Bonding

31 August 2012

I have spent the last 48 hours in the company of my youngest, whilst my eldest was at home with daddy.  We have had a really special time together, I have not spent so much time just with her since she was born.

We were away from home as I was assessing a D of E Expedition this involved a lot of waiting around, often in bleak cold places.  It was often not possible for me to carry any bits to keep her amused whilst we were waiting but they would not have been needed anyway.  We spent the time talking, cuddling, nursing.  She has sung for me, beautiful made up tunes often with words.  We have spent much time playing at life, getting in and out of imaginary cars, going imaginary shopping, cooking imaginary food and eating it.  She would find bits of grass, leaves whatever was lying around and make picnics with them for imaginary dolls.  I could sit and watch her play for hours.  She has been completely content.  She is always much happier when outside, even it is really cold she puts on extra clothes and is still happy.  The last two days have, I think, been heavenly for her I have loved spending this time with her.

Assessing

29 August 2012

I am off, yet again, today to do an assessment for the d of e award.  I have a small group to assess on a gold expedition this is the highest level of the award.  They have to walk for four days, camping for three with a minimum of eight hours walking each day.  They are required to be self sufficient carrying all their food and equipment as they journey.  The only thing they can pick up or be given is water.  This group have opted to wild camp for two of the nights, they have never done this before and are looking forward to it.

So I am packing up once again to camp for two nights myself to be nearer where they are walking.  It will just be me and my youngest.  I am looking forward to visiting this area as I have not really explored it much yet.  The weather forecast is pretty dreadful so I may be wet for most of the time!  So I will be away for a few days will update on my return.

We have been mainly.......

28 August 2012

really busy again this week.

After returning from a weekend climbing and camping late on Sunday afternoon, we unloaded the car to get everything dry for a other trip this week.

We went into the local town for food shopping and a visit to the library as we usually do.  We were also looking for some bowls for camping, we managed to break one over the weekend and needed to replace it.  They were cheap and cheerful so I am surprised that they have lasted as long as they have.  We were not able to find anything suitable.  Looks like one of us will be eating out of the pan!  I spent the rest of the day cooking food to take with us.  The children amused themselves outside playing with a child who lives a few doors down.

The next day we had to forego our play date as we were packing up.  All the wet kit from the weekend was now dry, so it was packed up and put in the car.  We collected stuff from our list from the loft and cupboards all over the house.  For the first time the children helped as they thought it was great fun.  They liked being able to to and find items and put them into the correct box and then tick them off on the list.  We were so efficient that we managed to clean all the downstairs windows and dig up all the potatoes in the garden as well.  I feel sure that if we had asked them to help they would have said no, they just wanted to be part of what we were doing.

On Wednesday.we packed up the clothes and the last few bits of food and headed to stay with friends for a couple of nights.  It was good to catch up with them again.  I visited their local yarn shop and bought three skeins to knit into scarves.  We popped into a local town the following day and had a lovely day exploring it, we found a great park for a picnic which had an amazing playground in it the children loved it.

We headed to a music festival for the weekend on Friday.  We bought our tickets months ago, in April I think.  It certainly feels like months.  We were meeting friends there.  We sat in a very long queue to get to the site, which was due to some traffic lights that allowed about one or two cars to turn right at a time, the same lights caused massive queues for people leaving too at the end of the festival.  Apparently the council will not change the priorities on the lights, perhaps a letter is in order.  We did make it on site in the end, found our friends and pitched our tent.  The site was huge much bigger than any festival site we had been to as a family before.  We were looking forward to a weekend filled with great live music.  We were not disappointed that is until Monday morning.  We woke to find that the headline act who we had been really looking forward to seeing had pulled out.  After that the day seem really flat.  We packed up the tent in the rain and it seemed like the whole festival vibe had changed perhaps it was also the rain which, up and until then had been the odd shower, was more relentless and it was cold.   We journeyed home part way through the last set, it felt like a big anti climax after the previous days.  I am still mulling over why I felt so flat.  Perhaps it is because due to my spectacularly bad planning I am really busy again this week!

Looking

27 August 2012

Why is it that all the males in my life are utterly rubbish at looking for things.  I remember when I was a child if my dad had lost something we all had to stop what we were doing to help him look.  As I got older I realised that he was at a complete loss as to how to go about finding anything.  My husband is pretty much the same.

When my eldest was born, I vowed to ensure that he was not the same.  I have tried really hard to provide an environment for him to learn these skills, I though I was doing ok with this until recently.  My youngest, a girl is far better than him already at only three.  I am not going to give up but I have been thinking about why this should be.

So far my observations are (no pun intended) that my youngest seems to be much more aware of what is going on around her, she notices and processes things in such a way that it is more observant.  Whereas my eldest is much more focused, that is not to say my youngest isn't, but in such a way that what is happening around him is not observed in a way that he notices what is beyond his immediate environment.

I may be completely wrong on this one of course, I am aware that males and females brains are totally different which is due in part to the way they are wired when we are young.  Nothing I can do will change this wiring, but I am not going to give up on nurturing a looking ability in my son.  If you have any thoughts or observations I would love to hear them!

Planning

26 August 2012

This summer has whizzed by really quickly, apart from the weather being terrible I am not sure where the time has gone.  I feel that the days have run though my fingers in the last few months and I have not used my days as wisely as I would have wished.

We are home educating and where I live for the second half of July and all of August the children who are at school are on holiday.  I live in an area which is popular with tourist so during those weeks it can be really busy.  I am not keen on crowds so I have not really planned anything much during those weeks.  As a result I have missed out on some good activities that have been going on in the area.

