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Stir Up Something Nasty

 Stir Up Sunday today, and I’m on the Pudding Mission first thing this morning. Trying out a new recipe from medieval times using spelt flour...

Just leaving it to soak for a few hours, then 5 hours of steaming later today. 

When we moved here 4 and a half years ago (already?! Where did that time go??) we inherited a woodshed with a resident toad. In honour of Aunt Ada Doom, a character in my favourite author’s ‘Cold Comfort’ novels, I named him/her/they/it Something Nasty. Aunt Ada Doom took to her bed and ruled Cold Comfort from her bedroom claiming to have been traumatised by seeing ‘something nasty in the woodshed’, you see, so she couldn’t possibly do anything other than have everyone else run around after her whilst she forever recovered in her room. Nice trick if you can pull it off. I don’t know if the ‘something nasty’ she saw was a toad, but it amused me to name our toad thus.

I sometimes think I ought to change the spelling of the toad’s name - maybe to ‘Sumtingnasti’ or ‘Summinknastie’ - you know, to make it a bit less aggressive sounding. Deliver it in a manner that sounds down wiv da kids, maybe? Anyway, the purpose of this anecdote is that this morning, Something Nasty decided to come OUT of the woodshed...


...there! Bottom left hand corner, very well camouflaged. He/she/they/it chose to do this by a) leaping out at me from beneath the pallet on which the logs are stacked and then b) climbing across the bit of bare foot  exposed by my slippers, thus rendering me ‘toad slimed.’ Eurgh......

Whilst washing my foot, I couldn’t remember if toad slime was a proven beauty treatment for softening the skin. Not that the skin on my feet isn’t wonderfully soft anyway, because I do look after my feet, given they are in constant employment and, therefore, most precious and deserving of pampering. Something Nasty, meanwhile, had hopped off behind a flower pot. 

I left the woodshed door open for him/her/they/it. 


Comments

Anonymous said…
Haha, we have a toad in our garden too (or possibly more than one; it is hard to tell!). I named him Mister after the Wind in the Willows character. Mister has a bad habit of sitting exactly in the line of tread and has already been accidentally squashed once. He is very hard to see in the dark, especially when it is raining.

I wonder how many others have pet toads 🐸
22 November 2020 at 14:01
aileen g said…
In my last garden I had a toad and I was ok with it as long as I roughly knew where it was. It was called Toady! I also seemed to have loads of frogs which my cats used to bring indoors - boy could those frogs squeal! I used to scoop them up in the long-handled dustpan and put them back outside but shut the cats inside to give the frogs a chance to escape.
22 November 2020 at 14:32
Denise said…
Anonymous, I think this is a strong case for a campaign to get toads to wear high-viz jackets. And I also think every serious gardener should have their own toad, if only to help keep down the slug population!

Aileen, I’ve heard a frog squealing from a cat attack - it chills to the bone. I’m glad you were on hand to rescue yours with a long-handled dustpan! Marvellous!
22 November 2020 at 16:56
rusty duck said…
Warty? Probably no better than Something Nasty really.
On a far less ambitious note I have decided to make some mince pies. Although it's ambitious for me. Especially as I have decided to make my own mincemeat as well and therefore avoid the prospect of Something Nasty lurking therein.
P.S. Can warts be passed from animals to humans?
22 November 2020 at 18:08
Denise said…
I made my own mincemeat this year, too, Jessica. It looks and smells way better than shop stuff. I used the River Cottage recipe.

P.S Yes, they can.
23 November 2020 at 16:46
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