Abigail Thorne

I’ll never be young again. A short story.

“That’s your bed made. What else shall I do? Remember, this is my last visit,” called the carer, her cheerful sing-song voice echoing around the empty hall.
“I know, I haven’t forgotten, so there is a gift on the kitchen table.” Emily had heard such negative stories about carers, but Amy was delightful. The granddaughter she had wished for, so unlike the one she was moving to be with.
“Thank you, but you are my favourite client, and I get paid to be here.” Amy skipped into the room, holding the gift-wrapped box from the kitchen table.
“You have been a wonderful help. Now, bring those last bags and put them on the porch for the Cats Protection League to collect, will you?”
“Of course. Are you going to miss this house? Your new flat will be so different.”
“No, I have my memories in here.” Emily pointed at her heart.

She lied, of course. This had been her home for so long, as familiar as the bed she slept in.
Amy bumped and clattered the bags on the stairs. Young people were so full of life, and she had missed the noise when she gave up teaching, much preferring it to the lonely solitude that her daughter insisted she needed now. “The annex is at the bottom of the garden, Mum, no one will ever disturb you there. She had told her.
“Do you want to keep this? It fell out of an old handbag.” Then a photograph fluttered to the floor and Amy picked it up. “Oh, it’s a letter, and this picture. Is it you and Mr Burton? How lovely. You look so happy.”
Emily’s eyes misted over as she looked at the photo. ” No, it’s me and someone I met a long time ago. My husband didn’t waste stamps writing to me.”
“Oh, is it a tragic tale of a lost love? How romantic?”

“Nothing so dramatic. In fact, it should never have happened.” But the memory made her smile.
“Ah, a secret lover,” said Amy with a sigh. “If I make us both a cup of tea and bring the shortbread that Mrs Garret gave you. Would you like to tell me the story?”
“You, young lady, should have left five minutes ago, and Mrs Garret’s shortbread is a health risk.”
When she saw Amy’s disappointment, she softened her voice. “What about your next client?”
Amy’s face brightened “As you are my last this morning, shall I put the kettle on?”
Emily nodded. She had vowed at the time that this story must go untold to the grave, but that was a long time ago.
“I love your stories, Mrs Burton. Mum tells me how precious memories are, especially as you grow older.”
“The things in your heart never age.”

That wasn’t true. Memories twisted and shifted with time. Those diminished by regret grew smaller and sharper, and others smoothed out, their blemishes’ fading and edges blurring in a halo of joy.
“Now, let’s start with the photo. Who’s the hot guy?”
“Mark Winters was his name, and he was the county archaeologist for Durham.” Emily’s voice had become wistful. She was recalling his face animated with enthusiasm, a single lock of dark hair hanging over his eyes.
“Was — Is he still alive?”
“I don’t know, I never saw him after that weekend,” she said, her mind in another place fifty years earlier.
Amy settled in the armchair. “Now, I want the lowdown, and the details, so start from the beginning,” said Amy, with a cheeky glance over her teacup. And Emily remembered the weekend as though it was yesterday.

“In those days, I was a stay-at-home parent, with toddlers to look after. John worked away for weeks at a time, so I was bored. I was never much of a housekeeper. One day, I took the children to the museum for an outing and met a friend from my university. We got chatting, and he told me about a local amateur archaeology society, and suggested I join because there were local young mums who belonged. They had a rota for babysitting while the rest visited a dig or attended a lecture. It was exactly what I needed, and I loved it.”
“And that’s where you met, Mark.”
“Now don’t interrupt if you want to hear the complete story.”
Amy mouthed, “I’m sorry” and settled again.
“There was a competition to win a place at the National Conference for Archaeology, expenses paid, and I won. John didn’t want me to go, because they held it in Durham, and I would have to stay in a hotel. He couldn’t understand why I was interested, but I was adamant and persuaded my mother to look after the boys.”
“The symposium began with a lecture by Mark on the future of archaeology. It fascinated me and I queued at the end to ask questions. I had so many questions. I dreamed that once the children went to school, I could study in the daytime, and volunteer at the local museum.
He answered my queries, and my questions about local digs and we talked for so long, the conversation continued in the bar. The archaeology crowd drank real ale, so I did too. Only I wasn’t used to anything that strong and it robbed me of my common sense.”