In the Spring I started to plan my weeks and bring some rhythm into them.  We usually have play dates on three days of the week, but it was the other days that I planned activities for.  Visits out, or stuff to do at home.  I have lost my way with this since the school holidays have started because I did not want to do much, if places were going to be busy.  I am now trying to think about the months ahead and bring the rhythm back as I have realised that I am missing it.  It helps, for me, to ensure that I do not get too busy if I plan three to four weeks ahead.  My lack of planning and thinking ahead has meant that the next few weeks for me are madly busy as I have not looked at the bigger picture.

I am hoping that I my autumn and winter will be better planned and that next summer I will plan activities despite the fact that there are more people around.  I will look for things to do away from the crowds.

Couscous

25 August 2012

I have spent a lot of time cooking in the past week getting ready for camping trips.  I prefer to take my own home cooked food when I camp as I find that I cannot eat most processed foods due to the preservatives in them.  They raise the histamine levels in my body and causes outbreaks of urticaria which are painful and uncomfortable.

This weekend we are going to camp at a music festival.  There will probably be plenty of opportunity to buy food whilst we are there, but as I can never be sure of the ingredients again I prefer to take my own.  I find the planning of supper really easy as I do this every week, but lunches are more difficult. My husband is not keen on sandwiches and I would not want to eat them everyday even though they are easy.  Eventually I came up with enough meals and decided to make a couscous salad.  I made this recipe up, I have tried it and it tastes good to me!

100g dried chickpeas
375g couscous
20g butter, melted
375ml boiling water
Vegetable stock
1 medium courgette cut into small cubes
2 spring onions finely sliced
4tbs olive oil
2tbs white wine vinegar
2 cloves garlic crushed

Soak the chickpeas overnight in water.  Change water and boil for 1 1/2 to 2 hours until soft.  Drain and leave to cool.

Place the melted butter in a bowl with the couscous and mix to coat the grains.  Mix the water and stock and pour over the couscous and leave to soak, I cover with a tea towel.

Make the sauce by combining the oil, vinegar and garlic cloves and whisk well.

When the couscous has absorbed all the water, stir through with a fork to separate the grains.  Add the chopped courgette and spring onions and the cooked chickpeas and mix.

Pour over the sauce and mix well.

Chill (the salad that is) and enjoy when cool.

Music

24 August 2012

We are off to a music festival today and we are all really excited.  We have been going to folk festivals for years before we had a family and have carried on going since the children were born.  They love themtoo.  We try to choose ones the are family friendly and have the camping and music all on one site.

We went to one really locally to us for years but sadly it has stopped now, so we have been trying different ones each year to find one that we would like to attend every year.  Hopefully this will be the one.

We bought the tickets in April which is feels like ages ago, it has come around really quickly.  The programme arrived this week and we have been reading up to find out what is going on.  The weather forecast is for lots of rain which could make it interesting.  I hope it lives up to our expectations.

Yarn

23 August 2012

I am staying with friends at the moment who live five minutes walk from this yarn shop I have visited this shop before but just for a look.  This time I was looking for yarn to knit scarves with and to look if they have any suitable yarn for socks.

I bought three skeins one of these which I paid full price for and then one of these and another one of these in a similar colour both of which were reduced.  These three I will knit up into scarves to give as Christmas presents.

I did not find any yarn to make socks.  I may have to search for this online, but I do prefer to see and touch yarn before I buy it.

Knitting

22 August 2012

Once again I am joining with Ginny and friends for the weekly catch up on knitting and reading.

This week on the needles is another Christmas present, a scarf.  I needed a small project to take with me whilst camping over the weekend.  I am about two thirds of the way through the ball.  The socks are growing slowly but have not changed much since last week.  My husband has confirmed that he will be away for two weeks next month so maybe they will be completed then, I hope.


The reading is progressing slowly, nearly finished this book started a few weeks ago.  It is still holding my interest, I think it is a book I will read again in the future.

Climbing

21 August 2012





We visited a climbing area this weekend.  I had not visited this area for a long time, since university nearly twenty years ago.  I did not get to climb on this occassion but the children were both keen to have a go somewhere less busy.  I did not want them to feel under any pressure to try out something new but am glad that they would like to try it some day.

Whilst we were at the crag I had lots of time to sit and soak up the beautiful area that I was in.  It made me realise what a beautiful country I live in and how lucky I am that I am able to spend time exploring it.  I love where I have chosen to settle and bring up a family but there are also other parts of my country that are lovely too.  I have not been out of the area I live in much this year, I have not felt like it, so it felt good to return to somewhere that I enjoyed living many years ago and still appreciate it as a beautiful place.  I fell I will return again sometime soon.

We have been mainly.....

20 August 2012

this week we have been doing a variety of things and keeping busy as always.

We started the week with our usual trip into the local town for food shopping and a visit to the library.  I picked up a ball of yarn this week too, to knit a scarf for a Christmas present.  I needed a small knitting project to take camping over the weekend.  One of my current projects is from a 1kg cone which is not very portable!  We picked up a great story sack from the library on caterpillars.  It had some lovely books in it and a great game that my youngest and I played many times during the course of the week.

On Tuesday we joined our friends for our regular playdate.  My youngest once again spent most of our time there on the trampoline.  I did not see my eldest much during the day until he asked me late on if one of his friends could come home with us for supper.  We returned home with an extra child for a few hours they played upstairs with Lego coming down only to eat supper before returning to their play.

We joined friends again the next day at their house for shared lunch and play.  The afternoon disappeared really quickly and the house looked like a whirlwind had been through it.  We helped to tidy up before we left as we had helped to create the mess. After a really early start to the day, my youngest woke me at 5.30am and I could not get back to sleep, I was hoping to get to bed early.  It was not to be, I needed to get to grips with a route card that I had been sent for a Duke of Edinburgh Award expedition.  I had suspected at first glance a few days ago that it would not meet the requirements and it did not, it took me a long time to go through it all and make notes to explain to the group what they needed to do.

