Lettuce

31 July 2012

This last week I have had a lot of lettuce that needed eating.  My garden is producing masses of it at the moment some of which had, sadly, gone to seed.  It goes a bit bitter at this stage so I wondered if I could cook it to take the bitter flavour away.  I remember some years back that a friend had cooked lettuce soup with some tired looking lettuce.  I had a look through my cookery books with no success, so I turned to the web.  I could not find a recipe I liked the sound of, so I used bits from several recipes and made this, it was delicious.

Lettuce Soup

25g butter
1 tbs oil
1 onion chopped
1 lettuce shredded
500g frozen peas
750ml vegetable stock
Salt and pepper
Fresh mint finely chopped

Melt butter and oil, fry onion until soft, add lettuce and fry for a minute.

Add peas and cook for five minutes, add stock and bring to a simmer.

Remove from heat and liquidise.  Season with salt and pepper, stir in chopped mint and serve.

We have been mainly.....

30 July 2012

We started the week with our usual trip into the local town to do the weekly food shop and visit the library. The school holidays have now started where we live so everywhere was much busier this week. I think I will try and leave a bit earlier for the next few weeks, the library was manic the children found it difficult to choose books in all the noise and hubbub.

The next day I was woken by my youngest reading stories to me from one of her books. She was doing it quite quietly and it was lovely to lie and listen to her. We joined our friends for our regular play date it was mizzling (very fine rain, much finer than drizzle) so you got wet quickly if you ventured outdoors. Nevertheless my youngest still spent most of the day on the trampoline. I am not sure what my eldest was playing as I did not see him for most of the day, he was however filthy when I left. He stayed behind for a sleepover and the youngest and I headed home. It was strange in the house without him for the evening.

He returned to us in the morning with his friends. They stayed for a short play and had lunch with us before heading home. We spent the afternoon building Lego boats before heading over to join friends for tea. Their little one, had started to toddle it was great to see him standing up. He makes my youngest look like a giant. She is usually the smallest in groups we meet so I am used to her being one of the shortest.

We joined friends the next day at their house. We took food to share for lunch and afterwards they played. The afternoon disappeared very quickly in play including getting very wet with a hose pipe in the garden and my youngest played us some music on their piano.

We had a day at home the next day my youngest had a lovely day singing for most of the day. We built models with bricks and K'nex.  We danced and played musical instruments along to music.  We got the paints out and did some painting.

Over the weekend the children and I attended a Steam Gathering which was an interesting day out.  We took a picnic and spent most of the day there.  We were tired when we got home.

For most of this week my husband has been at home finishing the bed he is building for our youngest.  It is a cabin type bed,  he built the frame, the base for the mattress and the ladder some months ago.  Underneath we were intending to build storage for her clothes, books etc and a desk.  This is what he has been building this week, it is looking great. 

On Sunday he had reached a point where we could start to move stuff into the under bed storage area.  The room is the biggest bedroom in the house and has been used as a dumping ground for the last nine years.  There was a lot of stuff in the room that needed a home.  By the end of the day we had had a huge sort out.  All my youngest's clothes out of the chest of drawers are now in baskets on shelves.  The chest of drawers is going to a new home.  The toys that were in pile on the floor most of the time also now have a new home in baskets.  All my sewing stuff is in this room and has now been rehoused in another chest of drawers along with all my wool which I collected from various places in the house.  We went through a huge box of tapes and recycled all the ones we no longer wanted.  We moved books, a dolls house and toys from a set of shelves to shelves under the bed.  The shelves have been put into my eldest's room and given him more storage room, the floor is clearer now!  By the end of the day we had five bags full or stuff to go to the charity shop, two bags to go to my sister in law and a further two for friends.  The room feels much bigger and better organised.  The cupboard needs a door, that is a job for next week.  Then I need to find some material for curtains.  The de-cluttering and tidying was a great end to the week.

Troubled?

29 July 2012

I was listening to a programme on the radio this week when they were discussing the ethics of the latest government programme in my country to work with troubled families. The programme is being spearheaded by Louise Casey, who was bought in to advise the current government following the riots that took place in many cities in the summer last year.  Many families were interviewed to put together the report, their interviews make for stark reading.

The report backs dealing with the whole family rather than single issues such as crime, mental health or poor school attendance by children. The intervention is expected to continue until a family no longer needs support (it doesn't detail how this will be decided).  The report also talks about generation after generation of the same behaviour such as violence, abuse, crime and poor educational attainment.

The programme and report is not without its detractors. Why should those who cause the most problems have money spent on them in this time of austerity. The report was too narrow.  What about the families that do not meet the criteria to be included in the programme but are close to being that way.

My immediate reaction was about time. It has been clear to me for some time that to divert public funds towards helping families such as this would be money well spent, if it could reduce the costs to the NHS, the police, education, social services etc. Unfortunately in our target obsessed society the results of this would be hard to measure and will take a long, long time to achieve. Having read the reports and various articles in the media I am hopeful but not convinced that this programme will achieve what it sets out to do.

The report expresses, to my mind, surprise that the problems they encountered during their research were passed from generation to generation. That if as a child you had no stability, attention or care you could some how have these skills when you later become a parent. How can anyone bring up children to be responsible and respectful members of society, who want to and can learn, who become economically active, who have no desire to commit crime, who have no mental health issues if they have not acquired these skills themselves. We cannot learn to read very easily without access to books and words, or learn to add up if we don't know our numbers first.

If, as a child, your home life is chaotic, violent and abusive your are unlikely to be able to achieve at school.  Concentration, application, and learning will be really difficult.  If you leave school without any qualificaitons, and in alot of cases unable to read, finding work will be very hard.  Without an income life is harsh.  Is it any wonder the cycle continues. 

Steam

28 July 2012

We have been to a steam gathering today. I had intended to leave the house fairly early as the weather was forecast to rain mid afternoon. Needless to say that did not happen. I think I should stop trying to leave the house by a certain time and just be happy with leaving whenever we are all ready.

