Cotesbach Estate

One of Jason's ewes up on the field

This just about matches the expression I’ve been wearing most of the time since the New Year, but at least there’s the promise of great things to come.

Just starting, Monday 8.30am

We could hardly even see the hedge but Chris Fouracre was reassuring – it’s rain, rather than mist and cold that’s the hedgelayer’s nightmare.  He was happy to get stuck into the job, with Livvy helping with clipping, clearing and sharpening stakes, and just look what began to emerge by the end of Day 1.  Day 2 still cold, but some sunshine easing through.  We chose the best Maple and Crab Apple trees to remain in the hedgeline.  Day 3 simply perishing, ground too hard to drive the stakes in.

New pear trees against repaired garden wall

With lots of help from family and specially thanks to Kate  we successfully planted 20 new fruit trees in the orchard and garden on 28th Jan – a variety of apple, pear and plum with a quince thrown in, so lucky to get them in the ground before the snow came down, and to be able to wish them well with a little wassailing event in the evening – ancient lore has it that fruit trees respond well to a song or two and a dousing of cider, so perhaps this will become another Cotesbach annual special.

Xmas cake 11

Well for most of us here Christmas and New Year was dramatic and hard work but not without lashings of feasting and conviviality.  My Christmas cake scene just about summed it up, an exhausted if not a little bit inebriated Santa outside his grotto, chaos and busy elves all round him and an island dream on the distant horizon.

Gathering in the Home Close for Joe & Navid's display

Thanks to Mark and Amber for this fabulous shot, a great memory of yet another gathering, lashings of chilli bean and probably the most original  firework display on record.

Apple pressing in the Barn

Well I may not have got the date of this post correct but what a lot of effort went into the apple pressing, resulting in lots of gorgeous juice in the freezer to tickle our tastebuds through the winter and a couple of vats of cider on the brew.  Not forgetting the pruning, the picking, the selling, the cooking, the planting and the wassailing… it looks like there are apple projects to be done more or less round the calendar!

GLT set, early evening

Massive thankyou to all 500 and more of you who came to Cotesbach on Saturday and made it yet another fantastically successful Music in the Yard. Despite being hampered by the rain in the morning, a brief and unexpected power failure and the collapse of a rotten bench (sorry!) the whole event was brimming with creative energy. Fabulous results from Energy Tree Art Project – over £500 raised for the Cotesbach Educational Trust (congratulations lucky winner of Summer Sundae tickets!). Above all, thanks to all the performers for a superb quality of music from noon until midnight, and to Dean and Rob who kept the cogs turning smoothly throughout. Look out for photos and videos on Facebook, and see you again in 2013! XOX

Here’s a batch of red onion, pepper and rosemary quiches in progress, and finished, delicious – that’s what to do when the hens are generous enough to provide us with an egg surplus…there may be a few left in the freezer for you to try on Music Day, depending on how hungry we get in the meantime!

The first display of flowering campions the year after planting the pollen and nectar area, it was vivid pink which turned to mauve and white over the season, and attracted large numbers of bees and insects.

Home made Hot Cross buns have become a bit of a tradition for us in recent years because they’re really soo GOOD, a little reward for holding out for 40 days (whatever it was) and a reminder of what Easter’s all about.  Far too many for us to  manage in house, most on the Estate got one and as I was in London for a concert on Maundy Thursday, some ended up in Brixton and even as far afield as Ealing.  I think I feel a limerick coming on, or possibly a challenge to the age-old Hot Cross Bun rhyme.  (Was it Olivia always used to call them Cross Cross Buns?) Abandon post swiftly!