Saturday, 11 July 2015

Banbury Charter Market Relaunch - New Craftsman Venture - Saturday, 23rd May 2015


A Market Relaunch for Banbury’s Charter Market with Cherwell District’s Market operator E.G. Skett  and Co. with new stalls and stallholders to meet and we’re late because my computer is misbehaving; the dear SO managed to get it working temporarily enabling me to finish off a  little project I was working on.

At the top end of Market Square were the regular market stalls offering a wider range of fresh foods and produce, plants, clothing items and fabrics.  We’re wondering where the new stalls are situated as we walk down, when we spot new blue and white striped awnings in front of Marks and Spencer and adjacent buildings, and catch the sound of music on the breeze.

The first stall we visit is 3D Card by Trang Nguyen and Long Sam with their beautiful, exquisite greeting cards; they are colourful, amazing and very brilliantly created and presented.  They are handmade cards par excellence and I was delighted to see these pop-up cards in Banbury.  Find Trang Nguyen via email – trangftu2004@yahoo.com and catch them on Face Book at - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pop-Up-Cards-PC/502222703183436?ref=hl








To Merlin Porter Arts who drew a quick picture of me, as the Street Artists do in Paris, and Merlin is on Face Book at - https://www.facebook.com/MerlinPorterArts - to see his work…..
On to Qwerky Clocks “Handmade Hand Painted Wooden Wall Clocks and find them by email at – qwerkyclocks@gmail.com and on Facebook@: www.facebook.com/QwerkyClockshandmade....
Then to Forever Living Products with Beckie selling Aloe Vera and we bought their Aloe Vera Shampoo.  We have seen these Aloe Vera products elsewhere and were keen to try for ourselves….
Also there, a craft blanket stall, Cakes for Heroes and a Sea Scouts Charity stall all of whom were doing good business...





My computer broke down this same Saturday.  I sourced a new one over the next few days and with a few irritating hold-ups I'm now up and running again, just about.  However, somewhere along the road I seem to have lost a few photos from this Market day back in May.  So, sorry guys, but I seem only to have retained the two photos above.
I shall visit again at your next Banbury Market Day and take more photos, adding them to that day's blog post.  I hope all of you are well and selling successfully and I look forward to meeting all of you again soon.



Daisy xxx

Wednesday, 8 July 2015

Gardening - The Beautiful Passion - Wednesday, 8th July 2015

Well, don't you think so, when your patch of soil as if by magic, brings forth veggies for your hungry appetites, flowers to swoon over, herbs to delight in and a green space to linger in, after busy and frantic day elsewhere!

1st strawberry harvest...


green tomatoes....


My garden is divided between four different locations living as we do in a small flat without a garden.  Kind friends have allowed me to dig up parts of their unwanted, abandoned or grassed-over
garden spaces and I've moved in with vegetable plants and pots, herbs and flowers and pots in an endeavour to be creative, utilising my energy and enthusiasm.

Now this week has so far been incredibly busy - yes, I know it's only Wednesday evening - but this is the first evening of the week so far I've been free to water two of my gardens.  I get to water another one tomorrow and the fourth, potted garden, at the weekend.  Luckily, we've had a good quantity of rainfall since Sunday when I last visited my potted place and watered it madly, so I know it will hold out 'til then, thank goodness.  But the impact and sense of satisfaction that rushes at you, gazing at your garden after a day or two absence is mind-boggling, confirming what you've always known and sometimes, ignored, is that the garden is inspirational, engaging and totally compelling.

runner beans


When a seedling, a flower or edible fruit shows itself,  that compulsion to sow and plant, dig, hoe, weed and harvest anaesthetises you against all backache, broken nails, callouses and exhaustion.  When you carry that green and gorgeous harvest into your kitchen for supper that magic is complete;  you're eating the fruits of your labours, consuming the love and energy you've poured into your growing space and you are the sole victor of your endeavours.  It's bloomin' marvellous!!!

and dwarf green beans and curry plant by the strawberries
So today, I visited my veggie garden to water and pick a strawberry or two, even a tiny red tomato, all of which I did, also watering-in the new plants given to me last week plus my bed of herbs - the lemon  balm and marjoram, the lemon verbena and oregano and a clump of borage bedecked with small blue flowers.  These plants are all crammed into what once was the cold frame now sadly not useful for such a purpose, but still able to house and show off to advantage my bright green herbs.

There's green beans racing up their bean poles, without a  tie or yarn knot to hold them in place, dwarf green beans with their pinky-purple flowers just showing, potato stems and leaves from last year's detritus,  absolutely determined on production again this season, pretty warm-yellow courgette flowers with their mass of green leaves and tiny spiky finger-stems which you hope will turn into small, fat, crunchy fingers to sauté, bake of munch into salads.  Heads of vibrant green parsley, delicate leaves and stems of coriander, spikey waves of slender chives with a few pretty pink heads, a stem of newly planted bay and a mass of orange and apricot coloured nasturtiums with seed heads you could use for mock capers!

the flower garden
In the fruit bed the second-year strawberry plants are bedded down nicely on their straw, the rhubarb plant is resting on its laurels and the curry plant, exuding that wonderfully warm curry scent, is sending our long grey spires covered in bright yellow flowers, as the greenhouse hosts a row of resplendent tomato plants swagged with green fruit, just waiting for the sun to turn them bright red, ready for the eating.