We got to the site and the rain poured down, we sat in a queue for forty minutes and I started to wonder what on earth I was doing. The delay was caused by the field that they were using for parking. It has rained nearly every day for the last ten weeks or more. They were using tractors to pull cars off certain parts of the field, their usual very well organised traffic system had descended into chaos, no one had any idea where there were any spaces. We did find one eventually, on solid ground. The sun shone as we got out the car and stayed that way for the rest of the afternoon. We had a great time.

We saw Traction Engines.



Showman's Engines


Steam Lorries and Rollers. As well as the steam vehicles we saw vintage bicycles, motorbikes, wagons, tractors, military vehicles and cars like these Model T Fords.



We also watched lawn mower racing, my eldest watched this for ages.  They were very fast and very noisy, but fun!  It turned out to be a great day out.

Singing

27 July 2012

I have been very aware of my youngest today from the moment I woke to when she fell asleep. I woke up to her singing quietly in her bed which is right next to mine. I lay there listening for a while knowing that when I opened my eyes she would stop. Sure enough it did, but I got a big beaming smile.

The singing continued throughout the day sometimes quietly, sometimes very loudly. After breakfast she lined up her doll and bear on the sofa and sang to them. She ran around outside singing clap, clap at the top of her voice holding some grass aloft. At times she was just walking around the house and singing. She sang in the bath and afterwards found a cardboard tube to sing through!

I love her singing, she makes up the tunes and sometimes adds words. She has been doing it for over a year now. At first she would stop if she was aware you were watching her, now she carries on.

I have been aware of her presence since birth from her sounds. My eldest is, and always has been for the most part a quiet, self contained child. I would go looking for him in the house at a very young age as I could not see or hear him. He was happy if he could hear me in another part of the house, not so my youngest. She rarely leaves my side, she is loud and fills the house with her presence, just like her father. I would not have it any other way. I love her spontaneity, her singing, her loud laugh, her cuddles. I love that my children are so very different.

Leaking

26 July 2012

I posted on here a few months ago that I felt like I was moving to a different beat to my eldest child. That we were bumping along together. We still have the occasional day when I feel like I am not connecting with him until recently when I read on a lovely blog about leaky cups. Lawrence Cohen who wrote Playful Parenting talks about attachment parenting using the metaphor of filling and refilling a cup. The caregiver is like a reservoir for the child, who will come to you for a refill when they need it. Sometimes the cup can leak, so a refill is not enough, the cup is not replenished enough so they come back for more and more until it is filled.

Since reading this I have realised this is what is my problem. I am not meeting the needs of my eldest and his cup has started to leak. Knowing what the problem is just the start but I hope I can now find a way for us both move to the same beat.

Knitting

25 July 2012

I am joining Ginny and others with this week's sharing of knitting and reading. On the needles this week is Lacy Julian Hat by Raya Budrevich.  I am using a Debbie Bliss eco baby cotton yarn, which is lovely and soft it is a left over ball from another project.   This is my first project on circular needles in the round. The pattern is easy to follow, if you are concentrating! It has an eight row lacy pattern which I made several mistakes in during the first time round. Unravelling the stitches was a nightmare and I ended up spending a whole evening sorting out all the dropped stitches. 



Reading wise, it is very slow at the moment. If I have time to knit I am not reading and vice versa. I used to be an avid reader, reading two or three books a week. My time is spent elsewhere at this time of my life, I am sure the time to read my own books, as opposed to those to my children, will return one day. I am dipping in and out of The Secret Life of Birds by Colin Tudge. It is a very readable exploration into the lives of our feathered friends and a good book to put down and not pick up for a few weeks as there is no storyline to forget in the meantime. I am also reading War Horse by Michael Morpurgo to my eldest child as a bedtime story.

Spinach

24 July 2012

I have not made these tasty burgers for ages. I wanted something different on the menu this week, and after flicking through the cookery books on my shelf decided to add these. They are filling and tasty. If you do not have any fresh coriander you could use any dried spice powder that you like the flavour of.

Spinach and Rice Burgers
300g brown rice
Water
1 onion chopped
150g frozen spinach
2.5cm fresh ginger, peeled and grated
30g fresh coriander
1 egg beaten
Freshly grated nutmeg

Put the rice and water to cover, in a saucepan bring to the boil and turn heat very low and cook until all water is absorbed and rice is nearly dry.

Heat a little oil in a sauté pan, add the onion and fry until soft, add the spinach and cook until all the moisture has evaporated. Stir in the garlic and ginger and cook for one minute. Remove from heat and allow to cool a little.

Stir the spinach mixture into the rice and add the coriander and rice. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Shape into burgers.

You can either fry these burgers in a frying pan for a few minutes in each side, or as I do cook in an oven at 180 degrees centigrade for about twenty minutes.

We have been mainly.....

23 July 2012

We started the week with our usual trip into the local town for food shopping and a visit to the library. We found a lovely book about elephants this week and a great story sack about India.

We joined our friends for our regular play date on Tuesday. I managed to get organised to leave the house a bit earlier this week to give the children the maximum time to play with their friends. We had got a bit slow about getting out the house, often I would realise it was lunchtime, where do the mornings go, then we would have lunch at home and by the time that was finished it was early afternoon before we were heading off. The play was the usual noisy fun, running around outside, jumping on the trampoline and playing in a nearby stream.

Wednesday saw us heading to friends again. We joined them to make pizzas for lunch, which made a delicious mess. I thought that we had made a lot of pizza but it all got eaten and large pieces of homemade chocolate cake. The children played in the garden for the afternoon as the weather was dry. They were running around, playing football and chasing a chicken that had roamed in from next door and was eating the strawberries.

The next two days were spent at home. We spent much of the time building made up star wars Lego models with pieces that we have. My eldest has a few sets of star wars Lego, we decided our homemade versions were a lot better. In between we played games, read books, weeded some of the garden and started a new bedtime routine in the evening. I started to read War Horse by Michael Morpurgo to my eldest which he is enjoying.