“Then you fell in love. What about your husband?”
“Well, I’m not proud of that part. It happened because I spent my days at home in old clothes cleaning up after the children. John was so tired when he came home that he didn’t want to talk. Mark treated me as if I were the most sophisticated woman in the world, and it flattered me that he was interested in what I said, as though it was worth something.” she could hear his voice with that odd little gasp he took when he had talked so fast, he hadn’t taken a breath.
“Aha, the photo doesn’t do him justice. He had a brown, weathered face with crisscrossing lines, and I loved his eyes, which were brown and warm, and the corners crinkled when he smiled. Honestly, he was so handsome that I wanted to spend the night looking at him. Later, we walked back to the hotel through the park, and stopped by the lake, and counted the stars that were reflected in the water.”
She paused.
He had stopped talking about archeology and looked at her quizzically, as though he didn’t understand what was happening. He had touched her hair and then her cheek and even when he had moved his hand; it left an imprint on her face. They didn’t speak. Words would have broken the magic.
“The next morning, he asked if I wanted to visit a dig site, and of course I did. The archaeologists were at the conference, which meant we were alone on the moors. It was a lovely day, and he showed me their finds and explained why they were digging there.

It fascinated me, it was so different to my normal life, and he answered my questions as though I was a colleague. He explained how to tell where man has influenced the landscape as we walked. He had taken a picnic, and we ate it, sitting in the heather by a stream. My heart did flip-flops as we held hands and gazed at the distant city.”
She could smell the heather. The fragrance isn’t strong, but ever since that day, it reminded her of him. She had wrapped a sprig in her handkerchief and when she got home, kept it in a pot on her dressing table. She wondered what had happened to it and remembered her daughter had thrown it away on one of her periodic ‘helpful’ spring cleans.
Amy was watching her intently now, so she went back to the story.
“There was music after dinner that night and he laughed at my jokes as we talked. I wore a silk blouse that I had made myself and used the matching scarf as a hair band which he untied, to admire my hair, and I felt so free and so confident. Then we danced until dawn, and I had never done that before. A colleague took that photo that evening and caught the chemistry between us.”

“What happened then?”
“We were living in a bubble as if our real lives didn’t exist. The next day, when the morning lectures ended, we returned to the lake in the park and hired a boat to row round the small island in the centre. But we were both hopeless at rowing and we got soaked when the boat tipped over. But we laughed and then lay on the island to dry. The ripples danced and sparkled in the sunshine as though we were in the land of fairies and as we watched the reflections on the water, time didn’t matter anymore.”
She closed her eyes to picture that scene, and the details were so clear. These days she forgot appointments and where she had put the cheese and her glasses, but she remembered that day so clearly. The pebbles that got caught in her shoes, the dry grass, and the warm earth under her shoulders, the way her hand felt in his.
“Then later, clouds shaded out the sun, and it was raining when I arrived back at the hotel. Real life had intruded into my daydream. I had to pack and ring John to tell him when I was due at the station the following day so he could collect me.”
“So you and Mark never talked about the future?”
“No, we never did. He had to sit with colleagues at the Gala dinner. The next morning, he drove me to that train, but we were late, and I had to run.”
“But you didn’t leave, Mr Burton, did you? So, were you trapped in a loveless marriage?”
She smiled and her young companion.
“In modern films, love is so black and white, isn’t it? No, you see, John was a good man. Perhaps he never had Mark’s passion, or shared my love of history, but we had a wonderful marriage.”

“What about the letter and photo?”
“Mark wrote two weeks later, asking to see me again and saying he couldn’t get me out of his mind.”
“No, he didn’t? And then you turned him away? Didn’t you ever regret doing that?”
“By then I discovered I was expecting Helen, so I said no. As for regrets, I wondered what life might have been like with him, but there were no genuine regrets. I loved John and I miss him still.”
“Did you carry on with the archaeology?”
“No, I was still interested, but it felt wrong, so when Helen was old enough, I trained as a history teacher and did that till I retired.”
“But you kept the letter and the photo, so it must have meant something to you.”
She had regrets, of course she did; she had done the right thing and had no doubts, but once you have seen what love and passion can be like, you can’t forget it. From time to time, she had wished that John looked at her with the intensity that Mark did that weekend. With a sigh, she continued.
“I gave Mark a piece of my heart, and the memory of the way he made me feel is precious even now.”
“Maybe you’ll get another chance at romance once you have moved into your granny flat.”
“In two weeks’, time, I’ll be eighty. I’ll never be young again!”
“Not in years, no, but rumour has it you broke your hip, falling off your grandson’s electric scooter? That’s not what old folk do. If I were you, I’d join the local archaeological society. After all, you never know.”

The end.

If you enjoyed this story, why not buy one of my books.

Stealth Desk 2

Where am I?

