Olga, the Grrr Lady

Carol answered the phone in the Thorpeness Village Stores. 'Hello Mr Pearson! Two dozen of the Grrr Lady's chunky?'
She made a note and said she'd see Mr Pearson as usual on the twenty-sixth.
'Stays here the same dates every year,' she told me. Takes the same amount of marmalade home.'
The Grrr Lady is Thorpeness resident Olga. She's only ever referred to by her first name, as with Madonna, Cher or Emu. Her selection of fudges and preserves may just be the next locally produced range to follow Suffolk Mud and Purely Pesto into the likes of the Co-Op, Waitrose and Fortnum's. When told that her Aldeburgh Festival show had sold out as fast as the latest Apple product, Prima Ballerina Madame Galina, another Thorpeness resident, wondered: 'I-phone 6S or Olga's chutney...?'
I've tried and love all her prize-winning preserves - perhaps my favourite being the Pink Peppercorn Marmalade. Olga's Mince Pie Fudge, a glass of fizz and a read through most of Sherlock Holmes made my Christmas.

Buy from the VIllage Stores, or tweet Olga directly: @grrrlady. The Harrods Food Hall beckons. Then Olga might be hard pushed then to find time to make Mr Pearson's annual batch.

@grrrlady
@The_Dolphininn

Comments

Some Favourite Books - But Please don't Lesbify Dame Agatha's Denouements

I'm too tired to read anything new so have been round the libraries taking out my default-setting books to read over Christmas. These include: The Pursuit of Love , Nancy Mitford. The blood-stained entrenching tool displayed above the fireplace, child-hunting over Shenley Common, Jassy traumatising the local children telling them the facts of life. The scene at the Gare du Nord where Linda sits on her luggage to cry and meets Fabrice always takes me back to the first reading of the novel, sitting wrapped in my Welsh Tweed shawl, in a tiny bedroom on the eighteenth floor of a high-rise in Kennington. The Pursuit of Love is romantic, hilarious and bleakly eccentric. Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady , Florence King. When I entertained troops on the American base in Kandahar, four South Carolina army captains made me an Honorary Southern Belle. Madame Galina, they said, in all her unreasonable, high-blooded,...

My Mate Jamie-Ray Hartshorne

I've been noticing that alongside photos of Jamie-Ray being a lead in Altar Boys , creating Change My Body UK TM , working the door at Freedom - and clearly asking people passing by wherever that rockpool may be to snap a double-bicep - this sort of thing is cropping up on his social media: We're in The Diner, Jamestown Road, Camden. He's between tour dates of The Bodyguard, and meetings to discuss sportswear and creatine endorsements. The latter, he says, being all about making his product better. Between sips of his peanut butter milkshake (he's allowing himself dairy today in my honour - I don't quite know how to take that) he says in his soft Brum, 'I've signed up for a major Muay Thai event in Thailand next February. I'm going up against one of the Thai fighters. That's the only real way to gain any respect in the fighting world. That's why you've been noticing the combat photos. I...

Where do Babies Come From? How we Learn about Sex...Book Just Launched on Amazon Kindle

Click to buy the book 'My spoken material is about the facts of life,' I was explaining to the Mother Superior. 'I've been asking people what they were told, how they were told it and did they ask questions. Terribly funny...' During my Where do Babies Come From? talk at the Metrodeco Café, Brighton, a superfluity of nuns stopped at the window to listen. In the street later that week one of them glided up and said how much they had enjoyed hearing me sing. ' And we wonder, might you please sing something for our charity evening?' I said, of course, sister. The nun nodded. 'That's very good to hear. But just to correct you: not sister - but Mother Superior.' She then ...

Iestyn Edwards Wonders...is it Lumpy or Runny?

Search This Blog