Green Beltane soup

Although the weather here in the Pennines is still a bit stuck in winter, the year moves on all the same and now here we are at Beltane! As I've looked out at bare trees and grey skies these past couple of weeks, it's been hard to really drop into spring. Those hope-filled warm days, that make me feel like running about the countryside barefoot, have been hard to come by. It's difficult to imagine that our ancestors would have cavorted about the countryside around this time, making merry in the fields and hedgerows. 

Beltane was the great fire festival of growth and fertility, the most potent and active time of the year. In warmer springs it's easy to feel the strong green push of the earth - as the ground becomes carpeted with tiny opportunistic wild seedlings and the tight fat buds of the trees burst at the seams. But in this cold grey half-season it's harder to sense the throb of a land on the cusp of summer.  

And so, I offer you, nettle soup...

It's a simple affair, but full of the rich green goodness that we are so in need of just now. I've only been aware of the food potential of stinging nettles for a year or so, I'm still exploring its many possibilities but it seems to me that soup is a good simple way to enjoy them. And as long as you're using only the freshest tenderest growth, delicious too.

So...take some scissors and a pair of gloves and chop off the young growth at the tops of the plant. For a decent amount you need about half a sink full of nettle tops. Then wash them really well as they are beloved of many wee beasties. Whilst they're having a bath, chop up a big onion or a few small ones with some garlic, and peel and chop a handful of potatoes. Then melt a hefty chunk of butter in a very big pot and fry the onion and garlic.

When the onions are soft, add the potatoes and a couple of pints of good stock. Cook until the potatoes are almost done then add the nettles and cook for a further five to ten minutes. Blend. You could add some cream or creme fraiche at this point but it will somewhat dilute the deep grassy hues of the finished soup.

And that's it. The simplest way to eat your weeds. Obviously this verdant broth is bursting with all kinds of greenly goodness as nettles contain iron, calcium, magnesium, B vitamins, vitamin K and chlorophyll . Nettle has a long and full history as a medicine plant with herbalists prescribing it for all kinds of bodily complaints from kidney problems to asthma. It puts a spring in your step and a twinkle in your eye, so I'm told, making it the perfect Beltane tonic. Maybe it will finally enable us to to launch fully into this season of growth and light. Let the frolicking commence!



(With thanks to Sam Lowi and Jesper Launder for the nettle wisdom and my ever-growing wild food cupboard)

A Sky Above

As most parents of small children can testify, time together without children is a rare thing at this moment in our lives. For us most evenings we're too tired to go much beyond the most basic communication and weekends are a series of desperate negotiations to try and ensure everyone gets a little of what they need, which for the adults of the house mostly means some quiet time alone. Sometimes it's hard to know whether you still even enjoy each other's company. It takes planning, thought and willing grandparents to really get some time together, all of which we luckily managed to achieve whilst staying in Wales recently.

Generally I find that when in Wales, it's good to walk up big hills when presented with the opportunity, so having gratefully arranged for a whole day of childcare we seized upon the rare chance for an adult-paced stomp. We opted for a straightforward seven-miler which the walking guide reassured us was nothing that a reasonably fit seventy year old couldn't manage. Our intention was to find one of Wales' oldest churches, Llangelynnin, which looked suitably remote and romantic as well as boasting a sacred well in the grounds. We'd also read that the lands about it were home to some prehistoric standing stones and burial chambers and being a bit nerdy about that sort of thing - we set off.

Although down on the valley floor the snow of recent weeks had melted and vanished, up high it still lay deep enough to cause me some concern - it was wet and colder than I'd realised. These days my old walking boots are leaky and stiff and I'd forgotten my hat. As we set out a group of walkers with sensibly thorough attire passed us, giving me a few moments in which to worry about my own lack of preparedness and envisage a shamefaced call to Mountain Rescue. I was reminded briefly of a cringe-worthy moment of my girlhood, when on a school trip to climb Moel Famau wearing only a pink jumpsuit and canvas pumps, I'd had to be carried back down the hill  in the early stages of hypothermia by an irate teacher. During the half hour I spent thawing out under a toilet hand-dryer, I vowed not to repeat this harsh lesson in the importance of appropriate clothing, and yet here i was some years later risking humiliation again.

Before children, this was the sort of expedition we undertook often - map in hand, flask in bag, we'd walk the wilds together. There were many days spent trudging moorland, grassland and coastline, many nights spent huddled in our little mountain tent, listening to rains, gales and the eerie calls of unseen beasts. We camped near a lonely beach in Mull one September, where the rocks were pink and the sea a perfect clear turquoise. We watched giant crabs crawling under our floating bodies, swam to sun-baked rocky islands  and wobbled home to our tent in thick treacly darkness with golden whisky in our veins.