I’m still close to home, although I plan to get much braver and travel further in the future. I’m lucky in that there are so many beautiful spots to settle within a five-minute walk of my house.
I’m being more stealthy than last time, as I’m sitting in a neighbour’s field. I have set myself up so that I have a lovely view, but no one can see me from the road, because of the long grass.
As I settle down, it’s drizzling with rain and hoping that’s because we are in the clouds. I didn’t bring waterproofs. The views are hazy, shrouded in mist, and the distant mountains come and go taunting me. One day I will find them, but today I’m content watching them change, and form a distant end to my world. Closer to me, the hay meadows are ready for cutting and contrast sharply with the green of the forest. The tall dry grass rustles and whispers as the breeze comes through. I hear a cricket call and his friend reply. This afternoon the air will be full of their chatter. But now i shiver in the damp air.
Note to self: Add something waterproof to a permanent kit bag when I have one. It’s going to take me weeks to gather everything I need.
The upside of the cooler air is the amount of birdsong. I love being serenaded. There is a wood pigeon somewhere behind me heralding in the day.
Steve helped me to set up again today, so once again I have a small table. I better not get used to these luxuries.

It is now the middle of the afternoon and it’s so hot that I’ve rigged up a sunshade. An umbrella is the way to go.

What am I working on?

I’m still working on the silver chalice. When I finish and republish, I will change the name to Death of the Rector. I have a character thread to change and update, and I want to change the concluding chapter to give a more satisfying ending. Once those two things are done, I will spell check and transfer the new draft to my e-reader to see how I’m doing. I’m worried about the characters because when I plotted the original story, I knew nothing about character arcs, flaws, needs, and desires or any on the things which are so fundamental now.

I am also drafting the book review of Intuitive editing, which I hope to have published before you read this.
Update Review is here.

What’s in my lunch box?

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels.com

I have purchased my first new pieces of gear. A new flask and a sensible sized lunch box. The flask is a real treat because it means I get coffee with my ham sandwich for breakfast.
Lunch will be couscous, a tomato salad, and cottage cheese, and randomly, a chicken wing which was left over from our BBQ at the weekend. So, I’m a fancy pants today. I’ve even got pudding, a bag of plums from the garden.

What am I reading?

The last two chapters of Tea and comfort. I know it’s taken me ages, and it’s not because the book is bad, it’s because I keep running out of time and reading fiction isn’t high enough on the priority list. I need a solution, a solution for that.
The craft book that I am reading is Show and not tell and really getting it by Janice Hardy.
There is the third book that I have read on the subject. Previously I read the book and when I finish, I’m sure I understand the concept. Then when I come to draft my next story, I realise I haven’t understood it. I will persevere and one day I will understand. The best authors are in it for the long term. We just keep writing.
Even if the book is brilliant, I realise that the silver chalice won’t get the benefit. I hope my next book will. I’ll let you know.

Reflection.

Photo by Miguel u00c1. Padriu00f1u00e1n on Pexels.com

A constructive day today. It turned out that I needed both shade and shelter, and an umbrella will solve that problem for next time.
Having a stunning view helps my brain think more creatively. I don’t know why that is, but it felt as though I was drinking in and feeding my imagination simultaneously.
My back hurt after sitting in the tiny camp chair all day, so I need to fix that for the future.
Once again, a day outdoors in nature was a wonderful experience and restored something in me. Roll on the next.

Book review

Intuitive Editing.

A creative and practical guide to revising your writing.

Tiffany Yates Martin.

Tell me fellow Authors. Where does the magic happen for you?
Is in the writing or in the revising?
Does it matter?

I am a drafter. For me, it’s writing that initial first draft that is magical. Once the story is on paper, I’m finished emotionally. Everything that comes after that is sheer torture. But I have met authors for whom the first draft is like shovelling sand at the start of a sandcastle competition, and the real magic is in the editing. Carving something wonderful out of that ungainly heap of nothingness.
I have struggled to find an editing system that makes sense to me. That keeps me organised without attacking the heart of my story. My head spins with oxford comma’s show don’t tell, character arcs, and weasel words.

Intuitive editing addresses those issues without me feeling I must sacrifice my story to edit it.
For those of you who love editing, Tiffany Yates Martin fills the pages with details and suggestions to make your manuscript shine from the basic structure to the outside polish.

