Blurred

29 May 2014

My youngest had a birthday party this week it left me exhausted, I kept it simple with a few friends, some games and a buffet style birthday tea.  Most of the time the children were playing and I sat chatting to the mums who came too.  I couldn't really understand why all of that would leave me feeling so utterly drained and exhausted.

My life is simple, I like it that way.  I make one arrangement per day, if that.  I don't rush around from one appointment to another.  I cancel things if I feel I have taken on too much.  I am happily married, have two lovely children, live in a wonderful area and love my wee house.  I don't want for much.

There is a blurring, as if someone has taken my sight and unfocused it like a pair of binoculars that I cannot quite work out how to operate.  When something happens to someone you hold dear that you cannot comprehend, that you have no experience of, how do you offer support.  I feel like a duck trying to walk across an icy pond without slipping over.

In a time of crisis it is wonderful to feel supported and loved. You know who your friends are, the ones who rally round and are there for you.  I am reaching out but there is silence, a silence which is sad but not unexpected.  The silence is for safety.  The colour is grey or at best monochrome.  The wall is high and wide with no way round.  The future is a terrifying place.  The world has stopped, mine hasn't but it looks different.

It is not a party that has exhausted me but my comprehension of words that I have listened to.  How could I have not noticed, did I offer enough support in the past, could I have done more, is that important now.  You cannot undo what has happened in the past but it frames who we are and how we  behave.  Our experiences mold us.  Our future and present is in our power.  Well it is in my power but I cannot begin to comprehend a future out of my power.  I can think but I cannot understand.  There are many people in the world who live their lives in fear, I am immensely grateful that I am not one of them.

Elephants

27 May 2014

A couple of weeks ago I shared some material that I intended to make into a dress for my daughter.  I had already tried to make one dress which sadly ended rather badly with a half finished item that doesn't fit and is beyond my sewing skills to rescue.  I am hoping my mum can help when she visits later this week.  I didn't want to try another bought pattern but I had read about using an existing garment to create a 'pattern' of your own in this lovely book, so I thought I would give that a go.

The first step is to draw around the item, this dress is a simple sleeveless tunic style dress with a zip up the back, onto the pattern paper.  I am sure you can buy expensive paper which is designed for that job, I used greaseproof/baking paper from my kitchen drawer!

You will need to examine the garment carefully to work out how many pieces it has.  This dress has three a front piece and two back pieces.  The back pieces are identical so I only needed one pattern piece, I also decided to draw the front piece in half and fold the material in half to cut it.

Lay the garment, it's a good idea to iron it first, on the paper and carefully draw round it with a dark pencil.  The neckline on this garment was lower at the front than the back.




To get the shape for the front piece you can either draw it freehand or, as I did, use a small piece of paper inserted into the dress to get the shape, which I then transferred to the pattern piece.


Once you have drawn round the garment remove it from the paper you now need to add your seam allowances.  I added 1.5cm.  I used a ruler to mark in dashes and then joined them together.


The original garment is all once piece on the front and back but I wanted to divide them in two.  I worked out where I wanted the seam to run across the front and back and drew that onto the pattern and then added a seam allowance for each piece.


I could have cut these out as separate pieces but I decided to just fold the pattern pieces on the lines to cut the material.  I made this dress fully lined.

I had no pattern to follow when it came to sewing it up.  I managed to work out how to sew in an invisible zip and sleeves without hand sewing and will share how I did this another week otherwise this post will get a bit long and I need to go and make some food for my daughter's birthday party this afternoon.  I will leave you with pictures of the finished article, my daughter loves it and has worn it for the last two days!



Joining in with Nicole........head on over to see what others have been making.



Five

25 May 2014



Five times you have been round the sun. Sometimes it feels like it has passed in the blink of an eye, sometimes I take the time to pause and savour those special moments with you.  When I read back the words I wrote this time last year all those words still wring true.

You love to sing and really enjoy the singing group we go to every week, the first activity we have joined especially for you.

I love to spend time in the kitchen with you as we cook together and in the garden as we weed and plant.

You still love to be by my side but you are venturing out more and more, slowly and surely.  You make 'friends' everywhere we go, talking confidently to other children and then tell me what they have said when we leave.

