30.06.10 - WIPs

Last day in June, this half of the year has flown by!

A quick posting, gotta get out and get those last pesky weeds before this weekend - then I can relax about my garden.

I always get a 'bit precious' about the garden the fortnight leading up to the garden festival. I am seen chasing after kids and dogs yelling '......gerrrofff me laaaand!' or  incoherently babbling to the rambling roses as I encourage them to come in to flower in time or pleading desperately with the foxgloves to hold on to their blooms until the weekend is over.
I am seen on hands and knees wrenching weeds out of the lawn, desperately filling in the brown patches with grass seed where giddy dog piddles and getting more and more deranged as the big weekend looms menacingly close. Then on Sunday (and only then) I lean back and leave the garden to it's own devices and calm down and make my family promise promise me that they won't let me enter again......

Sigh.

Now for something a little more relaxing - WIPs

The Zwartbless clapotis is still on the hook, but I am waiting for more yarn to complete the project and while I  am waiting (can't keep my hooky fingers still! - also need an antidote to all that weeding and gardening)....I am doing another clapotis - this time one in a cotton silk mix from gifted yarn for me.

This one has a lovely drapey sensual feel to it, I can't wait to swish it over my shoulders and smoulder Greta Garbo like (not sure to whom or what....possibly the weeds in my garden of course...........)

Oh dear - really have to go, weed bucket lurking at back door with work boots. It is surprising how loudly inanimate objects can shout when you-do-not-want-to-listen.............

28.06.10 - Weekend

Saturday -

We sit scoffing fruit salad and yoghurt in the garden as we plan what needs doing today. The boys have their garden competition entries to start and Himself is going to lay some concrete for paving slabs. And me? Well, I keep looking at my garden and the weeds keep looking back at me, they cheerfully pop up overnight from areas previously cleared - how do they do that?

Eldest scrubs out his chosen 'creative container' - an ancient old zinc bucket, gifted to me by a man in his eighties. The bucket  had previously belonged to his 102 year old mother.......

Youngest disappears into the back of the garage to retrieve the red tray he is using for his mini-garden, it also needs a bath.

There is much planting and pulling back out and re-planting and shoving back in and yanking back out of all their chosen plants - I wince at the 'hands-on' approach the boys (particularly Youngest) but stand well back as these are their entries and I am not to get involved. Finally, after much juvenile cussing and muttering under breaths, they stand back pleased with their results.

Eldest's creative container is delightfully done -  a mix of annuals and vegetables

He is relieved and proud of his work - so am I....

Youngest's mini-garden - not quite finished (art in the making) is still being constructed. He is last seen wielding the hair cutting scissors (aargh - not them!) as he creates a little hen hock for his flock of plastic chickens.

I get fed up with weeding and edging and make a start on the adult creative container 

- but this one is a secret!  

Oh - ok, just one picture as a hint............. 

might show a few more teaser pictures as the week goes on!

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We missed celebrating the solstice on the 21st, so I plan to have one tonight - in the garden. After all the collective hard work, I think that the boys (all three) and I need a treat. Himself puts the benches out as I cook all sorts of easy to eat finger food. We bring out candles to symbolise the fires as we sit and eat and watch swallows and bats and a tawny owl and watch the sun go down. 

And when, finally the candles have burned low, the sky is almost dark and the boys are tired, we wander back into the house - it has been a good day.

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Sunday - 

A wonderful walk on ancient tracks, along quietly bubbling streams. A walk under huge beech and oak trees and along old stone causeways. A walk that cleansed the soul and made us feel so very alive.

Steeply wooded valleys 

Stone steps worn by years of trudging clog-weary feet

Last remaining relics of now long gone mills just 'appear' out of nowhere.

Sunken tracks beneath beech tree woodlands.

Coming out of the darkness of the woods and into the bright warm sunshine bathing the meadows.

A quiet moment of reflection.

It is days like these, with my boys, I feel free.

23.06.10 - if the shoe fits............

Are they indicative of our lives? 

Our need to connect with the outside. 

Our need to dig and grow.

My need to dig and grow. 

They stand (usually lie) around the back door, ready for action, ready for feet.  All sizes, different colours, different needs. Steel-toe capped, protective front ridges - mine, green and muddy - boys, they wait.

Waiting for a walk on the hills, 

waiting for a quick dash to the kitchen garden, 

waiting for a play in a stream, 

waiting to check the hens and collect their eggs - ever faithful, always mucky.

Mud splatted, waterproofed, sometimes dusty but always there. We slip in and out of them as easily as we breathe. An obstacle course of boots, shoes and wellies at the back door.

