Author Archives: admin

Giddy up

Half term zoomed past in a rather joyous blur. Honestly, dear Reader, we ended up galloping here, there and everywhere. With both girls now utterly smitten by ponies and Poppy proving to be a real natural in the saddle, I couldn’t resist taking them to the National Trust’s Mottisfont to see the current Norman Thelwell exhibition. Pony-tailed learner drivers on rotund ponies…..couldn’t be more true to life chez Margot and Jerry at the moment, dear Reader!

Thelwell 1

The Giddy Gallops trail round Mottisfont’s grounds proved excellent fun – free range children a plenty being put through their paces on a challenging course.

Thelwell2

Point to point racing, clearing the jumps with the dogs (thank you Mottisfont for being so dog friendly – so lovely to be able to take the pups on our outing too)…

Thelwell3

not to mention polishing the saddles, hanging up the tack and shining boots before taking our tired ‘ponies’ for hot chocolate and cake in the café.

Thelwell6

Thelwell4

Giggling over Norman Thelwell’s cartoons and illustrations and marvelling at the 70 original artworks including stunning depictions of local landscapes, it proved to be the perfect day out for the Horse Mad Two from Hampshire. Watching Poppy and Primrose cantering their imaginary steeds back to the ‘horsebox’ (masquerading as a very muddy Land Rover), I found myself hoping that these two little girls never grow too old for ponies. Poor Jerry. We’ll be bankrupt before long!

Thelwell7

With the week ahead fast approaching, we managed to squeeze in a little brunch at the fabulous new look Long Barn café. Such a treat.

Lashings of toast with raspberry and lavender jam, gargantuan coffees, hot bacon rolls for the girls and even time for a bit of browsing – Long Barn’s displays always have me in magpie mode, coveting everything in site!

Long Barn 7

With half term over, Jerry and the girls back to the grindstone and a mountain of deadlines looming over me, I am wondering if I should take up a permanent pew at the Long Barn to see me through until the Easter hols……coffee and cake on hand at all times. Wonder if they need a writer in residence, dear Reader?

A little slow food love

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January over in a flash, February trying to race past the post. Where HAS the time gone, dear Reader? Already at half term, at this rate it’ll be Christmas again before I know it. Busy isn’t even the word. What with new columns here and there, and work on something a bit bigger too, I think that I’ve spent at least half of the last month and a half mopping floors and spraying them with doggy disinfectant due to Piddling Piglet, also known as spaniel pup Dora. Perfect in every way except the fact that at 17 weeks old, if it’s cold or rainy outside, Dora will come back in from the garden and decide that the dining room floor is much nicer to widdle on than wet grass. It is a good job that she is so utterly adorable…..
Dora Paws

Dora hasn’t been the only thing contributing to puddles indoors either. Thanks to Storm Imogen, the sitting room ceiling decided to spring rather a big leak (again) and we awoke to the sound of steady dripping one morning. We are lucky that that’s all it was. The wind in the night was battering the house with such force that we thought the windows would blow in and trees hanging precariously over us would crush the house. The mini greenhouse took to flying and was last seen going over the garden gate and onto the lane. Poor old hens thought that Chicken Little’s prophecy was more fact than fiction too. Still other than the roof and a fair bit of debris in the garden, all was well.

Henny Pen

On the subject of the hens, dear Reader, we have some sad news to share. We lost our two favourite hens over Christmas. Not to Mr Fox but to a serious case of gapeworm that came on too suddenly to cope with usual treatment. Henny Penny and Layla were quarantined in a makeshift chicken hospital (the girls’ wendy house) but despite all our care, both passed away within 24hrs of each other. It was Henny’s death on Christmas Day that was perhaps the most devastating for all of us, with Poppy weeping buckets. She really was such a plucky hen – so funny to watch and bags of character. Silly to be so sad about losing a hen but she really was exceptionally special. The coop just isn’t the same without her and with only three remaining, it may be time to think about some new girls joining us.

Hens

With snowdrops on the ground and the bluebells beginning to wake from their winter’s nap, it’s time to start thinking about tidying things up a bit. Well in the garden at least, since the walls are too wet and the brickwork needs to dry out before it can be repaired. Too depressing to look at the forecast and spy yet more rain on the horizon. Still new roses need potting up for growing up the house, a lot of demolition work is already complete and plans for the kitchen garden are all sketched out and seeds purchased – the garden is almost unrecognisable. Thank goodness too as I had the lovely Becs Parker from BBC Radio Solent’s The Good Life here recording a series of three new recipes from Margot’s Kitchen – Slow Food for Gardeners. Tune in on Sunday 14th Feb from 1pm-2pm – no doubt you’ll hear Monty and Dora giving their woofs of approval in the background.

