Flatdogs Very Hot Chillie SAuce

Recipe for: (FLATDOGS) VERY HOT CHILLIE SAUCE

Ingredients:

Spices A

·        125g-250g fresh (red) chillies, stalks removed & chopped

·        65g-80g dried red chillies

·        65g garlic finely chopped

·        125g brown sugar

·        1 thick slice fresh lemon

·        350ml brown or white vinegar

·        10g mixed herbs

·        1 tsp salt

Spices B

·        150ml olive oil

·        100ml ginger beer

·        100ml sherry

·        2 tblsp fresh coriander, very finely chopped

Method:

1.      Place the chillies & the first lot of ingredients in a heavy-based saucepan, and bring to the boil

2.      Simmer gently for 20-25 minutes, then remove from the heat

3.      Strain the liquid, reserving 1tblsp of the liquid chilli stock

4.      Discard the slice of lemon

5.      Using a stick-blender, blitz the chilli pulp, together with the reserved liquid to a pulpy paste

6.      Return this paste to the (cleaned) pan, and add the remaining ingredients

7.      Bring to the boil, then remove from the heat and leave to cool for a few minutes

8.      Bottle the sauce whilst it is still hot into clean jars, so that it forms a vacuum & will keep longer

What else you need to know:

 1.      When cold, store in the fridge to preserve for as long as possible

2.      Add sparingly to curry sauces & other dishes – this stuff is VERY hot!

The Woman In The Red Car

The Woman In The Red Car

That bloody woman

She’s sitting there again

Got here before me

And parked in my space

Forcing me to move elsewhere

And park my car in a different place

Which disturbs my daily routine

And puts me out for the rest of the day

That bloody woman

With her awful blood-red car

Sporting its tatty roof-rack

And child-seat in the back

Its dirty windows and an ugly scrape on the side

She can see the other spaces in this car-park

But none are so convenient

That bloody woman

Who never speaks to anyone

Just sits there reading her book

Waiting for the store to open

I know because I’ve watched her

I think she does it deliberately

Just to annoy me

But she cannot be oblivious to my feelings

That bloody woman

I don’t know how she manages to do it

She must get up extremely early

Just to beat me

It never used to happen

Then just once or twice

And now it’s all the time

She’s always there

That bloody woman

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2018

Cactus

Cactus

I’ve never really understood you

Or known what you might want

You just sit there year after year, implacably the same

Never growing or shrinking

Your pale green flesh all sheeny shiny

Bristling with hairs and spikes

A defensive exterior

Always showing to the world

But do you have a tender side to your prickly nature?

Is there a more succulent inner plant

That is cool and moist, sweet and gentle

Wet and watery

That you reveal to your very closest friends?

I confess I don’t know how to love you

When you just stare straight back at me

No signal of your feelings, nor flower of happiness

You give me so little response

That I often wonder

What it is it you’re waiting for

To me, you seem so undemanding

As if you do not even need me

I cannot comprehend your desires

Sitting in your arid pot and saucer

Happy in your desert dryness

Thriving on my neglect

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2018

A Doll's House

A Doll’s House      

                                        

Observe the finest detail

Of this perfect, tiny, tidy showcase

Everything in its rightful place

Sitting silently

Waiting for someone larger than life itself

To call, to come and play

To bring activity and energy

Into this lifeless land

See how carefully the maker has toiled

How exactly his model replicates reality

With its inter-connected rooms

Its attics, basements and cellars

Doors and floors, halls and walls

A side that opens to the outside

Revealing to wider inspection

That anyone may peer inside

With a genial God-like presence

And watch the goings-on

Of this toy-land territory

Made in matchless miniature

Look how finely-wrought the furniture

The kitchen’s pixie pots and pans

Woollen carpets and silver cutlery

Notice how small the figures

Stiffened little people

Tiny tokens of a household

Scaled-down and smaller than any doll

But still too large to be in right proportion

To the rest of their wooden world

How beautiful, how ideal it all appears

And yet how quiet, dusty and dormant

And how empty this small community

Undisturbed by cries of living children

A shining showpiece

That is a house and yet not a home

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2018

Evening Colour

Evening Colour

Where the road sweeps left

Winding through the bud-heavy hedgerows

Cutting, for a moment, the view ahead

The rainfall gathers glistening

In wide, flat pools and puddles

Catching slanting rays of late Spring sun

Glittering, reflecting golden light

In blinding sheets of white

Then swinging right again

Emerging from the tree-lined tunnel

Into a greater and wider space

Which opens up the glory of the sky

So wide, deep, darkly blue

And strongly bruised

The cumulus piled up high

Above plough-roughed fields

Their thick, large-furrowed

Dungeon-black shadowed lines

Gouging through the nut-brown earth

And on the other side

The wet rich acid-green

Of freshened pasture-land

In the rolling landscape

Intense, brilliant, citrus-sharp

Where, at the field’s edge

The young calves stand near the gate

Leaning, lolling heads in to the lane

Curious, wide-eyed, lowing

And far beyond all this

On the distant, climbing fields

Wide sweeps of lemon yellow

Gashed across the scene

Their acres of alien rape-seed stalks

Drawing bolder background stripes

To brighten the glowing vista

Between the twisting road

And the massive sky

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2018

Drivel From Devizes - Dateline Sunday 8th April 2018

Drivel From Devizes: Dateline – Sunday 8^th April 2018

Here is our weekly round-up of events from D-Town:

1.   Many shops in D-Town had to close this week due to lack of customers, after the introduction of the new sugar tax on processed drinks and foods.  Owing to the fact that the vast majority of shops and supermarkets only stock the goods required by the local demographic, such as Demon Hot Turkey Twizzlers, Supersweet Slush Puppies, Skullcracker Energy Drink, and Nutrigood Chicken Hobgobs, the shopping areas were virtually a desert, populated only by zombie-like figures, drooling at the mouth and demanding to find a source of sugar-fix. 

2.  And the political heat was raised a further notch this week as a spokesman for the People’s Democratic Republic of Trowvegas categorically denied that they had anything to do with sending a “dirty” bus on Route 49 to D-Town.  Meanwhile several innocent passengers who had boarded the vehicle in the Market Place complained of getting their clothes grubby and feeling rather unwell on the vehicle’s journey to Swindon.

3. For details of these and all other Devizes stories, don’t forget to listen to local radio station D-Town F-Off.

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2018

Attic Treasure

Attic Treasure

Into the headspace of the house

Unwitting keeper of our careless clutter

Silently sitting above us all these years

Among wires, pipes and tanks

Within piles of soft loft lagging

Lie cases and cardboard boxes

Which hold precious memories

Long suppressed, but not forgotten

Through cobwebby threads

And the mustiness of dust

A time-capsule of bygones

Are the things of yesterdays

Which were so important many years ago

Hurriedly stashed and stored

With the best of intentions

Against some hoped-for bright new future

That did not came to pass

There, right at the back

Where the light barely penetrates

Almost hidden from view

The baby’s cot in white-and-blue

Stacked in sections under the eaves

Paint pitted and peeling

Its patterns still visible, but faded

Like the memory of a young life lost early

Toys casually collected

In the course of a shortened childhood

And kept in memoriam

A model boat, its torn sail hanging loose

A doll that still sits staring, unsmiling

Records and tapes collecting dust

Books with jackets ripped

And piles of her clothing

Quickly removed from her bedroom

And the rest of the house

Tearfully pushed out of sight

And out of mind

Before you came home again

So that you should not see them anymore

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2018