The first section explains how to approach your revision and think like an editor and the last section covers working with a professional from finding someone to talking to them about your work.
The meat of the book offers a process. Macro edits- micro edits and line editing.
She explains the reason for each section, and here is my favourite bit. Each section has an how to find it and how to fix it.
I like the way it’s non-patronising and practical in its approach.
First, she concentrates on character, stakes, and plot. And only when they are vividly shown on the page, so we move on to finer things. Suspense and tension, show and tell, structure momentum, pace, and voice, then at last deals with the line edit. The very thing that most people are aching to do from the beginning.
Each time I write something, I struggle with some detail of editing. Each time I edit, I learn something new. I find it demoralising. I draft my book and I am the best writer ever. I edit and I am the worst, and for a while it cripples me.

This happens every single time, but now at least I am seeing progress.
Her advice is generous and encouraging, which helps me, who is permanently and irreversibly insecure. I have read books on editing that look down on the writer, making you feel as though you will never be good enough to achieve what they are suggesting. The professional is the person who matters. This is not like that this is about forming a partnership, and understanding the process so that you can be a better writer.

Remember, the more editing you do yourself before you send your work to a professional, the less you will need to pay them to do. The more chance they have of concentrating on the finer details.

So, have I put this wonderful advice into my own writing? No, of course not. But I now have somewhere to start, and something to use as a reference point. Book by book I hope to get better and while I have hope, I keep writing.

The book is now on my top ten reference books on craft.

Stealth desk

Where did I go?

Today was a trial run, so I stayed close to home in a small piece of woodland on our property. There is no need to be stealthy here, but folks are so friendly that if the neighbours see me, they will come over for a chat. The whole point is having a tranquil day to is to work, so I will keep my head down.
The woods were quieter than I expected, and at midday, even the birds were asleep. I heard a tractor twice on the lane this morning but nothing else . Bliss!
The thing that I’m enjoying most was the smell, damp, musky and delicious.

It’s late afternoon now but cool because the canopy is thick in the area I’m sitting. My phone says it’s 26 degrees centigrade but I’m beginning to wish I had a jacket.
This morning the hardest thing was starting. I found it so peaceful I felt as though I was on holiday and ended up taking an hour over my breakfast, simply enjoying the place.

What am I working on?

I am working on the first book I wrote and published on amazon. The title was ‘The silver chalice’. But it isn’t available any longer? I took everything off last year, having decided that nothing was good enough.
I need to confess that I have done what you should never do, lost confidence and tossed my toys out of the pram. Since then, I have put books back on Amazon much improved technically. In making technical improvements I lost my voice the thing that made them authentic, so now I find myself at the bottom of a deep dark rabbit hole fiddling with old manuscripts.
Now I have got that off my chest, I will be positive. I have planned a way to get myself out of the dark and into the light again. Only time will tell if I succeed.
The story is about a Church of England Vicar, who has lost her confidence. She moves to a large church as associate minister after a chance encounter with the Rector John Jeffries. He needs help with pastoral work, the one aspect of her job that she loves, and he persuades her she is the right person for the job. She takes a twelve-month contract with the condition that she can assess her calling or vocation at the end of that time.
Two months after she arrives, an intruder breaks in to the church and murders John Jeffries. They steal his personal papers, the church silver, and a historic book kept in a glass case at the back of the sanctuary.
Thrown into turmoil, Alex must find out who broke in and what they wanted. As she solves the mystery, she finds friends and a sense of purpose along the way.
I know so much more about writing than I did when I started. I am creating a stronger, more cohesive story I hope.
Today I worked on the subplot. (It didn’t have one before.) So far, so good. When I have finished, I plan to run it as a serial on here before republishing.

What’s in my lunch box?

Wow, lunch time!

This morning for breakfast I had egg mayo with bacon on a home-made cob.
I still use the midlands term for bread rolls. When I lived in Yorkshire, I called them teacakes, and I bet you have another name for them. This kind of stuff makes me love the English language, and encourages me to keep writing.
For lunch I have another cob This time brie and gooseberry Jam . An English Kitkat which taste different to the Spanish ones, and a crunchy bar brought over by a friend who pays for her visits in chocolate. She doesn’t have to pay at all, but don’t tell her that!

For my afternoon snack, I had chocolate chip cookies made the day before with smarties and chocolate chips.
Plenty of water and a can of orange fizzy pop completed it.
I missed my fruit and salad so I will add those in next week.

What am I reading?