What better way to feed the soul on Valentine’s Day than with a bit of slow food love, dear Reader. Call it a big hug and kiss from me to you. Perfect whether you’re gardening, dragging the small ones and pups on a walk in the countryside (this passes for romance at Margot and Jerry HQ) or sinking into an armchair to while away the day with a good book.

Slow Cooked Spicy Beef Short Ribs with Chipotle Beans

Chipotle beans and spicy beef

Marinade for beef short ribs

beef short ribs or brisket

1 tsp celery salt

1 tsp smoked paprika (hot or sweet depending on how spicy you like it)

1 tsp of mixed peppercorns (grind these in a pestle and mortar)

1 tsp mustard powder

2 tbsp runny honey

1 garlic clove, whole

500ml good quality beef stock

1/2 can of real ale

Add all the ingredients for the marinade and rub onto the short ribs. Leave to marinade overnight or for at least 4-6 hours. Overnight is best for maximum flavour. When you are ready to cook, seal the meat on a high heat until all the surfaces have colour. Use a large pan with a lid to do this as you will be cooking the beef for hours and hours in its marinade. Once all the meat is brown on the outside, pour over beef stock and ale, pop on the pan lid and place in a low oven (no more than 120 degrees) for slow cooking. The ribs will be ready when the meat can be pulled apart with two forks.

Take the ribs out of the pan once cooked and leave to one side to shred the meat from the bones. Pop the pan on the stove and reduce the liquid that is left by half. As it reduces, add 1 tbsp of tomato ketchup and a dash of Worcestershire sauce to thicken it. Pour this over the shredded beef to serve.

Chipotle beans

1 onion

2 tsp chipotle paste

1 tbsp pomegranate molasses

1 can of haricot beans (include all the juice in the can too)

salt and pepper

Cook this at the same time as the beef short ribs as the beans will be really tender if slow cooked and have bags of flavour too. Fry roughly chopped onion in a pan (needs to have a lid so a casserole dish with lid would work too), adding the chipotle paste and pomegranate molasses. Fry until the onion has softened a little and is coated in the paste and molasses. Then add the can of beans and mix until combined. Pop in low oven alongside the beef to cook for at least 3 hours. The beans should look thick and be squishy to the touch. Check the beans after an hour or so and see if you need to add a little water if they are looking a little dry rather than unctuous.

To serve the beef and beans, warm a few tortillas in the oven, add some chopped coriander or parsley, a squeeze of lime juice and a good dollop of crème fraiche/soured cream.

Heaven and you won’t be slaving over the stove all day either! Happy Valentine’s Day, dear Reader.

Monty and Dora

Margot’s 12 Faves of Christmas

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With Poppy’s 4th birthday out of the way and a week of cards and cake dutifully observed, Christmas has finally entered the cottage. A huge succession of large parcels have descended (thank goodness for next day delivery) and in true last minute Margot form, all food bar the main event arrived by the back door in time too. The postman and I are on first name terms and he brings Monty biscuits. Keep it between us, dear Reader…..I have panic bought pretty much everything for Christmas. Every year I promise myself that I will have everything ready by the beginning of December so that I can actually enjoy the lead up to the big festive day and apart from the year that Poppy was born, I haven’t managed to be even vaguely organised! However, I’ve decided that the best way to combat all the Christmas rush and stress is to take a leaf out of the Danes’ book and embrace ‘hygge’. Everything else can wait.

candles

From what I can gather, Hygge (pronounced hooga) is all about the art of cosiness – enjoying good things with good people, creating a magical glow with candelight, making time to stop and think, appreciating what we have, rather than wanting more…… The perfect winter antidote. So this Christmas, I shall making like a Dane, feasting with the people I love, taking a moment to stop and stare at the roaring fire in the grate (whilst sipping sloe gin obviously, dear Reader), remembering that cooking Christmas lunch is only like cooking a Sunday roast and switching off from the world outside to make Lego farms with Poppy and Primrose, sip hot tea, eat crumpets, savour long muddy walks in the woods, scoff Quality Street, finally watch the end of Mad Men and dive into my latest haul of Raffaela Barker novels.

Before I sign off until the New Year though, dear Reader, I thought I’d share my 2015 Christmas favourites with you – my 12 ‘faves’ of Christmas….

Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without a pheasant wreath so here is this year’s homemade effort. Thanks so much to Phil the pheasant who was trapped in the dog proof fencing and as I went to rescue him, decided to fly off, leaving me with all his tail feathers in my hand! Phil, I do hope you haven’t been the butt of numerous jokes – pop back and I’ll find you a jumper.

