NET POTS

On holiday in Spain I saw a hydroponics shop.
Four inch net pots .22E
Much cheaper than in the UK.Very light so no big problem with weight in the plane.

NEW YEAR, NEW CROPS

Back to reality after the holidays. System and fish all good thanks to my Grandson. Winter broad beans doing well.

UV LIGHTS and OTHER DISTRACTIONS

They say that holidays are a time to recharge your batteries.

Trouble is when you hit 65, everything takes a bit longer.

In Barcelona on my birthday we were upgraded to the Presidential suite.

Gosh. If I had known how well Presidents lived I would have been one earlier.

Private bar. 15th floor. Lights of Barcelona at night!

Not bad!

Home to reality.

One small piece of advice I would give to those contemplating retirement.

Don’t!

You have more time so you need more money.

Plane landed at 23.50. Back to work at 7.55am.

I need to work to maintain my standard of living. Truth is I would also be bored.

Work however sometimes get in the way of doing the things I love.

I can buy pickled onions.

I choose to sit watching old movies wearing a diving mask. Peeling onions.

Pounding cabbage for sauerkraut and coring apples to dry.

I get distracted.

Robert Harris the author was launching his new book in Hungerford. A town about 8 miles away.

My son flew in to Bristol. I picked him up and we went on to The Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. Australia v Fiji . I have to confess I wore an Aussie scarf but chanted Fiji too. An evening to remember.

I wanted to take some local photos.

 This week is, ‘Mop’ week. In the past this was a time local landowners would hire new workers. Today the celebrations include a, ‘fair’ in the main street. I figure you have all seen fairground rides so no photos. Next week.

Busy busy.

 Also a time for reflection.

Five years ago I was diagnosed with cancer. Five year survival prediction. Less than 50%

It has been a great five years!

Looking forward to many more!

Oh! Forgot to say. Added 9watt UV light to my quarantine tank set up.

New fish coming soon.

Life is not about delivering a perfectly preserved body to the finishing line.

It’s skidding across,  at the last second. What a rush!

WONDERFUL WEEKEND

We sailed the boat down to Devizes on Friday. A boat on an English canal travels at around 7 Km/hour. Walking speed. Time to think.Shake the concerns of the World and relax. Watch baby ducks skimming the water surface, to get back to Mum.

Drink tea!

Smoke a cigar!

There are no locks between Pewsey and Devizes but there are two swing bridges.

A swing bridge allows light traffic. Pedestrians and cattle to cross the canal.

Constructed of Oak this is a heavy structure. Normally chained. So only boat owners with the BW ( British Waterways) key or a LOCK handle can open it.

Imagine an old fashioned car staring handle. This is a lock key. Sized to wind lock gates or open swing bridges.

By choice my wife chooses to operate the locks and swing bridges.

I sit on the boat!

Smoking my cigar and sipping my Mojito.

Initially I felt guilty watching her struggling with heavy lock gates and swing bridges.

Many other female partners choose to do the heavy lifting! I watch middle aged women running, lock handle in hand, whilst their male partners steer the boat.

Why?

On the boat twenty feet down in Bath deep lock.Wet,cold and dripping. The sky a small blue oblong above you. I understood.

That little bit of bent metal in your hands empowers you.

We have been to The Devizes Beer Festival many times.

This was their sixteenth year. “ Sweet sixteen”

Organized by CAMRA ( The campaign for real ale) it is beer drinkers heaven.

You need to book online well in advance. They sell out very quickly.

You get an inscribed glass mug. This is your entrance ticket.

This year I lost count of the number of beers available.

Now this is real ale. A living breathing drink.

Two stand out.

White Gypsy(Tipperary Ireland)

Dubhain stout(ABV5.2%) - Classic dry Irish stout.Nice on cask. “ Hello darkness my old friend. I’ve come to talk to you again”

and

Waterloo (Devizes Wiltshire) ABV 4-0%

A special from our local brewer that manages to celebrate the 1974 Eurovision song Contest, a station and a battle, all in one.

Beer. Cigar. Reggae music and Chinese take away. Bliss.

Sailing home on Sunday. Roast Beef and all the trimmings at, The Barge Inn, Honey Street. The perfect end to a wonderful weekend.

I forgot to mention, “The Vaults in Devizes” Our Friday night began here. Our first visit. NOT our last!

Discover. Enjoy.

FRESH WATER MUSSELS

A few kilometers south from my home the Kennet and Avon Canal wends its way through the Vale of Pewsey.

We were moored up for the night but the grandchildren were restless. I gave them a long wire rake and told them to dredge for treasure in the mud alongside the mooring.

