Our Last Days in Guernsey

We are almost through packing suitcases and bidding farewell. We hate to leave our friends here, but home is calling us relentlessly.

As it turns out, this was our last hike in Guernsey. The red flag wasn't flying so we were good to go.

What a surprise to find an ammo can!

A huge mushroom

Yet another fort to be explored. No, we didn't see all of them.

We will miss the beautiful scenery like this. And the ever-changing tides.

We will not miss bumping elbows while eating at this tiny table.

Our last time feeding the elders. We elected to take them to one of our favorite cafes since I'm burned out from feeding them every week.

The taxi ready to take us to church.

The Guernsey Branch. We were missing 3 adults and 3 young children today.

Saying goodbye is hard!

Yesterday Elder E. left for a new assignment. In his place we now have Elder Kopischke from Germany.

We had a fun Family Home Evening at one of the sister's homes. After one of the elders gave a spiritual thought on gratitude, we played a fun game called "I went to town and I bought..." Each person in turn names an object after repeating what all the previous ones had said. Then some goodies in the kitchen. The elders had brought a couple of investigators who had a good time.

Almost Done!

In less than a week we leave Guernsey, so we're having a number of "lasts."

This outing to an art gallery is the last Relief Society event I'll be attending in Guernsey.

There were just three of us, then Alan joined in. He's been in the hospital for weeks, so it was great to see him again. He's got cancer three different ways and yet they are treating him as an outpatient now. I really don't get it.

The last district meeting was held at the elder's flat.

It's a good thing the picture is blurry since their place was a bit messy. 

This is a poor example, but I've been trying to take a picture that illustrates how cars, trucks and buses routinely drive up on the sidewalk. The roads are so narrow that when a truck or bus meets anything, they use the sidewalk as part of the road. 

Probably our last time at our favorite sandwich shop. They didn't have my usual so I tried their special. It was turkey and stuffing on a baguette with cranberry sauce. Not bad.

Bill's usual ham and cheese.

Then and Now

I've always been fascinated with then and now photos. Here are two examples with photos from the occupation museum and current photos of the same place.

This is 1940 when the Germans first marched into St. Peter Port to a silent and resigned audience.

Most of today's shoppers on High Street are oblivious to the history around them. Notice the CCTV in the upper right; they're everywhere. You may as well smile because you're on camera. 

We often pass by the White Hart Hotel across from the seafront.

Guernsey Recipes

This is from http://blog.visitguernsey.com/blog/six-of-the-best-traditional-guernsey-recipes/

Classic Guernsey  food to warm your cockles!

Here we offer you six of the best Guernsey treats, passed down in families through the centuries.  Why not try a couple? We promise you won’t be disappointed!

Gâche Mélée (pronounced Gosh Mel – are)

Gâche Mélée is a traditional Guernsey apple dessert and is a favourite with local Guernsey folk. Gâche Mélée is particularly good in the autumn when the nights are becoming colder and darker and the apples are freshly picked. It’s great eaten hot or cold and with a dollop of Guernsey cream or custard.

Ingredients

½ lb plain flour
¼ lb suet or Guernsey Butter
1½ lb apples (peeled, cored and chopped)
½ lb demarara sugar
¼ tsp of nutmeg
¼ tsp of cinnamon
¼ tsp of mixed spice
½ teacup of water
1 tsp salt
1 free range egg

Preparation

Rub the butter or suet into the flour until like breadcrumbs. Add all other dry ingredients, apple and mix well. Add egg and water and again mix well. Place in a 7 inch (18cm) square tin.

Tip: Prior to making this dessert all dry ingredients and apple can be mixed together and stood in the fridge to improve the flavour. Also, why not keep back some sugar to sprinkle on top prior to cooking – this makes a crunchier top.

Cooking

Cook in a low oven for 2 hours until golden brown.

Traditional Guernsey Gauche

Guernsey Gâche (Pronounced Gosh)

One of Guernsey’s definitive delicacies is Guernsey Gâche. Tune in your taste buds before you visit, with this genuine recipe and it’s easy to make too.