I love to watch you engaging with other children taking those tentative steps to introduce yourself with no help from me, it is not something I or your older brother did.  You love company in what ever form that comes spending time with people feeds your soul, I need to remember this and ensure you get enough time immersed in company.  Your brother and I need time alone to feed our souls.  You have made friends that are important to you, children you want to spend time with each and every week.

You have always asked lots of questions but recently they have changed.  You want to know more about this world we live, how it works, what things are for, why we do things the way we do and what things say.  Letters and words are of great interest, the lines and squiggles in a book mean something and you want to find out more.  You 'read' books to yourself all the time.

I hold your hand as you venture out into the world and you are also holding mine, showing me the way. How to be a parent to a child who is often different from me.  You accept my mistakes and tell me it is ok.  Your frustrations at what you are unable to do, turns to cuddles and snuggles when we have worked it out together.

You love to play games together and are not bothered if you win or lose, in this you are like me not your competitive brother or father.

In the last year you have learnt to swim and ride a bike.

I love your company as does your brother, whom you miss deeply when he is out with friends.  Your bond is strong which makes my heart sing.  I am proud to be your mum, happy birthday my little one.

Dandylion*

22 May 2014


The Dandelion puff
Is a very queer clock,
It doesn't say tick
And it doesn't say tock,
It hasn't a cuckoo,
It hasn't a chime,
And I don't really think
It can tell me the time!

                                               Mary Robinson

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

For most of this month I have spend the hour before going to sleep making presents for my youngest who has a birthday at the of the month.  The hour of sleep was getting later and later, in my endeavour to get it all finished, I was waking feeling very sluggish.  This was a change from my usual habits, I had been reading for half an hour to hour depending what time I make it to bed, usually going to sleep between ten and ten thirty and waking feeling refreshed and ready for the day.

My day starts before the children's.  I get up and get myself ready for the day, sort out breakfast, any resources we need for our learning, a picnic if we are going out.  It's a time for me, so when the children wake I have usually finished my morning jobs and can focus on the children.  When I get up late this all goes out of the window, and on the odd day it does, but when it is everyday it feels like I am running after a bus that has just left my stop, permanently.  I never quite catch up, the day becomes chaotic and time seems to evaporate. 

In the past I have not wanted a rhythm or routine to my day and week.  I think this is because for so many years of my life the rhythm and routine I was following were not my own, they were dictated by school or work and by the time I was at home in my own space I had no energy left.  When it is just you, or two adults in a household this works, just, but add in children and home education it doesn't, or it didn't for us.  

Nowadays our rhythm and routine doesn't stay the same, it changes with the seasons, but there was a time when I found changes difficult and unsettling.  Looking back I suspect that knowing that something was going to happen on a regular basis was a comfort and easy.  Organising our life as a home edders involves planning and joining meet ups with others and it is so much easier if these are regular.  I now have a good network of people and we are less likely to end up with the week of not seeing anyone as happen so often in those early days.  It is a balancing act though and one that I am still practicing the art of getting right!

Our life right now is in a good place, we have a rhythm and routine that is ticking along nicely.  I focus on the week ahead once a week and keep a balance between busyness and calm, being out and about and at home, spending time with others and time just as a family.  But none of this can happen if I don't focus on me and ensure that I get the time to rest and sleep and to get myself ready for the day ahead so that I can also focus on my family too.

What about you are you a routine and rhythm person or one that throws caution to the wind and goes with the flow?  Or perhaps you have structure for some of the week through school or work and the rest of the time is free flowing?  Do you make time for yourself in your day/week?

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

*This is not a typo on my part but the title of a marvellous children's book which I thought was a fitting title for this post, weaving all the ends together.

Presents

20 May 2014

Two years ago I spent my evenings working on a present for my youngest's birthday, a wee dolly.


I had intended to make a few items of clothing for dolly but time ran out on me and she had just this one outfit.  I made a few bits for Christmas that year, pyjamas, a cardigan and another dress, but I have made nothing since.  When I asked my daughter a while ago what she would like for her birthday one of things she mentioned was a few more clothes for her dolly.  So I found a few patterns and spent many evenings making some wee garments.


I started earlier this time (her birthday is next Sunday) and finished these early last week, I didn't want to feel rushed.  I knew that none of the patterns I found would fit exactly as this dolly is on the small size and most patterns are written for larger dolls, so any I found would need adapting!



