Grazing on the valleyside, I might notice the passing of days. Light into darkness. Darkness into light. And the passing of seasons. The coming of winter. The arrival of spring. There would be hot and there would be cold. Nothing to worry about.
If human beings entered my orbit, I would look up at them momentarily with my big brown eyes before returning to the very meaning of life - to graze upon the green grass. Those humans would scurry away somewhere as they always do. Somewhere over the rainbow perhaps.
I took these pictures yesterday, above The Porter Valley before returning home to get started on a major Sunday dinner for six. Menu:-
Roasted pork
loin
Homemade
Yorkshire puddings (dreamlike)
Cauliflower
cheese
Chopped red cabbage
in apple sauce
Roasted
potatoes
Mashed
potatoes
Courgette
cubes tossed in butter and thyme
Roasted
carrots
Homemade
gravy
Homemade apple sauce
For dessert Shirley had made a tarte-tatin which we ate with Cornish ice cream, custard and double cream. Each meal was calculated to contain eleven calories but of course there was wine too...from Italy, Australia and France.
And all the time the quiet cattle above The Porter Valley were munching grass as another night fell and October drew closer. From the trees came the hooting of an owl and from the city came the insistent bleating of an ambulance siren - faraway. Carried on the autumn breeze like music.
Never in my life have I cooked that many dishes for one meal. I dip my lid.
ReplyDeleteOh. I forgot. There was sage and onion stuffing too.
DeleteCows like to graze in a group whilst bulls like to be on their own. Super photos.
ReplyDeleteEvery Saturday, a bull like to spend a little time with his harem.
DeleteHe's not a friend of Mr artificial insemination.
DeleteNow there's a story I could tell!
DeleteSuch a lovely post, thankyou. I'll have the recipe for that 11 calorie meal, sounds good to me.
ReplyDeleteBriony
x
Recipe: VISION, PREPARATION, TIMING, PRESENTATION, ADULATION, DIGESTION & BURP!
DeleteI can see why you want to be a cow/bull, though the meal looks absolutely delicious, it must have taken a long time to prepare.
ReplyDeleteFrom start to finish two and a half hours.
DeleteYou must have spent HOURS in the kitchen! Your meal sounds very sumptuous. Roast spuds AND mash, too, plus all the other things... I am impressed, especially at the ability (or should I say capacity) of everyone to have dessert after that.
ReplyDeleteCattle and other animals can lead good lives, if we let them. I still prefer to be human; I can read and write and learn different languages.
Ah yes, but can you chew grass for hours? As I said to Thelma from first putting the meat in to serving up the meal, it took me two and a half hours... but I enjoyed the challenge and everyone enjoyed it.
DeleteEnjoyed the post immensely but think, since you are not and never can be a cow or bull, that your first sentence should have been in subjunctive mood with were the verb instead of was.
ReplyDeleteAt least that is what my old English teacher, Mr. D. P. Morris, taught me.
If I arm-wrestled with Mr D.P.Morris. I suspect that I would come out on top.
DeleteI am impressed by the menu. Lots of low-fat, healthy options there, plus only 11 calories per serving. Sounds perfectly yummy.
ReplyDeleteYes - only eleven calories and I enjoyed every one.,
DeleteDid you mean eleven hundred calories?!
ReplyDeleteI love that kind of Sunday dinner. Reminds me of my childhood back in deepest Amber Valley. We would gorge on all that food (except the pudding would be a crumble not a tatin) then collapse in front of the TV - only three channels in those days - dreading that Aunty Vera wouldn't turn up and demand that we all go out for a brisk walk. Which we always enjoyed of course and built up an appetite for Sunday Tea!
Those were the days. I literally could not eat that much food now!
So why wouldn't you want to be a cow rather than a bull?
ReplyDeleteAlso- why did you have mashed AND roasted potatoes? Not that I wouldn't want to have both. I've just never served both kinds at one meal. I'm sure it was all delicious.
It was. As a male I am bullish.