On Saturday we got up early and caught the bus into the local town, taking a picnic with us. I visited a lovely yarn shop that I had not been to before to get some circular needles to knit a hat. We also spent time in a couple of bookshops before catching the bus back home. We spent the rest of the afternoon reading our new books and playing with Lego. On Sunday we welcomed Daddy back after a week a way. He arrived home in time for lunch, after which he spent the afternoon outside unloading and washing the car with our youngest as a helper, she has missed her dad. Another week over, it is still cool and wet, maybe that is to be our summer this year.

Bicarb

22 July 2012

I have been using this around the house more and more over the last few months as I keep find more great uses for it. We have finally got round too buying a large quantity of it as we were getting though the small amounts we were buying really quickly.

I have been using it as part of my hair washing routine for a while and I made deodorant with it some months ago and still using my original batch. I also have been using it for some time to clean the bathroom, the tiles, surfaces, sink and bath all get a wipe with a bicarb paste.

I have now started to use it more in the washing machine instead of washing powder or liquid, a tablespoon for lightly soiled or two if more heavily soiled. I also put two tablespoons of white vinegar in the conditioner slot with a few drops of lavender oil, you could use any essential oil you like the smell of. I use lavender oils as it repels the moths. When I am not using this I use Eco balls.

It can be used in the dishwasher to make your own powder, I mix a tablespoon of bicarb with a tablespoon of borax the dishes have never been so clean.

This week I have sprinkled it on the carpet in the bathroom as it was getting really smelly. I would not choose to have a carpet in the bathroom, but it was in the house when we moved in and we have other priorities in the house. I left it on the carpet overnight and hoovered up the next morning. The smell has gone, for now!

I have also used it on a mattress that got wee on it, again sprinkled on and left all day, hoovered off, smell gone.

I have also read recently that it can be used to get oil stains out of fabrics. I have yet to test this, but will be giving this a try next time we have something with oil on it.

I started to look into making my own household cleaning products when I experienced a bout of Urticaria last year. I had no idea what you could make at home and how many products I was buying could be replaced with so few ingredients including one I already had in the cupboard.

Bedtime

A few weeks after my eldest was born I started a routine for him for bedtime. This consisted of a bath or wash, a change of sleepsuit and vest if needed, milk and then sleep. The milk was given in a dark and quiet room. In the early days I went to bed too. As he got older I introduced a story in to this routine and that was it for the next four years until my youngest was born.

Adding another child to the routine should be simple? Er no. My youngest would not go to sleep unless the room was dark and quiet, so I could not read a story to my eldest and get the youngest to sleep. I tried various ways of achieving our routine. The best was for my husband to read stories and settle the eldest whilst I nursed the youngest to sleep. That worked fine until my husband started to work away again, which he did after about nine months, and I was settling two children to sleep on my own. I never really achieved this and a some point my eldest stopped wanting a story at bedtime. He wanted to play. As my youngest got older it became clear that she needed less sleep each night than my eldest.

Every now and again I would find a routine that worked and we would follow it for a while, then we go and stay somewhere else for a few nights, come home and the routine was forgotten. More recently we started to watch a DVD before bed. Always a documentary of some sort, as a family. We watched lots of interesting programmes and I learnt loads. We borrowed most of these from the library and friends, once we had exhausted the collection that routine fell apart and so too had any semblance of a routine.

Throughout all of this we have never been rigid about the timings we have had in place. We would start 'bedtime' any time after 7pm and most nights the children were asleep by 9pmish. Recently however with a complete lack of routine bedtime had started to become later and later, my evening had all but disappeared. My me time had gone, I only really had about an hour or less, and it was impossible to do any tidying when my husband was away which is often. The children would play together until late and then be either too tired or too hyped up to settle to sleep.

I needed to come up with a routine that would give both children some time with me, a story and feeling settled and asleep or nearly so by the end of it. My eldest still needs more sleep so I had always felt that it would be better if the children went to sleep at the same time, particularly as my youngest was very noisy in the mornings and would wake the eldest up when he had not had enough sleep. Now that my youngest is a bit older, she understands about needing to be quiet in the morning to allow my eldest to be left to sleep. I had noticed over the last few weeks that although bedtimes were in chaos the mornings were calmer. My youngest woke first, and quietly we would go downstairs and have some time together before the eldest woke up. I also felt that the the bedtime was in chaos as we had all lost our time to connect with each other before settling the day to bed.

So I am now trying a new routine. Bath/wash if necessary/wanted, change into pajamas, story for youngest, nurse to sleep, once asleep, join eldest who has been quietly playing in his room during story and nursing and story for eldest. So far it is working. At the moment I am on my own, this may go awry when husband comes home. That is tommorrow now, so we shall see!

Hair

20 July 2012

In May I posted about the beginning of my shampoo and conditioner alternatives journey. Since then I have to make more changes to the quantities I have been using.

I had opted to use bicarb and cider vinegar to wash and condition my hair, following a outbreak of Urticaria. I had started with a tbs of each in a pint of water, before finding that that made my hair too dry. So I switched to using a paste of bicarb and a little water applied to dry hair, rubbed in and washed out to wash my hair and the same quantity of vinegar to water that I had before, as a conditioner. After using this method for six weeks or so I found that my hair was getting very greasy. I thought it was because I was using too much bicarb, so I reduced the amount and made a more watery paste and continued with the same mix for the conditioner. No change. I knew that the mix I was using was stripping my hair of its natural oils and my hair was then overproducing to compensate, what I did not know is what was doing the stripping.

I tried not washing my hair for two weeks, my hair is long enough to be tied back or up. It didn't get any greasier in that time, but it did start to hurt from being pulled into a different position all the time. I needed to do more research. I discovered that if you are experiencing greasiness using bicarb and vinegar you need to reduce the vinegar. Why was that not obvious to me, as an acid it was bound to strip natural oils!