We spent most of the next two days at home preparing for a weekend away.  We had to go out and food shop again to pick up extra food.  I baked two big cakes, made 36 bread rolls and some mini pizzas in the afternoon!  I also had to make a phone call regarding the route card.  I ended up having to write an email, as I did not want to leave along and garbled message.  A busy day lightened by my wonderful youngest child.

On Friday afternoon we all headed south in a minibus with two friends and eight explorer scouts for a weekend climbing.  We stopped for supper on the way, by the time we got to the campsite it was getting dark.  We have never put our tent up in the dark it was a interesting experience but we managed it.  Over the weekend we spent the whole of Saturday and part of Sunday at Stanage a popular gritstone climbing crag near Sheffield.  I spent two years as a student in Sheffield nearly twenty years ago, it was weird to be back there again after so long.   I did not manage to climb over the weekend which was a shame but I am sure there will be time for this at some point.  I spent the days assisting at the bottom and taking the children on walks nearby.  There is a lot to see and explore  around these crags including gritstone grinding wheels for mills that have been made, but abandoned near the crag.  We had lovely weather over the weekend warm, but not too hot, as we got into the minibus to come home the rain poured, great timing.  Climbing in the rain on gritstone is no fun at all!

Teenagers

19 August 2012

I have just spent a weekend in the company of eight teenagers.  My family and two friends took this little group to Derbyshire to camp and do some climbing.  We had a wonderful time and as always the young people were engaging company.  I know that my own children are a long way off being teenagers themselves, but I do like being around them.  

These young people are part of a local Explorer Scout unit.  They join at fourteen and leave at eighteen.  It is great to see the changes in them over this time, how they grow to be comfortable in their own skin. How they blossom and become more confident.  Teenagers these days, as always, get a bad press.  There seems to be little positive writing about this crucial time in life, when we are changing and getting ready to move on in the world to pastures new.  Well I think they are great and will continue to volunteer my time.

Lentils

18 August 2012

This is an adaptation of a recipe from Ethiopia.  It is really quick to make.  My children love eating this, it is suposed to be eaten cold but we always have it hot!

Lentil Salad

300g red lentils
1/2 tsp salt
Pinch cayenne pepper
1 - 2 tsp brown mustard seeds (we find it is as bit too hot with 2tsp)
6 black peppercorns
3 tbs olive oil
3tbs white wine vinegar

Put the lentils in a pan with 600ml of water, being to the boil and cook gently for about 20 -30 minutes or until tender.

Put the salt, cayenne, mustard seeds and peppercorns into a grinder, and grind finely.  I use a coffee grinder that is only used for that purpose.  Put into a bowl and add 2tbs boiling water and mix.  Add the oil and vinegar, beat well to mix.

Stir into the lentils and enjoy.  I serve this with new potatoes.

Time

17 August 2012

There is only so many hours in the day, and I am sure I don't have to tell if you are a mama you are always busy.  I have only recently starting writing this blog and reading others. I never thought I would have the time to write and read blogs but I do.  It is easy to make the time to the things that we really want to or enjoy doing, most of the time.

Reading blogs is like a little window into the lives of others.  It could make you feel that there are so many things that you could or should be doing, and make you feel that you do not use your time constructively.  How do people manage to do all the stuff they are writing about, write about it and look after their house and children.  Rather than making me feel inadequate it has been food for thought.  I have, as result, decided to try to use my time more wisely.

I have recently returned to reading something that I have always loved, inspired by a regular gathering of blogs on a Wednesday over here.  I had been reading the weekly posts and thinking every week, I would love to join in but I am hardly reading these days.  Hardly a good reason.  So now I have taken it back up again, it takes a while to read a book but I am enjoying it.  If I find that I have a spare few minutes, I pick up the current book and read a few pages.  My youngest woke me early the other day and I could not get back to sleep, so I headed downstairs, made a cup of tea and sat on the sofa in the peace and quiet and read for a whole hour.  There were loads of other things that I could have been doing, but it was great and I felt raring to go for the rest of the day, instead of feeling really tired.

I have also managed to spend more time in the garden, competed a few knitting projects and sewn a few things.  If I go to friends houses now I always take something to do with me, usually knitting as it is easy to pick up and put down and talk at the same time.

I would say it has has been about thinking differently.  If I have a small amount of time, I may spend it doing ten minutes weeding.  If I was to do this every day it feels like a smaller task than doing it for two hours a month.  If I want to read a book I can no longer expect to be able to read it in a couple of sittings, but there is time to read, a page here, page there.  It may take more time, but hey I am reading a book and getting to the end, albeit slowly.

Of course there still needs to be time in the day to spend on all the other stuff such as doing things with the children, cooking shopping and occassionally housework but it feels good to be able to include some of the other stuff to.

Laughter

16 August 2012

Laughing can be a wonderful tonic and pick me up, I was reminded of this today by my youngest.

I have been really busy over the last week or so and am starting to feel as if I am chasing my tail, couple with three nights of little sleep I am feeling a bit jaded.  I often find that being very busy goes hand in hand with not sleeping so well.  It is usually worse if I get woken during the night, which happens two or three times a week still, I find it really difficult to get back to sleep.  I realised some time ago that there is a connection and try to ensure that I do not get ridiculously busy.  I have failed on this front at the moment.  Over the next four weeks I have planned too many things close together which require masses of preparation.  I know that I will have a great time and am really looking forward to them all, but they have all come at once.

This morning feeling half a sleep, I had a shopping list to write and two important phonecalls to make.  One of these ended up being a message left on an answermachine and a lengthy email.  It was made more difficult by the fact that I had asked my husband, who is at home today, to ensure that I was not disrupted.  Needless to say that I was, having a conversation on the phone whilst being interupted by a three year old is pretty impossible, especially one where you need to really concentrate.  It took me all morning and by dinner time I was feeling exhausted.

