July 28th 2022 

My Dear Tan,

What a weekend we had in the woods…cooking feasts over an open fire, spotting forage for harvesting in the autumn – nuts and berries which the squirrels will undoubtedly get to first. It’s a good year for hazelnuts but you have to tune your ‘nut eye’ in as they camouflage remarkably well in their foliage. 

It’s so good for us to turn off the outside world for a couple of days now and then, don’t you think?…To put away clocks and listen to the twitter of birds in the tree tops rather than the discombobulating twitter of social media. We talked of the freedom of our childhoods whilst we played at being humans as if we were children again. What a joy it was!

I got home to find figs on the tree. Not many – only about three but they were rather proud looking things! The fig tree isn’t old, nor is it splendid as some are. 

Affected by our time at the Wood I spent perhaps a little too much time yesterday just looking at things. I watched the mother hen with her chicks and the incubator chicks which are a few weeks younger than her own raised brood. I’d quite like her to adopt them as we have another broody hen who needs to go in the broody coop. However, she’s rather stern with them and I’m not sure that she will take them as her own, so I have to spend a lot of time letting different batches of hens, cockerels and chicks out so that they can have a run around and a dust bath in this hot, dry weather. 

I also spent rather a long time just looking at the fig tree! I noticed that where the large figs are there are no leaves. There are plenty of tiny fig buds nestled in the elbow of stems of leaves and branches so I selected a few and removed the leaves by them to see if this would give the figs more room to grow and also to let the sun filter through to ripen them. I didn’t compost the leaves that I removed however; I went straight inside and made some wine with them. I’d filled about a third of my big fermenting bucket with the leaves (stems removed) and then just added sugar – about 1.25 kg per gallon demijohn and 4.5 L of boiling water per demijohn – I’ve made enough for three demijohns of fig wine. The fig leaves smelled amazing… sort of coconutty and green – because green does have a particular but unexplainable aroma, don’t you think? 

The wine will be for the winter and I will remember standing under the tree in the hot sun, bare feet on warm grass, surrounded by dazzling flowers in the herbaceous border which just does its own thing – this year it’s a gaudy blaze of yellow flowers of all sorts, lilac phlox and verbena, coral and pink roses.

I was hungry by the time I had done this so I made an experimental lunch with fig leaves. I had cooked some barley and very simply fried up some chopped onion with peas, some thyme, black pepper and poppy seeds because I had them to hand and I like the crunchy texture of them. I mixed the barley in with the onions and peas and added a generous splash of soy sauce rather than any salt as I like the umami this lends to the barley which is a great carrier of flavours. 

I had saved a few of the large fig leaves and so I boiled them whole for a minute or so to soften them. They exuded a beautiful chartreuse colour into the water (which would make good tea, I think). I laid them on a chopping board and filled them with some of the barley mixture, folding in the sides of the leaves and then rolling them up into little sausages which I arranged in an oven proof dish. I then made a red wine vinegar, olive oil and garlic vinaigrette which I poured over them. I decided to bake them for 20 minutes. I have to say they were rather pleasant, although the fig leaves were perhaps a little tough for my taste and I would substitute with chard leaves next time I do this dish.

I have a busy day ahead – lots of worldly things to attend to… taxes and bank visits and the dentist but this evening I will be outside sowing the last few seeds of beetroot and carrots to take us through the winter I hope.

Sending you love,

Vicky