So I am now still experimenting with exact quantities. I am using more bicarb and water mix to shampoo and a lot less vinegar and water to condition. I have found that the amount of vinegar is critical as too little and my hair is heavy and lank. I can feel it is the right amount now. Just need to work out the optimum quantities for the bicarb.

I live in an area with very soft water. If I go to my mum's house the water there is very hard and the mix does not work. The bicarb will not dissolve in the water due to the minerals already present. I have read that it will work if you boil the water first, some have even suggested using this boiled water to rinse your hair was well as mixing to make shampoo and conditioner.

I do not have the option of returning to using shop bought hair products as I do not want to risk the urticaria returning. It has been a slow journey to find what works for me but I am sure I will get there in the end, I hope!

Weeds

19 July 2012

There are parts of my garden where weeds are encouraged and they are thriving this year, all over the garden.  The weather we are experiencing is obviously perfect for the weeds, wet and not that warm.  Some of them were up to my waist in places!

I finally managed to get out and launch an attack today, in between taking the youngest to the toilet, getting the hammock out, sorting out DVDs and sharpening pencils, a mama's work is never done.

I have not been in my garden much recently, not to have a good look at it anyway.  I have been running the gauntlet of the rain and the very overgrown paths to collect leaves for salad most days.

I knew that there was no way that I could weed the whole garden so I started halfway up and worked back towards the house.  I pruned, I pulled and slowly my very small vegetable plants emerged from the weed jungle.  They were bigger than I expected considering the weather and the competition for light and sun that they were waging with the weeds.

I have lived in my house for nine and half years, this is my tenth summer.  When we moved in we had a lawn and not much else.  That has gone completely and when I look at the garden properly I now immensely satisfied with what we have done to it in that time.  It is a haven for wildlife.  Very overgrown in places but cultivated in others.

A honeysuckle plant that we moved about eight years ago, as a straggly stalk, is now an immense covering on one of the fences.  The smell of it today was divine, my youngest who was in the garden with me, commented on it and, repeatedly returned to it to give it a smell.

Currently I have growing, beetroot, carrots, turnips, potatoes, garlic, kale, cabbage, spinach, courgette, cucumber, lettuce, mizuna, land cress, radish, rocket and red mustard.  We have a few fruit bushes and I harvested just over a pound in blackcurrants, which was about half the berries, the rest are not ripe yet.  I always record my time in the garden and bizarrely I harvested them on the exact same day last year!

So the weeds are less now, but I need to tackle the top of the garden, that can wait for another day...........


Dependency

18 July 2012

At the start of our life we are totally dependent on adults to look after us. We need milk, preferably from mama, to nourish and sustain us and we need contact and warmth to keep us safe and secure. We continue this dependency for many years although the level diminishes the older we get. As adults we continue to need and want people around us our friends and families to maintain those feelings of safety and security though contact. The dependency of our children is an intense relationship, one which in some cultures around the world is still shared. In our now fractured society it is, usually, the mother who bears this responsibility for most, if not all, of the time. She no longer has a network of extended family, her own parents or in laws, aunties, uncles or cousins or other unrelated members of her community to help with the child care and looking after the home. This intensity requires the care giver to be an emotionally strong person, to be able to carry on with little sleep or rest, to put her needs last at all times. If we have not received this level of care and attention ourselves we also, therefore, have not had the opportunity to learn these skills.

In most families, when a child is around the age of two, conflict can set in. At this age the child is starting to find their place in the world, they are exploring and testing all the time. We can be conditioned by our own upbringing and therefore experience to try to restrain this, to fight it, to bring the child in line with your own beliefs. What we should really be doing is providing them with a safe and secure haven from which to go out and learn and come back to. Sadly, in most families this is the start of a journey of conflict which continues until the child leaves the family home many years later and the cycle is then repeated.

A child who is not given the level of care and contact they need does not feel safe and secure. They learn to be independent for the wrong reasons, as they cannot depend on the adults around them to meet their needs. They become unable to trust, they become compliant or aggressive to gain attention for the care and contact that they long for and are not recieving.

Bringing up a child is an intense relationship, which changes over time. If you are trying to do this as a small family unit, mother, father and child(ren) the insensity is even greater. We no longer live in extended families in my society and in most across the world, so we need to find a replacement. Many find this in friendships forged over a common bond of parenthood. This in itself is a maze to be navigated, finding parents with the same views on parenting as yourself. As we no longer live within a community for life with several generations together, each generation becoming parents has lost this vital support network and goes it alone.

Being alone in an intense dependent relationship with your child(ren) is not a good place to be but is where most of us find ourselves. According to this interesting article we have evolved as co-operative breeders. So if you are having a bad day with your child(ren), be gentle with yourself.

Courgettes

17 July 2012

It is that time of year when the garden is producing a glut of courgettes. Sadly for us not yet this year it has been too cool. I have yet to harvest one but they are on their way, growing slowly in the chill. In the meantime we continue to enjoy this lovely recipe with the courgettes that come in our veg box. It has a peculiar name, but I have yet to think of anything better, it is not quite a soufflé, definitely not a pie or a gratin, more a mélange and definitely delicious. We often have some left as it make  quantity and is very filling, it makes good snacking or picnic food the following day. This is from an American cookbook so the cups are American cups.  

Courgette and Cheese Bake

3 cups/400g grated courgette
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups/225g plain flour
1 tbs baking powder
1 onion finely chopped
2 cups/180g grated cheddar
2 tsp fresh thyme leaves or 1 tsp dried thyme
Pepper to taste
1/2 cup sunflower oil
3 large eggs beaten

Put the courgette and salt in a colander and mix. Set aside for 30 minutes. Squeeze out the excess water, I do this in a clean tea towel. If you don't like your food very salty you can rinse the courgette first and then squeeze.

Preheat the oven to 180 centigrade and grease a 7" by 11" dish or one of a similar size.

In a medium sized bowl, stir together the flour and baking powder. Add the onion, courgette, cheese, thyme, and pepper if desired. Mix well with a fork.

Whisk together the oil and eggs in a small bowl. Pour into the courgette mixture and mix well. Spread evenly in the baking dish.