My computer does not have enough battery life for the whole day, so brought plenty of reading matter with me.
At lunch time I started a book called, Tea and comfort by Andrea Hurst. I will post a full review in my blog. So far, I am unsure about it. It is not a genre I read, and I bought from the cover, without reading the description, so to be fair I will finish it before I write a review. I am convincing myself that reading novels is part of being a writer.
In the afternoon, I read part of a book called Intuitive Editing by Tiffany Yates Martin. It is brilliant and I will put a full review on my blog this week. It cannot say how much it has helped me. And the best thing about it? it is so encouraging, breaking everything into doable stages with headings like how to find it and how to fix it in every chapter.
I am building a collection of craft books because. I aspire to be the best writer possible. Some books are better than others and now this is at the top of my pile. I intend to review those I have found the most helpful in case anyone other writers out there find themselves down the same rabbit hole as me.
Hey ho, and onwards we must go.

Reflections.

Was the day worthwhile?

Absolutely, I not only had a wonderful time, but the following day I was buzzing with enthusiasm for my writing. It pulled me out of the rut I have been in for a while.

What would I do differently?

I need different gear,

In the long term, a battery pack so that my computer lasts all day. I need a new phone so I can use the internet. A camping tarp, so I have protection from the rain. And a camping stove, for days when I want a hot meal.

Oh, and I didn’t use my hammock. I was sure I would.

I use a walking aid because of a back problem, so I am adapting an old rucksack to give me more carrying capacity, meaning I will go further afield. Even though the next two or three weeks I plan to stay close to home.

I have already bought a small flask for my breakfast coffee and individual lunch box so that I don’t have to take the big one we use for picnics

I know people write in cafes, and occasionally I have done that, but this is so much more me. I have a desk in the house and love it. My books, notes etc, are within reach but it was feeling claustrophobic as my mobility issues worsened. I cannot set off for a brisk walk to ‘ blow away the cobwebs’ in the way I once could. This appears to solve that problem. I’ll keep you posted.

Paradela

Photo by Pragyan Bezbaruah on Pexels.com

Another poem today, this time much more lighthearted.

I wrote this when we visited a fiesta in a nearby village. It has a small population of two thousand people. The name Paradela means ‘A stop on the Road.’ It seemed appropriate.

Galicia is sometimes surprising.

Paradela

On Monday Paradela
is a sleepy little town.

On Tuesday Paradela
has nothing going down.

On Wednesday in Paradela
you can buy yourself a cow.

On Thursday Paradela
has a different feeling now

In a square just off the main street,
someone’s setting up a fair.
A sign’s up in the market
warning ‘pedestrians beware’.
Just beyond the town
a closer look reveals.
A farmer on his tractor
doing wheelies in his fields

On Friday Paradela
is getting very weird,
There’s a ramp, a row of buses,
And a lot of men with beards.

On Saturday Paradela
is a very different place.
Bikers clad in leather
are filling every space.
There are Hondas in the marketplace.
Ducati’s in the park.
And as for Kawasaki
they have built themselves an ark.
Yamahas are roaring
and drowning out the sound,
of the leather cladded DJ
on Benelli sponsored ground.
He is playing heavy metal
to the Royal Enfield crowd.
New models from Suzuki
will make their owners proud.
There’s a stylish BMW,
An antique Norton too,
And a row of ancient Triumphs
that served in World War two.
In pride of place on main street
is Harley Davidson
each one so well polished
they outshine the blazing sun.

On Sunday Paradela
is a town gone slightly barmy,
With stuntmen jumping buses
and a display team from the army
The market hall’s a restaurant
behind a giant bar
So the locals are as happy
as the people from afar.

On Monday Paradela
is a sleepy little town.
Just a few exhausted locals
taking all the posters down.

Misty Mornings

Summer days at Casa Batan almost always begin with shrouds of mist. Misty mornings that come before the heat of the day takes hold are one of the privileges of living here.

It covers over mountain tops
and hides the rolling hills.
And winds its way up rivers
dimming swirls and rills

It dances through the forest
with the spirits of the trees.
And hides the fields and hedgerows
then hovers on the breeze,

On the lake it sunbathes,
with feathered falling motion
Yet settles in the valleys
Like a liquid silver ocean

It mingles in the churchyard
with souls of the long gone,
Then frightens playing children
With a half heard mournful song

Inhabits ruined cottages
with smoke from empty grates.
And grasps at passing pilgrims
With icy fingered fate.

It touches all the spiderwebs
makes crystal chandeliers
But in its passing over
leaves a washing line of tears.

Legends ghosts and fairies
all hide within its folds
But so do prayers of pilgrims
And the love of long-lost souls

That is why my homeland
By strangers is dismissed
Because the heart of My Galicia
Is hidden in the mist

By Abigail Thorne

The baker’s shop. A memoir.