Of course the weeds are resplendent too, poking up their heads wherever and whenever the inclination takes hold so, whatever the state of your growing scene is, your garden will always host an array of  flowers in-the-wrong-place to bring colour and vibrancy to your garden.  And mine is no exception especially since I've been rather disinclined to weed and hoe as much as I did last year!





clumps of fragrant herbs


Ah well, tomorrow is another day for weeding, watering, hoeing and tidying-up and a spot of seedling transplantation in a garden I'm managing for our local WI group; not my garden as such but one does get, attached to the soil one is digging and raking.

and the garden I'm managing for my local WI group - a head of wild seedlings,,,

Soil matters, wouldn't you agree.  That beautiful dark-brown moist and crumbly stuff you dig!  That dry, hard-baked earth when the rain don't fall or the ankle-clinging saturated mud of winter's snow-into-slush-season when you're trying to get ahead of your digging much too early.  Soil is The thing to cultivate if you want and need your green space to develop, grow and bloom.  You simply can't harvest your ambitions without a good bed of soil - unless you grow hydroponically - so grow your compost, practise your digging technique and cultivate a sense of patience for that green space to linger in, after a busy, frantic day elsewhere!

Toodle loo

Daisy xxx

PS all typos under control I hope; apologies for unseen weeds!











































Monday, 6 July 2015

Adderbury Community Food Market - June's Lingering Reflections - Monday 6th July 2015

Did your June vanish in the whisk of a puppy tail like mine did leaving you reeling; perhaps the analogy should have been like a minnow at the end of a short line!  And the month is high summer, the roses are in bloom and the countryside is green and fresh.  June is also birthday month with the dear SO’s right at the beginning, this year colliding with Adderbury’s Community Food Market meet on June 11th making it the obvious place for supper with family and friends.

Virginia was presenting Salmon and that seemed just the very thing to share over  a glass of wine so there we all gathered at 6 o’clock, along with everybody else, bent on gathering in their favourite food picks from the assembled cornucopia of fresh homemade foods and products
.
To kick our evening off we picked up coffee from Paddy's Buzzy Beans mobile machine, chatted to organising friends handing out market cards and crispy biscuits all just within the doorway into The Institute, the village place for a host of activities and gatherings.  A vital resource for every Village resident, The Institute is managed by a small keen team of volunteers actively engaged in promoting and servicing this wonderful facility, keeping it available and fully operational.

He made a beeline for Smart Cookies serving hatch for Virginia’s Salmon Teriyaki ...


 while I  whizzed about the market wishing all our friends a good sales session.  Markets are great fun and I am a huge fan of this collective food explosion, a monthly"pop-up" market brought into being by an ardent team of forward-thinking food enthusiast Adderbury Village residents.  I love to see food displays wherever I am but a market environment has something else besides piles of food. There's zing and freshness about its display because the collection has been assembled for a particular event.  It's not there for ever, just an evening comprising two and a quarter short hours, limited time indeed to discover the freshness, the taste and texture of good local food and produce.  You're here to buy favourite items for your store cupboard, to chat to your stallholder friends and friends who, like you, have rushed here this evening for the very purpose of shopping and shopping with the particularly attractive knowledge of finding really fresh and wholesome and creatively delicious food.  And yes, you may probably find some items a little more costly than generally found at elsewhere food outlets but, hey, you're paying for that freshness, that certain unique quality which keeps customers coming back for more, on a regular monthly basis.

We were not really here at The Institute's market for shopping this month - sorry guys - but to celebrate His birthday; just let me tell you who was there, it might encourage you to meet us there at a future meeting...


Bar King

Moore & Lyon Produce - e: - Chummy567@yahoo.co.uk

find Sara West at e: - appletreeproducts@hotmail.co.uk

Every Last Crumb of Rupert and Susan Lloyd - find them at email: EveryLastCrumb14@gmail.com

Grumpy Bakers from - e: grumpybakers@yahoo.co.uk

chris@monsoonestates.co.uk

Gorgeous Greek pastries and cakes by Elie at e: ellistago@gmail.com

Homemade in Oxfordshire for delicious preserves

Cotswold Baking by Paul  - find at - info@cotswoldbaking.co.uk

Jo Thompson of  Once Bitten for all sorts of delicious goodies  find at - www.oncebittenltd.co.uk

Always super fresh vegetables and plants from Mr. Anson

Beany Podd for "tasty vegan treats"  via - http://beanypodd.com

a really good range of beautiful cheese from Tastebuds Cheese Board

Winslow Pates & Terrines by Richard Cox - find them at winslowpatesandterrines@gmail.com

two for the Market scene...



I visit Adderbury's Market every month because I just cannot get enough of that certain fresh food thing.  The buzz I get from this market,, any market in fact, has been with me all my life. I've embarrassed my children, my friends and myself over and over again. It's something I anticipate doing for ever somehow, somewhere because that zing, appreciation and enthusiasm is just a part of my make-up and is with me every day.  So I'm always looking forward to my next market buying experience...and then I write about that expeerience here, with photos, for they are all part of that experience too!!!

Daisy xxx