Bake for about 35 minutes, until golden.

Let it cool for 5 minutes before cutting into squares, as the name of the dish requires!

We have been mainly.....

16 July 2012

enjoying a quieter week with more time at home.

We started the week with our usual trip into the local town for food shopping and library. We picked up lots of good books and a story sack once again. The rest of they day was spent reading the new books and looking at the story sack. It had a great book with an alternative version of the well known rhyme Old Macdonald Had a Farm. We have had great fun with this story sack this week.

The next day we joined our friends for our regular play date. We seem to leaving later and later in the day to go out. I am always loathe to take the children out when they are in the middle of some wonderful game this always seems to happen on a Tuesday morning. The trouble is they then do not want to come home as they have not had enough time to play with their friends!

We had a day at home in the middle of the week. We read books, played games, built models with Lego and K'nex, cooked together, and generally made a mess around the house, you can always tell when we have been at home all day.

We went to a friends for a play and lunch on Thursday. We had not been for a while, they have been doing a bit of work on the house and it looked really different. It was, unusually for us at the moment, a warm sunny day so the children played in the garden all afternoon. A parcel was waiting for us at the post office when we returned, the children were really excited. They knew it was a book for each of them from a friend who stayed with us recently.

Friday saw us at home again for the day. More play, more reading (the books we received yesterday) and more mess. We said goodbye to Daddy in the evening. He is away working again, we are not sure how long it will be for this time.

Over the weekend we went to a birthday party on one afternoon. The rain did not stay way, but luckily they had borrowed a marvellous shelter we sat under there to eat and sing songs with the children. It was a lovely afternoon. On Sunday we played outside and pottered in the garden. Everything is growing, albeit really slowly, if I didn't have a poly tunnel I would have very little produce at the moment. The rain stayed away until the evening, it was another lovely day. I also knitted a few flowers over the weekend. I am hoping to use them on presents for Christmas . I know it is only July but I am hoping to make as many presents as possible this year so I need to get started soon if I am to make them all in time!

St Swithin

15 July 2012

It's St Swithin's Day today and according to this traditional rhyme our weather today will be the same for the next forty days:

St Swithin's day if thou dost rain
For forty days it will remain
St Swithin's day if thou be fair
For forty days 'twill rain nae mair
 
 So the rain stayed away where l live until about 9pm when we had a rain shower.  So I guess I have forty more days of rain to look forward too, if the rhyme is correct!  What have you got to look forward to rain or shine?

Memories

14 July 2012

I was driving to a birthday party this afternoon in our old car. This car has a tape player and is now our only means of playing tapes. We have kept a small collection of the tapes we used to own. As we have no means of recording onto tapes, can you even buy them now? The collection is getting older as the years go by. Each time I listened to one it is like a blast from the past and it is surprising the memories that some of the music invokes.

Today we were listening to the music from the film Blade Runner I was transported to a cinema in Cambridge where I watched the film, I didn't watch it when it was originally released I wasn't old enough, so it would have a rerun in what was called an art cinema. It played mostly art house films, or films that had a cult following, I spent a large part of my time there. I have subsequently seen the film many times and owned a copy on video despite never owning a player or a tv. Listening to the music today has made me want to watch the film again, particularly as it is set in 2019!

It is amazing what can trigger a memory, music often does this for me. The other day it was a smell, can't remember what and no I am not being ironic, transported me to my grannies kitchen. It was so vivid I felt that I was standing there in her presence.

Memories for some take them back to a bygone time that will never again be, but is what they would like the world to return too. Memories are in my past, it is good to reconnect with them, but I look forward to the future and all that it holds too.

Autonomy

13 July 2012

When I embarked officially on our home educating journey in September 2009, I tried some structured learning time. Over the course of a month I managed this about twice and then gave up. It was not working for either of us. I didn't have a plan B and I had not, at that time, heard of autonomous learning or unschooling. So I carried on as we were. Reading books together, doing stuff together and, just as importantly, independently but in the same room too.

I would be lying if I was at all doubtful that putting all learning in the hands of a child would lead to results. I hung onto the fact that up until now learning had been happening, he had crawled, was now walking, had signed and was now talking. Part of me was doubting but it was a small part and the doubt did not last long.

My role soon became clear to be there for support, to answer questions, to read to him, to take him out and explore the world beyond our house, to provide an environment within which he felt secure and safe so that learning could happen. And happen it does.

He learnt some of the letters through asking about them in books, signs, anything with words, from this reading developed, and he now reads books independently. I would not be able to explain the exact process of development and neither have I any desire too. Some folks I speak too are baffled that it could just happen. We are too ingrained that it must be taught.

He learnt to count to ten at an early age, but his interest in numbers beyond that has only developed more recently. He can now read numbers in the thousands and knows that there are numbers beyond that but has not mastered them yet. He can add up and take away. Again we have not taught this, merely engaged in his interest and answered his questioning to the best of his understanding.

We have explored many subjects or topics and I love how they can develop. We found a book on Castles in a charity shop which sparked a long period of investigation into castles. He read and we read together many books on castles, knights and life generally during that period in history. We looked up castles in our area and visited many. Drawing after drawing of castles and battles were drawn. At the moment we are investigating World War Two, this came about after a discussion with his Grandma about rationing during and after the war.

I have mentioned already the drawings. Not a day goes by without a drawing of some sorted started, completed or added to. Around the age of five he had virtually given up on drawing. He felt that his drawings were no good and they kept going wrong. I racked my brains for ways to support him, to build his confidence. For Christmas that year my husband made him a big blackboard which is mounted on the wall in the dining room at his height. He also got some chalk and he was off. For the next year the blackboard was covered in elaborate drawings. It was easier to rub out and correct than pencil and paper. The blackboard gets used less by him these days. We have bought him a set of good pencils and paper is his preferred surface.

I have had two affirmations this week that we made the right decision to home education and do so in the route we have chosen. He has read a complete story book on his own through the course of a day. One evening this week after settling my youngest to sleep, I came downstairs to find him and my husband adding up very long numbers, I think they had got to about eight digits, after each sum he would ask for another until he announced he had had enough and was off to bed!

