Aristeidis Metallinos, laic sculptor of Ano Korakiana (1908-1987)
Aristeidis Metallinos - Αριστείδης Μεταλληνός - is known to few. Villagers of Ano Korakiana older than 30 remember talking to him as children. Aristeidis' son, Andrea, died in 2016. We attended his crowded funeral at Agios Athanasios, the cathedral of Ano Korakiana. We're honoured to be friends of Maria, Andrea's sister, daughter of Aristeidis, also her son, Tassos; also of Angeliki, the sculptor's grand-daughter and her mother, Anna, Andrea's widow.
Aristeidis Metallinos was a craftsman of many skills, who became, in the last part of his long life, a sculptor - one of the island's talents. He died 20 years before we came to have a home in his village. Six years after our arrival, we were invited to visit the museum in which Andrea and Anna lived and in which the sculptor's work is currently displayed. Few others, Greeks or foreigners, have been inside. It was once described as a 'museum', but last year that name was removed by workman in 2017, leaving Andrea's plaque on the front of the house, attesting it as his father's place of work.
To make his work known, a project in which we have faith, I submitted a Wikipedia entry in English and Greek. Two years ago, Angeliki, Lin and I, with Andrea's approval, made a draft catalogue of every work in the 'museum'.
With Andreas Metallinos' approval, Angeliki and Linda cataloguing his father's work
Richard Pine was permitted to use one of the sculptor's marble friezes - The Saint of Preveza - in his book Greece Through Irish Eyes. In 2016 our son Richard made and administers a website owned and paid for by the family.
I have shown photos of many of the works to interested Corfiot artists and writers, Greek and British - Maria Strani-Potts, Jim Potts, Richard Pine, Katherine Wise. Also Corfiot historian John Petsalis author of Corfu Museum on-line, and his colleague photographer, Effie Stathia; the cultural anthropologist, Dr Alexandra Moschovi at the University of Sunderland. Irini Savanni, art historian and curator at the University of Athens, who I met in Ano Korakiana, her village. Aristeidis Metallinos is mentioned on Ano Korakiana's website and blog authored by Thanassis Spingos.
The first noting of the sculptor outside his village was by Giannis M. Maris - welcome, but brief, in a collection of artists' biographies published in 1978. The catalogue Angeliki, Linda and I made of the works in the museum in Ano Korakiana shows just 25 sculptures completed by that year.
Giannis M. Maris (1978) "Βιογραφικό - Αριστείδης Ζαχ. Μεταλληνός", in Απάνθισμα Γραμμάτων και Τεχνών, Athens, pp. 611–617
A much fuller paper of 23 pages illustrated with black and white photos of the artist's work was written by Professor Eurydice Antzoulatou-Retsila (she told me, in a letter, she preferred 'Eurydice' to the Greeklish 'Evridiki') published in Myriovivlos, vol. 7, Athens, pp. 37-47 - two years before the artist's death. 'Corfiot themes in the craft of the laic sculptor Aristeidi Metallinou'.
Maria and Jim Potts have generously donated a 'free translation' of this paper's abstract:
The laic sculptor (sculptor of the people) Aristeidis Metallinos (1908-1987), from the Corfu village of Ano Korakiana, provides us with a common example of a folk artist or craftsman, for whom the need to earn a living pushes him/her in the direction of an occupation involving a variety of forms of traditional artisanal handicraft-work, until reaching the final stage of free and unconstrained expression of artistic inspiration through, e.g. sculpture in stone (in the case of Metallinos).
In the course of his difficult life, he practised as a wood-carver, a professional shoe-maker. He built fireplaces and ovens, carved and chiselled olive press mill-stones and hand grinding-mills.
At the advanced age of 67, he occupied himself as a sculptor carving in stone, declaring that he was self-taught. He thus realised a long-standing ambition to create and depict different forms of life which were slowly disappearing, as he had understood from his own experience of life. His works of art demonstrate the true meaning of laic folk-art and provide visual testimony and evidence of aspects of Corfu’s culture and way of life, particularly in the north west of Corfu.
The inspiration for Metallinos’ sculptures was the folklore of the island. They are presented here for the first time. They were created in the period between 1975 and 1983. Two types are distinguishable: bas-relief sculptures, and statues, carved from white Kozani marble or Corfu stone.