Guernsey Gâche

Ingredients

I.5 lbs wholemeal or plain flour

1.5 lbs Guernsey butter
Two free range eggs
4 oz candied orange peel
1 lb sultanas (currants may be used, if preferred)
Quarter pint of Guernsey milk
2 oz yeast
Pinch of salt
2 oz dark brown sugar

Preparation

Wash and dry the fruit. Cream the butter with sugar, add the eggs and then mix in the flour. Warm the milk, add the yeast and a pinch of salt. Make a depression in the dough and pour in the milk with the added yeast and mix well, adding the fruit and kneading like bread.

Leave to rise for two hours in a warm room. Knock back and then knead again. Grease a loaf tin and put in the prepared gâche.

Cooking

Cook for one hour in a moderate oven, until golden brown. Best served with cider from the jug, whilst hay making.

Traditional Guernsey Beanjar

Bean Jar was never meant to be a delicacy but a cheap wholesome winter meal designed to feed a hungry family.

Traditionally the dish would be started on the Friday night with the soaking of dried beans. Next day Saturday cheap cuts of meat would be bought (normally pigs trotters). Beans and meat would briefly be boiled and transferred to a pottery jar “the Bean Jar” this would be covered with thick brown paper tied with string and marked with the family name. This would be taken to the nearest bakery and the jars put into the cooling oven as no bread was baked on the Sunday.

The Bean Jar was then stored and eaten on Monday, washing Day, as the women were too busy washing clothes to cook and normally reheated the jar on Tuesday because this was ironing day. Many people believe Bean Jar always tastes best once it has been reheated on the second day!

Everybody’s Granny has a recipe for bean jar, no two recipes being exactly  the same, due to the ingredients available but normally the simpler the better, there’s even a vegetarian version these days!

Bean Jar Recipe

(Guernsey French: enne Jarraie d’Haricaots)

Ingredients

1 lb Haricot Beans

1 lb Butter Beans
1 lb Belly Pork
1 lb Onions
Stock
Seasoning

Preparation

Soak beans over night in cold water.
Discard the water.
Put beans in fresh water and boil for at least 30 minutes.
Add pork, chopped onions and stock cube and boil for a further 20 minutes.

Cooking

Place in a low to medium oven for three to four hours (minimum) or slow cooker.

Beans should be soft and meat should fall off the bone.

Enjoy with a thick slice of farmhouse bread and Guernsey butter!

Ormer Casserole (Only to be used seasonally)

The Ormer is an abalone found on Guernsey shores.

Ingredients

As many ormers as possible
A strip or two of belly pork
2-3 carrots
2-3 shallots
Guernsey butter
Bay Leaf
Salt and Pepper

Preparation

Once having found some Ormers, soak in fresh water for an hour, prize it from its shell, scrub, trim and beat with a steak hammer. The traditional way to cook Ormers is in a casserole

Cooking

Flour the Ormers and brown in a frying pan with the Guernsey butter.  Place the Ormers in a casserole dish with the cubes of belly pork, sliced carrots, bay leaf and season with salt and pepper.  Place in pre-heated oven at 160/170 °c for two hours.  Turn down the oven and allow the casserole to simmer until cooked.  Enjoy with a Guernesey Biscuit.

Guernsey Biscuits

A Guernsey Biscuit is a savoury roll with a firm crust and fluffy soft centre can be filled with Guernsey  delicacies as crab, beef or gorgeous Guernsey Cheese!

Ingredients

1lb Plain white flour
1oz  Fresh yeast
½ oz of salt
4oz Guernsey butter*
8 fl. oz warm Guernsey milk (or combination of water & milk)
½ oz of sugar

* Traditionally Guernsey butter and/or lard would have been used.

Sieve and mix the salt and flour. Cream the butter, yeast & sugar and add the warm milk. Leave for ten minutes.

Mix the creamed butter, milk etc with the flour and knead it well. Cover the bowl and leave to stand in a warm place for 1 ½ hours to rise.

Kneading the dough again lightly on a floured board and form into round shapes.

Flatten the balls or roll them into biscuit shapes. Place on a greased baking sheet and leave in a warm place for 20 minutes.

Bake in a preheated moderately hot oven 200°C (400°F)/ Gas mark 6 for 20 minutes.

