway lines were all closed as were all the little back lanes. In fact, all of the little back lanes are still closed as the Highways dept. have to clear the main routes first.

I drove home today and felt so sorry for everyone who has had their homes ruined in St.Blazey and Lostwithiel. Roads all through St. Austell were being repaired as the floods had lifted the tarmac. The River Fowey is on flood watch and Lostwithiel is still under threat of more high water. If I could, I would lift Cornwall up and wrap my arms around and give it a huge hug as the parts of it looked very sad today.

Photo's from Lostwithiel Town Website.