Almost all the happy memories I have of my childhood revolve around food. My mum enjoyed cooking and my dad enjoyed eating. Not only was my mother an excellent cook, but she was an extrovert, sociable hostess and, in the early sixties, these were admirable qualities.
Memory is fickle and changes with family stories and perception, but there’s something life affirming about rooting out the best things and allowing those memories to breathe and grow and give the less happy stuff a bit of balance.
Visits to the bakery are amongst my earliest recollections. Going to the market was a weekly event with a ritual attached. My sister rode in a large pram, and I wore my best coat in anticipation of a visit to a cafe afterwards. The bakery came between the market and the cafe.

We joined the queue, which wound along the street by the marketplace.
“Hold tight to the pram, and I’ll buy you a chocolate milkshake,” whispered Mum.
This was the worst part of the day. The prodding, poking and height measuring of the other women in the line. My long pigtails admired and my pale cheeks pinched.
“You look like your grandmother.” Is a refrain with no response, belonging as it did to the nonsense phrases that my mother’s friends used all the time.

Soon, I tire of that agony, and I dive under the big pram wheel and press my nose against the window of the shop next door. It sells model trains, and the window is full of tiny houses, pieces of track and miniature signal boxes. I long to go inside, but know better than to ask.
We reach the bowed window of the bakers at last, with its shelves of loaves and plates of cake and the unmistakable aroma of baking bread. We park my sister in front with the other prams, our shopping neatly tucked under the pram cover, and the hood up ‘In case of rain’.
Mum then yanks me through the door into the tiny, crowded interior. She is soon chatting, and I begin the job of avoiding shopping bags full of hard vegetables. I wriggle into gaps to find a spot to avoid getting trampled on. The combinations of legs, umbrellas, shopping bags and endless talking terrifies me still.

Sometimes I found the gap beside the glass cases full of fancy cakes, and pressed my face close to see the vanilla slices, meringues, and cream cakes. The swirls of cream and pastel coloured icing fascinated me.

If I close my eyes now, and I can touch the glass and see the cake ensconced inside.

My favourite place was under the big wooden counter where I see into the bakery itself. Men in white trousers putting trays of loaves into a giant oven, with long poles. Or stood at a table shaping pies and pasties, crimping edges at lighting speed. A machine in one corner rattled constantly, and every so often someone lifted mounds of dough onto another table to be shaped and put on racks ready for the oven. Being too young to understand the process never dimmed the fascination. The warm yeasty smell, glimpses of flame at the back of the oven, and constant movement was enough.
Mum always bought a curd tart and an egg custard tart. They came in a brown paper bag warm from the oven with the scent of nutmeg leaking from the opening. They were for my dad, his favourites, and the presentation came after tea, as though he had won an important award. It was all part of the ritual.

Living in Spain as I do, I haven’t seen a Yorkshire curd tart for years. Custard Tarts, I make when the hens are laying, or buy the Portuguese variety from the supermarket.
I made one with homemade farmer’s cheese, knowing at once that the taste would be different. Fresh cheese curds are a byproduct of the cheese-making process and all together richer. Next time I’ll buy fresh cheese from the market and crumble it, rather than turning UHT milk into something it can never be.
Despite the lack of authentic curds, the result was a delight, lighter and less sweet that a modern cheese cake. Plain rather than a fancy desert.
Cakes and tarts like this were part of life then, women cooked and baked as a part of life, not as a hobby. I realised much later when I started going for tea at the houses of friends, how lucky I was that mum was a skilled baker.

Shop bought cakes, rather than homemade, were special and bought from the bakery, but we ate pudding or cake every day as part of a meal. I didn’t taste the mass-produced stuff till I left home years later.

In the following decades, cakes became frowned upon for dietary reasons, but simultaneously became richer and sweeter. Baking has become a hobby and they can therefore be more elaborate.
I make no judgement. Eating habits have changed over the years, along with the number of calories we need to get through the day. I admit I have a nostalgic fondness for old-fashioned teatime time cakes free of cream or mounds of icing, just hints of nutmeg, vanilla, lemon or caraway.

Locks, Dogs and Gypsies.

Scones

I recently watched a TV cooking competition on YouTube. The judges asked the contestants to cook something which was a family tradition and reminded them of home.
One girl made scones. She told the judges that every day after school she went to her gran’s house, and her granny made the best scones. Her face lit up at the memory. Some days there would be a cheese scone with a bowl of homemade soup, sometimes a plain one with butter and a glass of milk, but her favourites were sweet and contained glace cherries. My mind was instantly cast back to my childhood, and memories of watching mum make scones.

