07.02.10

And Today's Heart(s) are brought to you by..........

........Youngest.

He had been laid prone on his bed for most of the morning, wasted by a steaming headache, when, after being offered a piece of mincemeat loaf and a cup of tea, he struggled manfully up and scoffed the lot - headache gone!

Such are the medical properties of tea and cake (and a bit of sympathy). He came back downstairs a new man, feeling fine and full of enthusiasm. So I suggested he got out his paints and this is what he created .... that's my boy!

And as for that cake - thank you Colouritgreen! Very tasty and going to be recipe number 9/52.

Youngest going in for a second slice............

06.02.10

Today's Heart it.....

A clay heart made as a gift for our 20th Wedding Anniversary.

Eldest has a best friend who lives in a neighbouring village.

A nice kid, from a French family, with a bevy of younger sisters.

At the bottom of his garden is a beck.

He collected a load of the clay soil from the river bed and modelled it into a heart shape.

Then added the nuts and washers and stripped electrical wire to make hair.

He spent most of the morning working on it.

Finally he put it in his Mum's oven to bake hard.

It exploded.

So, he returned to the beck, collected more clay and started again.

This time kneading the air bubbles out.

Again he shaped the clay, added the extras and

after getting permission and clearing up the mess from the last attempt,

he put it back in his Mum's oven.

It slow baked over night, filling their entire house with a rather

hot earthy  baking smell - apparently not all that nice.

Once cooled, it was painted, pink and red poster paints from his sister's collection,

 a light blue enamel paint begged from a neighbour.

We were so touched when we unwrapped this little gift and even more so when we found out the tale of it's creation. 

********************

Time to tally up the next lot of untried recipes (52 new things etc)

so - oo..........

6. Yummy Buscuits - their name, not mine. I wasn't that taken, but they were scoffed by my boys.

7. Barrovian Love Cake - a rich Victoria sponge cake,

(If you follow the link, you need to scroll down the page for both recipes to page 2 and 3)

8. Apple and Gingercake - yum-yum yum-yum yum-yum and per chance did I mention the yumminess of this particular cake?

If the earliest recorded form of yum-yum was in 1878, what did cooks and their chief tasters say before then? 

It is a word we use a lot.

05.02.10

...And today's heart is...

A little treasure box that shelters my rings when I am not wearing them.

Made by Youngest at cubs and presented to me on Mother's Day 

complete with little chocolates 

wrapped up in crinkly red tissue. 

Each little heart stuck on with generous globs of glue.

The wobbly handwriting.

I will always love it.

He will grow up and become a man  

And this little box will keep safe a  precious memory of his 8 year old self for me. 

I will always love them, my boys, no matter what.

It is a binding, unbroken invisible cord that wraps my love around them.

I had never intended on having children, we were happy with just us and our cats. Then I discovered I was pregnant with Eldest and was horrified, I didn't think I could cope.

Something my Mom said to me was.... don't worry, they bring the love with them once they are born...

She was right. 

But what she did not say was how powerful and unbreakable it was.

However, I still yell at them when I have had enough of their antics!!....... 

I might love them dearly

but I am still the boss :)x

04.02.10

Today's heart is.....

This felt woven heart, brought by my Mom to knit n knatter last night,  was one I had made when I was 11 or 12 for my Gran. It still has the childish uneven stitches done by a reluctant scholar.

I did it in the final year of junior school in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in what was called 'Home Economics' class. A thinly veiled attempt to train girls to be good housewives. While the boys went off to do wood work, cross country and play cricket, we learned to crochet (didn't pick up a hook again until last year), how to sew (only started sewing seriously-ish in last 6 months) and how to cook (only really got the cooking bug when I met Himself and I had found that by feeding him he kept coming back!!... and I really did want to keep him.)

School and I didn't get on well, I never really excelled at anything and school never really cared.
As a child, many adults used to say to me 'school days - the best days of your life....'

I know now what I felt then - they were lying.

My best days are now.

03.02.10

Today's heart.......

