Do you have a glut of runner beans? Here are just a few ideas to help you use them up. 

            Runner bean soup

Cook an onion in some melted butter in a saucepan until soft. Stir in some flour until thickened then add some stock. Bring to the boil and add the beans (chopped up and de-stringed) plus herbs of your choice. Simmer for around 20 minutes. Season! You could also add a carrot, potato, garlic and celery.

          Vegan Sri Lankan (BBC Good Food Guide)

This spice pot for vegans is cooled down by adding coconut milk, cinnamon, mustard seeds, ginger and garam masala.

• 1 small onion, roughly chopped
• ¼ tsp turmeric
• large piece ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
• 4 garlic cloves
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 2 tsp black mustard seeds
• 5 fresh curry leaves
• 1 tbsp mild curry powder
• 400g can coconut milk
• 4 cloves
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 whole dried red chilli
• 300g runner beans, stringed and sliced
• juice 1 lime
• 1 tsp garam masala
• handful fresh coriander
• rice and rotis, to serve (optional)

First! In a blender, combine the onion, turmeric, ginger, garlic and 1 tbsp of the oil together with a large pinch of salt. Heat the remaining oil in a shallow pan. Add the mustard seeds and curry leaves, and cook until they crackle, then add the onion paste and cook until sticky.

Then! Stir through the curry powder, then pour in the coconut milk. Add the cloves, cinnamon and the chilli, and bring to a simmer. Tip in the beans and simmer for 15 mins or until the beans are tender. Squeeze in the lime juice, add the garam masala, take the pan off the heat and stir through the coriander. Serve with rice and rotis, if you like.

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But at our home for waifs and strays, we prefer them lightly cooked, seasoned and served with a knob of butter and new potatoes.

There is a farm in Gusty Gully, where cows, sheep, pigs, chickens and lots of kittens live and a nine year old girl called Summer Sands.  

      One day Summer looked out of the window and frowned at the rain. I can’t possibly go to school today, she thought, and got back into bed and hid under the blanket.

      ‘Time to get up,’ shouted her mother from the bottom of the stairs. Summer squeezed her eyes shut and put her hands over her ears. What was the point of going to school when there was so much to do on the farm?  No point at all, she thought.

       ‘Hurry up Summer, you’ll be late for school!’

       ‘But who will look after the kittens while I’m in school?’ Summer shouted from her bed. ‘It’s raining!’

       In no time at all her mother pulled off the bedclothes and uncovered a miserable Summer. ‘Come rain or shine, you have to go to school,’ she said firmly. ‘I’ve made you your favourite breakfast.’

       Summer walked into the kitchen and sat at the table. The fire was lit and the smell of wood burning only made things worse.

       ‘I can’t go to school mum!’ Summer said sadly.       

       ‘Why ever not!’ said her mother.

       ‘My kittens need me,’ Summer pleaded. ‘I have to stay home!’

       Summer Sands!’ said her mother, putting a plate of egg on toast in front of her, ‘eat your breakfast, the kittens will be fine with their mother!’

        The phone rang and Summer ran to answer it. ‘Oh my goodness,’ she shouted, ‘I forgot all about it. Thank you, thank you!’

         Summer ran to the table and gobbled up the egg on toast as quick as a flash.

          ‘What on earth has happened,’ said her mother. ‘You’ll have indigestion!’

          ‘I have to be quick mum. I need to go to school!’

          ‘What on earth’s got in to you? A minute ago you didn’t want to go anywhere!’

          ‘Sophie rang to remind me to take a kitten to school. Its show and tell and Mrs Bumblebee said I could. As long as you take it home afterwards. Please mum!’ She looked up at her mother and smiled. ‘They’re eight weeks old now, old enough to go to school!’

          ‘Thank heavens you didn’t suggest the pig,’ said her mother and instantly wished she hadn’t put the idea into Summer’s head.

           Summer frowned, ‘I did ask and she said I can take her next time.’         

           And before her mother could say another word, Summer ran to the barn to chose a kitten from the basket.

           ‘Come rain or shine,’ she said to the kitten, ‘you have to go to school!’

Many moons ago when I was a little girl and lived with my grandmother in a small wooden house besides the woods, I remember, quite clearly, my dread of Mondays! This was the only day I was happy to go to school so that I would avoid the wash day blues.

     I’m sure my grandmother was trapped in the 30’s, agitating my small cotton dresses on a posser, in an old zinc tub.  Out would come the blue dolly in a special bag to whiten the clothes and those all too familiar soda crystals. Then I’d watch, fascinated, as my clothes were squished through a mangle, to get rid of the excess soapy water. I can only guess now, that prior to this, she would have taken the washing down to the river and bashed them about on a stone! Why we didn’t have an automatic washing machine like the rest of the world beat me!

     But these wash day blues, did have a silver lining. By the time I arrived home from school, the washing would be blowing in the wind on a long stretch of line. This was tied to a tree at either end of the garden and supported along the way, by long branches. I would always stop and watch in amazement, and imagined my dresses escaping the wooden pegs and flying off on adventures. Oh how I wished I go with them! It always brought a huge smile to my face. But when it rained, things were quite different.

