We were away for the weekend and now that I am back the garden is shrouded in darkness between most of the hours from when I go to work in the morning until I am back in the evening. It seems a shame that that is how it is going to be until Spring next year when the clocks move again.

In the small amount of light there has been I had time to see that the squirrels have found a way through the plastic netting I put over my second attempt at planting some more tulip bulbs. They simply chewed through it and left a few neat holes where the bulbs had been planted.

I could of course try and look on some bright side and persuade myself that all the squirrels have done is take the bulbs off to somewhere else in the garden to be buried until next Spring by which time they will be gloriously in flower. A naive hope I suspect.

The more tangible good news is that at least one of the cats has now found itself some backbone and a weekend locked out of the house has resulted in one squirrel’s tail carefully laid out on the patio. Somewhere I have some recipes for squirrel. So if the cats are left locked out for long enough they could be bringing me a good square meal.

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In anticipation of that I have cooked myself some proper meals. Last night it was a plate of Moghrabieh with lamb and this evening it has been a baby chicken in a orange stew with burnt rice. They were both very good but the chicken in orange stew probably pipped the post.

Saturday it rained and we went for a quick walk up the Cowley Road. Music was brought and I stocked with four kilo of giant couscous to take back to Birkenhead. The River Cherwell was thick with leaves. After the rain stopped the sun was low in the sky and caught the clouds opposite a bright pink.

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The rain stopped Sunday morning and the sun came out for one of those last autumn days during which the light catches at the turning leaves in the trees bringing out the dirty pinks, reds and oranges.

If I cast my mind back last weekend I wrote about being out in the garden and planting what felt like an hundred tulip bulbs and some garlic. The planting of the tulips involved a smal metal device, probably called a dibber, that was screwed into the ground to a few inches deep and pulled out the with whatever soil had been screwed  caught up in the metal cup, just right for plonking the tulip bulb into the hole and releasing the soil back in. So enthused was I with the job that I didn’t notice that my palms were blistered and blood had been drawn with the use of the metal dibber. When I started to feel the pain it didn’t mater as a hundred tulip bulbs had been planted and my award would come next Spring.

A week later and the patch of ground had been dug over and neat piles of soil were left next to all the holes I had dug and each tulip bulb had gone. Looking round the garden the only possible culprits were the grey squirrels. They had clearly built up some confidence around the cats and had no doubt been watching me dig holes for their the lunch. The cats looked on shamefaced. They knew they had instructions to show no mercy to anything grey, bushy tailed and with a look of aminosity towards my tulip bulbs but all the could do was lick their backsides and fight each other.

So a weekend later more bulbs have been planted and have been marked off with what will probably prove to be some ineffectual plastic.

By way of compensation we have eaten beef stew. A kilo or so of stewing beef cut was into cubes and browned in hot oil and bacon fat with some bits of chopped ham. That was taken out of the pan and three, different coloured onions were sliced, and stirred into the hot oil. They all took on colour.

Garlic was added along with some  ground cinnamon and oregano from the garden. The bef was tipped in along with a few glasses of wine and a couple of tins of chopped tomatoe. A bay leave was pushed in and it was all left to simmer, at low heat for quite a few hours.

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It was very good.

Friday night and the youngest daughter and I seem to have covered a lot of ground including a general discussion around last night’s Question Time and the general unpleasantness of Rod Liddle.

By way of compensation she put in an order for pasta bake, chocolate and coke, and I cooked a partridge.

The partridge was browned in hot oil for a few minutes. Chopped ham was added along with a sliced onion. It was all allowed to cook. As it took on colour a good shake of sherry vinegar went in, followed by some white wine, a bay leave and few strands of saffron. As that started to cook a diced potato went in along with a carrot which had undergone similar treatment. A few pine-nuts were shaken over just before the lid went on for an hour under a low heat.

Ten minutes or so before we ate I stirred in a handful of chopped kale. It was all very good and we listened to Courtney Barnett.

There was also a lot of garlic along the way – fresh from the garden. Let us hope we can have some next year after the bastard squirrels have been at work at what was planted last weekend.