- I love the bright white-blue January sunshine. So cleansing and uplifting after the dark, sluggish fug of Christmas.
- Hard to believe that vast amounts of snow is headed our way. Again.
- Is it really? Or is it just the BBC weather forecast being neurotic again? For a wonderful article on the pessimism of the BBC weather forecasts, see here.
- But if it does snow, the children will get to use these snow pans I bought from Muddy Puddles, just too late for the last lot of snow.
- Our new car has an outside temperature reader. I love it and spend all of the journey to school exclaiming at how the temperature is still -1 outside!
- The children are very bored with this, but I am not.
- I cooked a rabbit stew at the weekend, and it was delicious.
- I have black salsify in my veg box this week and I only know one black salsify recipe.
- Rabbit and black salsify in the same week is quite impressive I think.
- G doesn't like this cold, clear winter weather as much as I do.
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Ten things
Saturday, 2 January 2010
A handmade Christmas
Friday, 1 January 2010
Knitting in the New Year
The start of the new year will be celebrated by me spending an entire day in my pyjamas, knitting. First some pale blue bootees for a new nephew who was due to be born on Christmas Day but who has held on long enough to be a January baby at the start of a new decade. Surely he'll be here any day now?
Saturday, 26 December 2009
Where I was 2009
It has been a good year, and quite a momentous one now that I look back at it.
I started the year, as I always do, working long, difficult hours at the bank for the whole of January putting together the financial year end.
But nine months later I left work - happily - and January 2010 will not be anything like the previous twelve Januaries for me at all. I am looking forward to it. I don't know what 2010 will bring for me work-wise, but I have a few plans that I want to try. And I rather like not knowing how that part of my life will change. I like mysteries!
My feet went on holiday a few times this year. We spent a week in the Isle of Wight in February for G's birthday where we walked along cliff tops and shorelines and blew away the last of the winter cobwebs.
And in September I grabbed myself a last minute bargain and whisked the children off to Aldeburgh in Suffolk for the final week of the summer holidays. We ate lots of fish and chips, I taught C to row on Thorpeness Mere, we caught loads of crabs, and we sat on the beaches and looked out to sea.
We sneaked in a couple of camping trips as well. We went here in April, here in May and here in June.
Holidays are exciting, fun and refill us with enthusiasm - particularly camping holidays. But real life continues in between those high days and holidays. There are quiet, substantial moments of relaxation and happiness to be found in the most mundane of places.
One of the nicest aspects of not working is being able picking up the children from school every day. Here we are in October, in the garden of the local community centre, before O's ballet lesson.
Long family walks are good for the soul, and a reliable and cheap day out when houshold finances have to be tightened. When we knew I was going to be leaving work, G and I bought ourselves a season ticket to Kew Gardens. Within just three trips it had paid for itself and it is now saving us money each time we go. I never tire of that place. It changes so dramatically with each season, and amazingly it is vast enough that I am still discovering parts of it for the first time with each new visit.
C and I making long shadows in Epping Forest, January 2009.
All of us in the Temperate House at Kew, March 2009.
Bare feet and daisies near the Pagoda at Kew, August 2009.
I taught myself to knit in 2009, and in April I went on a short six week course where I learnt how to use dpns and knit socks.There were days out with friends throughout the year. In August, Miss Moss Stitch and I discovered the Horniman Museum.
There was a great deal of happy family news this year. In April my little sister married her soldier amongst the cherry blossom, in October we said hello to a new nephew, and a couple of weeks later my mother had a much needed hip replacement operation.
And now here I am, about to start a new year and a new folder of photos. I never make New Year's resolutions, but I do have plans and ideas. I will keep you posted!
Tuesday, 22 December 2009
Driving Home for Christmas
But happily, the snow turned to slush overnight and the ice was cleared on the motorways just in time. The children and I made it to Oxford today where we saw:
- one Great Grandma, recently arrived in the temperate south from the deep, deep snow of North Yorkshire.
- three favourite cousins
- one of whom is now smiling and cooing and even more captivating than when I last saw him
- marzipan topped mince pies from Betty's Tearooms, which my brother declared to be the best mince pies he had ever eaten. They had come down south with Great Grandma the day before. There is nothing quite like a mince pie from Yorkshire to make me feel Christmassy.