DeleteI too cooked a pork loin roast yesterday - but only managed two veg sides - your's sounds amazing!
ReplyDeleteIt was an unusual Sunday dinner - that's for sure Margie.
DeletePerhaps it's a regional thing (I'm a Leicestershire Lass, though settled in Cornwall since 1986) - we always had roast and mashed potatoes for our Sunday dinner, along with my Mum's high-rise Yorkshire puddings plus all the accoutrements mentioned above. Always a dessert which would often be more Yorkshire Pudding with jam or butter and sugar.
ReplyDeleteHigh rise Yorkshires? I love the sound of those !!
DeleteMine rose so high that they were trapped in the top of the oven.
DeleteYou forgot about the ;ead cow and how you would have to follow the lead cow! No such thing as a peaceful bull. They are chemically controlled.
ReplyDelete"Chemically controlled", Red? I take it you are talking hormones. Testosterone. That which, occasionally, overrides reason and makes men kick the shit out of each other - in absence of a war to be fought. Females, largely, appear to only kick off when their young are threatened. And then there are oxen - castrated bulls. A bit like the Orient's Eunuchs looking after the Sultan's Harem.
DeleteWhich reminds me, the "red rag to the bull" is a myth. Colour immaterial. Wave a large white handkerchief if you feel like a challenge. It'll do.
U
Red is not chemically-controlled. That job is done by his beloved Micro Manager.
DeleteYes, you know I meant hormones. You bring up many issues . I think YP's comment was not serious at all. Neither was mine
DeleteFood for thought.
ReplyDeleteSchool dinners?
DeleteSuperb photographs.
ReplyDeleteI'm not keen on pork loin, I find it very dry.
We had shoulder of pork yesterday. Lots of crackling. Smashing!
Try the basted pork loin joints from Lidl. Superb. And not dry.
DeleteYP, I am exhausted. Never have I had so much cattle on my mind as since you (and the Angel) brought up the subject a week or so ago.
ReplyDeleteI am not preening here, and if I have told you this before please do remember that, as the years advance, we tend to repeat our anecdotes. Once upon a time I walked a neighbour's field. He was a farmer and his daughter was my friend. I must have been about nine or ten, lost in my thoughts, on my own, when - in the middle distance - I noticed a lone beast which clearly wasn't a cow. It was a bull. Probably as stunned at meeting me as I was stunned meeting him. It's when I learned that you shouldn't believe all you hear. Bulls are actually quite slow on the uptake. I didn't wait for the folklore of a hoof doing what an angry hoof does, stomp - I just ran. In the opposite direction. Climbed the fence, and that was that. What was also instructive that I was told off in no uncertain terms (by the farmer). Such is the relief of adults, not least your parents', that when you are safe, come to no harm, they shout at you.
No more cows please, YP, at least not tomorrow.
U
Do you count sheep to get to sleep Ursula? Or cows?
DeleteWhat a wonderful Sunday dinner! Was it a special occasion? You are certainly an amazing chef. I would like to know what happened to the remainder of the calories from that meal. Perhaps you have invented a calorie extractor? If so, I suggest you patent it for it will make you a wealthy man!
ReplyDeleteI use the patented Puddo Calorie Calculator. Highly accurate.
DeleteOccasion - Stewart's parents were up from the city of Bristol in England's south west.
DeleteThat looks like cow heaven in the sunshine. Different to my photo's from yesterday. It was overcast. I saw two bulls in a barn. Magnificent creatures but couldn't get them to pose for a photo.
ReplyDeleteYou should have tempted them with some bullseye sweets.
DeleteThat was a veritable feast. Hope there wasn't too much washing up.
ReplyDeleteFortunately, we have a dishwasher which we had to put on twice!
DeleteI'm pretty sure that bulls are not known for their gentleness, perhaps a steer? And then there is the problem of the abbatoir.
ReplyDeleteTwo words for your bull fantasy - "beef gravy"
ReplyDelete