My mother’s scones were famous. Sometimes long after I had left home, I would meet a stranger in Bridlington where she lived, who would stop and say “You must be Dorothy’s daughter,” and after a few pleasantries I would be told ‘she makes the most marvellous scones.’ Even now, many years after she died, a conversation about Mum includes the same reference.

I remember sitting at the table watching her hands rise and fall as she rubbed the fat into the flour and just like the contestant; they came both savoury and sweet and were a frequent after-school snack.

People who know the family assume she taught me how to make them, but she never did. In fact, she never taught me how to make anything. Right until she died, she assumed I couldn’t cook. In spite of that, my love of cooking and good food came from watching her.

The rise and fall of her hands in the rhythmic, almost hypnotic, way she rubbed in the fat, allowed the flour to fall back into the bowl in puffs and clouds gathering air as it went. I know now that’s why her scones were so light. She used different fats, butter or margarine, maybe lard or a mixture. Depending on whether they were sweet or savoury or may depending on what was available. The fat and the milk came straight from the fridge. They needed to be cold. There was always salt, and sugar, pinches and spoonfuls no weighing. No eggs, not even for the top. She brushed them with milk.

I believe she had made them so often that instinct played a bigger part than memory. The feel of flour told her if the fat was right. She eyeballed the liquid as she cut it into the dough with a knife, never hesitating or even looking too closely.
Once or twice, friends of hers have asked for her recipe, but even though I have her hand written recipe notebook, there is no mention of scones.

The scones that the cooking show contestant made from her granny’s recipe did not impress the judges. They were not rich enough, more like American biscuits. She served them with butter, not cream. They were too big and not refined, so they wouldn’t look good on a cake stand. They should have raisins, not glace cherries and more sugar.

One judge, finished with the comment, “Of course they taste fantastic but they are not traditional scones, so they don’t fit the brief. What makes a good TikTok story is not good enough here.” He then stuffed the remaining half scone into his mouth.

I watched the confusion on the girl’s face and was angry on her behalf. In the north of England, when me and this girl’s granny grew up, we didn’t have cream teas. TikTok hadn’t been invented and few of us had the money for afternoon tea in a posh hotel. (A tradition that originated in southern aristocratic houses.) Scones were a filling carbohydrate that were quick to make and filled hungry bellies.

Curious, I looked up the history. The modern recipes probably started in Scotland as a filling quick bread, the word scone originating from the word for lump or mass. Variations were made in Ireland and the north of England, all cooked on the fire or a griddle. With the invention of baking powder, quick breads and scones really took off and spread down the country, where no doubt they got fancier. The thing that struck me from this research is that the “traditional scone” doesn’t exist in one form because cooking simple flour doughs has happened since fire and grinding stones existed.

Fer goodness’ sake we can’t even agree on the pronunciation, let alone the recipe.

For reference Pru Leith’s technique bible suggests an egg wash but no egg in the dough and is sparse on the sugar, the Be-Ro recipe book (first published in 1923), from which many modern recipes originate, used an egg in the dough and on top and more sugar.
Mrs Beeton includes recipes for both dropped scones and baked scones, and suggests using sour milk and Modern practical cookery published around 1940, devotes twenty pages to scone recipes which include a variety of add-ins including candied cherries and mixed peel but are even meaner with sugar and fat than I remember and suggest a mix of milk and water to bring the dough together.

My recipe for cheesy scones, as shown in the pictures, is:

225 gm self-raising flour (I make my own)

30 gm butter

60gm grated hard cheese. (I like cheddar)

A hand full of snipped chives.

A pinch of salt and a teaspoon of sugar. (You don’t taste the sugar, but it gives a better crust and balances the flavour.)

Heat the oven to 200 C -190 if you have a fan oven

Rub the cheese and fat into the flour until you get a rubble like mixture. The butter disappears, but there will still be flecks of cheese.

Add the salt and sugar and chives.

Add the milk a spoonful at a time, mixing it in with a knife. When you have a clumpy mess, press together with your hands. It should come together in a ragged ball.

Remove from the bowl and shape into a ball on a floured work surface.

Flatten with your fingers until you have a round, flat disc and cut with a biscuit cutter. Re shaping the left over dough each time until you have seven or eight rounds. Put them on a baking tray and brush the tops with milk.

Remove from the oven when they are puffed and golden on top about 10 minutes.

Cool and sprinkle with chilli power.