They depict agricultural occupations* (milking a goat, a village woman carrying a load, the village olive press), traditional crafts and professions (the shoemaker/cobbler, the milkman, the village baker, the blacksmith), domestic activities (grinding with a hand-mill, a village woman kneading dough, a peasant woman carrying water), traditional handicrafts (a peasant woman with a distaff, another with a shepherd), villagers wearing traditional costumes (‘My mother’, an elderly man from Korakiana, a peasant woman in formal costume, a Corfiot). NB If the word peasant’ is not felt appropriate now, substitute ‘villager’.
The laic sculptor of Ano Korakiana at work by Jan Bowman
A catalogue on the internet for Aristeidis Metallinos` Ο Αριστείδης Μεταλληνός I left Ano Korakiana in June telling Angeliki, his grand-daughter, that by September I would bring her a rough draft - on paper.
Back in England, talking to several curators of art galleries, I came away convinced that what was needed was not a hard copy - yet. I asked my son, Richard, to design a website. Yesterday he showed me his draft for a front page...
...but to get it right "You have to have high quality photo's of each sculpture.
"Can you come to Corfu?"
"Yeah"
Richard will bring his camera to the museum in October. I hope he can work through the works not already photographed by Rob Groove who may be able to do more.
The artist creating his work - 1984, cat 190, stone 74 x 69cm (photo: Rob Groove)
"I need speed lights and a roll of white paper"
"Hm? Can you bring your own lights?"
"Maybe. Can't you find some in Corfu?"
"Maybe. I can let you know."
"I guess we'll need to photograph about 50 to 60 pieces a day. Can they be moved?"
I imagine doing this vital process the same way Angeliki, Lin and I with help from her parents worked up the draft catalogue we made in May, listing and numbering each piece with measurements and whether it's stone or marble.
Lin and Angeliki working on the catalogue
Every on of Aristeidis' pieces has been photographed by the artist's nephew Anastasios Nikolouzos, Tassos - an invaluable record, basic to the project.
A sample of Tassos' images of the carvings
There are the lists made 10 years ago by Angeliki M, in Greek and English, recording the inscriptions on each work. Now all pieces in the collection are renumbered - chronologically - these words need to be digitised and linked to each new picture, bot for their explanatory value and to ensure identification.
Letter to Angeliki M: Αγαπητοί Αγγελική. Linda and I send love and best wishes to your family and hope you are all well. I have attached letters to me from Eurydice Antzoulatou-Retsila who knows as much as anyone outside Ano Korakiana about your grandfather. She is happy to write another article for the ‘catalogue’ we are working on about Aristeidis Metallinos. She retires from her university in the Peloponnese this month and she will be coming to Corfu, where she also worked, to visit friends and, she hopes, to visit you, your family and the museum when she is here. My son Richard Baddeley is working on a website about the sculptor. This website will record all the works with photographs of each carving. My son says that he needs high quality photographs like those created by our friend Rob Groove from Ipsos who visited the museum this May to make an image of ‘The Saint of Preveza’ for Richard Pine’s book about Greece which will be published in October. Our son will be coming to Corfu for a week in order - with yours and your family’s permission - to take high quality photographs for the Aristeidis Metallinos catalogue which he will be putting on the website catalogue he has started to design. After we returned to England in June I asked several museum and art gallery curators about our plan to publish a catalogue. They confidently advised me that it would be far better to have a web-based catalogue containing the artist’s work and articles about him. The advantage of this is that we can have swift free access across the world to Aristeidis’ works. The website can include texts including ones by Eurydice Antzοulatοu-Retsila, by your father and by me and you. We can also include video clips and sound recordings in English and Greek that can be accessed with a click of a computer key. People with smart phones can find out about the sculptor. A web-based catalogue has the additional advantage that it can be easily re-edited as new knowledge about your grandfather or more detailed images become available. I hope you will not be disappointed that I am not coming back to Corfu with a ‘book’, but I am now convinced that an Aristeidis Metallinos website is the best way forward in bringing the artist to a larger audience, and certainly does not preclude a book type catalogue. If a ‘hard-copy’ catalogue is wanted for a particular exhibition of the sculptor’s work at some time in the future, this can be constructed from data in pictures and words from the internet. We are looking forward so much to being back in the village and to seeing our friends again. I don’t know exactly when Eurydice arrives on the island but as you see – in the attached letters - I have given her details of how to contact you. I hope she will be welcome in Ano Korakiana. The work I am currently involved with is writing the English and Greek words on each of the sculptures....