I am so grateful that our situation has enabled us to home educate. I am aware that for some this is the path that they would like to follow but are unable to or choose not to for their own reasons. I have never regretted our decision for a moment and look forward to many more weeks like the one I have just had.

Green?

12 July 2012

I have been pondering what is green living since a lovely mama posted this on a forum I visit.

I have no doubt that living green or sustainably means different things to different people as the thread I have linked to demonstrates. After giving this much thought I feel that it is about being conscious though our decision making process. If we consider the impact of the resources that we are about to consume or use, but do so within our own economic means. In an ideal world we would all know the actual cost of buying one product vs another, but this is not usually available it is often commercially sensitive information or immensely difficult to collate.

There are resources that we are told are finite, such as oil. We are heavily dependent on this in most societies in the world. Could we live with out it? If we had to we would, but at the moment I suspect it would be impossible. Whilst we may not be able to live without it we can think about ways of reducing our use of it, through using our vehicles less, to buying products with less packaging or that are producing as locally as possible. We can also look at our usage of resources generally and consider using less of them.

Sometimes this can be a very difficult judgement to make though, particularly if we do not have all the information we need to make a decision. How can we know if it is better using a bought laundry powder which allows us to wash at lower temperatures versus using a product such as soap nuts or eco balls which can be used over and over again but usually at higher temperatures. The impact of each on the resources needed is extremely difficult to measure. For some the decision will be made by other factors such as finances or the need for consistently clean laundry.

Even when you do have more information, deciding what is greenest can still be hard. If you eat organic food especially fruit and vegetables is it better to buy any organic you can find even if this means that it has come from overseas or should you eat conventionally farmed local produce?

As a mother my decision making is constantly challenged as I have two other little people to consider and the needs of my husband too. Thinking about the environment and green issues is for me just part of the whole decision making process in our family. But I do so as consciously as possible.

Proud

11 July 2012

I am one very proud and happy mama tonight. My eldest started to read a story book this morning. He was not sure that he could manage it all himself, so I sat with him and read the first few pages with him. After a few pages he said to me I want to read the rest myself. For most of the day he sat contented on the sofa curled up reading and reading. Every now and again he would take a break and come to the table where I was sewing and talk to me about what he had read or draw a picture from the story.

We joined some friends for a BBQ by a local lake tonight, the weather was perfect. Warm and sunny with just enough breeze to keep the midges at bay. The lake was flat calm. The book came too and between bouts of running around my eldest was ensconced in a chair book in hand.

At about eight o'clock he came to me book in hand with the biggest smile announcing he had finished. The book, his first story, was over 100 pages long. He has been reading independently for a few months now but mostly reads non-fiction, I read the occassional fiction book to him but he is not particularly interested and would rather read non-fiction together. Perhaps this is the start of a new journey for him into the world of fiction. As long as he stays interested in books I shall be happy!

Fritters

10 July 2012

I have started to make fritters pretty much every week. To me they are grated vegetable with batter and flavourings. They are quick and easy to put together and fairly quick to cook. On the rare occasion that there are any left they are delicious cold and make a handy snack or lunch of the children. I have made them with potato, courgette, carrot and broccoli so far.

The potato fritters were amazing, I was sceptical when I found the recipe that so few ingredients thrown together could taste good but they did, there were none left!

Potato Fritters
2 American cups grated raw potato
1 small onion grated
2 eggs beaten
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp rice flour
1/8 tsp bicarb

Put grated potato into a dry clean tea towel and squeeze excess moisture out.
Place in bowl with rest of the ingrdients and mix well.

Heat oil in a frying pan on a medium to low heat and drop a tbs of mix in and flatten with back of the spoon.

Fry on both sides until golden.

The courgette recipe again had few ingredients but really tasty.

Courgette Fritters 
225g grated courgette
75g chopped onion
70g plain or rice flour
 2 eggs beaten
75g grated Parmesan
125g grated mozzarella

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl.

Heat oil in a saucepan on a fairly low heat.

Drop in a tbs of batter and flatten. Cook until you you are able to lift the fritter, if you try too early the fritter will fall apart, turn and cook on other side.

The carrot fritter recipe comes with a delicious sauce that can be made in advance and led tin the fridge to chill.

Sauce 
5tbs yogurt
2shallots finely chopped
1cm piece of fresh root ginger, finely grated
Pinch chilli powder
1/4tsp caster sugar
20g fresh mint leaves finely chopped
55g fresh coriander leaves finely chopped

Put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix, chill until required.

Carrot Fritters
2 eggs
85ml milk (I never use cows milk but sure it will work, have use soya, rice and oat milk)
15g butter melted
100g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
Pinch cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp salt
340g grated carrot
2 tsp coarsely crushed coriander seeds
6 spring onions chopped

Beat the eggs, milk and butter together in a bowl, add the flour, baking powder, spice and salt and mix.

Add the carrots with the coriander seeds and spring onion and mix well.

Heat oil in a frying pan on a medium heat, scoop desert spoons of mix into the pan and flatten slightly, fry to cook on both sides.

The broccoli fritter recipe that I have been using was a bit bland and tasteless, each time I cooked them I changed the flavourings and now have a really tasty fritter, in my opinion anyway!

Broccoli Fritter 
1 head of broccoli (I usually use a fairly large one or two small ones)
150g gram flour
1/4 tsp asafoetida
1/4tsp ground turmeric
Pinch chilli powder
1tsp coriander powder
1tsp cumin powder
2 eggs beaten
170ml cold water
1 medium onion finely chopped
2 cloves garlic crushed

Cut the broccoli head(s) into a few pieces and steam for a few minutes, pour cold water over to stop cooking and cut the broccoli florets into very small pieces, peel and cut up the stalk into similar size pieces

Sift the gram flour into a bowl, this makes the flour easier to mix with the wet ingredients later otherwise it will be a very lumpy, mix with the spices.