After dinner the whole family headed into the local town for an extra shopping trip for food for this weekend.  As we were getting in the car my youngest was unable to open her car door and pulled the funniest of faces as a result.  We could all see her and simultaneously all burst out laughing.  I was concerned that she would be upset and think that we were laughing at her for not being able to open the door, but after my husband opened it for her and heard us all she joined in and said 'I am so funny aren't I?', which set us all off again.

It was just what I needed I felt much lighter for the rest of the afternoon and got a lot more done than I thought I would.

Knitting

15 August 2012

I am joining with Ginny and friends for this weeks sharing of knitting and reading.

On the needles this week is my first ever socks. It is growing very slowly. I am knitting these as a Christmas present (yes I know it's only August) for a friend and I plan to knit a pair for my husband too. This is why they are a slow project as I am only knitting them when my husband is not around. For the last eight months he has hardly been home, this month he has been at home pretty much every day!

I was concerned that I would have a ladder using dpns as the last project I made using them, finger puppets for my youngest, they were really obvious. They don't look like they are so I am hoping that I am getting the tension right.


I am still reading the same book as last week, The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford.  I have been really busy this week and reading has taken a back seat.  I am still enjoying it and it is slowly starting to make more sense.

Markets

14 August 2012

Welcome to the August 2012 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Farmer's Markets
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama. This month our participants have written about something new they've learned about their local farmers.
***
I am an organised person when it comes to food buying, it is one of the few areas of mothering where I am.  I have a vegetable box delivered each week along with some fruit, milk and eggs based on the contents on this and any produce I have ready to harvest in the garden, I plan a supper menu.  I then put together a shopping list of all the ingredients I need to cook that menu plus any items I need to make lunches and breakfast.  I shop once a week on the same day, in my local town.  I rarely need to buy food in the intervening days.  I very very rarely throw food away.

My local farmers market is held once a month in a nearby village.  There is a variety of produce on sale, mostly meat with a couple of cheese producers and two vegetable stalls.  I visit the market sporadically depending on the time of year.  In the winter this is most months, in the summer hardly at all.

As a mostly vegetarian household we, now, only visit the market to buy cheese and vegetables.  The vegetables top up those that we are short of in the veg box or in the garden.  We used to buy meat but now prefer to buy direct from the farmer, in my country we call this farm gate sales.

The farmers we buy our meat from are those that we have met at the farmers market. In the early days we bought from them at the market now, rather than buying a few cuts each month we prefer to buy many at once and put them in the freezer.  When we are running low we contact the farmer and find out what he or she has available and then arrange to go and pick up what we require.  By visiting their farm we have been able to see for ourselves how the livestock are raised as we have been offered a tour of each of the two farms we buy from.  It has been really interesting for me and the children and we are grateful for each of these farmers for showing us how they work.

We have now met a local organic cheese producer who also sells raw milk from her farm.  We are thinking about going to go and collect some of this milk to try it out, if we like it we may use this regularly.

So for us the farmers market is serving a duel purpose as a stepping stone to building relationship with producers in our area and buying from them direct or to top up gaps in our supply of food.

***
Carnival of Natural Parenting -- Hobo Mama and Code Name: MamaVisit Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!
Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:
(This list will be live and updated by afternoon August 14 with all the carnival links.)

10 Simple Ways to Make the Farmer's Market More Fun for Kids — Lorie at Reading Confetti shares ideas and books to help kids get the most from the farmers market experience.
10 Things I Want To Teach My Daughter About The Importance of Shopping at the Farmer’s Market — Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama shares the ten lessons she hopes to impart to her daughter about the importance of shopping at local farmers markets.
Charmed by Two Small Town Markets — Shannon at GrowingSlower was charmed by two small-town farmers markets while on vacation.
The Olympia Farmer's Market (and a giveaway!) — Shannon at Pineapples & Artichokes and family took a trip to their state capitol to experience a new market. See what they saw, and enter to win a book written about that very market.
— Exploring the farmers market by Jennifer at True Confessions of a Real Mommy writing at Natural Parents Network — with a scavenger hunt!
Exploring the Market ... Alphabet StyleThat Mama Gretchen is in the midst of creating a learning tool for her toddler and it's all about the market!
Unschooling at the Farmers Market — Megz at Aspen Mama loves building memories as a vendor at the Market.
Montessori-Inspired Vegetable Unit — Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now shares links to Montessori-inspired vegetable printables and activities to help your family get the most out of a trip to the farmer’s market.
Markets — How sustainable mum has fitted a monthly farmers market into a weekly food shop.
The Farmers Market In Under An Hour ("Carl Style") — Andrea and family at Tales of Goodness adapt their farmers marketing approach to make everyone happy.
Tales Of a Troubled Gardener — Sam at Love Parenting writes about her dream of self-sufficiency and her lack of gardening skills!
A Few {Of The Many} Reasons Why I Love Our Farmer’s Market — Even though the experience can sometimes be less than peaceful, MomeeeZen shares why she enjoys taking her family to the Farmer's Market on Saturday mornings.
Experiencing the Farmer's Market from a Different Perspective — Emily at S.A.H.M. i AM had a great time letting her toddler lead the way at the farmer's market...
Ask A Farmer's Daughter — Abbie at Farmer's Daughter answers questions about her life growing up on a small family farm in New England.
Giving Up the Grocery Store — Kerry at City Kids Homeschooling shares her family's summertime challenge to eliminate trips to the grocery store and rely almost exclusively on local, farm-fresh foods.
Urban farming and fresh food in the city — Lauren at Hobo Mama takes trips to farms, gardens, and markets within reach of a big city.
Market Tip: Get to Know Your Farmers — Justine at The Lone Home Ranger finally gets up the guts to talk to her farmers and learns she is among ardent food lovers.
New Farmer's Market Find — Kellie at Our Mindful Life is excited to make a new find at her new farmers market.
"The Real World" Grassroots Edition — jessica at instead of institution takes some time out to write a love note.
9 Insider Tips for Farmer's Market Newbies — Dionna at Code Name: Mama chatted with a few farmers to bring you some insider information on how to get the most out of your local farmer's market.
The Place Where I Can Say "Yes!" — Erica at ChildOrganics gives you a tour of her favorite vendors at her local farmers market and discusses the benefits of creating community through the market.
Raw Local Milk — Jorje shares her family's field trip to a local dairy. Learn what you can appreciate from a small town farm at Momma Jorje.com.
Italian Secret Vegetable Soup Recipe — Alinka at Baby Web convinces an Italian Farmer & Cook to reveal a precious minestrone recipe and shares it with her readers.
Where do our eggs come from? A visit to Sucellus Farms. — Carli at One Fit Mom takes her family to meet the chickens that have been providing their daily eggs.
Beyond the Farm — Jennifer at True Confessions of a Real Mommy and her family enjoy looking beyond the food at the local farmer's market to see the wares of the over vendors.
Magic at the Market — Do you ever take time to really look at the food you eat? Amy at Anktangle enjoys marveling at the beauty (and the utility) of the foods and goods available at the farmers' market.
Farmer's Market Discoveries — Laura from Pug in the Kitchen reminisces about the discoveries she's made at the Farmer's Market throughout the years.
Are You Getting the Most out of Your Farmers' Market? (My List of Not-So-Common "Musts") — Sheila at A Living Family shares some uncommon ways to squeeze even more joy and connection (and yumminess!) from your local farmers' market experience.
Pick Your Own And Eat It — Luschka from Diary of a First Child shares their trip to a PYO farm and the journey from picking to eating her favourite food