This dress was made from a 'pattern' in the lovely book The Children's Year.  The book gives you a set of dimensions and a guide to sewing up.  I adapted the dimensions to fit, the neck is a little on the large size but I am not sure that matters?  It makes it easier to get it on and off.



This dress was a bit more fiddly to make.  I found the pattern here which helpfully had a pdf you could download and print.  It was far too big in its original form so I attempted to adapt it, not entirely successfully.  I didn't get the sleeves quite right but I cut off the extra bits when I came to sew it together and it turned out alright and fits perfectly.  The cardigan and hat were from here, the hat I knitted straight from the pattern although this doll has a small head she has big hair to keep the hat in place!  The cardigan I adapted and the first attempt was too tight I guess I didn't measure my gauge quite right, second attempt was good.  The arms look ridiculously long but they fit!  The wee shoes were knitted using this pattern using dk yarn rather than the suggested worsted and they came out the right size.



I designed the trousers and shirt myself.  The trousers are two rectangles cut to the right size sewn together at the sides, elastic sewn in across the top and then a cut made from the bottom up to the right place for the crotch and the two seams sewn up.  The shirt was four rectangles, two for the arms and two for the body.  Elastic is sewn in to the neck and the shirt has a slight flare to the waist.  The shoes are the same as before, they may need a wee strap to keep them on!  The vest is another adaptation from a pattern to be found here.

I didn't buy any materials to make these clothes.  The yarn was the end of balls in my stash.  The fabric was a mixture of small pieces left over from making clothes for my daughter and old grown out of clothes.  She is now the best dressed dolly in town, the village.

I still have a dress to sew up and a vest to finish, pausing to joining in with Nicole......

Moments...

19 May 2014

...this week of...

...happiness making a wonderful tasty lunch with random leftover food, a relaxing weekend at home with my family, singing group, my strong seedlings not getting ravaged by mice

...sadness at hearing adults say to children, "you'll be alright" when they are hurt/upset how can they possibly know?

...creating a dress, knitting many rows, dolls clothes, almond muffins

...reading dipping in and out of How Eskimos Keep their Babies Warm by Mei-Ling Hopgood, and these picture books* which you can read a short review of here, 150. The Princess and the Wizard by Julia Donaldson, 151. Brown Rabbit in the City by Natalie Russell, 152. Little Red Riding Hood by Alison Jay, 153. Amy's Three Best Things by Philippa Pearce, 154. The Quick Brown Fox Cubby Julia Donaldson, 155. Look Inside an Airport by Rob Lloyd Jones

...learning about eyesight, fires, dandelions, seeds, decomposition, erosion, numbers larger than 20, road signs, Ancient Egypt, hieroglyphics

...thinking about my eldest's interest in Egypt and activities we can do 

...hoping my new mobile phone arrives this week my old one got too wet in my pocket on a walk last week

...looking forward to a visit to a wetlands centre

*as part of the 300 Picture Book Challenge 

Gratitudes

18 May 2014


Joining in with Taryn for her heartfelt Sunday tradition.

A time to slow down, to reflect, to be grateful.

This week I have been grateful for...

...my healthy seedlings growing in the polytunnel

...being able to prevent mice attacking and eating my seedlings

...wonderful bloggers

...finding a post about homemade toothpaste this week, a recipe that I will be giving a try

...a wet walk to find bluebells which were beautiful but we did get very wet in the process!

...the lovely singing group we go to

...sleep

...pausing and reflecting

...time for creating and crafting

...cooking alongside my youngest

...a fun evening with friends


Music

16 May 2014


Music has always been central to my life.  I learnt to read music before I could read words.  As a young child I started violin lessons and as a teenager I learnt piano ( my teacher was the woman who wrote Call the Midwife, Jennifer Worth).  I love to watch live music and we go to a music festival every year, a tradition that did not stop after the children were born.  I love music of most genres and have an extensive and varied collection that is accessible to the children they often choose what to listen to, although they have a habit of listening to the same thing over and over again often putting it on and then disappearing to another part of the house!

Earlier this year I reviewed our rhythm and made one of our days, a day for music.  This doesn't happen every week but most weeks, Wednesday is focussed on music.  I don't teach my children, it is not our ethos of education to follow that route and I wasn't about to start teaching my children to read music unless they specifically requested me to.  So our day of music has been all about exposure and seeing where this journey took us.  It always delights me when the children take an interest in something and take it off where they want to go with it.  Not least because it means any hard work I have done in research pays off but also because you are never quite sure where you are going and what they will want to do next.