Canal beds were traditionally constructed from clay. This was trodden by workers to form the watertight base of the canal. It was called “puddling” Think treading grapes!

i say workers, but in reality it was probably the wives and children of the ‘Navies’ or “Navigators” who built the canal who trod the clay.

The local pub is called, “The French Horn”. Tourists,  who inquire about the brass horn on the wall are told of how the prisoners from the Peninsular War were forced to construct the canal. French survivors from the battles at Salamanca, Badajoz and Cuidad Rodrigo. Reality is they were professional highly skilled Irish Navies.

Picks, shovels, wheel barrows, some horse power and sweat built this amazing, “ Linear water feature” A LWF? No! Its a F****** canal.

Standing on top of the sixteen lock flight at Devizes. The Caen Hill Flight stretches before you in all it’s glory. It takes the Irish to dig a big hole!

Any way!

Apart from various junk the grandchildren dredged up dozens of fresh water mussels.

Larger than sea mussels they soon filled a bucket.

What do we do now Grand father?

Well, of course we purge them in fresh water!

Now what?

We wait!

Possibly the impatience of youth.

Probably the inability of the adult; not to elaborate.

When can we look for the Pearls Grand father?

Two hours purging should be enough!

Boil them.

Well, you don’t find Pearls  in every one!

The hint of diesel on the tip of the tongue was distinctive.

Let’s just stick to the burgers on the BBQ

The canal is dirty slow flowing.

My AP water would be like heaven.

Is there a danger of importing parasites?

How do you put a piece of grit in a mussel to encourage it to make a pearl?

Grelos de Santiago

The small plant in the fore ground is Grelos. Grelos de Santiago.

I bought it on E bay Espana.

It is grown all over northern Spain and is a key ingredient in Caldo de Galicia.

This is a rich stew of pork, beans and potatoes.

Grelos is a member of the turnip family. However it is grown for it’s leaves not the tubar. They add a Kale type strength and bitterness to this stew.

When I have cooked this stew here in the UK I have substituted kale.

I am impatient to try this, once again but with the real thing.

To the English eye Grelos looks like Brussell sprouts.

A thick central stem, but instead of the, baby cabbages, broad leaves.

It is a pick and come again vegetable.

On the,” Camino”

A pilgrimage to the cathedral in Santiago it was a common sight. The thick stem, sometimes three centimeters wide with the broad dark green leaves flanked our journey.

At night in soup or stew a staple.

Roast beef? London.

Pasta? Roma.

Grelos? Galica the Camino!

THE BRUCE TUNNEL

A few miles south of my home The Kennet and Avon Canal winds its way through The Vale of Pewsey

Built between.1794 and 1810. It links London and Bristol.

 Needless, to say along it’s length there are many pubs. Boat men are thirsty people.

The Barge Inn at Honey Street is one such gem. Segments of an episode of ‘Morse’ the TV series were filmed here. I do not know wether the actor, John Thaw was a beer drinker but Morse himself would have approved of the ale.

By the side of the canal time passes slowly. You watch the clouds tempting the White Horse, cut into the hillside opposite, to run after them. She never does! Perhaps the moon will have more luck? Another round?

It is also ‘Crop Circle Central’. 

Croppies, from all over the world come to; not really sure what they do but drink beer and talk. Nought wrong with that.

 One Sunday afternoon I waved at a low flying helicopter. That’s Goldie Hawn they said.  I don’t know. The helicopter dig wiggle it’s tail!

I use that anecdote sometimes to remind my wife. After all these years I still merit the occasional wiggle. Even from two thousand feet!

Today it’s wet and cold.We choose the local pub for our pre Sunday afternoon snooze drinks.

I got chatting. A local boy in his eighties told me; No!  Chronologically speaking that’s not accurate. Geographically  it is.

Anyway we got talking about the K&A as us locals call it.

He told me that his grandfather, a bit of a Jack the Lad, in his day pushed a hand truck through the Bruce Tunnel. Oh yeah sure!

The Bruce Tunnel allows the K&A to pass underneath Savernake Forest. Just under 500 meters long it is the only tunnel on the canal and took three years to complete. 1806 to 1809. 

There is no towpath.

 In the days of horse drawn boats the horses went over the top. The boat men would pull the barge through using the chains fixed to the walls

Even today taking a boat through a tunnel is a strange experience. You hang around a bit at the entrance to make sure nobody is coming the other way. You then sail into the darkness. There are no lights except the boats own.

You steer literally for the light at the end of the tunnel.