A small wire heart bobs in a flower starved, snow rich garden.

I make them to support anything a bit too delicate to survive the gentle footfall of my gallumping boys and giddy dog - does it work? 

Not necessarily, but I still hold on to that hope that one day it will!

**********************

Today the roads were icy and the skies leaden.

Winter was making another attempt at thwarting normality.

The main roads on the way to school were clear, 

but when I turned off into the village where the junior school loiters, 

the lane turned from a tranquil ribbon of tar meandering through small hamlets, 

to an evil spirited ice laden death trap.

I shifted into a low gear and gently pressed the brake so not to force a skid as I rolled down the hill into the village.

All we could hear in the car was the scratchy sound of tyres sliding gracefully on ice.

I turned the steering wheel in an attempt to guide the car into the ditch to avoid collecting a row of parked cars.

I could almost hear the music to Swan Lake as we elegantly slid down hill.

I managed to grind to a halt just before rearranging the six foot tall stone wall, and asked Eldest to get out and go down to the house where we were to stop.

He opened the door - and disappeared from sight immediately.

All I could see was one leg in the air as he continued to slide down the hill on his back.

He managed in an amazingly delightful slap-stick style to get up and flap, slip, slop, slide, flop, glide his way to the door.

At this point I noticed that despite the fact I had my foot firmly pressed on the brake pedal, we were moving at a snails pace but at an unstoppable snails pace, towards the back of a parked car.

I also noticed that just before the parked car was a rather inviting large hole - and the car had taken up the invitation.............

Our friends in the house managed to carefully pick their way across their lane and slot themselves between my car, the wall, the ditch and the parked vehicle. Bracing their bodies against the stones they pushed my now gathering speed car away into the middle of the lane. Missing the parked car by a narrow squeak.

All I could taste was my heart thumping - and I still had to get Eldest to senior school.

Note: No cars, children, ice or stone walls were hurt in the making of this episode of 'The school Run', however my ribs are still bruised at the beating my heart gave them.....

02.02.10

The heart(s) for day..........

To mark this month's theme, I am going to do my first ever give-away and you get to choose which tiny felt heart you'd like to wear.

To choose, all you have to do is leave a comment letting me know which colour you fancy, before midnight (UK time) on Friday 5th February and I'll pick a winner at random on Monday 8th February.

I'm happy to post internationally, so any one can enter.

Sorry, no anonymous comments so please leave your name or pseudonym and check back on Monday to see if you  were selected!

Each tiny heart is hand sewn with vintage glass beads and felt embellishments and has a small clasp securely stitched on the back.

So you don't have to wear your heart on your sleeve, 

you can wear it on your hat, 

on your favourite tote 

or on a scarf!

01.02.10

February - second month of the year (replacing Old English solmonap - mud-month) The earliest recorded forms are feouereles and feouerreres moneo. The Roman festival of purification - known as februa was held on 15th February.

But more relevent to us today, the 14th February - Valentine's day.
In many countries it is a day for expressing love for each other, and I've decided that this year, every day in February will be Valentine's day!

Today's heart -

We don't have the traditional angel on top of our yule tree, but a wooden heart

I inherited the heart from Himself's mum,

 it had a folky type teddy on it which I removed, 

added the hessian and raffia bows 

and topped it with a bead and feather.

************************

In between entertaining Youngest whilst Eldest was staying with his friend, I've been busy.

Two more new recipes for the 52 new things I have not cooked before, some biscuits that I've not tried before, and although the other three cheerfully finished them off- I was not that enamoured....

and a Barrovian Love sponge (I thought would be appropriate for this month's theme!) which was a rather rich Victoria sponge cake, again I wasn't that keen, however it did not last long in the hands of my three men..... 

I also managed to finish my cafe' style pinny, 

which to my delight Himself wore on Sunday when making pancakes for breakfast!

Only after the photograph was taken 

that I noticed that there is proof of the pinny's use - just look at how mucky it has already become!

Ah well, it was his shirt first, it's only fair I let him use it on the weekends.