Stirrin' Blog

The Game Conservancy Scottish Fair Thursday 2nd August 2007

Good morning sports fans! I’m afraid mother dearest is so hopelessly busy demonstrating, that she doesn’t have time to do her own blog this week, so it’s either me or back to the Deathly Hallows in the mean-time.

I’ve been asked to put a few words on here about the Game Conservancy Scottish Fair held at Scone Palace, at which Mum and I worked on the first weekend of July. We were in the children’s end of the Game Conservancy Tent, but that was close enough to the main Food Hall to nip off and scoff all the free food, so I was pretty much happy. The fellow next door to us was a bloke called Alex Towns, who was running a quite difficult quiz for (if I remember right) under-14’s, with wildlife questions like “what’s feather is this?” “whose tracks look like that?” “Is this a stuffed mink or pine martin?” and so on.
I was rather clueless on the whole quiz thing, having only encountered pine martins in the novels of Brian Jaques, and I’m pretty sure that they don’t talk in real life. Anyway, we made friends when we gave him some of our raisin boxes as prizes for finishing the quiz, which sadly weren’t touched until all the refresher bars and lollypops had all been snaffled. He was a lovely bloke though, and his wife was lovely too, although I’ve gone and forgotten her name.

The weather wasn’t great, but in light of what’s gone on in Gloucestershire over the last month, it was nothing to be complaining about, and whenever we were actually demonstrating we were very much undercover. We didn’t even have to carry all Mum’s equipment through the mud from the car, since she’d managed to blag a buggy (unfortunately it came with a driver, so I didn’t get to drive).

We made a basil paste (it probably needs pine nuts in it before you can call it pesto. Sadly ground up pine martin is no substitute. I asked). I then used it with chickpeas to make some veggie burgers (and by the way guys, if I can do it, anyone can), which probably cost roughly 15p per burger. Cheap as chips. Or in this case burgers.

Meanwhile Mum was making jellies, or smoothes or both – I can’t remember. Anyway, no surprises, the kids all loved it, and the ones who helped more were always the ones more willing to try the food. It was not because they were frightfully middle class and always did what they were told, but because seeing as they’d spend 20mins bashing, chopping or whizzing, and not just watching, they were damn sure gonna find out whether it was worth all the effort, even if what they had made was green. It’s pretty straightforward stuff, but it’s still amazing to watch it happen so consistently, even when you’ve heard all the theory.

I got to tell the Minister for Environment (Michael Russell MSP) as much, only even less eloquently. At least Mum said I did; I didn’t recognise him, and certainly didn’t have a clue who he was while I was bantering him. More fool me.

Well that’s about it. I’ve run out of words to write, except to say that the Fair was a rousing success, as were we, and to find some allusion to Harry Potter to finish off the article and give it a nice symmetry. All was well.

By Xander