At Kilmartin Glen we pitched our tent on the village green at the end of a formidable valley where the wind and rain were funnelled to a fine point ending precisely at the door to our tent. Through the worst weather Scotland had to offer we faithfully trudged from stone circle to burial chamber to cup and ring marked rock. The land there is littered with ancient monuments, giving a sense of being in a place that belongs to another race, ancient and unfathomable. There, as we traced the maddening marks of the cup and ring carvings we felt the deep booming fusion of person, place and time.

New and tender love seems to need exposure to the elements to help it grow - storms to strengthen and sun filled skies to make those early days glow in the memory. Many of us seem to know instinctively that there is something about journeying in the unknown, preferably in wildish conditions that helps bind two souls together. Perhaps, when it's just us and the land, it's easier to see each other. I know of many couples who spent a good part of their early relationships walking, travelling and wild camping, making memories to see them through the tougher times ahead.

I thought on these things as I slipped and stumbled my way through the Welsh hills, my knees twinging and ankles growing ever more wobbly. We had our moments of dischord - our usual grumbles standing over the map  showing that our ongoing mistrust of each other's sense of direction is still strong; I sought the comfort of the trail of footprints in the snow and was accused of losing my nerve. But mostly we relished the freedom - the simple joy of striding out. Along the way we got childishly excited at the sight of wild mountain ponies, marvelled at the huge white shining hills about us, were quiet and awed by the time-worn wood of the rafters of the ancient church and sighed in pleasure like grandparents at the sniff of flask coffee. And we discovered, reassuringly, that not a whole lot has changed in the six years since we last journeyed out together - sky above, a photogenic burial mound and the prospect of a decent pint of ale still makes us happy.

And there was something else, something revealed in the slight loss of springiness of limb and the teary tiredness that dropped about me towards the end of our walk. A little reminder of a girlhood gone; a reminder of children, responsibilities and of middle-age approaching. A reminder also that we've grown up together from  feckless twenty-somethings to slightly-less-feckless approaching-forties, that our adventures may be different but are no less exciting now that we have two small people to shared them with. And a hope that maybe one day I'll even grow up enough to be properly attired for climbing mountains.

Memory mapping

Last week we resurrected our weekly walk to kindergarten. With great breaths of gladness we strode out into a familiar but too long neglected habit. As we walked we were full of wonder at the great battle that is being waged out of doors. The sun is up before six in the morning and not sinking again until after dinner - the birds are singing of spring but nature is still very much in the grip of winter. Along the river the cold had made ice sculptures of roots, and chandeliers from hanging branches; water captured and petrified. The rocks and boulders of the river were coated in glittering frozen gems and the steep river banks were hung with shimmering icicles. We had seen ice forming around the river before but never quite like this.

I have many pictures of this walk in the annals; pictures with two tiny boys knee deep in swaying grass, of explorations of woodland and river edge. The longer I live in these valleys the more I value the familiarity of a well walked route. These well-known walks particularly seem to give children the chance to really know a place, and it seems to me that knowing then slowly becomes loving as the seasons unfold year on year. Each time we walk this way we are laying the pathways of memory, memories of carefree childhood for them - sweet and fleeting moments of motherhood for me.

We will remember the seasons by the horse chestnut that litters the ground in shiny conkers in the Autumn; the patch of Himalayan balsam where, in late summer we pop the ripe seed heads and nibble a few; the field, fuzzy with summer wildflowers, where the sky opens out; passing the house where alpine strawberries sprout from the paving stones, waiting painfully for them to ripen. And the watched elder where we measure the year in leaves, flowers and berries.

We will feel this place in our bones by the small repeated acts that become our habit over time. The boys will continue to walk the low wall that tests their balance and my nerve, we'll stop at the same place to drop ploppy stones into the gurgling river, we'll keep measuring rainfall by the ferocity of the waterfall, I will always feel uneasy when there are cows in the field and they will always reassure me that we're fine. The high path beneath the cathedral of beech trees will always slow us, while I naturally look up and they look down to build fairy houses in the roots of those towering trees.