- an extremely sprightly Granny with no sticks and a big grin on her face. Who cooked lunch for ten and made me forget she had a full hip replacement operation just six weeks ago. "Wean yourself off the sticks," her consultant told her last week. So she tossed them aside.
There was only one thing to listen to as I purred up the motorway to Oxford to see them all. Perfect.
Friday, 18 December 2009
Podcast love
What are my favourites on the iPod at the moment?
- Americana on Radio 4. Well, for someone who got her degree in American Studies, this is a must-have. A wonderful, insightful, view of what is going on in America each week - from the beautiful buildings full of politicians in Washington DC to the small town world of middle America. Excellent.
- Desert Island Discs on Radio 4. I LOVE this programme and have been wanting it to come out as a podcast for so long. Finally. All they need to do now is bring out I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue on podcast and my Radio 4 life will be complete. This week's castaway was Lord Coe, who is bringing the Olympics to my part of London in two and a half years time. He seems to know what he is talking about.
- The Archers. This is not a new podcast - and I am not a new fan, but it is now podcast as a weekly omnibus edition as well as the daily 12 minute episodes, which may suit some poeple better. The story lines at the moment are excellent - Jazzer and Fallon...will they or won't they? (yes! go on Fallon!) Annette - how could she be so stoopid? and will the Grundy boys come to blows over the Christmas turkeys? Good stuff.
- The Moth. A brilliantly simple podcast from America: true stories told live and without notes in front of an audience. Each episode is short (usually under 15 minutes) and quirky.
- Another fantastic podcast from Radio 4 is Great Lives, hosted by Matthew Parris. Matthew Parris is a thoughtful, insightful presenter who discusses with his guest the life of a famous person who has been a great influence on the guest. It is a fabulously eclectic podcast; so far this month I've heard Paul Daniels talking about Harry Houdini, John Major on Rudyard Kipling and Kate Humble on the apartheid activist Miriam Makeba.
- And there are of course many other old favourites: Woman's Hour, This American Life, Excess Baggage, Saturday Live and Guardian Books.
There's an enormous amount of Radio 4 in there. Maybe I should branch out a little. Do you have any suggestions?
Here are some of the Christmas presents I have been sewing. They are for someone who doesn't have a computer so I think it may be safe to show them off.
They are three simple lavender sachets, made with some leftover fabric scraps. Lavender sachets are something you could whip up very easily without a tutorial (sew pouch, stuff with lavender, close gap), but this tutorial from Checkout Girl really caught my imagination. I didn't do the applique because I was running out of time, but I did follow her suggestions on the size of the sachets and the fancy top stitching.
They are lovely. I am very pleased with them.
Friday, 11 December 2009
Friday night in the kitchen
C and I drink cups of tea as he does his homework. He rattles through his maths, as usual, and we're both glad that he only has to learn a poem for literacy.
There are two pans on the stove. I am cooking two suppers tonight. Pasta and meatballs for the children, nice and early because O has her friend over. Then later, when I've taken her friend home, G and I will have very spicy spinach and tomatoes with baked eggs, scooped out of bowls with chunks of hot bread.
The rest of my pans hang from an old drying rack on the kitchen ceiling. The jam pan is stuffed with two paper bags of lavender from France, drying out ready to be made into lavender sachets.
Our fridge is adorned with so much paper that we've no need for a noticeboard. There are:
- vouchers for a triathlon shop,
- a family calendar,
- magnetic scissors,
- a notepad,
- tickets to see the Cuban ballet next April,
- charts of swim times,
- a packet of star stickers,
- a party invitation,
- school dinner menus.
Everything is fairly allocated between magnets. If I put just one ill-considered piece of paper in the wrong place, everything begins to slither slowly towards the floor.
The bread machine is on, as it is most days. I love the thud, thud as it kneads the bread. I'll be staying up late tonight as I am making wholemeal bread on a five hour setting, and I forgot to start it until I heard the pips on the radio for the 6 o'clock news.
On the wall, between the bread machine and the toaster, is stuck the little slip of paper that C wrote just after he started school. I smile at it when I'm waiting for the toast to pop in the mornings.
And there tucked in carefully between the salt pig and the ras-el-hanout (I love that spice so much that I'm stockpiling it) sit G and I. Preserved forever as we were on New Year's eve 1998. In a pub in Surbiton, after a few beers, basking in each other's company.


