This week I treated myself to Ian McEwan’s 2007 novel On Chesil Beach and have had three attempts at starting it. Firstly in bed on Tuesday but the hour was late and my work ethic kicked it out of my hands and onto the floor, the story bearly leaving a ghostly image in my mind. I felt compelled to try again last night but I fell headlong into a deep sleep whilst pondering over ‘should I start at the beginning again or risk diving in at page 4?’. This morning the wind had blown so hard that the rail lines were down north of my jouneys start and I spent sometime huddled up on a waiting train, glued to a fine jet of excessively super-heated air and looking out on the horizonal trees, I decided time was in abundance and it was the moment to get started on the paperback. There are several dilemmas to encounter in the process of book reading but for me number one is time, time enough to reach deep into the writer’s mind and the plot, to engage and love and need to continue, in the case of On Chisel Beach this ceased to be a dilemma after completing page 2. The emerging concern being the jouney to my destination is so short and I was too engaged to want to put the book down, I considered what might happen should I remain on the train, miss my stop, phone in from London, oops sorry!, fell asleep. It wasn’t a choice, I am not that kind of person, well only in my head.
I was surprised by how the story almost instantly took my attention, whether that was a consequence of the false starts or that it is so naturally engrossing for me, I suspect, is yet to be discovered. The style is easy on the mind, the narrative crisp and the imagery in my head clear, his patterns of words comforting my memories of times past and previously lost. I began to think, time is an odd concept, things that are past are not lost forever they are just not currently in fashion.

This morning I sat and listened to a lone Great Tit sing along to the congregation and choir at Ely, the human voice can be beautiful but this little bird sang gloriously in the warm Winter sun, so magnificent was his song that mans offerings to his God were nothing but a distant blur of tonal variation in the mightly presence of the Great Tit. I made my own offerings in the form of scratches on paper, nothing by comparison to the great stone workers of medieval England.

In pre-history the Fenlands of East Anglia were at risk of flooding from the sea and rivers. In the 16th and 17th centuries the Fenland was not a hospitable area. Upland river and gale-driven tides alternated their flooding influence on the area, some of which was dry enough for summer pasture, but submerged in winter, whilst other areas were flooded all year round.
The first major attempt to drain the Fens was undertaken in 1630, when the Dutch engineer Vermuyden was engaged by the Earl of Bedford to drain the ‘Great Level’ of the Fens. In 1637 he completed the straight watercourse from Earith to Denver on the tidal River Ouse which is now known as the Old Bedford River. This was designed to cut off the loop of the river through Ely and shorten its distance to the sea by 16km.
In 1650, Vermuyden was employed to undertake further works. During the 1650’s a vastly extended network of cuts and drains and sluices was completed. Parallel to the Old Bedford, a new river, called the New Bedford River (or Hundred Foot) was cut. In 1651 the first Denver Sluice was constructed across the Ely-Ouse at the lower end of the New Bedford. This excluded tidal water from the South Level Rivers and turned it up the New Bedford. A flood storage reservoir of 2270 ha was created between the two new rivers, and embankments built to contain flood water and tides. This area became known as the Ouse Washes. The photograph shows the Hundred Foot River in the foreground and some extensive flooding in the Washes, currently this is sufficiently flooded to disable the short cut through from Welney to Ely. I am standing up on the bank which holds back the water that sits 4 or 5 metres above the level of the Fens, having been drained the Fens shrank back and in some areas fell up to 1.5 metres below sea level.

I drew this with a Xenox 0.2 pen, a sort of disposable alternative to a good old Rotring, doesn’t clog up, can be moderately abused and is colour fast. The nib is far finer than I usually use and so it brings with it a slightly more thoughtful line, I quite like the lighter touch for a change.

A slightly more frantic drawing style, these two teenagers sniffed and scratched in unison for the entire train journey and I think their public display came out in the marks I made. Bless them.

I read this recipe in a magazine, it was designed as a side dish but I thought it was plenty rich enough to stand up on its own as a main dish. For 2 people take 3 heads of chicory, trim the stems and cut in half lengthways. Heat up butter and a little olive oil in a large frying pan, place the chicory cut side down and cook to caremalise, turn to brown all round. I also cooked some banana shallots in the same way. Season well. Meanwhile grate finely about 90gms of Gruyere, mix half the cheese with a small pot of Creme Fraise and a teaspoon of grain mustard. Heat the oven to 180 degrees. Line the bottom of a baking dish with the shallots and then place in line the chicory over the top, cover with the creme/cheese mix and top with the remaining cheese and lots of black pepper. Bake until bubbling and brown. The chicory will still have a bitter background taste but if well caremalised it will not be too strong. I served with small carrots and some wholemeal bread to mop up the sauce.

Orecchiette is not a pasta I use often and would not have been my choice for this if I hadn’t been lacking Penne or Fusilli, it tends to cook soft on the surface and dry on the inside but within the veggie sauce and the basil pesto it will get a second exposure to heat in the oven and hopefully mellow in the flavours.
Cut up in a baking dish one onion into 8 top-to-toe sections, 2 peppers [red/yellow] into sections, 4 new potatoes into quarters and coat them in olive oil with salt, pepper and a sprinkling of oregano. Add 8 clovers of garlic, skins on and mix it all together. This goes into a 200 degree oven with a foil covering.
Meanwhile make some basil pesto, a generous hand of leaves, some pine nuts, a clove of garlic and olive oil into a coffee grinder, wizz until a bright green puree, transfer to a dish and stir through some parmesan. Once the potatoes are softening uncover and bake without the foil. Bring a pan of water to the boil and cook the pasta until al dente, stir in the pesto and a bit more parmesan. Once the veg are brown and soft find the garlic and squeeze out onto the veg [it should be soft and sweet] then stir through half a jar of Waitrose Puttanesca sauce [or any slightly spicey tomato sauce] and the pasta. Top with parmesan and dollops [great word!] of creamy but slightly sour goats cheese and bake until hot. You could serve this on toasted Ciabatta or with a green salad.

[an up-date on my latest protest]
I loitered in Tescos by the meat zone, I had already asked how chicken sales were in light of the Channel4 documentary about intensive farming, front-of-house coolness hit me like a freezer door flung open in my face. I questioned politely had they sold any 2 for a fiver intensively reared birds?, I was stared at blankly, did she know what I ment? or are they too afraid to talk about the subject?, instructed to be silent? or did she think me just plain mad?, possibly the later. So I was driven to spy, as I said I loitered by the carnations not 20 foot from the frozen poultry area, and watched, sadly it didn’t take long for an old dear to come to a halt next to the plastic wrap, fleshy chickens. She bent down and rummaged, pulling out three, four, five birds and examining them, poking at the hocks, pushing her glasses up off her nose and raising the little body close to her face, so close she glowed chicken white. She threw back several, disgruntled and increasingly grumpy. Then she snatched out two that she had put to the side, presumably acceptable specimens. Had she seen Hughs program, was she checking for hock burns or was she as I suspect some grizzly punter with a desire for examining dead chickens? I fear she felt that somehow in the mess of chilled carcasses she could find value, but the truth is no matter how hard she may have stared theres no value to be found in that freezer.