Old friends.

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A glimpse into my garden

I love this time of the year, still summer, with promise of more yet to come.

22.06.10 - splendid isolation

The breeze ruffles my hair making me have to sweep my fringe out of my eyes.
Squinting into the bright day I watch as my boys run laughing through the long grass.
Three weeks of a persistent cough and a week in the garden has made me tired, I have become soft since giving up gardening as a profession.

But sitting here, behind the cottage where I can hear a lark singing it's territorial tune above my head, I can feel my body repairing in the sunshine.

17.06.10 - Garden Festival

For my sins several years ago, in a flash of inspiration and with a lot of help from my friends and family, I started a village garden festival. With their support, I ran it for three years. I then resigned to let others guide the now successful event on.

I had found it extremely stressful and wrapped up in red tape so leaving it was a great relief and I refused to have any involvement with it.  A few years later, I  finally entered my garden and to my total disbelief I won the large garden section.

Now, a year further on, in a moment of weakness, I have entered again - only this time - I wish I hadn't!

With the date for judging getting nearer and nearer and the garden growing wild with gay abandon, I have finally succumbed to the fact I had better do something with it.


So - I have been gardening - with a little help.................

With all this help - I haven't a hope in hell!

14.06.10 - Wips and EEB's

Holiday musings-----4

As Himself does the final checks before we can set off on holiday, I am sneaking in bags of yarn and tins of crochet hooks. I know that he knows that I do this, but it is still the excitement of stashing my err, my stash in the caravan and car 'with-out-him-noticing' and seeing how much I can get away with! A girl can never, I repeat never have too much stashed wool on holiday!

My only problem is - my mojo has gone on holiday too.

I have nothing to create. 

I have the hooks, 

I have the wool, 

I have the ability, 

I have the desire

but I presently have no ideas..............

I run back inside the house to my favourite crafting bookshelf and grab the first book on crochet technique I can lay my hand on, run back to the car to add book to stash and smile, somewhat dishevelled, to Himself. His eyebrows are knotting slightly at my more that normal wool related madness.

Once on the road, I open the book. 

I plan to try out a new stitch and hope this will inspire me. I reach down, pull out a random cone of wool from the basket at my feet. A deep chocolate brown - hmm, not a good start. Delicious colour but not a good one to try a new stitch - but hey ho! We are going to be in the car for about four hours, I shall just get on with it!

Many miles down the road, and almost two hours into the journey I am ripping back my wip for the forth time. The boys comment at the strange noise the engine is making - little do they realise that it me grinding my back teeth. But, on attempt number five, I finally get the pattern right.

My wip grows as we wrap ourselves in our holiday. Each stitch has a memory woven in, each row has a grain of sand or a ray of sunshine entwining through the wool. I will show finished creation soon.

A while ago I was gifted a lovely hank of earthy coloured wool and was at a loss what to do with it (something to do with that holidaying mojo again). Then, sitting in the sun, watching the boys play, I reached into my basket of yarns, and my fingers feel the hank. I know in an instant what to do with it and I crochet like a demon.....progress photos to follow. 

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A friend of mine has given me a  Zwartbles fleece to play with and in exchange of this pile of woolly delicious-ness I am making a 'clapotis' scarf for her. I am loving this project. It releases that lovely earthy wool scent as it runs through my fingers in the most scrumptious way (sort-of-scratchy-sort-of-smooth)  I will be sorry when it finishes,  but I know that it is going to a good home :)

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On my last posting, I included my latest additions to my 52 things I have not cooked before list and was asked to explain some of them, so for Cat, Colouritgreen and Sarah - here they are....

Exploding Egg Banjos  - I will quote directly from the book - (page 54)

The exact origins of the Exploding Egg Banjo are unknown to me, for years I had thought it was just another name for a sandwich. A colloquiaslism. But no! When I started delving, and by that I mean Googling, I discovered that the Egg Banjo (or Exploding Egg Banjo) is not a sarnie or a butty or a sub or a Reg Varney, and was not invented by Pete Windsor of the Wirrel.

The ironic thing is that, like a fool who isn't on the joke, I had been enjoying the Exploding Egg Banjo for many many years without understanding quite what I was doing...........

1 x fresh free-range egg

1 soft buttered white roll

brown sauce

Your very best shirt

(make a fried egg sarnie and add the brown sauce)

........Take a big bite of the sandwich. Don't be shy. The egg will explode and drip down your shirt in a big brown and yellow mess. Inevitably, you will hold the sandwich in one hand away from your body and brush the egg from your shirt with the other....take a look at your body position. You are now eating an Exploding Egg sandwich. And playing an air banjo.