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

13 August 2012

busy this week, making the most of the warmer weather as we were not convinced it was going to last, and it has been positively autumnal this summer for us.

We started the week with our usual visit to the local town for food shopping and a visit to the library to get some new books.  We found a cool book Wild Child by Jeanne Willis, I think I have read this at least five times every day this week, she loves it.  We spent the afternoon looming at our library books and drawing pictures.

The next day we joined our friends for our regular play date.  My eldest was not sure of he wanted to go this week.  He had not had so much fun last week as there were different children there.  He needed to knowm if they would be there again before he decided.  He needs time to get to know new people and prefers to do this one on one rather than in a group.  He struggled to join in last week.  I established that they were not going to be there so we headed down.  He had a great play for the afternoon, running around, playing with lego and building a den.  My youngest spent most of the day on their trampoline, she is getting quite competent.  Despite getting home late we contact our friends who were meeting the next day to plan a day out.  We have so few warm sunny days we wanted to make plans rather than leaving until mid morning and not ending up doing much.

We opted for a day out to a local Buddhist Temple and Retreat Centre it was a beautiful place, really serene and peaceful.  The children spent a long time in the temple sitting still and looking around, it was a really calming place.  We had a lovely long picnic on their beach, whilst the children played in the sand and shallow waters.  It was a long but wonderful day.

On Thursday we took our canoe out for a day paddle on a local lake.  We took dinner and tea which we cooked on our Kelly Kettle.  I was really tired by the end of the day, but I do love days out like this, being outdoors recharges my batteries.  My eldest is never keen at the thought but when we are out always tells me he is having a great time, so it is usually worth that extra hassle.

The next day we were joined for dinner by our friends from the south.  Like me they have to eat a particular diet and are unable to eat gluten, together with my long list of foods I cannot eat it makes for intersting meals.  I enjoy cooking and managed to put together a meal for eight without using any.  I served up (all homemade) coleslaw, rice salad with dill and peas, a green leaf salad from the garden, onion bhajis and deep fried cheddar balls.  The children were off playing together for pretty much the whole time. It was lovely to see and hear the girls so well together, they are still young but seem to be finding each others company enjoyable now which is wonderful to observe.  It meant the adults had a catch up which was great as what with one thing and another we have not been able to meet up much of late.

Continuuing the busy theme we spent a large proportion of the weekend on a canoe trip.  This time we took the kit to camp out under a bivi sheet.  The children had a whale of a time, it was lovely to have the time to just sit and watch what they were doing, running around in the water, in the trees, looking at things, asking questions or just sitting and being.  It is important to slow down sometimes and live simply.  Camping is a great opportunity to do this, I am looking forward to our many camping trips we have planned over the next few weeks.

Bivi

12 August 2012

We set off yesterday afternoon for another adventure with our canoe.  This time we packed up stuff to stay out the night so we needed more food.  After all the cooking I did on Friday (dinner and tea) I was struggling to come up with a meal that we could take to cook in the evening and in the end decided to leave it until the morning, I was cooked out.  I got up in the morning and looked in the fridge, broad beans, a small amount of ricotta and feta left over from another meal where jumping at me to go together.  I cooked some potatoes, chucked in the broad beans at the end mashed them together with the cheeses and some chopped mint added some rice flour to bind it all a bit, hey presto small patties.  I sorted out some lunch, wraps and salad (left overs from day before), snacks and breakfast fruity porridge and we were ready for the off.

We went to another lake a bit further from us, we arrived in time for lunch which we ate before packing the canoe and setting off.  The wind was fairly strong and heading down the lake, the direction we ultimately wanted to travel we decided to head up the lake against the wind for a bit of an explore first.  When we turned to head in the other direction the wind changed to (that was to become a bit of theme for the rest of the day).  We stopped at a small beach for a drink and a snack, we boiled water with the Kelly Kettle, the children had great fun playing in a stream, building a dam and redirecting the flow.