They are not famous and I doubt people will talk about them after I am gone, but they do remind me of mum and some of the good parts of my childhood and straight from the oven with a bowl of homemade soup. They really can’t be beaten.

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The mystery of the metallic manure.

When we moved to the Galicia fourteen years ago, we had never lived in the countryside before. We couldn’t speak either the local Galician language used by our neighbours or Castilian Spanish. Over the years, there have been many misunderstandings because of both language and lack of rural experience. I can’t hope to explain how different rural Galian life is to life in a busy Midlands city in the UK.
We didn’t expect that fourteen years after we moved here, many unfathomable things would still happen. One such incident occurred a few weeks ago.

Steve takes the dog for a walk long before I am even out of bed. He is one of those cheerful morning people that I have such difficulty coping with. Because of that, he brings me a drink after he has walked the dog and leaves me alone until I wake up properly. On this occasion, he looked worried when he came in with the coffee.

“It’s frosty outside and there are big tire tracks all over our land. You heard nothing last night or this morning, did you?”
I shook my head; He was late, and I was working when he returned home the previous evening. I wasn’t awake when he got up that day.
“It looks like a tractor and smells as though they were muck spreading.” He added helpfully.

“What about the people who cut our hay? Perhaps they hope to get a better crop this year.” I was thinking on my feet, (actually my backside as I was sitting in bed drinking my coffee).
“Seems strange that they didn’t tell us,” he said, but accepted my explanation.

It went out of my mind for a few days.
Later that week on a lovely sunny day and my neighbour knocked on the door and asked if I wanted to walk up the lane with her since in the sunshine. I gladly agreed, closing my computer with a sigh of relief. Writing is much less fun in lovely weather.
We ambled along, stopping to point out the early spring flowers.
“Who has been spraying your field?” she asked.

“I’m not sure. We wondered if it was those people with sheep who cut the hay last year.”
“No, it’s not them. They drive an ancient tractor held together by string and good luck. No, those tracks are from one of those new giant ones. You need to be rich to afford one.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know then, because if it’s a gigantic machine, that also rules out the team who were working for Paca’s family. “There had been a problem the previous summer with the family of a deceased neighbour who go the boundaries mixed up.
By now Chus was marching across the field to examine the clues, or in this case, tire tracks. We both flopped down beside the large ruts, and I was concerned when I saw how deep the ruts were. They had really churned up the ground and would make it harder to cut the grass in the summer.

She handed me a handful of the muck that they had spread. “Smell that!”
“It smells like manure,” I ventured, not really knowing why I was sitting in the middle if a field smelling dirt.
Can’t you smell that metallic odour? It’s not natural.”

I shook my head, pulling a face, still clueless, and I had also seen Manuel, another neighbour, crawling up the lane in his car, gawping at us. Obviously, his neighbours had gone ‘loco’.
Chus was using her ‘I’ll explain slowly because you are English voice’ ” You know what a cow eats from the muck” she explained “When cows eat grass and good hay, it’s sweet, a bit like warm beer. This comes from a cow factory. It is full of chemicals and who knows what else.” I still couldn’t tell the difference, but we had discussed industrial factory farming before, so I guessed where this discussion was heading. She had kept a small herd of grass-fed beef cattle before an eye problem had forced her into early retirement. Her husband is a one of the best butchers in the district. They have ‘views’ on industrial farming and the quality of meat and dairy products that result from it.
Now I had one neighbour thinking I had lost my marbles and another despairing at my lack of crucial countryside knowledge.
“They came in the middle of the night, illegally dumping their muck that’s what has happened, what are you going to do about it?”
I shrugged “I don’t know,” I answered weakly “Maybe it will improve the quality of our grass.” The look she gave me then would have wilted a geranium.
“We’ll just have to keep watch, or make signs to say ‘Private property, no manure in the village’.”
And we that proclamation she got up and marched back down the lane with me trailing in her wake.

I had no intention of making signs or keeping watch. Even if there was a sign, it wouldn’t stop a farmer from coming in the night to dump his slurry. In the daytime, Chus and I are often the only people in the village. She is 5 foot 1 and weighs seven stone and I walk with a stick. Neither of us stand a chance against a large tractor and a man doing something illegal. (Intensive farms are required to have slurry tanks and have the waste disposed of professionally).
I have an overwhelming feeling of failure. It feels like we have made no progress since we got here. I don’t know what really happened or how I can go about fixing it. Unfortunately, I still don’t have the language to deal with an angry dispute in Gallego despite my efforts to learn Spanish and worst of all, I still can’t tell the difference between good and bad manure.

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