After this walk, each winter we'll look for the place where the pipe comes out of the hill to see if we can discover the thick column of ice standing between it and the ground and we'll know where to look for the biggest and shiniest icicle swords. We may feel sadness when things change, like discovering that the trees had been cleared around the old tennis courts and that they're 'modernising' the facilities but there will be new things to notice and find each time we walk this was. And the newness of each season, delayed though it may be, will always stir in us a love for this place - our home.

Staying put

The world of the house and home is occupying much of my thought at the moment. For a couple of years now the drama of trying to sell our house has rolled on and on. First we dreamed of a old servant's quarters that had caught our eye further up the valley, but our little cottage languished on the market for a year with no takers. The house we'd been coveting was eventually bought by another family and we took ours off the market. Then out of the blue someone asked if they could buy our home; we looked about but couldn't find another that suited us better. We vowed to stay put and invest in our old weaver's cottage with her rattly windows and woodland at the door but, towards the the end of last year, someone whispered in our ear about a house that might be right for us. Modest and modern, lacking the romance of weather-whipped stone and old floorboards but with a garden brimming with flowers and fruit and some extra room for a growing family. It sits a few doors away, on either side, from beloved friends and would provide gangs of wild and roving children for our boys to join. It is not the little small-holding I hoped that we would one day have but a chance to tend a garden again would certainly have been a gift.

Unfortunately this little house of ours is not ready to release us from our obligations. Although there have been people willing to fall in love with it and its handsome views - problems have been discovered by a string of searching surveys. Men have come into our home with their clipboards and tape measures; she has been probed and prodded , her petticoats lifted and her secrets exposed. Our buyers have drifted away, too daunted by her many needs.

It seems we must stay where we are; the choice has been taken away from us. This feels an odd position to be in; we're told in our modern capitalist world that choice is almost a birthright so when our options are taken away it's hard not to feel frustrated and a little trapped. In working through this situation we find ourselves in, I've been trying to remind myself that choice is a privilege granted only to a small percentage of the globe, that many of the world's families live in one or two meagre rooms. Rather than regretting what cannot be I need to try and embrace what is; cultivate contentment and practice gratefulness.

Eli and Monty do this instinctively, the consumerist mentality having not yet tainted their young lives. They look at us and ask 'why would we live anywhere else? This is our home' And as with so many things, these children of ours show us the way...

Of dark skies and sadness

As I write, the hillside opposite is lit with early spring sunshine, birdsong calls across the valley and I can feel that in the last couple of spring-tinged days my spirit has lifted in ways I forget are possible in those last dark days of winter.

Since becoming a mother I have struggled with the dark days of winter. This is not unusual or novel I know; listening to Richard Mabey's essay on weather and 'The Black Dog', I found much comfort from hearing him talk of his own seasonal moodiness and recurring difficulties with 'the dinge' of dark weather. He wonders at how others escape this atmospherically induced heaviness as we are after all "a landscape of tissue at the total mercy of the elements" and goes on to list the many ways our bodies respond to sun, wind and cold. He muses that our inside our bodies are "labyrinths of gaseous cavities and bags of fluid" obviously sensitive to "dramatic weather fronts". Joints and respiratory conditions are aggravated by damp and cold whilst low light levels deprive our systems of feel-good hormones, the weather outside becoming the weather inside.

All this is reassuring in light of my recent low mood. I prefer to liken my occasional blues to a flock of mangy pigeons than a black dog, sitting awkwardly upon my head and shoulders for a time before flying away to roost more appropriately in the murky shade of a bridge's underside. They do not feel malignant, only unpleasant and cumbersome.

I do not remember particularly suffering these swoops of sadness before having children, but perhaps in those days it was easier to brush them off or otherwise ignore them. These days, as an 'at home' mother and home educator I am forced to face myself a little more than I was. I cannot just strike out across the hills on a whim, immerse myself in a project or head to the nearest drinking house - tempting as that sometimes is... I am forced to be present with the frustrations of my children and myself, obliged to constantly engage and be engaged, to referee, to comfort and entertain. At times, when the rain whips past the windows and the greyness seems eternal, these responsibilities weigh a little heavier and I succumb to sadness.

I would not change the choices I have made for our lives and nor perhaps would I seek to always avoid melancholia. There is always a flip side; no light without dark, no creation without destruction, no understanding without experience. Our world is full of fear as well as hope, and we do an injustice to one if we do not acknowledge the other. The lightness and relief I am taking from these earliest of spring days would surely not be as sweet had they not been preceded by a desperate longing for them.

I hope that I am beginning to understand that sadness is not my enemy, that I will learn to nurse my blues and give them permission to stay while they will. I will let good friends gently help me carry them and I will gently help carry theirs.