Christmas wreath

2. Despite the ridiculously unseasonal weather, I will STILL be snuggling down on the sofa with my favourite people by the fire, even if it means we will be wearing t-shirts and drinking pina coladas in the sitting room. Letters written to the Big Man have already been laid on the fire and we watched as the smoke curled up the chimney, hoping they reach him in time.

Fire

3. Hot steaming mugs of tea and good books with my beautiful cashmere bed socks before everyone else gets up – Yawn London you have made my Christmas this year so a huge thank you to you.

Yawn

4. Finding out who’s been naughty or nice with Primrose and Poppy at the Long Barn in Alresford – really magical and so much fun. FC Long Barn

5. Our very own handmade pigs in blankets from our first pig, Cumberland.

Pigs in blankets 6. How could I forget the Christmas tree? Ours doesn’t go up until after Poppy’s birthday but I adore it when it is finally in situ – you can’t beat the smell of fir in the house. I even managed to embrace the tree decoration free for all…….

Christmas tree

7. We always have a new book for Christmas and Christmas week, we read our favourite Chistmas bedtime stories including an Oxford Annual of Christmas I’ve had since I was 6! Poppy and Primrose love the stories of Victorian Christmases and Mummers. However, the book that is asked for time and time again has to be The Jolly Christmas Postman.

Jolly Postman

8. Christmas Monty – I promise he hasn’t eaten Father Christmas but he IS terribly suspicious of men in red suits falling down the chimney….

Christmas Monty

9. We’ve been so busy with one and thing another, that I forgot to tell you about a new four legged friend of ours. Introducing Willow, the 28 year old Welsh Mountain pony. A very sweet farmer’s daughter who lives nearby asked us if we could fuss over her old pony, groom her and take her out for hacks. As you can imagine, it was like all Poppy and Primrose’s Christmases had come at once and now it’s Willow this and Willow that. Christmas Eve will see us taking carrots to her and her horsey companion. A complete wish come true for 2 pony mad girls and 1 pony mad Mummy, dear Reader. Jerry has taken to frowning at the number of riding hats and paraphernalia in the hallway……

Willow

10. Cheese. Need I say more. I have a fridge full and it makes me rather happy, dear Reader. Oh that and the Christmas Double Issue of Country Life! I shall be sneaking down the stairs in the dark, Nigella style, to midnight feast on Stilton and Tunworth cheese whilst reading a page or two of this country Christmas treat.

Christmas CL

11. Winter walks – in between all the feasting and present giving, there’s nothing like trudging up to the woods and blowing away the cobwebs. Can’t wait for a crisp frost to coat our little corner of countryside.

winter leave

12. Perhaps the best thing under the Christmas tree this year will be our newest addition…. Meet Isadora, dear Reader. Dora for short. All black velvet and gorgeous puppyness. Arriving on an early Christmas delivery, we’ve already been enjoying plenty of cuddles. Jerry certainly knows how to get a Christmas present right! However, Monty is still not too sure if it is love at first sight. He will be taking a view on the whole puppy pulling his ears and sleeping on his bed situation, post Christmas.

Dora

SO that takes us to 2 cats, 2 dogs, 5 hens, 1 pony and a pig in the freeezer……wonder what else we can find a home for in 2016?!! I would say that we were mad but if you’ve been reading this since the very beginning, then you already know that, dear Reader! Wishing a very Happy Christmas to you and yours – may your Christmas be filled with feasting, plenty of cosiness and most importantly, love, peace and a little gin. See you on the other side x

Back to school

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With the festive train fast approaching and looking for some foodie inspiration, I jumped at the chance to trot off back to school, dear Reader. Cookery school to be exact – following a wonderful invitation from Season Cookery School at Lainston House, part of the Exclusive Hotels group. Considering that this was the first time in goodness knows how long that I have been allowed out without my 7 and 3 year old chaperones, you can imagine I was more than a bit excited.

Lesson of the day – bread making.

Season Cookery School runs a variety of cookery courses to suit all skills, levels and interests. From courses to help you impress your dinner guests to knife skills and something perfect for this time of year – Christmas cooking for the day itself or festive feasts over the course of the week of Christmas. Bread making was a perfect choice for me though, dear Reader as I have been keen to brush up on my dough skills for some time. A great opportunity to learn some more tips and tricks to have me baking with success every time at home.

The school kitchen has a wonderful layout and setup and all in the grounds of the stunning Lainston House Hotel – ooh it was like walking into Masterchef kitchen itself, dear Reader!