Make a well in the centre and pour in the eggs and mix to a smooth paste.

Gradually add the water to make a smooth batter.

Stir in the chopped broccoli, onion and crushed garlic.

Heat oil in a frying pan on a medium heat, drop desert spoons of mix into the pan and flatten slightly, fry to cook on both sides.

You could also use Cauliflower for this recipe, although I have yet to try this.

With all these fritters you will have more mix than you can fit in a frying pan at once, unless you have an industrial sized pan.  I heat the oven to 100 degrees centigrade and put the fritters on a plate to keep warm.  If you are already using the oven for something else just put them all in at the end to warm up slightly.

We have been mainly.....

09 July 2012

camping and catching up with an old friend this week. The weather forecast was for a lot of rain this week so I expected us to be wet and cold camping. Luckily for us the forecast was incorrect and the weather was wet and warm a much better combination.

We started our week with our usual trip into the local town, for food shopping and a library visit. The rest of the day I spent getting bits and pieces out of cupboards in readiness for camping and cooking food to take with us. In the evening my eldest was meant to be attending an end of term party with Beaver Scouts at the open air swimming pool in the village, it was too cold and wet for him to want to go so we gave it a miss. Instead, we welcomed an old friend who we had not seen for a few years. We met whilst working together, around fifteen years ago and have stayed in touch since. He moved to the far east twelve years ago for what he thought would be a couple of years and has not moved back. We have not been over to visit yet, but he comes over once every couple of years. My husband and he stayed up talking, catching up and drinking whisky until the small hours.

The next day we were to all go camping together for a few days, we hoped to be able to stay out for three nights, but it was dependent on the weather. If it was really cold and wet we may only manage two. The day dawned sunny, which is more than can be said of my husband who languished in bed nursing a hangover. You can read more about our trip in this post.

The camping was great. I always expect the worse of the weather and on some trips recently it has upheld my expectations, but not this time. It is a simpler life, as a family it means that we spend more time in one another's company rather than in separate rooms in the house as often happens at home.

We returned home on Friday in the pouring rain, unpacked the car and started to put stuff away. It was a busy day of sorting, tidying and hanging stuff to dry. I fell into bed, always so comfy after a thin blow up mat, and slept for hours.

Over the weekend we had a cooked lunch before saying goodbye to our dear friend on Saturday. The rest of the afternoon we spent playing and chilling out after our busy week. Sunday was pretty similar, I think after so much activity during the week and then a quieter day the day before I was feeling really lethargic, I often find when I do slow down after a lot of activity and busyness I feel this way. So I took it easy, hanging out with the children on the sofa taking and reading books and when they were off doing their own thing, knitting. A perfect end to a great week, I hope yours was a good one too.

Rhythm

08 July 2012

I have been giving some thought to the rhythm of my life at the moment. In the last year I have worked hard to bring some rhythm into mine and the children's lives but I feel that I have now got stuck on how to develop this further.

A year ago we had one regular outing during the week on a Monday, to the nearest town for shopping and the library. Any play dates, trips out or home ed get togethers were sporadic and randomly organised. I found it really it really unsettling so I am sure the children did too. A chance meeting with a family that we had met at home ed groups at a folk festival turned our lives around. We started to join that family every week at their house for a play, along with several other families. I soon realised how much the children enjoyed this, looked forward to it and how my eldest, especially, started to make new friends.

We had been meeting up with another family but not on a regular basis just when we could each fit it. Soon we established a day of the week that suited us both for a regular meet up. We either meet at each others houses or out and about, for walks, visits, museums or whatever we fancy.

In the last few months we have also established a link with another family, we tend to meet at our house or theirs each week on the same day each week.

Now our week has some rhythm to it, for three days a week we are with friends. The other four we are at home. During one of these days we have a weekly visit into the local town in the morning, however it is these days that I feel are lacking rhythm.

Sometimes I feel that the day has drifted by and we have not achieved much, in reality this is probably not true at all, but that is what it feels like. I have read many blogs, forum posts and books about bringing rhythm into the day, I love many of the ideas but I am struggling to fit them into our day.

Some folks start the day with stories, circle time, structured learning time or crafts. We tend to get up late, have breakfast when we feel like it. The children tend to want to play quietly and independently at this time of day, it is my time to clear the kitchen, put washing in the machine or hang it up, tidy up the house etc. I feel that this is not the part of the day that needs structuring for us. It is the back end of the morning and late afternoon.

We are very much following an autonomous education route, I let the children lead the day and the activities/play when we are at home. If they want me to join them in this I do, if not I leave them to it. I like the idea of talking to the children in the morning about what they want to do during the day and then taking about whether we can. I already do this on the mornings we are going out and will try to extend this to every morning. If I have things that I need to do that day it might make it easier for me to fit them in too! I have no idea where this might take us hopefully a new direction, if not I will try something else, one thing at a time for me though. How about you, what rhythms do you have or wish you had?

Camping

07 July 2012

We have been camping this week with another home edding family and despite the weather forecast had both wonderful weather and time.

Our trip got off to an auspicious start. We were to be joined by an old friend who was visiting from the far east, living so far away we do not see him that often, every two to three years. He and my husband sat up late into the night, in fact into the small hours, catching up and drinking whisky. The next day, nursing a hangover my husband was struggling to get out of bed. I got up, had breakfast, finished the last bits of packing, started to load the car, had lunch, he still had not got up. Finally at half past two I gave him an ultimatum I was going to leave by half three at the latest. He suggested sleeping some more and coming over later in a separate car, not a good idea I felt as he may be still over the limit for driving. In the end we did manage to leave at half three and arrived at the campsite just after five, better late than never I guess. I ended up putting most of the tent up myself and cooking tea, I fell into bed exhausted, hoping the next day would be better. At least the weather had been good, warm and sunny with no rain.

