Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Off to Strathardle today for a two-night’er to prevent the courgettes turning into vegetable marrows and to cut the grass if I feel strong enough. The electric starter motor has died the death. When I was young and read Agatha Christie, I used to find “vegetable marrow” the most puzzling of phrases. Do we have them in America? I'm sure they could be grown, with ease, but they are about as unsatisfactory as a vegetable can get.

Edinburgh has been wrapped in haar the last few days. It will be nice to see the sky, even if rain is falling out of it.

I’ve solved the Games Accommodation problem – not necessarily to everyone’s satisfaction, but at least none of them will be sleeping under the stars.

And I’ve attached the shoulders of the dinosaur sweater, and one sleeve. The three-needle bind-off looks fine. The sleeve-hole looks too shallow.

Comments

Cazzab, you’re right that there’s a frisson about reading a book by someone you know well. Dear Preceptor continues interesting, but Higginson himself is rather a bore, as my mother acknowledges in various ways. Things should liven up when Emily Dickenson finally appears on stage. I won’t take it to Kirkmichael – that’s where I read the New Yorker and Kitchen Garden magazine.

Shandy, the thought of a herd of 70 deer in Essex is unnerving. And reminds me that I mustn’t take my vegetables for granted. The rabbits might have tunnelled in. The deer might have paid a summer visit. Heaven help us, the sheep could have figured out the route.

Back here Friday, insh’Allah. Next month!

8 comments:

  1. Marrows are pretty unsatisfactory - except when stuffed with delicious combinations of veg/mince/cheese etc. Then it is a great edible casing!

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  2. sweater looks good in spite of your comments!!

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  3. Anonymous12:58 PM

    I think the armhole size reflects the era of the design.
    My daughter is a writer--her best medium, IMHO, is the short story, and it is fun--and sometimes more than a little affecting--to recognize events and people, even though fictionalized!

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  4. Anonymous1:40 PM

    I believe vegetable marrows are what we call zucchini in the U.S.
    I, too, was most puzzled by Hercule Poirot's retirement garden of marrows. Zucchini are prolific and grow overnight (it seems) to the size of baseball bats.

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  5. I didn't know it but we do have them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squash_(plant)

    As soon as I read the words, "vegetable marrow", I thought of those overgrown zucchini. My poor sister had a FIL who could not pick a zucchini until it was 15inches long. No surprise, all they could think to do with zucchini is make bread (and give it to my sister.)

    The sweater looks nice! I armhole fears are familiar!

    Gerrie in St Paul

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  6. I actually really like big slices of breaded marrow... I dredge them in egg, then in a combination of wheat germ, salt and pepper, and engevetea yeast.
    Courgettes are a very different taste, and are better on their own.
    I have a little agricultural mystery myself. Would you mind pointing people towards my blog to help identify some berries that we found in our back yard?

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  7. Anonymous11:36 PM

    In my neighborhood, doubled brown-paper shopping bags filled with enormous zucchini are found on doorsteps late in the season. Unprincipled gardeners sneak them over under cover of darkness.
    If they didn't share the sweet corn and tomatoes, though, we would have to shoot them.

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  8. Anonymous3:38 AM

    We have a herd of 40 deer in the borough. The USDA is to come in the night with silencers and night vision goggles and do them all in. I am a terror of it.

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