Autumn, Chutney and a Rant

Autumn
Autumn has come slightly early this year. We are only a day into September but the mornings and evenings for most of the last 10 days have been noticeably cool. There's no other sign of autumn, no leaves turning colour or falling but the temperatures are definitely autumn ones. Friend Steve likes to say that at the end of August all the tourists go home and the temperature drops 10 degrees. Well, most of the tourists have gone but the temperatures adjusted themselves earlier. It may be that we'll have a warmer than usual September though usually the days are fine, sunny and warm; the mornings and evenings are the difference.

Chutney
Invited to aperitifs with friends Alan and Margaret today I took along a jar of chutney: my Old Dower House Chutney, based approximately on a recipe from a 1950s Good Housekeeping book. If I say it myself, it's a very good chutney and improves with keeping. The trouble I find with many home-made chutneys is that the desire to make them arises from an overload of tomatoes, apples or whatever. People think: what can I do with all these (tomatoes, apples, etc) and do the best they can with them. The Old Dower House recipe, by contrast, is one that assumes you will acquire whatever is needed to make a good chutney and includes (yes) apples and tomatoes but also onions, plums, garlic, sultanas and a truckload of spices. Actually, when I first made it and tasted it I found it nicely fruity but lacking a certain “bite” (to my taste); so I doubled the amount of spices given in the recipe and found that worked well.

A Rant
My mother has been in hospital for some three weeks and I have been phoning her at her bedside phone. As anyone who has done the same knows, the phone calls are extremely expensive. This, we are told, is because the bedside phone and television service in hospitals has been privatised and the company concerned is (naturally) wanting to get its money back on the equipment installed. Like a number of privatisations, this one has been ill thought out in my opinion. (When I was in hospital here in France, the bedside phone and television was covered by my health insurance – all, even minimal health insurance policies do that – and calls are at the going local/national rate.) I think the cost of this in England is exorbitant but at least that much is open and stated. Even the full minute of banalities you have to listen to before being connected might be expected. What I find totally unacceptable is that before being connected you are told to be patient as the person receiving the call may have difficulty reaching the phone. Fine. The phone then rings just 6 times, after which you are told there is no reply and to wait (interminably) for an operator to try to connect you. I learned to abort the call after 6 rings but this, in my book, is nothing short of a scam to extend your call time, particularly after you have been warned to be patient. I think such scams should be exposed and stopped.