Harriet Mitchell, our chef and teacher for the morning (much less scary than Monica Galetti), made sure that we got cracking with our prep and was exceptionally good at taking the recipes step by step, demonstrating each process and explaining the theory behind using particular techniques. Fresh yeast was a new one for me but the results were far better than my attempts with dried yeast at home – definitely a top tip and much easier to find in the shops than you think! Simply ask your local bakery or supermarket instore bakers.

From focaccia

to bloomers

scones

to pizza

A wonderful selection of recipes to work on, plenty of time to ask questions and for good measure, a bit of time sitting by the oven door with everything crossed GBBO style! Amazing how competitive all of us on the course became with each other!

Afterwards, lunch and a chance to taste our efforts. A fabulous morning with plenty of laughs that has left me armed with ‘cheffy’ knowledge to go home and experiment with in my own kitchen. Thanks so much to Sylvain Gachot, Cookery school manager and Harriet Mitchell, Chef de Partie at Pennyhill Park. I shall certainly be popping in a request to Father Christmas for another day at Season Cookery School. I do hope I have been good enough, dear Reader!

Stamp revolution

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The cottage is in need of some serious love. So far our list of to-dos include a broken loo, broken shower, fraying carpet, new curtains, damp in the hallway….. I could go on, dear Reader. After water poured through the ceiling during last year’s storms, we set about sprucing things up a bit but the novelty of decorating every weekend quickly wore off! Now as we hurtle towards Christmas, I keep thinking that I must declutter, paint and sort out the broken spindles on the staircase after the great indoor sledging competition of 2015. Sadly, we lost 3 to that game one afternoon!

With colour charts and wallpaper samples littering the dining room table, I marvelled at the haul from my latest little find, the English Stamp Company . A family business through and through, the English Stamp Company has specialised in making high-quality, bespoke rubber stamps for over 20 years in their workshop in Dorset. Choosing just the one stamp is pretty much an impossible task as all the designs are unique, beautifully drawn and cut and utterly irresistible to me. I came away with a few…. These fabulous stamps can be used for almost anything from stationery to crafting, wrapping paper and lampshades to tablecloths and walls. I hadn’t thought about using a stamp to decorate the cottage with but the lovely Sasha from the English Stamp Company explained to me that when they first started making stamps, they were used to create bespoke wall patterns – a cracking alternative to wallpaper.

Keen to get a move on with the next phase of cottage interior design, Jerry and I armed ourselves with Little Greene paint (perfect for old houses and the colours are simply stunning too) and set to work transforming our tired old bedroom. With Slaked Lime Deep as the base note colour on the walls, we used French Grey Mid as the accent colour for the design. Our choice of stamp? A rather natty pheasant feather. Perfectly ‘country’.

Working with the stamp was much easier than I imagined it would be. Paint can be applied to the stamp with a sponge and I worked from top to bottom evenly spacing the stamp in a pattern of five, just like the face of a dice as it gave me a bit more of a guide. Some of the feathers have a fainter appearance than others too as the stamp started to run out of paint before being reapplied but I think that it adds a bit more interest to the wall. When finished with stamping, simpy wash the stamp in warm soapy water and leave to dry. All the beauty of wallpaper and none of the sticky mess and mismatched patterns!

After dyeing the curtains a soft grey too to blend in, our bedroom feels so wonderfully cosy and I am now a complete stamp convert, dear Reader. The room almost resembles one of those fabulous double page spreads on period properties from Country Homes and Interiors – all 17th century wooden beams and shades of grey (not 50, steady on dear Reader). I have already bought a fabric inkpad in gold and intend to go mad with an acorn stamp and some lampshades for the guest bedroom, the girls have been badgering Jerry and I to cover their bedroom top to toe with stamped woodland creatures and best of all, both my mother and my mother in law thought that we had used hand printed wallpaper – the effect is so stunning. I would have shown you the whole room in its glory but it was its usual chaotic state and I thought I might just spare you a glimpse into our life of untidiness, dear Reader – piles of books by the bed, pens scattered on every surface, rogue Lego, clothes draped on an armchair and a cat, trying to look inconspicuous, curled up on the fur bedspread. Another time.

With Christmas a few weeks away now, I shall be making some hand printed wrapping paper too. You MUST go and take a look at the Christmas Collection from the English Stamp Company – perfect for cards, wrapping, hand printed napkins and tablecloths. It’s a wonderful way to put your own stamp on things, so to speak! I might even get my own Margot stamp drawn up….now there’s an idea, dear Reader.

Margot Tries the Good Life

A chronicle of the transformation from self-confessed townie to country bumpkin