We headed on down the lake pass the beach we were planning to camp on to a wonderful little island.  Those of you familiar with Swallow and Amazons may recognise this part of the island, from chapter four of the book.  The picture is titled feeling their way in.  


The island was really busy so we just had a shorter explore before heading back up the lake.  


As we were heading down towards the island we were having to paddle hard against the wind we were looking forward to a speedy sail back up the lake. No, the wind had other ideas, it had dropped and changed direction.  We managed to get a bit of assistance as it was vaguely in the right direction. My eldest asked the question on the way back, why is the island there?  We told him it was due to the ice age.  He immediately realised that it was harder rock that the glacier could not wear away.  We have talked about the ice age before when out and about and watched a few DVDs on the subject. The island is a roche moutonnée.

We made it to the beach and started to get a big pile of sticks together to cook tea.  
 
We had used the kelly kettle to reheat tea when out canoeing earlier in the week, this time we had food that needed cooking. We ended up eating in stages, first we cooked and my husband and children ate meat burgers with tabbouleh, we had started cooking potatoes first and left them sitting in hot water which were cooking very slowly they went back on the heat until eventually they were ready to eat.  Then we cooked the patties I had made in the morning.  It was a bit slow but all very tasty and we had not had to bring any fuel with us.


The children had great fun during all this time running here and there, in the lake, in the woods nearby and playing in a stream that flowed down one side of the beach.  They created channels and pool and dams.  We boiled some water for a cup of tea after eating, I took the Kelly kettle off the heat  once it had boiled and felt my hand get hot but thought nothing of it.  Within a minute I realised I had burned it so put my hand in the stream.  I spent most of the next hour with it in the stream, whilst assisting with the hydrology engineering with my children, it hurt a lot.  It was great to listen to them talking about the effect of their engineering on the flow of the stream geography in the field, bit of theme going here no prior planning of course!

My husband built the bivi with a tarp and the canoe and used the embers from the Kelly kettle to build a fire. 





 We sat by the fire until it was dark and went to bed.  I was woken at 5am as my youngest had migrated, she had managed to get past her brother to her daddy!  It was very windy, as I went back to sleep I hoped it would calm down as we would have fun getting back to the car against it.

By 8am the wind had dropped and the sun come out.


My husband was up and had the fire going for a brew.



What more could you ask for?  We had our porridge, packed up and headed back to the car.  We were once again paddling against the wind.   A wonderful twenty four hours.


Mice

11 August 2012

This is the number one pest in my garden, for some it is slugs we have those under control now but mice are the vandals in my garden.  They like to eat stalks, so they come along to my brassicas and eat the stalks and leave the leaves lying on the ground as evidence of their thieving.  Luckily for me they have not eaten all the leaves and the plants are strong enough that they will, I hope, survive.  There is nothing more desponding than going to inspect your hard work to find it all obliterated by a very small mammal.  We have set the traps once more.

I was in the garden yesterday to collect some leaves for a salad and to inspect the brassicas when I noticed how full the garden was looking.  We do have a path that winds its way up the garden, in places it is difficult to distinguish.  When you walk through you get a squawk and flapping as birds try to fly out from where they were feeding under the plants.  It is really pleasing to see that I have created a haven for them.

We are finally having a little bit of warm which is helping all my vegetables to grow.  My potatoes look nearly ready to harvest, I will need to make some time to gather them in in the next week.  My purple sprouting broccoli, white cabbage and kale have just about survived an attack from then mice. I also have a donated brassica which was given to me by a friend,  I have no idea what it is and nor did she, as she was given it too, all will be revealed in the autumn I am sure.  The leeks are finally starting to grow and will be ready to plant on soon, but I need to make some room for the. Before I can do that.  The beetroot and carrots are looking great above ground, I hope that the roots are swelling and growing too.  The turnips are also now growing and need thining as they are too cramped.  The garlic and onion are distinctly pathetic, they have either gone mouldy in the cool, damp we have had or they are the size of a sprout, I'm not holding out much hope of a decent harvest with either.

In the next few weeks I am going to sew salad leaves for over wintering in the poly tunnel.  There is not much room in there are the moment as it is full with cucumber, courgette, celery and lettuce.  I think I will start them off in seed trays and plant them out when there is room.  In the busyness of life I often neglect my garden, it does pay to think about it occassionally as you always need to think ahead.  I do keep a record of what I do in a journal, I find this useful to look back on to see what I have down in previous years.

Memories

10 August 2012

My parents are in the middle of packing up their house to move.  They have lived in the same house for nearly 40 years and bought up a family there.  My husband was at their house recently and returned with a box of stuff.  Most of it was books, some stories and some more textbook type, my mother was a teacher for 25 years, which she thought that either myself or other home educating families might want to use.  The rest is stuff that I keep looking at but am not sure what to do with.  The box has been sat on the dining room floor for the last three weeks.

Amongst the other stuff is a lock of my hair, a receipt for ballet classes from when I was a few months older than my own daughter, primary school reports, programmes from music concerts that I took part in at school and letters I wrote to my parents when on school trips.  My house is much smaller than my parents, they have been able to keep all this stuff without running out of storage room.  I suspect that most of these things were put away from the time they are from and have never seen the light of day since.  So what to do with them.

They are part of me, of my life, my history.  Will they ever get looked at again, will my children ever be interested in them.  If I keep them will they go in a box and sit in the loft until I move house or get carried out in a wooden box and my own children are clearing the house.  They mean little on their own but are part of the mosaic that makes up my life.  As I look at them I have wonderful memories, I can remember my ballet lessons, I can picture all the teachers who signed my primary school report forms.  I am really struggling to know what to do with it all.  Part of me wants to keep it, but part of me thinks what for.

