Articles , Poetry & Letters
| Matt’s Meal Of the Month - Cajun fried pork and prawns | Books of the Month | |
| RSPB - Wolves Wood - Wolves Wood | Film Guide | |
| Hadleigh Trees 7 - The London Plane Tree | Pause for thought | |
| Sitting in the Parlour - Poetry by Sue Abdulraham | Letters | |
CAJUN SPICED CHICKEN AND PRAWNS
Serves Two
Quick and easy, this spicy dish can be a great snack or impressive special meal for two. And you can make it as hot as you like. It is best served with rice, pasta or sauted potatoes and watercress. A similar dish, Cajun fried pork and prawns, is on the menu at Weavers Restaurant this month.
Ingredients
2 boned chicken breasts, diced into inch pieces
8 large raw headless tiger prawns, peeled
1 medium onion, diced
1 red pepper, chopped
1 small green chilli, seeds removed
10 pieces of baby corn
1 tin of chopped tomatoes (400g)
1 glass red wine
2tbsp tomato ketchup
1 tsp each paprika, cayenne pepper, salt and black pepper
2 garlic cloves, chopped
3 tbsp olive oil
Method
1 Heat the oil in a wok or large pan and add the chilli, onions, peppers, corn and garlic. Bring to a hot temperature and add the chicken, spices and finally the prawns.
2 Stir until meat is sealed and then add the wine
3 Simmer for 3 minutes, add tomatoes and tomato ketchup; cover and cook for a further 12 to 15 minutes. Serve immediately.
News from Wolves Wood RSPB Reserve
This month I thought that I would tell you a little about the moths that live in Wolves Wood. I held a moth trapping event on the 15th July attended by a number of people who were able to see lots of these creatures of the night. The Suffolk Moth Group kindly provided the moth traps and assisted with identification.
Most moths (around 70% of British species) readily come to UV light, which means that on a still, dark night you might be very lucky and see well over 100 different species of moth. Identification is quite tricky as there are over 3000 different sorts of moth in Britain alone. Luckily they can be split into different groups by their shape, colouration, markings, how they "sit" and what time of year it is (some moths only fly during the colder parts of the year).
A moth night for me is usually a mixture of wonder, confusion and excitement. The lights are switched on at around dusk, and the first moths start to fly their crazy flight around the people gathered. At times during the session there are so many moths whizzing around it is hard to remember which ones you have seen. And then you look at your watch and see that it is well past midnight – how times flies!!
The best part of the night for me is to do with the wonderful names of each species, for instance we recorded all the following moths: oak eggar, small blood-vein, cloud border, black arches, leopard, large emerald, minor shoulderknot, dark arches, scarce footman, orange moth.
If moths interest you, or you just want to find out a little more, come along to next year’s moth night, or join us at Stour Estuary Reserve (near Harwich) on 1st September – meet at the RSPB car park on the B1352 at 19.30. Bring warm clothes, stout footwear and a hat. We’ll supply the coffee.
Events at Wolves Wood in August:
Millennium Bugs – Sunday 20th August, 14.00 – 16.30
Explore the mysterious depths of the woodland pond and discover the wealth of bugs that lurk amongst the leaf litter or colonise the humble oak. We are hoping to have a local expert along to help us identify some of the creepy-crawlies.
Meet in the car park at Wolves Wood, 1 mile east of Hadleigh on the A1071 Ipswich Road. No dogs except guide dogs.
Adult £2, children £1 includes RSPB members. Wear stout footwear/wellies.
Rick Vonk, Warden, Wolves Wood
On one day in July a record was broken which may never be achieved again. 372,775 books were sold of one title in one day. Of course I am referring to the new Harry Potter (No IV in the series, entitled Harry
Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The previous record was for Delia Smith’s How to Cook: Book 2, which sold 110,425 copies in three days in December 1999. Sales revenue for the Harry Potter on that Saturday was
£3 million!! Makes you think, doesn’t it? Another extraordinary fact regarding the book was that the title was kept a secret until the Thursday before publication. That’s marketing! So to August releases. We now
start to see the titles being published which will form the Christmas lists. Paperback fiction: OTHER TIMES Leslie Thomas £5.99
The author returns to the lives of ordinary servicemen, who feature so heavily in his earlier novels in this, his latest paperback. A tour-de-force of imagination and storytelling, one of the most satisfying reads in
years.
THE BLUE NOTE Charlotte Bingham £5.99
GRANNY DAN Danielle Steel £5.99
THE MEMORY BOX Margaret Forster £6.99
AHAB’S WIFE Sena Jeter Naslund £12.99
Adult Book of The Month
WINTER SOLSTICE Rosamunde Pilcher £16.99
Young Adult’s Book of The Month
THE SEEING STONE Kevin Crossley-Holland £10.99
7 - The London Plane Tree
A London plane tree, probably the biggest tree in Hadleigh was planted in what used to be the garden of Hadleigh Hall beside the river. This magnificent, straight tree, about 40 metres tall, now stands in the splendid isolation on the lawn of the neighbours of Hadleigh Hall. However, you can see its massive trunk from the river walk some yards south of a point opposite the Brett Works. It will be more clearly visible in the Autumn when less masked by other trees.
The London plane is one of the commonest trees in Europe, a deciduous hybrid, probably first grown in Spain, of the Oriental and American planes. It was first planted in England in 1680, one tree at Ely, a second at Barnes. In 1974 both were still healthy. 300 year old trees are common.
In 1995 the two tallest trees in England were London planes at Bryanston in Dorset, one 46 metres, the other 49 metres, both with girths of more than 5 metres. These trees do not blow down, are rarely affected by pests or disease and grow well with their roots in compacted soil and their heads in sooty, polluted air.
