Post Comment Love 11-13 February

February 11, 2022

Welcome to this week’s #PoCoLo - a friendly linky which I co-host with Suzanne, where you can link any post published in the last week. We know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked and share some of that love. If you were here last week it was great to have you along, if you’re new here this week we’re pleased you’re here.

We spent the weekend in Norfolk visiting my parents, and while the weather wasn’t great - it’s February after all - we did manage to get out and about a bit. A visit to my all time favourite Norfolk town, Holt for a short bracing wander around the shops and a meal out Saturday evening. Then on Sunday we made a visit to the farm shop where dad bought me some daffodils. By Tuesday they were fully out, spreading their cheer.

The kitchens at Belvoir Castle

February 9, 2022

I don’t know about you, but I find kitchens in large stately homes fascinating, and those in castles even more so. Above stairs at Belvoir was fantastic, but below stairs even more so - maybe it’s because I know my place, or maybe its the industriousness of them, but I know they’re always worth a look. The old kitchen at Belvoir Castle was at the centre of a series of rooms which includes larders, stores and rooms for the senior kitchen staff.

a look along the kitchen with a wooden sink, freestanding wooden table and copper saucepans hanging along the wall

In this kitchen there were thirty plus staff preparing meals for the family, guests and the staff. It doesn’t bear to think how much food and drink was prepared in this space with its coal fired ranges and glorious copper pots and pans. And let’s not even think about keeping it or those pans absolutely gleaming.

the ovens along one side of the kitchen with an open fire with a large copper 'hood'

The simplicity of the wooden lead-lined sink on tiled pillars tell its own story - and can most probably tell us many, many stories of its own.

a wooden lead lined sink on tiled pillars with two taps out of the tiled splashback

large copper urns in the background, in the foreground a large wooden kitchen table with 'fake' food - fruit, strawberry tarts

One of the other rooms that was open to visit was The Pastry, which had a dual purpose. For what it’s named after - there’s a marble slab set below the window, which I don’t seem to have captured, but that was designed to provide a cool, dry and calm area where the cook could prepare delicate pastries and more I’m sure.

a separate side room with a table laid with blue/white crockery. A dresser in the background with more crockery, storage jars and bottles

The room was also used as a space for the cook and kitchenmaids as a dining room and rest room, and it looks much more like the country kitchens we’re more familiar with - complete with some metal signs and tins that I’d be very happy to own myself.

a metal lyons tea sign and a breakfast biscuit tin on top of the cupboards

a close up of the end of the table laid with a place setting, and the wooden carver chair pulled out the dresser with blue/white crockery displayed in a symmetrical pattern in the background

Seeing these spaces empty is as I said before fascinating, and I bet even my most realistic visualisations are a patch on what life in kitchens like these were really like. I think I much prefer being able to imagine what it might be like, rather than experiencing them first hand - cooking meals for more than two people can be stressful enough, especially as there’s been really little opportunity to do that over the past few years.

Post Comment Love 4-6 February

February 4, 2022

We headed over to Canary Wharf in the week and while we were there had dinner in Seoul Bird which serves Korean Fried Chicken, and it was so tasty. A bit greasy for me to eat too much, and of course we over ordered but what was really good was the supply of take out boxes and bags available for people just like us, and there were quite a few that we saw too. We made good use of it the next day for lunch, which as you’ll know from previous posts, home lunches can be more challenging than evening meals, though we’re getting much better - and leftovers is becoming quite a lunch staple.

This week I’m sharing a photo of my mug because we had a bit of a tea bag crisis here this week. Somehow - probably through drinking too much tea - we were down to our last tea bag. Shocking news for a working day that needed to resolved pretty quickly, and was with a quick trip to our local M&S. It made my team mates laugh, but we have got into a habit of drinking perhaps more tea than usual, so it’s easy to see how it happened.

A mug filling most of the shot, with a yellow and orange flower pattern