And I will treat them with trips to the garden centre to let them rest among growing things and dream of the warmer winds to come.    

In the land of snowy hills

Is there anything more likely to make us forget our adult condition than a good snowfall? In January, as I watched the snow first falling, then sticking, I was as giddy as my children and memories knocked of winters past.

My own dad has been always ready for adventure whatever the weather, but he particularly relished a good deep snowfall as a special opportunity for fun. We had a sledge that had been made by my granddad, solid and strong with room enough for two. Ox-like, my dad would drag us through the snow with no discernible effort; my brother and I hushed by the stillness of the muffled world we moved through. I have no recollections of feeling cold on these play days, only laughing faces bathed in pinkish ice-light. We'd always head to the same spot, a hole in the ground we called the quarry, with sides so steep only my dad would sledge them. Of the three of us it was my dad, I'm sure, who had the most fun.

Unfortunately for my boys I am not so sturdy; no tireless pulling of sledges up hills for them, poor things. But even so, we made the most of the wintry lands. Much sledging was done, with friends and by ourselves, on hills of all lengths and gradients. Each day we ventured out until our noses and fingers tingled and little boy's tears ran down frozen rosy cheeks. Returning home to mountains of steaming boots, socks and gloves sitting about radiators and  freely flowing hot chocolate was almost as pleasurable as the outings themselves.

There is a special magic, I think, in snowy days for us parents - the snow's transience encouraging us to put our adult anxieties on hold for a few days and unite with our children in pure joyful excitement. I'm fairly sure my dad understands this, he has always been an expert at embracing playful moments

The snow has come again, but this time only a thin and threadbare sheet lies upon the ground. February winds on, still wrapped in winter's colours. This month often tests the spirit, offering hopeful glimpses of shining days of sun then snatching them away to replace them with the very worst of the season's offerings. But I have heard the birds at the opening and closing of the days, limbering up their voices. I have seen the citrus green of opening hawthorn buds and I have sniffed the air and caught a freshness upon the wind. Winter's days are surely numbered; may their snowy gifts of fun and child-like wonder take us through these last weeks with hope and good humour.

Adventures in Winter Foraging

If you had asked me whether there was much decent foraging to be had in the midst of January before last Sunday, I in my ignorance would have probably guessed at not much. I certainly wouldn't have predicted a basket full almost to the brim with edible mushrooms. But that, apparently, is just what you'll get if you know where to look and have a knowledgeable guide to point you in the right direction.





Rob, the boys and I were invited along on a walk lead by our friend Jesper Launder for the Manchester-based Cracking Good Food group who offer courses for passionate foodies as well as working with local community groups. As soon as we arrived at Fletcher Moss Park in Didsbury the children frantically started searching under fallen trees and logs, with Jesper and Sam's daughter Leonie leading the pack. Fortunately, the crowd on the walk were very tolerant of being pushed aside by enthusiastic little people looking for wild treasure.

Many logs were inspected and children ran about in no particular direction whilst shouting loudly but eventually, after some crazed thrashing about in boggy terrain, Jesper confidently led us to the gold. The treasure in this case was a log covered in Velvet Shanks, yellowy brown mushrooms with velvety stems. Eager hands plucked excitedly and the basket quickly filled.

Velvet shank

We went on to discover mushrooms I had never seen nor heard of before - striking Scarlet Elf Cups, Glistening Inkcaps and the medicinally useful Turkey Tail mushroom. The basket also held a lovely big Oyster mushroom discovered earlier by one of the group.  There were herbs too to provide contrasting colour and flavour - three cornered leeks for an allium tang, peppery hot large bittercress, and pretty young cow parsley leaves. It seemed so strange to me that these fungi and herbs should be growing in such abundance in a city park. Largely overlooked by its regular visitors, here was good food and delicate beauty growing in almost complete secrecy.

Scarlet elf cup

Glistening inkcap

Turkey Tail

A box of Oyster and Wood Blewit mushrooms that Jesper had 'collected earlier'!

It was a bitterly cold day and as we came to the end of the walk people sensibly hurried into the warmth of a nearby pub to thaw out a little before the finale. The gathered mushrooms were cleaned, chopped and cooked in a pond of butter together with some of the greens. Next to a main road while we stamped the cold out of our feet and blew into our hands, a rather special sort of omelette was created and shared. The portions may have not have been kingly, but it satisfied in every way possible. As fresh, ethical and local as you could wish for, gathered by our own frozen hands; wild and truly wonderful food.