First page of 15 pages - spaces await recording of transcriptions and, where needed, explanatory notes
The Scops owl Metallinos carved on a stone plaque fixed to the front of his house, displaying his initials, and holding a builder's trowel and a sculptor's hammer, is dated the year he made the transition from builder to sculptor, depicting in stone and marble a unique record of a fast changing pastoral economy, emphasising the primacy of the family, village institutions and traditional customs, yet mingling with this account of Greek folklore, works that are στοιχεία ερωτικά, σκωπτικά και πολιτικά ανατρεπτικά...erotic, ribald and subversively political.
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I planted parsnip seedlings, germinated in March on a wet kitchen towel at home then planted them out on the plot inside cardboard tubes to help them stay straight and not divide. Since July I've been enjoying them as soup, roasted and boiled. Late August, my friend Winnie gets my grandson's help pulling up another crop for the pot.
One of the most robust sources of happiness these last 9 months has been the fecundity of our allotment. Various actions define a turning point. For s start I did what just about anyone living in Handsworth starting with raw soil has to do - one way or another. I invested in several builders bags of black gold compost which I gradually mixed with the 'messy' soil I've been trying to work since mid-2010.
Andy of Valley Contractors delivering black gold compost to Plot 14 - July 2014
What is 'messy' soil? There's a question. This plot and others on the Victoria Jubilee are confusing in this respect. It presented itself to my spade, fork and mattock, as neither sandy, nor peat, nor clay nor chalky.
The soil as it presented itself in December 2013
This kind of rubble still being dug out of the plot in 2014
It might have the character of silt soil. Where compost has been mixed in, it might be loam. Loam and silt contain elements of the others. Why is it tricky to define?
To go way back; in Triassic times all Britain was in the tropics, our area a vast shallow lake. Far more recently - between 100,000 and 12,000 years ago...
Birmingham is about where ''e' is at the end of 'Northern Ice'
... the land was buried beneath 3000 metres of ice. The climate was like that at the North Pole now. Slow-moving sheets of ice ground the tops from the Welsh Mountains. Glaciers pushed great masses of earth and broken stone south eastwards across the clay plain.
...huge glaciers pushed millions of tonnes of sand, gravel and pebbles from Wales and from the north of Britain to the Midlands. Glacial drifts with different mixtures of sand and gravel, pebbles and clay are found in many places on top of other rocks...
Across great lakes, blocked in by mile high ice barriers, gales blew the water into mighty waves, which, breaking, pounded fallen rocks into smooth rounded gravel. When the great thaw came, glacial drift had left rubble strewn over the landscape forming an uneven layer of water-worn pebbles mixed with sand, clay with a few larger boulders...
Winnie's stone garden - 'water-worn pebbles' ground by glacial drift
So Handsworth and its surroundings was 'covered by glacial drift deposits 150 feet thick'. Glaciers ground the high peaks of Wales and drifted their stones all over the Midlands. The ground stones are attractive, but they're mixed with recent remains from activity on private allotments that were here up to the start of this century
A typical collection of glacier and water-worn stones mixed with more recent rubble dug from the plot
The account of local geology goes on to say that the local 'topsoil is porous and acidic, unsuitable for agriculture...its natural cover was light woodland and heath.'
This suggests that anyone who's used this land for growing vegetables has needed to improve their soil. I'm confident that the soil on the original Victoria Jubilee Allotments (VJA) - private land - had been undergoing steady improvement for near a century, from the time working men started using land given them by the church at the end of the 19th century. Much of the VJA had been thoroughly dug, manured and composted for decades.
The Victoria Jubilee Allotments, sold by their owners to a developer, who got planning permission to build in 2004
The old Victoria Jubilee Allotments were accessed by country lanes (photo: Luke Unsworth 2004)
Would that those of us who took up plots on the 'new' Victoria Jubilee Allotments - 80 plots on a third of the original site - in June 2010 had inherited this well prepared soil. What actually happened was that the whole site...
Google map now - the unfinished playing fields and the new housing around Victoriana Way were once all allotments
...from which Birmingham City Council eventually won the new plots and space for playing fields - still not delivered after eleven years - was first graded and built on and driven over with heavy machinery during the housebuilding that went on between 2004-2009. There were major man-made ground upheavals. First, old sheds, shrubs, trees, hedges and anything remaining on the old plots was bulldozed into several big heaps...