Brilliant! The boys (and I mean all three) have been playing the air banjo with the enthusiasm of a hillbilly ho-down.

 Cheesy Eggy Bread 

This one is camping variation of the toasted cheese sandwich, but done in a frying pan. We had ours with grilled tomatoes and mushrooms for breakfast and it was glorious sitting in the sun munching on this lot!

1 large egg lightly beaten with 2 tbsp milk

soft butter

thickly sliced bread 

grated cheddar

oil

Make bread and cheese sandwiches, cut in half or quarters (depending on size of pan or bread) and dip into egg mix.

Heat oil and knob of butter in a frying pan, fry the sandwich for a few minutes on each side until the bread has a rich golden crust and the cheese has melted - devour!

Both recipes are definitely holiday food because both need sunshine and daisies between the toes to be fully appreciated. When eaten on a cool grey northern Sunday they probably won't have nearly the appeal of the ones eaten in our holiday memories.

11.06.10 - 52 things I have not cooked before

Holiday musings.....3

It has been a while since I wrote anything about the 52 new things challenge.  so............

It's the first day of our holidays, the sun is shining hotly in a brilliant blue sky and my cell phone bleeps out.

Dont 4get yr allowed 

2 open 1 present now

you are there :D xxx

It is a text from my mom, I frown slightly - I am not normally allowed the forbidden delight of opening pressies early.... I wonder why.

Are you sure? was 

going to save it, but

 if I must...!!..............

.....U must!.........

I find the promised parcel and it is beautifully wrapped in silvery blue paper with a blue ribbon. I can feel it is a book. Hmmm, yay, I love books. The boys cluster close, their fingers itch to pull the ribbon but they hold fast and let me have the pleasure of slowing unravelling the bow, rolling up the ribbon and putting it down. I carefully peel off the tape and allow the paper to fall open. To reveal this: -

A brilliantly written tongue in cheek book - more of a fun weekend away than a cooking experience, but oh so entertaining! I am inspired and the boys are hungry (as ever) so a quick look in the cupboard (quick coz it's not that big in the caravan) confirms I can make a yummy apple pudding recipe.
The next few days turn out to be a camping gastronomical delight! My boys are 'internally' grateful to you Mum and Dad! Thank you

So, to add to my list of 52 things yadda yadda....

26 - Sticky toffee pecan apples (only no alcohol added coz of junior consumers)
27. - The boyfriend potato salad (eaten along side a burbling river whilst fending off savage midgies - a story for another day)
28. -Exploding egg banjos (brilliant!)
29. - Dawn patrol breakfast (I had this on my birthday)
30. - Fire baked salmon with tarragon (sans tarragon - c'mon - we are in a caravan for heaven's sake in the middle of no-where!!)
31. - Now this one - a hit with the boys has a rather un-inviting name - cheesy eggy bread - but ho ho it is delicious!

I think I am lucky - don't you?

10.06.10 - A big sky

Holiday musings ....2

I grew up in Africa.
I lived under a big savage sky, all encompassing and intense. It ranged from the deepest blue on an incredibly hot summer's day to an angry black rain-burgeoned miasma. In spring it had an ethereal lightness and brightness with a hint of the promised rains and at night the stars jostled for space. Autumn skies were clear with drifts of smoky haze on the horizon.
It was a big sky.

I live in England.
I live under a gentle sky, soft blues, often sullen, often wet. At night it glows an unearthly pink with anaemic stars struggling to be seen.
Here the sky competes for space.
I feel hemmed in.

Then we went up to Scotland.

The sky dominates. 

It soars. 

It is big. 

It is wonderful.

A lone shriek cuts through the rich blue sky as we look up.
'There! Look over there' Himself says out, his voice excited.
We all snap our heads up, hands shielding our eyes from the brilliant sun. Up high, circling on a thermal, wings out in lazy repose is a red kite.
The cry comes out again, slicing into our delight, my blood chilling at the raptor's call. We watch as the bird effortlessly floats above us. We are quiet in our admiration. Then almost too late I remember I have my camera on, ready to shoot, but pointing aimlessly down - so great was my awe, I nearly didn't get my picture.

During the day, the sky is big and generous but at dusk it becomes voluptuous.... 

It becomes reflective......

It becomes contemplative.......

The sky is very important to me, to my well being,

and these beautiful skies helped me to reconnect 

with me.

09.06.10 - sugar lumps and rose covered china tea cups

Holiday musings.............