It has made me think about all my possessions and memories.  Why do we keep, do we need to fill our houses with stuff, do we really need it all or will we just feel overwhelmed.  Overwhelmed by the need to reduce what we own, or by the volume of stuff we are living with.  I am trying to simplify our house and this extra box has just made this, so far easy task, really hard.

Sun

09 August 2012

We have been out for the day again today enjoying the wonderful warm weather.  I had resigned myself at the beginning of the week to a cool summer.  It seems this week that we are getting some heat, so we are making the most of it.

We took the canoe out again on a local lake.  We packed lunch and tea this time.  There was a light breeze so we managed some sailing although we were sailing into the wind which is a bit slower.  We were heading down the lake in the hope that we would be able to sail back up, but guess what, when we turned to come back the wind turned too!  Not for long though, the lake is surrounded by hills and the wind changes at various parts of the lake so eventually it was behind us.

There were a few clouds in the sky and my eldest spent some time looking at them and seeing the most amazing shapes in them such as a map of North America, a fish spine and a tree to name but a few.

We cooked tea on a shingle beach using the kelly kettle, actually we reheated it as I had already cooked it that morning.  We were the only boat on the lake as we returned to the car.
When we arrived home there was the most beautiful sunset, a perfect mackerel sky, as I was taking this picture my youngest said Smile Clouds!

Buddhism

08 August 2012

We have been on a wonderful day out with friends today.  We meet up with them every week and this  week we were organised enough to plan a dry and wet day out.  The weather forecast was looking good for today so we planned on meeting up for our dry day plan.  We met in local village and travelled together in our car.  We were heading for a Buddhist Temple which had grounds to explore and a beach.

The temple is built next to a building which has an interesting history dating back hundreds of years.  There was a priory on the site of which there are no remains.  The building there now is a romantic gothic mansion which has been restored by the buddhist community after being neglected and unused for four years.  This building is used as a retreat centre and also a cafe and shop.


The temple itself is modern, built in a walled garden.  We spent some time inside, the children thought it was beautiful and spent some time just sitting and looking at the Buddhist statues and the beautiful artwork.




We fetched our picnic from the car and walked through woodland down to the beach where we spent much time eating and playing.

We returned home happy and tired, the weather was really hot all day a much welcome change from the cloud covered sky we have had for weeks. We have not seen so much blue sky for weeks.

I just loved this gargoyle over the main entrance to the building!

Knitting

I am joining in with Ginny, Jonny  and friends for this weeks sharing of knitting and reading.

On the needles this week is the last section of the hooded cardigan I was working on last week.  I am in the middle of picking up the stitches around the hood edge.  Once the border is complete I need to sew on the buttons and it is complete.  The buttonhole border was a nightmare I picked up enough stitches but managed to knit the rib the wrong way round, so unpicked and managed to drop stitches in the middle, so had to undo the whole lot and start again!


This week I am reading The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford.  I discovered this book in a charity shop recently.  I am a regular listener to his programme on the radio More of Less which is an exploration of numbers and statistics used in political debate, the news and everday life.  I managed to complete two university courses, which were business related, without really getting to grips with the world of economics.  So far this book has been interesting, although I am not sure it will make an economist out of me!

Beans

07 August 2012

I made some fritters during this past week using soaked black eye beans.  I had not made them in ages and remembered that last time I made them the children loved them and there were none left.  It was the same this time.  You need to remember to soak the beans overnight as you will be using the raw soaked beans.

Black eye bean fritters

225g dried black eye beans
55g chopped onions
Freshly ground black pepper
Pinch cayenne pepper
Oil for frying

Soak the beans in plenty of water in a large bowl for at least 16 hours.

Drain the beans and put them back in the bowl with fresh water.  Rub the beans between your fingers to loosen any skins, you may not loosen them all.  Leave the stubborn ones, remove the floating skins.

Drain the beans and place in a food processor with the chopped onions and peppers.  Process on a slow speed, stopping to push the mixture down with a spatula.  Process until you have a grainy paste. Slowly add 5 tablespoons of hot water, processing all the while until you have a paste of dropping consistency.  It will remain grainy.

Heat the oil in a frying pan, when it is hot drop teaspoons of the mix into the oil and fry.  Fry until golden brown and turn.  Remove to a plate and continue cooking until all the mix is used up, you will need to stir the mix each time.

We have been mainly.......

06 August 2012

having fun with friends and family this week.

We started the week with our usual trip into the local town.  After the busyness of last week, we set off earlier and managed to avoid it.  We found a fantastic book about spiders, The Diary of a Spider a fun story about how spiders live.

On Tuesday we joined our friends for our regular play date.  The children all rescued a baby blue tit which had been caught by a cat and cared for it.  It was interesting to watch them working out what to do with it, what they needed to keep it safe it kept them busy for a long time until they could set it free.  They also decided to put on a show on the trampoline with jumps, songs, a short play and joke telling it was great.

We stayed at home the next day and kept ourselves busy reading books, playing with Lego, painting, knitting, baking bread and observing Lammas. We cooked a meal in the evening based on the few bits of produce that we have in the garden at the moment, it's a lean year this year.  After supper I headed off to a meeting with friends to plan a programme of activities for a local Explorer Scout group it was the first time my youngest had gone to sleep without me, she managed just fine with daddy for company.

We joined friends the next day at a local pick your own farm.  We managed to pick a pound of strawberries there were not many as it is the end of the season, and three pounds of raspberries, I have given up trying to grow strawberries they will not ripen in my garden and I really ought to get some raspberries canes for my garden.  Having picked our fruit we drove up the road to a play park where we had a picnic and a play.  It was really quite warm for a change, although you needed a jumper when the sun went in.  I made most of the fruit into jam when we got home, some of the raspberries got eaten with cream for supper.