In 2005 the old VJA was being prepared for new allotments, playing fields and houses (photo: Luke Unsworth)
...then a large cavity was dug in the ground beneath the smaller area reserved under a S106A. It was deep enough to almost hide the diggers involved...
Landscaping on the VJA in 2005 reveals glacial drift - pebbles, sand, clay and occasional boulders...
...and show the start of the deep sandy muddy glacial drift deposit that runs so close to the surface. Why such a large hole? Why did the developer need to create such a space? Was some of the excavated earth trucked from the site? I suspect this was all about major re-landscaping of the whole site with earth from one part being moved to other part - including the laying out of level playing fields to the south where the land had sloped gently down to the park. The original geology is confused. I didn't see it happen but my guess is that this cavity - under my present plot - was refilled from gradings elsewhere on the VJA site over which earth mixed with all left on the surface of the original VJA site was re-spread across the new site...
The new plots being laid out on the VJA
...with, as I understand, a few inches of topsoil brought in from elsewhere. I'm unclear why this was necessary and most gardeners tell me it's not especially rich and may have brought in such perennial weeds as horsetail.
On 10th June applicants signed up for their plots. Linda and I chose one overlooking Handsworth Park.
Signing up for our plot (photo: Richard Baddeley)
I started work - innocent and ignorant - on preparing our new cherished hard-won plot.
Summer 2010
The earth was dry, dusty, full of weeds, pebbles, stones and odds-and-ends that had been part of the furnishings of the previous plots that had been here - worked wood, plastic, metal brackets, wire, fragments of fabric, many coloured pieces of broken glass, bricks, rubble...
It was a start. I was carried forward, as I am now, by interest, enthusiasm for learning, excitement at the prospect of growing things, getting a shed, making Plot 14 into a place.
July 2015 ((photo: Richard Baddeley)
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1. Making sense of the soil - from figuring the local geology; investing in topsoil and compost; knowing the history of the site to explain some of the objects brought up by the spade. Studying the book recommended by Barry Luckhurst - Gardener's Earth by Stanley B. Whitehead and beginning to learn the art of composting.
Palette composting bays laid out in March 2015
2. Making the improved soil accessible...by laying and widening paths to create beds I can get at without treading on worked soil.
My rough plan of Plot 14 in 2015
I used the HHH van (with a donation for time and fuel - all logged and transparent) to deliver hundreds of bricks recovered from skips and front yards, with permission. These are easily moved to change the shape of a bed as carpet tiles, collected in a discarded batch while clearing a Handsworth garden, can quickly create temporary paths as well as holding down the hem of netting. All paths on the plot have been covered with permeable weed control membrane fixed with staples...
I've stocked up with plastic tubing to use as frames for nets, investing in veggiemesh and, for winter, bubble wrap to protect from frost. I now set up a netted framework swiftly; a crowbar to make the holes, Each end of a cut-to-length plastic tube inserted in the holes; the hoops strengthened with bamboo fixed with plastic ties to the hoops. Then the mesh spread over the frame, staples inserted to hold it down and carpet tiles to cover any excess spreading on the surrounding path.
3. Winnie. She is my steward and farm hand and friend as interested in the plot as I and with a dad who also has an allotment, and a young son who works with her on the plot and plays with Oliver, my grandson, when he's here.
Winnie and Simon on 'our' plot this January
Cutting out cabbage buttterfly eggs and damaged leaves on Brussels Sprouts
A few days ago Oliver and Hannah were staying with their other grandmother, Christine. She introduced them to kite flying...
Oliver and Hannah (Photo: Amy Hollier)
...while yesterday Lin and I were entertaining them.
Hannah sits in the high chair that was my mother's, mine, and our childrens'
This morning I walked with Oscar and Oliver to the allotment and worked through the morning with Winnie, watering and weeding...
Oscar and Oliver ~ the flag was described recently as 'an ode' to a famous photograph taken 45 years ago
...cropping more broad beans and a first batch of peas, shelling them at home...
A sage item from the minutes of a recent VJA committee:
Flags. –
Simon has a union jack flag on his allotment and it was questioned whether this
was appropriate as it has
negative connotations and could give the wrong impression of the allotment.The flag in
question is an ode to a photograph taken close to the allotments that has
cultural significance and is therefore an artistic and cultural expression.