I have already mentioned that we have a fairly extensive music collection which includes pop, rock, lots of folk, hip hop, reggae, dance I could go on, but not much classical.  I wanted to expose them to more classical music as the few pieces we did have they enjoyed but they are mostly on the long side (symphonies).  We already had a recording of the Planet Suite by Holst which I bought when my eldest was learning about Space and the Planets but I wanted some other recordings.  So I bought Peter and the Wolf composed by Prokofiev, The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra composed by Britten and The Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saens to start us off.  They loved all three of these especially the Young Person's Guide.  It was the 100th anniversary of Britten's birth last year and I found a wonderful free app put together as part of the celebrations which includes a video of an orchestra playing the music.  This moved us into conducting and then time signatures, beats in a bar, bars and how all three of these are written down, which then moved us onto written music itself.  They are now in the process of learning what each of the dots mean and how this correlates to a music instrument.  We are using a piano for now but I have also been demonstrating how this works on the violin too.  A recent visit to my parents meant that we came home with a trumpet which I had no idea my parents still had, my eldest has been blasting out notes on a regular basis as he gets to grips with it.  I am so glad that we have a tolerant neighbour (we live in a terraced house) although I am not sure what I will say if either of the children express an interest in learning the drums.........I have also moved all our instruments into one place, they were scattered round the house, and the small ones are now housed in a fabric bucket I made.  I am sure that all of you who are parents know that making things more accessible means that things get played with more!

I found two music societies in our neighbouring towns, both hold short concerts (around an hour) one at lunchtime the other in the evenings.  Sadly I found both these groups just as their programme was coming to end, the concert season seems to be over the winter for each, but we went to a few really good ones including a brass group which went down well.

We have added some Gershwin, Grieg - Peer Gynt Suite, Elgar - Enigma Variations, Paul Mealor - A Tender Light to our listening so far and I will continue to seek out other composers and types of music.  We have also been adding to our collection of the wonderful Putumayo CDs we now have a few of these.  They are compilations of music from around the world and can spark off a journey in themselves, some of their compilations are specifically aimed at children, at the moment their favourites are French Playground and Arabic Groove.   If you have any recommendations of music you or your children enjoy I would love to hear of them!

If you are wanting to introduce music notation to children or learn about it yourself I can really recommend The Music People by Leslie and Angela Carter.  It was a book my mother bought when she was teaching and has passed onto me.  My children love it.

This journey is far from over, it is just starting really and I have no idea where it will take us next......

Glimpses.....

13 May 2014

....of progress.  I have rather a lot of projects on the go at the moment, all of which are progressing slowly as I give them each a little bit of attention.

On my needles I have a Shalom waiting patiently at the bottom of my knitting bag for some sleeves.  The body is finished and I am pleased to say fits to perfection despite, or should I say because of, having to frog most of the stitches twice.  Frogging is not something I do willingly but when a project is totally the wrong size or the mistake totally obvious then it is the right thing to do, and as I posted once before is still progress, right?


I also have my first project requested by my eldest, it is a knit that needed sewing up as it's knit in pieces. Having knitted mostly all in one/in the round recently it is a bit tedious to go back to this kind of knitting but it is what my eldest wanted.......so I have finally blocked and sewn it up and am now working on the hood, hopefully I will get it finished before he grows out of it.

I finally got round to frogging this sock, when I tried it on it was far too tight, my youngest could not even get it on her foot it would have probably fitted a toddler!  I have now cast this yarn on for a totally different project, one that I have made good progress on but it is resting for now.


The project that has been getting most of my attention these last few weeks is the one that I am working on as part of a lovely knit-a-long, it has reduced in size somewhat as I frogged about 40 rows, seems to be a bit of a pattern here 'scuse the pun, I had been increasing in the wrong place.  I ordered some yarn which arrived at the back end of last week to make a wee vest for my youngest for her birthday at the end of the month, a project with a deadline gets all the attention well some at least in the evenings after she has gone to bed.


I have also been squeezing in some sewing too.  After my sewing disaster last week I thought I would have a go at drawing up my own simple pattern using a dress that I know fits.  I drew round it added a seam allowance and cut it out.  I have cut out the fabric and now need to sew the pieces together.  I will share if it turns out right!