They are excellent "pavement trees". Male and female catkins grow on the same tree and produce brown fruits full of seeds which hang on the trees until Spring. London children, and probably others too, once collected the seeds, "itching powder", to scatter inside the shirts of their friends.
Most London planes have attractive, patchwork trunks, the bark having split and fallen off in large plates, leaving creamy patches of trunk showing. This happens mostly to young trees.
Hadleigh’s tree is old and its trunk is thickly covered in burrs, no light patches showing. The burrs probably show where unwanted low growth has been hacked off in the past.
The timber from these trees is attractive and called lace wood. It is sometimes used to make part of the mechanism of pianos. But its generous shade is one of the tree’s best gifts. The Romans grew the oriental plane, one of the ancestors of the London plane, simply to provide shade and Roman gardeners are said to have fed the trees with wine instead of water. There is a story about Xerxes, king of Persia, who was so entranced by a plane tree when he was marching to invade Greece, that he halted his troops and had the tree leaded with jewellery taken by his concubines. He then appointed a guardian to stay with the tree forever!
A book written in 1990 is called "Engineering with Genes", and states that the hope of scientists is that the genetic code of man will be mapped and understood by around 2000AD. This was no idle
boast and has been achieved on target. What a great achievement it is, and one that can benefit each one of us in a way that nothing else has. My regret is that I won’t live long enough to see the
picture unfold, nor will I be here to reap its benefits, nor will I be here to see its dangers show themselves. The book that I quoted also has the title "Playing God?", yet closes on an optimistic note, "We are at the beginning of an unimaginable journey, far stranger than fiction. You and I
and our children can chart its course. We can control what we create." Can we? History doesn’t record that we always use inventions for our good. Sin intervenes and we so often exploit what is good for evil ends. Sadly we have no gene built into us that can be
manipulated to make us behave in a better way. Yet there is a way, and Jesus Christ who created all the wonders around us, also died on the cross 2000 years ago to take away our sins, and He showed us the true way of
life. My hope is in Him, and not in genetic engineering, remarkable as that is, and whatever the prospects and benefits. How can anyone disbelieve in a creator who made us so wonderfully, and who made
possible our salvation? Have we gone too far in ‘Playing God?" Only time will tell. A hymn written by Joseph Parker over one hundred years ago suggests that there are some things we should leave to our maker and
Saviour. The first verse is relevant to today’s discoveries:- God holds the key to all unknown, And I am glad; Gwen Bull
If others hands should hold the key,
Or if He trusted it to me,
I might be sad.
Sue Abdulrahman
Film Guide
If you have been to the cinema over the last few months it is likely you will have caught the trailer for Mission: Impossible 2 (Cert 15, 124 mins), and
the thirty seconds or so of heart-pumping action that comes with it. It’s also possible that it was better than the film you went to see, but is the trailer an honest representation of a film that claims to be
unequalled this year, ending the reign of Gladiator? Brian de Palma’s original 1996 Mission: Impossible was considered by many to have contained a plot too sophisticated to be understood within the course of its duration, and in
response to this John Woo (Face/Off) has been drafted in to take the helm and direct this highly-anticipated sequel. However, in this eagerness to create something more easily understood and therefore more
marketable, over-compensation has left a storyline so weak it cannot carry the film during the absence of the more action-packed sequences, leaving us to endure a monotonous lull of roughly an hour, while we await the
next. Simply put, it is a thinly disguised remould of the James Bond formula – a mission improbable – a virus on the loose called Chimaera, a villain who will stop at nothing to prevent profiting from
his plan, agent gone bad and rival Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) and the only man who can stop him – Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise, who also produced this film) and, of course, the obligatory girl with whom he must fall in
love, the typically two-dimensional Nyah (Thandie Newton). When the action does reappear, it is with the considerable style that is synonymous of Woo and his earlier films, all highly choreographed to the point of
perfection; a seductive car chase through the mountains of Spain, the intense climax between Hunt and Ambrose, they all contain a beautiful fluidity that must be seen to be believed, and to some extent this excuses the
lacklustre plot line. Where Woo has taken control, the change in pace is certainly noticeable, but what makes them great is his ability to simultaneously express the emotions of the characters, poorly addressed within
the rest of the film, and it is these scenes that are expressed within that trailer and the numerous TV ads we are bombarded with. It is a shame then, that this film will disappear into anonymity relatively quickly, as within Wood’s work is a glimmer of the future for the action movie, and no doubt one that John Wood will play a
major part in. Unlikely to sink beneath the waves of obscurity without a fight is The Perfect Storm (Cert 15). George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg return from their appearance in Three Kings
earlier this year with the story of the Andrea Gail and its crew, a sword-fishing vessel from Gloucester, Massachusetts which in October 1991 found itself caught in the worst storm in recorded history. This is not,
though, a far-fetched work of fiction along the lines of the tatty U-571, but a real life tale of a group of people who find they must put their lives in danger to support both themselves and their families
by braving the storm in order to return their catch to shore. Based on the best-selling book by Sebastian Junger, the tragic events are brought together using computer generation that gives the images of the storm and the whitecaps that tear across the boat a
menacing realism that is, quite literally, indistinguishable from the live action footage it is spliced with, leaving a film with such quality that audiences will be forced to marvel at. This is most certainly one of the best films this year, and the pick of the releases currently available. Unlike Mission: Impossible 2 it is very modest in its own promotion, but delivers
so much more in comparison. It is a film that cannot easily be faulted, such is the attention to detail and the great success with which it accomplishes its characterisation, the friction between crew members as they
battle with the elements and each other treated tactfully and with intelligence given the outcome, yet provides a constant stream of attention that is unlikely to let your attention wane. This is certainly a creation of
which Wolfgang Petersen should be proud, and one that should be thoroughly recommended. Sam Wright