Celebrating a rainy Diamond Jubilee on the Victoria Jubilee Allotments
Yesterday Amy brought Liz to the plot. She'd not seen it for two years.
"Wow!" she said "You've done good"
Liz can't walk anywhere for more than five minutes...complications with pregnancy means taking care moving about. Baby due in two months.
Yanis Varoufakis, Finance Minister of Greece "Democracy did not have a good day in yesterday’s Eurogroup meeting"
...a book about 'how economic power has emerged from the shadows of political and military might before gradually taking over human societies. The narrative combines history, literature, science fiction films and down-to-earth economic analysis to impress upon teenagers, and various beginners, that economics is an epic drama. Rather than a technical science, it is a battleground on which armies of ideas clash mercilessly and where concepts with a capacity to move mountains emerge; and all that in a war for our own allegiances which are being fought over by powerful interests usually at odds with ours...That, looked at through a piercing eye, behind every economic notion, every theory, there lurks a fascinating debate about human anxieties that only poets, dramatists and musicians have managed to address with any degree of efficiency.'
As it happened – Yanis Varoufakis’ intervention during the 27th June 2015 Eurogroup Meeting posted on 28th June 2015 The Eurogroup Meeting of 27th June 2015 will not go down as a proud moment in Europe’s history. Ministers turned down the Greek government’s request that the Greek people should be granted a single week during which to deliver a Yes or No answer to the institutions’ proposals – proposals crucial for Greece’s future in the Eurozone...
Greek Lawmakers Approve Decision to Hold Referendum by Stelios Bouras, Wall Street Journal June 27, 2015 Greek lawmakers gave the green light early Sunday to a proposal by the coalition government to hold a referendum on whether austerity measures demanded by lenders in exchange for further aid should be accepted by the crisis-hit nation...
Greece Will Close Banks to Stem Flood of Withdrawals by Landon Thomas Jr. and Niki Kitsantonis The New York Times 28 June 2015 ATHENS — Greece will keep its banks closed on Monday and place restrictions on the withdrawal and transfer of money, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said in a televised address on Sunday night, as Athens tries to avert a financial collapse....
Travel to Greece: Advice for those travelling to Greece by Simon Calder, The Independent posted Tuesday 16 June, 2015 Many concerned prospective holidaymakers have got in touch this week as Greece’s financial crisis deepens. A worrying time for the Greeks – but should holidaymakers worry?...
by Viktoria Dendrinou & Gabriele Steinhauser Wall Street Journal June 27, 2015 The eurozone rejected a Greek request for a one-month extension to its bailout Saturday, plunging the country into a period of high uncertainty and raising concerns about wider financial fallout when markets open on Monday....
by Alex Barker Financial Times June 27, 2015 Greek banks are on the edge of failure. Deposit flight is accelerating and Greece’s funding options are running out. Every euro withdrawn from cash machines is backed by emergency funding from the European Central Bank. Without an extension to Greece’s bailout, these ECB emergency loans are in doubt. Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, has
Reuters June 27, 2015 Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called a referendum on austerity demands from foreign creditors on Saturday, rejecting an "ultimatum" from lenders and putting a deal that could determine Greece's future in Europe to a risky popular vote...
Associated Press June 27, 2015 German Chancellor Angela Merkel has emerged undamaged from the global financial crisis, European bailouts, an astonishing U-turn on nuclear power and the crisis over Ukraine. Now, with the future of efforts to resolve Greece's fiscal woes up in the air, the long-serving leader looks well-placed to emerge strong even if they fail.
by Hugo Dixon Reuters June 27, 2015 Alexis Tsipras has taken a massive gamble on Greece’s future. By calling a referendum on whether to accept the creditors’ latest offer of cash in return for unpopular reforms, the Greek prime minister is offering the people a choice between the bad and the extremely bad. Meanwhile, the world may be about to face the biggest default in history...
by Peter Spiegel Financial Times June 26, 2015 Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, has announced a national referendum on whether his country should agree to creditors’ demands that would release desperately-needed bailout aid to avoid national bankruptcy. In a televised address to the nation after a late-night meeting of his cabinet, Mr Tsipras announced that the plebiscite would be....
