Derby Punks

One of my favourite authors is Roddy Doyle.  Not that I get much chance to read fiction nowadays.  Most of the books I do read are on topics like business or food or renovations or interior decorating or or or ... you know - 'how to' books. And I do it out of necessity, seeing as we are doing everything ourselves, for the first time. 

Eva.

Getting back to Roddy Doyle... many of his stories make me think of my own childhood and life at home with four older brothers.  Let me show you:

From left to right: Brother Gary (3rd boy), Brother Alan (1st born), brother Brian (2nd boy).  

Brother Robin (4th boy).  And then, there's me, as you know:

Helen (1st girl, 5th and last child).

What always cracks me up about these old photos are our hair styles and the clothes we wore.  Mam knitted almost every jumper that ever graced our tiny backs.  They were usually bright colours, so that she could '...spot 'em in a crowd...' as she would say. They lasted for decades and were worn by all of us (and others in between).  Usually, the pants were too large, hence the belts and / or braces holding them up, way above our waists.  Gotta love the high waists!

Don't we all look like butter wouldn't melt in our mouths? Don't be fooled; - each and every angelic child you see above was once a gang leader in our Midlands neighbourhood.  The Mods, The Troggs, The Dogs, The Bovver Boys, The Skinheads, The Slapheads, The Scrappers (in no particular order).  Mostly, though, we were known (and feared) by our surname, and on any given day, in alley ways and entry ways, down streets with either terraced houses, semi or detached and even on the new estates, you could hear local kids shout out to their mams, in somewhat high-pitched, anxiety filled voices:

"Mam, mam!  It's the Hudsons!"

Food Gardening and the Machinist Cooks!

If you look carefully at the photo below,  you will notice raspberry canes growing in between apple trees.  I can just imagine both of them together in a pie....

I love permaculture and companion planting.   My brother, Gary, told me years ago that the gardeners of old would plant by the moon.  They somehow knew what to plant depending on the phase of the moon. When the Machinist's Ouma was still alive, she often attempted to share her love of plants, flowers and trees with us. Random gifts of greenery in washed out jam tins were common.  A week at our home and their demise was common too.  It didn't stop her green-generosity, though.  The Machinist reckons she'd be smiling down from Heaven if she could see us now, knowing all her efforts were worth it.

She must have sensed our potential....

Today, our garden is brimming with life.  When we are in the pool, we are surrounded  by trees - most of them fruit bearing. It's gotten to the stage that I have to transplant and / or give plants away. 

Said raspberry canes were recently tranplanted to a damper spot, right up against the back orchard fence (corrugated zinc-allum, dug into the soil and cemented, for snake-prevention because of my Ophidiophobia). The Machinist surrounded the canes with thick lucerne mulch, and covered them with square mesh frames. Rusted. (Not the tin roof the B52's sing about).

With bum in air and head to the soil, I scoured the rest of the orchard for weeds, tugging madly at dominating thistles, while protected with leather welding gloves. It's a good job I'm hidden in the garden. How the Machinist must love me....

And talking of the Machinist, he made a delicious meal tonight.  Ground beef with sauteed celery, fennel, herbs, red onions and carrots over rice noodles. 

"Would you like some more, Babe, or do you want to leave room for a surprise I have for you?  Or, would you like both?"

"Both, please". 

Come on, I had to. It's polite.

Later, the Machinist disappeared into the kitchen, and came back carrying two dishes of The Surprise.  Cherries in Syrup with whipped cream.

Can  you feel it?

A Legacy of Analysing

Reading through my peeps earlier this morning and particularly the post by Grandma Nina, made me think of helping the Machinist the other day. 

Together, we were working on the stainless steel walls for the Pie Shop's kitchen. Local council's don't mind stainless steel walls or tiled walls.  Financially, it is cheaper for us to line them with stainless steel (a no brainer). Anyway, what the Machinist does is cut the length of stainless to size, fold the edges, 'rough' up the rear side of the steel sheet with an angle grinder, add glue along the roughed up lines, then add wood board to the steel sheet.  The reason he does this is so that the steel sheets remain taught, as the wood gives them extra strength.  It is a long, tedious and labour intensive process as each wall sheet weighs A LOT and we struggle to get them into place to match up with the steel framework and brackets the Machinist has already welded on the wall.

(That was a mouthful. Hope you can follow...)

To get back to Grandma Nina's thoughts on being particular about the work she does, (and in particular - parylisation by analysation), it struck me how alike she and I are in this particular 'field'.

Case in hand:

We had cut the stainless steel sheet to size on this machine:

Then we had to fold the edges on this machine:

We shuffle the stainless steel sheet into position, so that the marks on the steel line up with the folder guides.  The Machinist looks to me and I give him the 'nod' (or not) and he then presses a button and the machine folds the steel.  I was having trouble analysing whether the marked sheet lined up EXACTLY with the guides.

Me to self:

"Is it 1mm out?"

"What will happen when the guides come down - will they push the sheet a little?"

"Should I allow another one milimetre just in case?"

Then the Machinist to me:

"Are you ready?"

"Are you sure?"

"I'm waiting for a response from you.  Don't give me the thumbs up.  Give me the nod, then I'll know".

After all the heat in the workshop, it was unbelievingly, refreshingly good to take a dip in the pool, where all thoughts of accuracy, analysation and hot, heavy work faded into the depths of chlorine-shocked water.

A (Very Young) Machinist's Wife

This is me, sporting one of mam's spaz-cuts, wearing a woolly ex-jumble sale frock (mam also made a lot of cotton frocks for me, 'cos I would change each lunch time.  Don't ask. Just one of those things...).  The school photo was probably taken after I'd had my morning bottle of milk, (hence the ample tummy) - gratis and courtesy of Southgate Infants School, Alvaston, Derby England.  Circa 1965.

Fun Pics from Days Long Gone...

The Machinist and I, and our first-born, Emma-Lee.  She won the Crawling Race and Best Dressed Baby of the Day

Helen and Emma-Lee - posing for the local newspaper, with runner-up baby. 

Pie Love

"I was just wondering if you had an estimated opening date?


Myself and several mates regularly ride our motorbikes to Goulburn on weekends and would love to use your pie shop as our mid morning / lunch stop for food and drinks. Often we use the Bush Ranger hotel, but prefer to use this as our return stop on the way back to Canberra.

Looking forward to seeing you guys in business!!


Cheers"


~ Cranston ~