The brick walls throw back the sound of the diesel engine on tick-over.

There are drips. At least two always hit me. Cold and dark.

Last time we went through I kept the navigation lights on but switched off the bow light. The grandsons sat on the front with torches. To help me through.

 Their torches guided the way but their eyes lit up the day!

And then you are out! Once more,  back into the light.Generally a bit warmer too.

Just after Christmas in 1895 the frost set in. The canal was frozen for seven weeks reported The Marlborough Times.

His grandfather Mr Bob Davis had been asked to collect goods from Burbage Wharf Goods Station.

Now I was listening.

He said that his grandfather had heard that the canal was frozen and decided to take the short cut through the tunnel.

The ice cold wind blowing from the East through the tunnel had frozen the water in layers.

Cracks radiated out as he slowly pushed the trucks into the darkness.

The chains on the wall were helpful when the trucks broke the surface of the ice.

Half way through near the pumping station the ice was thinner.

He sank through the ice up to his knees. The lower level of ice held up.

With the chain in one hand and the trucks in the other he finally emerged from the end.

Now I was reading. 

He had produced clippings from old editions of The Marlborough Times.

“The extent of the cold can be somehow gauged from the fact that when he emerged triumphant at the other end of the tunnel there were icicles about a foot long hanging from the trucks.”

His achievement was witnessed by Mr Briant. a ganger on the railway, who at that time resided at Wotton Bassett.

When asked..............

“ I’d never do it again, even if I had the chance is Bob’s verdict.

The pub door opened. The cold wind entered.

We looked at one another. No. me neither!

But his eyes lit up the pub.

I will never go through that part of the canal again without thinking of him and his grandfather.

Me Too!

The downside of an outside aquaponics system in the UK is that inevitably you are going to get cold and wet.

I need sunshine! I lipread from outside, on the cold and wet side of the double glazing! Hmm. Me too!

We fled south to Spain for a few days. A walk on the,’Sunny Side’

A ‘Chiringuito’ is a bar/restaurant on the beach.

 I will never tire of watching the Mediterranean. 

Combine this with grilled sardines and a cold white wine. Hmm Me too!

After lunch we found : ‘The Racing Club in Torrox Costa, Malaga, Andalusia, Spain.

On Saturday afternoons they have an open jam session: Mandolin Mick joined us that afternoon. Enjoy!

Another Pig

Writing that piece about shaving a pig on Christmas Eve,  reminded me about another pig I saw last year.

Traveling in the Med last summer I went to the restroom.

A smartly dressed man handed me an expensive camera and asked me to take his photo. Erm? Then I realized that he wanted me to take the photo of him stood next to a drawing on the wall. I did.

He thanked me and left. I got a closer look at the drawing and understood what it was all about.

On the restroom wall

I have always been fascinated with Ancient Rome.

Behind the power and the conquests the technology they developed and used on an everyday basis inspired me.

In the fifties and sixties in the UK most houses were heated in one room.

Pullovers, scarves and ‘balaclava helmets’ were common.

Two thousand years before the Romans had underfloor central heating.

1965 before it arrived in the Fishcake residence.

On trips and holidays I have dragged my family to numerous Roman sites.

In Southern Spain just up the coast from Tarifa is a place called Bolonia or Baelo Claudia.

A fishing village.

As time swept the Roman Empire into history the sands covered Bolonia.

The archaeologists came along and swept it back.

Today you can enter through the main gate and walk the streets.

In the photo you can see the large circular pits used to make ‘Garum’ 

A fish sauce, prized, and used throughout  the Roman World.

Well this a blog about aquaponics!

On the other side of the Med I stood in front of a house once owned by one of the richest men in Pompeii. The fish sauce merchant.

I wonder if he ever visited his factory on the Spanish coast?

Pompeii. For a very long time I dreamed of visiting it. I read all the books. Fiction and nonfiction. I liked Mary Beard’s book especially.

It was a day trip from a cruise ship.

On board they served food around the pool from a purpose built serving counter.

Very similar to the one in Pompeii. 

Sadly no fish sauce. I must make some one day. 

Many of the houses in Pompeii once had extensive and expensive mosaics.

The dog guarding the entrance to many homes has become famous.

This is a job for the junior fishcakes.

My entrance hall is a shade under two meters square.

We blew up a photocopy of the original to fit.

The twenty four sheets of A4 were  stuck together with sticky back plastic. They then cut out the shape. Placed on the floor we chalked the outline.

It guards my house as I sit writing this.

The blood dripping from it’s mouth is junior artistic license.