Limits

I have been known to sit down to a dinner of nothing but a plate piled high with freshly picked, lightly steamed runner beans, served with salt, pepper and lashings of butter.

In fact most summers it’s a temptation to which I succumb as often as once a week.

However as the bean harvest lengthens into autumn even I reach a point when I think “Not another runner bean”.

That moment arrived last week. Consequently the bean pods still on the wigwam are now growing tough and stringy, and will ultimately lose their colour and give me a good crop of beans for next year’s seed, as well as to dry and store for winter soups and casseroles. Dried runner beans are similar in size and flavour to kidney beans. They provide real heft to a meal.

I have 1kg remaining from the 2022 harvest and this year’s contribution will top up the store to around the magic 3kg, which is my target amount at the start of each winter. In addition I have 1kg of last year’s dried Muriel’s Magic beans, which I will top up to about 2kg in due course.

It is always my goal to have at least two years’ worth of food in storage. It is my insurance in case of a seriously bad growing season, so that I can feed myself until the following year / years. Beans are an important element in my resilience planning.

I am woefully behind looking at Blips I’m afraid. I was too tired last night and have been distracted with other things today. Like making my first Gouda cheese. And picking, then staring at 9kg of tomatoes and wondering what on earth to do with them. “I’ll tackle them tomorrow” was the result of that chat with myself.

After a night disturbed by stupid 3am brain-whirring about what might go wrong next at my neighbours while I’m looking after the place, I have realised I am more than a little fed up with them disappearing for the weekend after the dramas of last week.

To boot, they left on Friday evening without a word: no apologies, no explanation nor thanks. Not even a goodbye.

Once they are home tomorrow I shall be having some gentle words with them about the limits of my neighbourliness, and their future expectations of my good nature.

I’m happy to be a good neighbour but I draw the line at being taken for granted…

Bean has been a great support as I’ve wrestled with my grumpiness today.