My eyes are barely open and I can hear a sleepily sung version of happy birthday from a tousle haired Youngest. He is rubbing his eyes and yawning and climbing into bed with me as Eldest flops out of his sleeping bag while mumbling a similar sounding warble. Himself is already up, passing me a mug of coffee. He smiles over the boy's heads and words happy birthday to me. I smile back as I try to place the coffee out of 'bumping-range' while the boys sit close urging me to open my presents. I cough and splutter and sneeze as I open parcels of brightly coloured paper and cards that make me smile or laugh out loud.

The plans for today are laid out for my enjoyment - a tea in a chosen cafe, a walk through woodlands, time spent at a book shop in Castle Douglas then an evening picnic on the beach. I croak my delight, for today, my day, a day for me - I am sporting a rather untimely chesty cold.

Breakfast is a bowl of fruit with honey drizzled luxuriously over Greek yoghurt eaten in glorious sunshine, there are daisies between my toes and sheep baa-ing reassuringly to their lambs. The warm of the sun on my shoulders has a comforting healing feel to it.

The gentle ethereal scent of the bluebells fills the air as we walk through the woods. The welcome coolness of the dark shade from the trees is bliss from the now intense heat of the sun. Even the bees and bird song have almost dwindled to nothing. They too think it's too warm to be active. 

We climb (yes climb) a steep winding track to the top. 

My breath ragged and my throat dry and raw from coughing  prevents me from saying what I actually want to say to Himself as he smilingly shows me the panoramic view from the top. I manage a wheezy smile and I think he may have misread my rheumy eyes for eyes shining with emotion.............. I decide to take photographs, lots of photographs so that I can regain my composure and my breath. 

Himself cheerfully suggests we walk a different, longer, way down.

'So we don't have to go back down on that steep path' he says as he watches me having yet another coughing fit.  

Youngest, ever game for adventure, takes the map and forges ahead as he waves his arms left and right giving random directions and instructions. Eldest holds my hand protectively - I suspect he thinks I am getting past it!

I feel a lot calmer and less out of breath as a silver tea pot is placed in front of me. I lean forward slightly to take in the familiar tangy scent of tea,  only to succumb to an eye-wateringly, now regular, coughing fit. The waitress, complete in her black dress, tights and pinny steps back politely as she takes our orders.

The cafe is like falling into history. There are rows of china cake stands and antique Staffordshire china ornaments. The piped music is 'easy listening' on a loop and the boys pull quizzical looks as they ask 'what sort of music is this Dad?'

Himself, having worked up an appetite decides on lunch rather than morning tea and the boys eagerly join him. I, despite myself, agree!

The boys raise a toast to my birthday as we clunk ice-filled cloudy lemonade glasses against rose covered china tea cups - wonderful. I feel spoilt and loved.

'Cake' insist my three men. 

'I couldn't' I gasp, I have just eaten a lovely plateful and drunk copious amounts of tea - I am complete.

'Cake!'  they insist again.

My resolve weakens and the waitress noticing my quaking lip proffers a calorie laden cake menu, how could I resist...........

Every mouthful of my chosen cake is delicious - it has the equally delicious name of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover', and if she had ever met this cake I am certain she would have had a tryst of a different kind..... 

My birthday, as always, has been made special by my boys - thank you xx

08.06.10 - Back

Yes, back, 

it was wonderful. 

A sun-filled, beach combed, 

woodland walked, coastal rambled, 

river swum, midgie swatted, sheep observing, 

kite and buzzard spotting, 

freckle-making holiday.

Bliss.

We found it hard to return to normality. Don't get me wrong, it's great seeing the cat and chickens again and it always amazes me how much the garden grows whilst I am not looking,

but....but... I do miss something a fair bit..........................

We have a much loved battered old caravan and it does have the luxury of a shower and loo, but when Himself is the one that has to collect the water it feels a bit extravagant showering. 

So we all have 'granny baths' which are probably also known as a 'festival freshen up'! 

A basin full of warm soapy water and an all over vigorous sponge rub.

'Yes boys - I did say everywhere.... not just your faces!'

aaww mu-u-u-uuum....'

So, to be able to come home and have a shower under steaming hot water was bordering on decadent!  

Himself has spent most weekend's evenings making this bathroom for me, and I really love it! 

Even the boys helped, by knocking off the original tiles, doing the artwork in the frames and supplying key ornaments (green car and campervan) 

All that is left to do is to hang the pictures.

A small glass trinket box, a birthday gift from a work colleague - a perfect match

Linked to Mon's Through the keyhole  no.4, pop over to see her 'real people, real homes' post.

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Once I have waded through the gazillions of photos I have taken, I shall reveal some holiday highlights - till then!