       Four wooden poles set parallel between two metal frames, hung from the ceiling in the kitchen, above the fire. On those rainy wash days, my grandmother would hang the squished out clothes over the poles to dry. Those were the days I liked the least, coming in from school to the smell of  drying clothes making everything feel cold and damp, despite the glow of the fire and a cup of sweet tea.

       But there was always a hearty supper on the table, every day of the week. This is where my love for food began. We never ate ready meals or processed food and I was never taken out for fish and chips or a takeaway. In fact, the first Indian meal I had, was just a few years ago.

       Now, strangely, when I look back at those wash day blues I long for them again. Oh how much my friends missed by not going to school, smelling of carbolic soap!

Everyone in Gusty Gully of a certain age was getting ready for university, that is, everyone except Megan Evans. You see, Megan didn’t get the grades she needed to go to university and even if she had, she didn't have a clue what she wanted to do. So she had three options. She could re-sit her exams, leave school and look for any job or go travelling. The latter, she thought, would give her extra time to think what she wanted to do with her life. The thought of watching her friends leave home without her, was just unthinkable!

     ‘You should go back to college and sit your exams again,’ said her mother, her father, her grandparents, Phil the fish, Ian the news and most of her friends. It seemed the whole world wanted her to suffer another year at college where all her friends knew what they wanted to do with the rest of their lives. She didn’t know what to do for the rest of the week let alone any longer!

      Megan looked out of the window and wished she could run away and join the circus, anything would be better than staying in the village without any of her friends. Then she saw the lady from the home for waifs and strays, she was cradling a cat that had just been run over and there was blood everywhere.

       ‘Can’t stop mum,’ shouted Megan as she ran through the door towards the road. ‘Can I help you?’ she said to the lady carrying the cat. The lady smiled sadly and nodded her head.

       ‘You could help me find its owners,’ she said gently. ‘I need to take him to the vet.’

        ‘So it’s still alive?’

        ‘Yes, but I think he’s broken his leg and he’s in terrible shock. We have to stop the bleeding and keep him warm.’ Megan was glad the lady found the cat so at least it stood a chance.

        Megan followed the lady to the home for waifs and strays. She opened the arched gate that led into the garden. She had always wondered what it was like inside. Tom the egg said he loved working for them and they were always kind to him. Although, she did remember him saying that the lady was a bit strange but she never asked him why!

        They walked quickly up a stone path boarded by all sorts of flowers and bushes. Megan saw the pond covered with lily pads and fading white flowers.

        ‘Did you see who ran it over?’ she asked, spotting a chicken sleeping in the herb garden.

        ‘No,’ replied the lady, ‘they were driving so fast I doubt they even noticed they had hit anything.’

       Megan followed her into the house. It was cosy and bright, just as she imagined it would be. A table was turned into a makeshift examination area and the cat placed ever so gently upon it. Megan was fascinated.

       ‘Its leg is broken,’ said the lady and made a quick call to the vet without taking her eyes off the cat.

       ‘I’ll bring him straight over,’ she said and wrapped the cat in a blanket.

       ‘Would you like to come with me to the vet?’ she said to Megan. ‘You could hold him on your lap and we’ll look for the owner when we get back.’ Megan nodded nervously. She had never seen a vet before.

        They soon arrived at the vets. Megan looked around the room where people sat with dogs on leads, cats and even a gecko in baskets. There was something about the place, something she had never felt before but it made her smile. She talked to the people waiting anxiously and smoothed a dog that was old and too tired to look up at her. Then she saw the notice. It was an advert for a trainee veterinary nurse. Her heart beat faster and faster and a great feeling of excitement rushed through her. That was it! That is what she wanted to be! She just knew it!

          Once in the room with the vet, it was decided the cat needed an operation so would have to stay overnight. The lady agreed to come back the next day. But before they left, Megan asked about the advert. The vet suggested that Megan did some voluntary work to see if she really would like to become an animal nurse. She agreed at once and arranged to go there the next day.

           A week later, Megan called at the home for waifs and strays. She already knew that the cat had survived his ordeal and although his leg was in plaster, he was back with his owners. But she wanted to tell the lady that if it wasn’t for that day, when the cat got run over, then she might never have known what she wanted to do with her life.

     ‘I will go travelling one day,’ she said smiling, ‘but for now, I’m hoping to train as a veterinary nurse! Who knows, perhaps I could do some voluntary work abroad!’

     And that is what Megan Evans eventually became, a veterinary nurse. And the lady at the home for waifs and strays arranged for her to work with turtles in Greece during the holidays.

It’s late, but not so late that I should be tucked up in bed with a cup of sweet tea but late enough all the same. Despite a long day working on the ward and catching up with animals at our home for waifs and strays, sleep still evades me and there’s still a tale to be told before the lids come down.

      Just moments ago, I stood by the quiet pond where everything sleeps, which is quite unusual for this time of day. But I welcomed the silence as I looked up at the starry sky. And it was starry, with a slight nip of autumn in the air.

      ‘But it’s summer,’ I whispered softly, ‘I’m not quite ready for autumn, not yet!’ The tomatoes need ripening and the beans continue to grow, the grapes hang sour in bunches. The lettuce and cucumber still need to be picked whilst carrots and beetroot still cling to the ground. Oh and so much more besides! And walking past the log store reminds me of evenings by the fire, roasting chestnuts and drinking sweet tea. But I’m not ready for summer to slip, not yet!