Frost and Fog

The village is swathed in fog this morning and Jack Frost is also nipping hard. The place is deserted apart from myself and a couple from Melbourne, Australia who are frustrated at the lack of unmurky photo opportunities. Being an early riser I have noticed on frosty mornings that it is relatively warm first thing in the day and that it only becomes really cold when the sun rises. This seems a bit of a paradox, but I'm sure that there is a rational explanation.

A Competition.......

Below is a fruit which is ready to pick at this time of year.  There is a tree near the Square which is full of them.  But what is the name of the fruit?  The winning answer will be drawn on Saturday 18th December and the prize will be a Bibury worktop protector [the one with the brown trout and the rainbow trout] which will be sent to the winner completely free!  Please email any answers to richard@rawilliams.com with the address you would like the prize to be sent to - Good Luck!!

Old Map

The rain is teeming down outside and the cars are sploshing down the road.  The shop is very quiet at this time of year and it has given me time to study an old map of the village which was hand drawn in 1769.  The copy I have was kindly given to me by a friend, who procured it from the County Records Office.  The one thing that is most striking about the map is how few buildings there were in the village at the time.  The Church [of course], the Bibury Court, Arlington Mill and Arlington Manor are the most prominent ones and then there are a few cottages scattered here and there.  Arlington Green was then a collection of four or five houses and seems very different from the hotch potch of cottages that it became in later years.  It makes me realise how busy the village was during the last part of the eighteenth century, when most of the village seems to have been constructed.  It appears that the village boomed during these years of the Agricultural Revolution and it must have been a noisy, bustling place and far from the rural idyll that we often project onto the past. 

The rain clears at last.

Cider Making

My cider making season ends soon and what a productive one it has been!  I estimate that I have made nearly twenty gallons which should be ready for drinking around Christmas time.  There are four different types of apple; dessert, culinary, cider and general purpose.  Gloucestershire has hundreds of different varieties of apples which range over the four different apple types.  Many villages have their own specific variety which historically was put to one use or another.  Some colourful examples are Arlingham Schoolboys, Bastard Underleaf, Hagloe Crab and Hens Turd.  The latter is from the village of Rodley and the origins of its name are a mystery. 

Although we have loads of apples here in Bibury there does not appear to be one specific local variety and the closest ones appear to be the Ampney Red [from the village of Ampney Crucis being around 3 miles away] and the Siddington Russett [which is about 6 miles away].   Both of these are dessert apples.  I wish I could report on the 'Bibury Bastard' or even the 'Arlington Crab', but alas no. 

This part of the county does not appear to have been historically a cider making area.   Cider making was a very important part of the rural economy, in most areas, up until the First World War.  Each farm would have had its own cider mill and press and for much of the 18th and 19th centuries farm workers would have received part of their pay in cider. 

Due to the apparent lack of cider making locally, I am unable to find any cider apples and make do with a mixture of Bramley's [culinary], dessert apples and crab apples.  The latter are found in hedgerows and are a close relation to the cider apple being high in tannins and acids, both of which are crucial for a good cider.  The dessert apples add the all important sugar which is fermented into alcohol during the cider making process.  I have sourced these from two derelict orchards near to the Church which are full of different varieties and must have been glorious in their prime.

If you are interested in Gloucestershire apples then please go to the Gloucestershire Orchard Group website http://www.gloucestershireorchardgroup.org.uk/ which is an excellent organisation.  If you are visiting the Cotswolds then an afternoon spent in the Severn Vale part of the county would be time well spent.  Only half an hour away from here and a fascinating place.  If you would like a glass of my cider then call into the shop around Christmas time and you will be more than welcome to have one.  Cheers!

Hawthorn Berries

This autumn there has been an abundance of hawthorn berries.  These little red berries have long been a part of English folk lore and country tradtion.  There are several old sayings which relate to the haw:  'when all fruit falls, welcome haws' is one that I especially like as they do make a particularly good wine.  Last year's haw wine is now ready to drink and the flavour encapsulates all that is good about the hedgerow. 

Another medieval saying regarding the haw which fills me with foreboding is 'many haws, many snaws'.  If this one holds true then we are in for a bumper crop of snow this winter.  A lovely family from Finland, where they really do have cold weather, came in to the shop last week, and for some reason we chatted about windows.  Apparently, in Finland it is illegal to have anything other than quadruple glazed windows.  I explained that here in Bibury, where most of the buildings enjoy Listed status, it is illegal to have anything other than single glazed windows.  Better get some logs in then!

Thirsty Work for an Old Steam Engine.

This wonderful old steam engine stopped in front of the shop to take on fresh supplies of water from the river.  It took around fifteen minutes to fill the tank and then it very slowly pulled away again.  More of a great beast than a machine it was obviously much loved and cared for by its operatives.  The Korean ladies in the photo below were quite smitten by it.

Another go at Blogging....

Now it's autumn here I've decided to overcome my blog phobia and have another crack at it.  Things have quitened down here somewhat since the summer so I'm going to adopt a policy of 'little and often'.  The website has been hacked into and vandalised.  The hacker took a particular dislike to the little teddy bears which I rank as heinous cyber crime.  So I'm in the process of repairing the site and adding more gifts to it.  Wish me luck!

On a different tack I have noticed that the grass around the river banks is often streaked with a silvery deposit.  I have worked out that this is heron poo.  As they take flight from a morning's fishing they almost always emit a long streak of sparkling deposit.  On closer inspection the poo is entirely composed of fish scales which contrasts vividly with the lush green grass. 

The herons are numerous on the River Coln and they have been joined recently by their cousins the egrets.  They are small, white herons which I think originate in the Med' and the Middle East.  Apparently they started colonising these islands in 1986 and have bred successfully since then.  Being a non-native {I can't spell indigenous} species I wonder if they have had an adverse affect on any native species? 

Anyway, I am trying to sell these toughened glass work top protectors at the moment with little success.  They have a coloured drawing of a brown trout, which is indijinous, and one of a rainbow trout, which is non-endegenus, and the word 'Bibury' in the middle.  I like them and will soon put them on the website [when I work out how to].  In the meantime if anyone wants one for a fiver then please email me.