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'Ευρωπαϊκή Οικονομική Κοινότητα ~ The European Union' 1980 by Aristeidis Metallinos
In the week before we last left Ano Korakiana, Linda, I and Angeliki Metallinos, completed a list of nearly all her grandfather's sculptures and marble reliefs. After three and half hours we had a re-numbered list based on the year of the carving, with dimensions, brief description, and whether in local stone or in marble from Kozani...
Aristeidis Metallinos (1908-1987) catalogue draft
...giving us the raw material for a catalogue which, talking to several gallery curators recently, I believe should be created as a website. I'm not dismissing a hard copy. I'm recognising that having information about Aristeidis Metallinos on the web is a better goal. From such a site, easy to edit, different catalogues with varying emphases can be made into temporary hard texts. The web option, avoiding colour or even half-tone printing is also a deal less costly. I am still exploring who should write about the laic sculptor. On 21st June, I was excited to receive a letter from the scholar - Dr. Eurydice Antzoulatou-Retsila, since 2009 professor at the School of Cultural Studies at the University of Peloponnese in Kalamata - who had first written about Metallinos in 1985, when he was still alive:
Dear Simon.
At last I can communicate with you, because I had terrible problems with my computer all this period, being afraid that I had lost all my archives, but finally all has been arranged well.
So, let me first thank you deeply for your interest in the work of Metallinos. I was feeling the same when in 1982 I had discovered him and I had faced all negative attitudes from all parts of communities in Corfu. But I insisted and I wrote my article then . My husband , now, says that nothing goes in vain and he is very glad with your initiative , because he, himself ( as artist, he is film director) had believed in this work.
Perhaps my interest those days was founded in my work as curator at the National Museum of Greek Folk Art (in Athens) and my interest in what is humble and simple. After all, this had been my first speciality (history archaeology, art focused on Greek folk art, my PhD dissertation was on the wedding crowns of modern Greece, those created in gold and silver and kept in local churches or in museums).
I will be very glad indeed to contribute in the volume you are preparing and actually I am planning to visit Corfu again in September to meet with my old friends there (I was professor of museum studies and cultural management at the Ionian University there from 1994 to 2009), to start a new research I am planning and of course I will enjoy seeing again the works of Metallinos.
This last period has been very hectic for me, because I am retiring end of August and lots of things in the administration must be arranged (I am dean since 2011…).
I am planning also my new career (my third one!!) in music this time (piano and singing as soprano) and I am really very excited. My first career was as curator at the museum (and also creating lots of museums all over Greece), my second as university professor and now as musician. Not bad for a variety in life !!!
So, dear Simon, thank you again for these wonderful ideas you have, I am sharing your interest and I will be glad to contribute. But the greatest pleasure for me is your interest in Greek things, expressed in this very sensitive way, especially this period, where this country and this society is really in a very bad situation.
Be well, take good care, greetings to Linda and let us try to meet soon
Best,
Eurydice
Plaque on the front of the Aristeidis Metallinos Museum in Ano Korakiana - the year the builder became the sculptor
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The amount of greenery to be salvaged from crops, from neighbouring fallow allotments just scythed - in weeds, pods, tops and hay...all for long term composting...
Windrows raked from the scythings of fallow allotments either side of plot 14
...while the bays by the fence may have produced some humus by this time next year...with one bay providing almost usable soil though full of annual weed seeds.
This bay includes much of the couch grass weeded out over the last year
I've realised my friend Ziggi's point that it's not good just growing stuff, however successfully. You must grow it to eat and ensure that you bring it for cooking by agreement with the cook. Don't just turn up like the 'hunter-gatherer' with a bag of veg and expect Lin to be grateful. Check what's needed. Scarf what's to be cropped into her plans for meals. Allow also for the extra time involved in preparation compared to veg off the supermarket shelf.
Lin didn't ask for these but I needed to do some thinning of the parsnip bed
Once cropped every one of these sweet little parsnips needs to be topped, tailed and scrubbed.
That took me half an hour at the sink, slightly less time than it took me yesterday to shell fresh peas for two, or today, for Lin to shell a saucepan full of broad beans. The same goes for the many small new potatoes that were 'ordered' for a Sunday family supper..
From Amy who brought the cakes to finish the meal: Thanks mummy for cooking dinner for all of us was very yummy and much needed. Liz says thank you too smile emoticon