I have also been creating several wee presents for my daughter, clothes for the Dolly I made her a couple of years ago.  This is a night time project and has meant many late nights in a row for me, I will be glad when I am done.  Like my knitting it has been sewing and undoing stitches as I work out what fits.  This wee dolly is a bit smaller than the dolls clothes patterns I have found.

So, I have lots going on at the moment, many works in progress but nothing finished off to show you, I am sure I will be back next week with them..........as usual joining in with Nicole and for this week Tami.

Are you a one project person or do you prefer to have several which you can pick up and work on depending on what you are doing and where you are?

Moments...

12 May 2014

...this week of...

...happiness our first family bike ride, my seedlings surviving an attack on them by the mice, being part of a lovely knit-a-long

...sadness at an invite to a friends wedding that has left me baffled, a four hour evening reception 250 miles away that the children are not invited to

...creating a pattern, rows of knitting, doll clothes, lego dragons

...reading dipping in and out of How Eskimos Keep their Babies Warm by Mei-Ling Hopgood, and these picture books* which you can read a short review of here, 137. Taking a Bath with the Dog by Scott Menchin, 138. The Very Clever Crocodile by Jack Tickle, 139. Magic Farm: Friends Forever by Ashley Birch, 140. The Snake who Came to Stay by Julia Donaldson, 141. Who wants to be a Poodle, Not I!  by Lauren Child, 142. I will be especially very careful by Lauren Child, 143. Great Big Air Book by Richard Scarry, 144. Busiest People Ever by Richard Scarry, 145. The Tree that Grew through the Roof by Thomas Berger, 146. Princess Grace by Mary Hoffman, 147. Hen's Cake by Malachy Doyle, 148. Mouse Soup by Arnold Lobel, 149. Mr Stofflees and the Painted Tiger by Robin Mellor

...learning about Archaeology, sea worms, decomposition, compost, Mummies, adding up, taking away, letters, music notation

...thinking about all the teenagers I know who are about to sit their exams

...hoping to go on a bluebell walk this week, I have arranged to do this twice but the weather was so wet we decided against it, this is the week..........

...looking forward to a BBQ with friends later this week

*as part of the 300 Picture Book Challenge almost half way!


Gratitudes

11 May 2014


Joining in with Taryn for her heartfelt Sunday tradition.

A time to reflect, to slow down, to be grateful.

This week I have been grateful for...

...a three day weekend, last weekend and an extra daddy day

...a safe place for a bike ride as a family, our first

...an afternoon with friends we had not seen for a while

...a call from my mum to arrange a visit to come and stay at the end of the month

...a fun evening out with family and friends

...time to do some gardening

...my youngest helping in the garden and the kitchen, it's lovely to have her working alongside me

...being part of a wonderful knit-a-long

...a long chat with a very old friend on the phone it was wonderful to catch up

...veggies from my garden which were grown last year and are still supplying me with food

...the milder winter than usual which enabled my veggies to survive

...having a good rhythm of days out and days at home in our week

Hands

08 May 2014


I recently bought some preloved cast iron pans, at a bargain price, in a local charity shop.  I absolutely love them and cannot believe I haven't tried this type of pan before.  They are great for children to use as they are nearly impossible to knock over sat on a hob, so they don't require being held whilst stirring something that is not easy to do when you are little.  They have a handy spout to make pouring the contents easier, if you are right handed.

Would you consider yourself to be right handed to left handed?  I never know how to answer this question.  Usually it is the hand you write with, in my case my right, that drives the answer and for most people this is the hand that they do everything else with, not me.  I might write right handed and use a knife, scissors and needles but everything else I do left handed.  So pouring the contents of a pan with your left hand means tipping it the 'wrong' way and spilling most of what you are trying to pour, I get the same result trying to do it with my right hand........

We had a telephone when I was a child that was mounted on the wall, it had a long curly cable connecting the handset to the part on the wall.  My parents always knew when I had been on the phone as, despite having a left handed brother he never used the phone, you could tell from how the handset had been out down whether it was done so by the left or right hand.  I never had that problem that my colleagues had at work of having to hold your phone between you ear and shoulder to free up your hand to write.