The next day dawned dry and warm, with some cloud. We were going to spend the day on a steam railway riding up and down. The campsite had its own stop on the line. It seemed to take ages to get ready, after the previous day I didn't feel I was firing on all cylinders. The railway was great fun as always, we had several trips up and down the line, and spent some time at one end exploring a museum of the history of the line and the village. The morning was dry but as the day wore on it got wetter and wetter. It did not spoil our enjoyment of the journey.

We were undecided about spending another night under canvas as the weather was forecast to get worse as the week went on. The day dawned bright and sunny, so we stayed and the warmth stayed with us all day. The children and their friends played and played and played on the campsite and were having such a good time that we did not make any plans. As the day wore on and it got hotter and hotter we walked to the nearest village for ice creams. We did not take any waterproofs with us and the rain came down, really hard, we sheltered under a tree, well the adults did the children ran around in the pouring rain! Whilst we were cooking tea the rain poured again and we had a thunderstorm which was exciting, well I thought so the children were not convinced. The rain came down so hard that it created huge pond like puddles on the campsite in various places, thankfully not near our tent. The children thought these looked great fun to play in so they stripped off and jumped in, spending abut half an hour running, jumping, splashing and falling into then. They fell into bed tired and happy.

I took plenty of clothes for the children, as the forecast has been for rain every day I was sure they would get wet. Luckily the very dry day ensured that most of the clothing and shoes that had got wet dried out, they did wear everything that I took at some point. It rained hard as we packed up and for the journey home, it cleared to allow us to unpack the car, but not long enough to start hanging stuff up to dry, that is for another day.

Khitchari

06 July 2012

Is a mix of rice and beans, and is the origins of kedgeree.  It is a great recipe to cook when you are camping which we have been this week.  Although you have to put together lots of ingredients to take with you it all cooks easily in one pan.  You do not need to pre soak the mung beans.  I try to put together a menu of food which involves taking only one pan.

225g mung beans
225g long grain brown rice
1 large onion
3 tbsp oil
4 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 tsp ground cumin
Pinch chilli powder
1 large potato peeled and cut into chunky pieces
900ml water
1/2 tsp garam masala

Wash the beans and rice.

Chop the onion and fry in the oil in a medium sized saucepan for 5 minutes.

Add the garlic, turmeric, ginger, cumin and chilli and fry for a further 3 minutes, site from time to time.

Add the beans, rice and potatoes, fry for 2 minutes to cost in the oily spicy mixture, then stir in the water, bring to the boil. Cover, turn heat low and cook gently for 45 minutes, until the rice and beans are cooked.

Turn off the heat and add the gram masala and leave to stand for a further 10 minutes by which time all the liquid should be absorbed.

if you like your food slightly spicier you can add cardomon pods, 4 or 5 cloves or a small piece of cinnamon stick with the other spices.

We have been mainly........

02 July 2012

living with rain this week, I think it has rained every day in the past week but it hasn't stopped our fun.

On Monday we had our usual trip into the local town for the food shopping and library visit. We found a lovely book this week The Little Ships by Louise Borden.  My eldest is interested and looking at World War Two at the moment and this book, beautifully illustrated by Michael Foreman, tells the story about all the ships that helped out with rescuing the troops at Dunkirk, it is told from the perspective of one of the little ships.

We had our regular play date the next day, the children had their usual fun running around, playing on the trampoline and falling into muddy puddles on seperate occasions they both got absolutely soaked.

On Wednesday we joined some friends for a walk in the rain. It was not raining that hard and was really warm, so we donned our waterproofs, packed a picnic and had a great time. It was a small nature reserve and the trees were amazing, a huge variety of species. We also saw some cows with amazingly long horns.  At the end of the walk the children had great fun splashing about in the river.  It took three days to get their walking boots dry again!

The next day we had a day at home, waiting for a parcel to be picked up. I was really out of sorts all day, and finally at the end of the day worked out what was wrong, you can read about my day here. We had a fantastic thunderstorm which we sat and watched in the afternoon, it lead to a spot of researching the books on our shelves to find out how thunder and lightening is formed.

On Friday we visited our friends to the south for our weekly play date. We joined them for lunch and the children had a lovely time playing. They built a great fort on top of a platform in the garden using the sections of a compost bin! We left there to go to a friend of my eldest's birthday party.   Much playing was had and we finally arrived home very late and exhausted after a fantastic day.

Over the weekend we had a family days pottering about, getting ready for camping and watching the rain pour and pour.

Water

01 July 2012

We seem to be deluged with water at the moment, it has barely stopped raining all week. Living, as I do, in one of the wettest parts of my country it is hardly surprising. It it strange to read on other blogs about the hot dry weather they are experiencing.

The water supply to our houses, as it is everywhere, is dependent on a good supply of rain. Our water supply does not have to travel half way across the country as it does for some towns and cities, as my village has its own spring that supplies just our village. The water that comes out of our tap has not only not travelled far but it also tastes good.

As humans we cannot survive that long without water. The amount of time depends on the temperature, your weight and many other factors. I suspect most people do not drink nearly enough water. I find that I need to drink at least five pints a day to feel properly hydrated. A headache is often a sign that we are dehydrated. I have noticed that I feel irritable when I need to drink more. It is a similar feeling to when I am hungry, but if I am not hungry I now know that this is a sign that I need to have a drink. Dry skin, dry nose, dry eyes, itchy ears are also symptoms of dehydration.

I have recently been trying to get my children into good habits and drinking plenty of water. I now only buy fruit juice and milk. They have fruit juice with their breakfast and now drink just water and the occasional glass of milk during the day. I have also started leaving a jug of water with glasses on our dining room table so that they can get their own drink if they want to. It has meant that we are all drinking much more during the day.

I have also read recently that water is an antihistamine. I was not sure of the evidence to back up this claim but from my own experience feel this is probably true. I have recently had very high levels of histamine due to a bout of Urticaria since increasing the amount of water I have drunk it has definitely helped to bring this under control. If I have a day when I do not drink much (less then five pints) my hands are much it itchier the next morning.

So how much water have you drunk today, less than a pint, maybe it is time for some more!