On Friday we visited our friends to the south, it has been a long time since we were able to spend time together and it was great to catch up with them again.  We joined them for lunch after which we walked to a local park so that the children could all run off their energy.  I seemed to be doing a lot of that as they had me whizzing them around on a heavy roundabout!  We returned to their house for a drink with  scones and jam before heading home it was a lovely day.

Over the weekend we enjoyed an adventure with our canoe and sail on a local lake on Saturday.  It started off sunny with light winds and ended with wild weather heavy rain, wind, thunder and lightening.  We had the lake to ourselves at that point, not surprisingly.  Whilst cooking tea that evening my children decided to raid my utensil draw.  My youngest had a colander on her head and a funnel as a trumpet, my eldest had two measuring cups and a whisk as a drum set.  They were marching up and down, making music.  They soon had many items on the table which they were tapping with the whisk they realised that the size of the item had a bearing on the sound it made, it was lovely to listen to their conversation of discovey.

We stayed at home on Sunday drawing, reading books, playing Lego and watching DVDs a quiet end to the week.

Summer

05 August 2012

This season is bypassing us this year.  We had a warmer winter than usual, followed by, a times, a very hot spring.  I have resigned myself now to the fact that we are having a very cool, wet summer.  It has rained every single day at some point, admittedly some days it has been at night, for the last three months.  This is great news for my garden as I am not having to water it, but combined with cool temperatures it has not been good as everything is growing very slowly.

Most of my summer clothes have sat in the wardrobe unworn this year.  It is rarely warm enough to venture out without a jumper and I risk very cold toes if I wear sandals.  So it is more like a warm autumn, the temperature is usually about 15 - 16 centigrade.  I am hoping that it will be warm in September as quite often happens, it would be good to feel the sun on my face.

Sailing

04 August 2012

We have had a fine adventure today, out on a local lake in our canoe.  We had talked about going out in the canoe at some point over the weekend but were waiting to see what the weather was going to throw at us.  When we looked last night it was not great, heavy rain showers from mid morning with thunderstorms also possible.  On waking this morning it was cloudy with the odd break in the clouds when the sun shone, and it was warm.  We decided to give it a go.  We packed a picnic, the Kelly Kettle, cups, drinks and all the canoe equipment we needed and drove to the lake.

It was lovely when we arrived, a light breeze and a bit of sun.


We loaded the canoe and set off.  It was beautiful.  We found a sun baked shingle beach for some lunch.  We found fuel for the Kelly kettle and all enjoyed a drink.



We continued down the lake in the sun.  The wind was light and in the right direction so we got the sail out and headed to the end where we enjoyed an ice cream.

 
As we were sitting enjoying them we heard thunder and saw lightning, there was a storm brewing in one of the valleys and it was heading our way.  We quickly put our waterproof jackets on and set off.  The wind picked up and the rain came down, it was wild.  The canoe was racing along in the wind.


The lightning was flashing and thunder was booming it started off behind us and moved round us.  We made it back to the car, we were wet on the outside but dry inside.  The sail was amazing as was the weather, all in all a great day out.

Out

03 August 2012

I agreed to attend a meeting this week to help plan activities for a local Explorer Scout group.  The meeting was at a friends house in the evening.  During the day I told my youngest that I was going out after supper and that daddy would put her to bed.  She didn't seem to bothered for most of day, just answered ok each time I told her.  When I said the same thing at supper the answer changed to I am coming with you, when I told her this was not possible the answer was you're joking!  She was naturally worried as daddy putting her to bed is not what usually happens.  Every night of her life I have done it.  She only nurses at night occasionally now so I figured she was ready for the odd night without me.  She did in fact go to sleep just fine.  And me, I was so unused to spending two hours on a sofa without having to get up that I was virtually dozing off!

Lammas

02 August 2012

We have observed Lammas this week.  This is a traditional festival to celebrate the first harvest of the year.  Our garden has yet to provide us with much in the way of produce yet this year.  The weather has been wet, which in itself should be a good thing, combined with cool temperatures.  This combination has lead to most plants growing very slowly or rotting in the damp.  I am realistic about what I grow in my garden I live fairly high up in a windy exposed village.  Tender plants are a no no even in a poly tunnel.  Plants such as cucumbers will grow in there but only the varieties that will grow outside in cooler climates.  Most of my harvest will, I hope be ready for an autumn harvest, carrots, beetroot, cabbage, kale and the like.

We have baked bread for sharing at lunch, decorated the table with meadowsweet and made an evening meal with as much produce from the garden as we could collect.  We used courgettes and potatoes along with some bought ingredients to make patties and a green salad of leaves.

Continuing the harvesting theme we have visited a pick your own this week too and picked a small amount of strawberries and some raspberries.  The strawberries have been made into jam, the raspberries will too if they are not all eaten first!

Knitting

01 August 2012

I am joining Ginny and others for this week's sharing of knitting and reading.

On the needles this week are a hooded cardigan for my eldest.  I started this some time ago and needed to sew all the pieces together before carrying on. It is not my favourite part of a knitting project as I find I need time and space and I don't have much of either.  'Tis done, so I have picked up the stiches and am working on the hood.  The yarn is Rowan purelife cotton.



I have managed to find some time to read a bit this week which has been lovely.  I am reading Unschooling Handbook by Mary Griffith lent to me by this lovely mama.  It is an interesting read but I have yet to find anything in the book that I feel I will adopt in our house.  I think it would be more useful for parents who are considering home education or are looking for a different approach to their current one, but I have yet to finish so maybe I will find inspiration further through the book.   I only came across the concept of unschooling very recently it seems to me to be a strange label for education and not one that I intend to adopt, nevertheless it is interesting to read about it.