Long Walk Lament

Each leg of the table in this photo has under it a terrine/bread tin containing the paté Joe had just made. Covering each tin of paté is a custom-cut and smoothed piece of wood from the shed. On top of the table is a weighty pyramid pressing down on the wood and therefore the paté. This is a method passed down from father to son which I think is rather lovely.

The paté - made from the pork we had in the freezer got from a neighbour as a whole pig (though butchered and cured etc before entry into our freezer) - is now ready and is delicious, especially the one with prunes.

It had prunes it in as has everything this Christmas - well, I exaggerate of course, but many things contain prunes. They were bought to go in the Christmas pudding, there were plenty of them so became ingredients in the mincemeat. I'm sure there was something else too, but anyway there are still some left...

I had to make two lots of mincemeat. The first, the traditional one, contained suet which I thought was gluten free until I checked the box to see if the remaining suet should go in the fridge (there to wait until it grew a fur coat before being pronounced dead enough to throw away). Fortunately a friend gave Joe and I a copy of Nigella Christmas last year which turns out to be a delightful book. I'm not familiar with Nigella except for the fact that she appears a lot on telly and is rather beautiful. Her suet-free mincemeat is quick to make and delicious. I'm hoping her Christmas pudding will be equally tasty, but we'll have to wait and see for that one.

The cake is made too, but damn it I haven't iced it yet. Must do that tomorrow. However, the marzipan is already glued in place with marmalade so the icing (a cheat's one in a packet) shouldn't take long to do.

If by any chance I have any regular readers they may have noticed I got clamped - unfairly! in Galway a couple of weeks ago. I appealed. This is what happened:

Long Walk Lament

‘The onus is on you to display’, they say

in the poe-faced standard letter reply.

‘We have your money and we’ll not give it back’.

The clampers have clamped. That’s that.

A breath of fresh air from Galway Bay

breezed through the open car door,

flipped the ticket so dutifully bought

to show a blank, not time and day.

The window sticker marked me a cheat,

‘Clamper Man that’s not fair! It’s not!

I fed the voracious ticket machine,

so release me, please, from this lock’.

‘You’ll pay eighty euros to be unfettered

or spend the night perched on the kerb,

someone probably gave you the ticket,

appeal if you like, you won’t be heard’.

I write a letter, ticket enclosed

(a scanned-in copy of course)

but ‘No!’ they say, ‘No exceptions,

our rules will be enforced’.

So parkers beware the draft through the door,

the ticket tipped up or blown over.

No decency left in clampers of wheels,

they want your cash and that’s that.

I have sent them another letter with threats of the Small Claims Court. I'm not holding my breath.

Winter vigil

A sign of winter. This is Common Bistort, a native perennial that is the first to collapse when the frost hits. This relative of the Dock was also known in Ireland as Snakeroot or Snakeweed, presumably because the rhizomatous roots resemble snakes, although I can't say I've noticed it myself. Thinking about it, though, perhaps this is what people imagined snakes looked like, having never seen them, the good St Patrick having done such a good job of getting rid of them.

Bistort was traditionally plucked when going on a journey, while saying a charm that described it as 'the first herb the Virgin Mary took into her hand.' This does seem a little unlikely, it growing (according to my Wild Flowers of Britain and Northern Europe) in European countries north of the Mediterranean, but perhaps someone had imported it.

Here's how the bistort looked in the summer when it was full of buzzy things:

I found the bit about Bistort and Mary in a wonderful book I have called Irish Wild Plants, Myths, Legends and Folklore. There's a big section on Ragwort too, a plant with jagged leaves and pretty yellow daisy-flowers that is poisonous to livestock. It's also the home to a gorgeous little stripey caterpillar that turns into the exotic Cinnabar moth. And also, according to Irish Wild Plants, the alternative form of transport for witches and warlocks who can't lay their hands on a broomstick. Here's a bit of a Robbie Burns poem describing the goings on:

Let warlocks grim, an' wither'd hags,
Tell how wi' you on ragweed nags,
They skim the muirs an' dizzy crags,
Wi' wicked speed.

I'd never realised ragwort was the speedster of the witchy world.


I put out bird nuts yesterday. Another sign of winter. This morning there was one great tit and one chaffinch, but word got out. Just before lunch there were four great tits, three chaffinches and a robin.

I put all the terracotta tubs into the greenhouse too. All those that haven't already half disintegrated in previous frosts, held together by roots and good luck.


In Galway on Thursday. A lovely day, mild and bright. Coffee and gluten-free chocolate brownie upstairs in McCambridge's, then a hair cut, a spot of lingerie shopping (Marks and Spencer for knickers ha ha), pop the M & S bag onto the back seat of the car which was parked on the Long Walk. Just to right in the picture below, outside the cream building.

Off to my poetry workshop, cup of tea afterwards, back to the car in time to catch the 4.45 limit on the ticket. And I'm clamped! I couldn't believe it. Clamped. I've never been clamped before. I'm the sort of person who frets about being late for my ticket, and having everything paid up. Turns out the ticket had flipped over - must have been when I put the shopping bag into the car, because I checked it when I first left the car. But I still had to pay €80 to get unclamped. Put the price of the knickers up a bit.

I've appealed, of course. Sent off a letter and all that. We'll see if they give me my money back.

We were in Galway again last night for the Savita Halappanavar vigil. A moving event watched by a sliver of new moon.