Guernsey Whiting Pie

12 oz Guernsey whiting or other locally caught fish such as
1 pt Guernsey Milk
2 oz plain flour

4 oz butter
3 tbls chopped parsley
1 tbls lemon juice
Seasoning
Topping
2 lbs freshly cooked potatoes
1/4 pt Guernsey milk
1 oz butter
A little nutmeg

Method

Cook fish in 1/2 pt milk.  Pour off cooking liquid & reserve.  Remove skin and flake fish into fairly large pieces.

Make sauce by melting 3oz butter in a saucepan, stir in the flour, gradually add fish liquid then remaining milk.

Season with salt and pepper.  Add fish, then pour mix into a 2 and ½ pt baking dish, well buttered.

Cream cooked potatoes with butter and 1/4pt milk, add some freshly grated nutmeg, then spread evenly over the fish.  Bake 400 degrees F, 200 degrees C, Gas Mk 6 for 30 mins, until potato is golden.

To make extra special add 4oz peeled prawns or 2oz chopped fried mushrooms and some sweetcorn.

L'Ancresse Bay and More

We visited L'Ancresse Bay and walked amongst the fairways of the golf course to a Millenium Monument since there was a dolmen nearby. A dolmen is a prehistoric burial chamber. We've visited a small one already but this one is much larger.

Bill says those short pants are called plus 4s.

As we walked along here came a young steer down the road! We wondered if he was headed to the golf course.

“The Torrey Canyon was a supertanker capable of carrying a cargo of 120,000 tons of crude oil, which was shipwrecked off the western coast of Cornwall, England in March 1967 causing an environmental disaster. At that time, the tanker was the largest vessel ever to be wrecked.

In Guernsey oil was collected from beaches using Sewage lorries and dumped in the Chouet quarry where until recently it has lain untreated. There have been some recent efforts to recycle the oil and you can see how the level has dropped by the black “tidemark” on the side of the quarry.”

We might have passed this by had we not known a bit of it's history.

We continued our walk toward large flocks of seagulls and found--the dump!

Beautiful L'Ancresse Bay at low tide.

This last week we revisited Castle Cornet and were in time to see the 21 gun salute. They were honoring a Guernseyman named Brock who helped save Canada from the United States.

We took some photos that we'll perhaps use in our Christmas card. 

At the gift shop I couldn't resist getting this tile depicting St. Peter Port. If it gets broken during the trip home at least I've got a picture.

This past week we met with a sister from the branch and helped her with family history.  We had the elders for dinner once again--they sure can put the food away!

We met last week and today with the Guernsey elders and sisters from Jersey for district meeting.

We met at our place this week. The lesson got a little bogged down with doctrine vs. principles vs. application. But it was a good discussion anyway. 

Three Weeks to Go on Guernsey!

Recent Happenings

We took the elders to see the small pool that we found the day we visited Lihou Island. We think it would make an excellent baptismal font. 

Cold, but the water would always be fresh and clean. It's available at low tide only.

Rocks had been cemented together to hold the water.

The nearby German fortification gave the elders a chance to express their inner soldier. With umbrellas.

International Dinner

I was put in charge of organizing an international dinner for our branch. Since several different cultures are represented, we had a wonderful variety of food.

Guernsey has it's own culture separate from England and that includes food. Here we have Gache Melee, an apple cake made with Bramley apples. The idea for Guernsey ice cream was nixed since we had no freezer.

The green curry from Thailand was good, if hot, and the ginger rice was delicious. From the Philippines we had Pancit Guisado, a stir-fry veggies, shrimp and rice noodle dish.

From England was Shepherd's Pie and roast potatoes and parsnips (at my request). Portugal was represented by a macaroni dish with many interesting ingredients.

By request, we brought pumpkin pie to represent the United States. Some people had never tasted it before.

This is the face of defeat. This elder could not eat another bite. I didn't know that ever happened, but here's proof.

Odds and Ends

Castle Cornet has a number of museums full of interesting items. 

I love this platter; it's hard to believe it dates back to c. 1550. It was among objects that have been found on the bottom of the harbour at St. Peter Port.

Another unusual item is this decompression chamber complete with victim inside.

A horse with a gas mask.