I can write very legibly and fairly fast with my left hand, if I broke my right hand I would be ok but I am not planning on doing that anytime soon.  I have always wondered whether I should have been a left handed writer like my brother.  It is possible as a parent to influence which hand your child writes with and I have often wondered, along with my father, whether this is what happened to me especially as I have a left handed sibling.  As a mother myself I have been very conscious of not trying to influence my own children.  My eldest showed a dominance for his right hand from around the age of five, my youngest who will turn five at the end of this month is still not showing a dominance.  I  thought long and hard about sending my youngest to school or to home educate, despite my eldest being home educated, but if there is one reason that I am glad I didn't I would pick this.  If she had been sent to school she is most likely to have become a right handed writer as we live in a world dominated by right handed people, but she has been given the time to discover this at her own pace.

But perhaps I am just ambidextrous, I was always going to do things with both hands, if you google ambidextrous test you can find out for yourself what you you are.  I am hopeless at telling my left from my right I have to really think about and even then usually get it wrong.  On the rare occasions I have set foot in an exercise class I am the one crashing in to the person next to them.  I don't have a problem with this but it's funny how so many people do and furthermore don't get it or think I can learn it or really should have done by now.  Nope it isn't going to happen, I am never going to know my left from my right its part of who I am along with the long list of things I can competently do left handed.

What about you?  Hopeless with right and left?  Which hand dominates?

***********

Those are my and the children's hands in the picture.  My children do not have enormous hands, mine are just small!

Roxy?

06 May 2014

A couple of months ago I won a giveaway hosted by this lovely blog.  The giveaway was for three farbenmix patterns, so imagine my surprise when I received the parcel and it contained not just three patterns but two bolts of material and some trimmings!


My youngest was really excited we looked at the three patterns and decided I would make the Roxy first.  The instructions were a little on the scant side but I found a great tutorial to use, despite this I managed to cut two pieces out incorrectly, an auspicious start!  So despite carefully reading through all the notes about the sizing of the pattern and seam allowances I have sewn up some of this dress and found it does not fit.  The pattern suggested that if you child is more solidly built to choose a bigger size as the pattern tapers at the waist.  My daughter is four, nearly five and is very tall, I measured her and her chest size matched the sizing for age five to six on this pattern but as she wears mostly age seven to eight clothes I decided to make that size.  So it fits fine at the waist but it is at least two inches too narrow under the arm and at the neckline even with a seam allowance sits part way up her neck.......I have now come to a halt as I don't have the sewing skills to adapt this.  My mum is coming to visit at the end of the month so I am hoping she can help me rescue this disaster.  For now it is hanging in her wardrobe looking a little forlorn.


After that effort I needed to make something that did fit.  Earlier in the week we had visited the haberdashers in town to buy some elastic for the sleeves for the disaster dress and my daughter had noticed some lovely purple fabric and asked me to make something for her with it.  I had a pattern in mind and got her to choose some bias tape to go with it.  So after hanging up the dress I switched to a better, for me, pattern.  I whipped this skirt up in two hours start to finish and she loves it.  She wanted it quite long so I am hoping it will fit her for a good while.........I used the tutorial written up by Laura on her lovely blog sew.knit.grow.  I can see myself making more of these in the future.  Thank you Laura for restoring my faith in my sewing abilities.



I thought I would leave you with the wee tableau I found adorning my sewing box when I went to get it from my daughters' room.........


Oh, and linking up as usual with Nicole.........

Moments....

05 May 2014

...this week of...

...happiness an afternoon with friends, a walk in a wood full of bluebells, big strong seedlings

...sadness at spending hours sewing a dress to find it doesn't fit, despite following a pattern

...creating part of a dress, a skirt, sewing up a knitted cardigan, some dolls clothes, a few rows of knitting

...reading nothing this week as too busy sewing!  Picture books* you can read a short review of them here 127. The Parrot Tico Tango by Anna White, 128. Wolf's Magnificent Master Plan by Melanie Willimason, 129. The Promise by Nicola Davies, 130. The Great Balloon Hullabaloo by Peter Bently, 131. Lettice:The Fairy Ball by Mandy Stanley 132. Meet the Parents by Peter Bently 133. How many Sleeps till my Birthday? Mark Sperring, 134. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, 135. Stick Man by Julia Donaldson, 136. Red Car, Red Bus by Susan Stegall.

...learning about digestion, bones, days, months and years, adding up, letters, weeds

...thinking about camping trips now the weather has warmed up

...hoping to go for our first bike ride as a family

...looking forward to catching up with a friend who we haven't seen for weeks

*as part of the 300 Picture Book Challenge

Slow Living.....

02 May 2014

It is always lovely to look back and reflect on what you have done over the previous weeks or months, taking stock, observing changes and celebrating achievements.  Even better if you can join together and see what others have been doing too in their part of the world, blogging is a wonderful way of making the world a smaller place.  Christine over a Slow Living Essentials hosts a monthly link up of reflections here are mine for April....


...nourish as we enter fully into Spring in my part of the world it is a time of warming up and a green haze blooming.  It is a gradual awakening and this had also bought a change each week to our veg bag.  Slowly the root vegetables of the last months have been replaced with new veg which is so exciting!  We have been enjoying spring greens, asparagus, purple sprouting broccoli and salad leaves.  Each week when I get a list of what will be in my bag, I sit down with my recipe books and plan a menu, each week there is something new to cook with.  Much as I love the root vegetables of the autumn and winter I am always ready for the change that spring brings.


...prepare the greening of our hedgerows has meant that we have been out doing a wee spot of foraging.  We have been picking the beautifully pale hawthorn leaves for our salads, nettle for cups of tea and wild garlic to make into pesto using this recipe I have frozen most of what we made as it was a huge quantity.  I last made this two years ago and we are just finishing up that batch!


...reduce after fourteen years of continual use, including over four years of nappies, our washing machine died this month.  My husband opened the machine up to establish whether or not it could be repaired, sadly it was beyond that it was completely worn out.  Rather than send the whole machine to the tip, my husband strip it down completely making piles of bits, some for recycling, some for reusing, some which had to go to the tip.  The drum we are keeping to make into a fire pit.

...green out of necessity I make nearly all the toiletries and cleaning products we use in our house.  Although I was forced down this road I would not go back to buying them even if they were ok for my skin.  This month I made another batch of deodorant.  I can't find a record of making this last year but I know I did, two years ago I made some in May.  I think this batch probably lasts for a year as I know I don't make it that often!  The quantity I make fills two old deodorant sticks that I kept and keep refilling.


...grow apart from both my children having massive growth spurts lately our garden is also blooming too.  We have sown and chitted potatoes, the latter of which will need planting out in the next week or so.  We have also sown many seeds all of which are now wee seedlings sitting happily in their seed trays and pots on the staging in the polytunnel.  It is always interesting that seeds sown on the same day grow at completely different rates.  As well as the seeds I have also started some onion sets off in trays, we have such a short growing season where I live that this gives them the head start they need to grow to a decent size, otherwise I end up with a crop of onions the size of golf balls!

The seedlings are being kept insulated by some horticultural fleece as an over blanket and some leftover carpet underlay underneath them. We had some carpets laid a month or so ago and the carpet layers left us the off cuts. One piece is a perfect fit for our staging. Despite having a polytunnel the temperatures in there still drop really low most nights this extra insulation is an attempt to keep the temperature slightly more constant and it seems to work as most seeds do germinate.


...create I have been doing huge amounts of sewing this month for the many birthdays of children of friends and my family.   I have rustled up an owl storysack, a wee gnome, two rainbow balls, a play cape and a couple of pairs of slouchy/pyjama type trousers.  I created a Mother Earth for our seasonal table.  My knitting needles have been a little quieter this month, I have finished the body of a cardigan for myself and now need to work on the sleeves, I have blocked and sewn up a cardigan for my eldest which now needs a hood adding and I have cast on a new project and knitted a few rows.


...discover with all the sewing I have been doing I have reading a lot about different techniques and words used in the world of sewing.  I am totally self taught and rarely use patterns but I am making use of one to make something for my youngest.  The pattern directions are a bit scant for me so I have been looking lots up to try and make sense of what I need to do!

...enhance I have been doing lots of different things with my local Explorer Scout unit this month including a trip to the theatre with some of them, it has been a very long time since I visited a theatre.  We are entering a busy period for our unit so I have lots of preparation to do for the coming months.


...enjoy the warmer weather has meant that we have dusted off, literally it is kept in the garage and was covered in sawdust, our canoe and taken it out on several trips.  I love going out canoeing on day trips and overnight or longer journeys.  The weather was beautiful on both occasions although the wind made sailing, we have a small sail for our canoe, rather hairy at the end of one of the days.