A Change of Pace

I finished work on Friday and, since then, I have:

:: received some of the sweetest gifts from children

 and flowers from colleagues

:: attended a local Gin Festival (I highly recommend everyone do this!)

:: celebrated the first day of the holidays with waffles for breakfast

:: enjoyed the sanity-saving properties of a good blanket to crochet when life is so hectic. I've reached the half way point now and, since it's a corner to corner one, each row will now only get shorter.

:: spent a little lazy time deeply engrossed in Nigel Slater's newest book Greenfeast: Spring, Summer 

:: turned an armful of rhubarb from my mum's neighbour's garden into a kind of compote/stewed fruit affair, to be stirred into plain yogurt. There was lots left that I chopped and froze in portions ready for winter crumbles, too.

:: faffed happily with another armful of free goodness, this time the most glorious pink hydrangeas from my parents' garden

:: took Bella to get her ears pierced

:: tried a new dog walk

:: been shocked, as I am every summer, at how early the blackberries are. (I don't know if they are early but I insist on thinking of them as an autumn fruit when they are very definitely a late summer thing really.)

:: ordered some linen fabric from the Seasalt sale. (Jo this is your fault.) I am already wondering if I've done the right thing, what with pattern matching, but I can always make cushion covers if I am too scared to make a dress or skirt.

:: made blackcurrant and liquorice ice cream (recipe from Simply Nigella). I'm waiting impatiently for it to set.

:: got out the paddling pool. Is there a greater pleasure than dipping your hot toes in the icy water? And suddenly the children seemed smaller again.

Ziggy does not know what to make of it. He is currently flopped out on the rug in the living room, sound asleep. He has no energy in this heat.

:: pottered around the garden at dusk, admiring the sunset and watering pots

It's very hot today, around 32°C. I thought about going to the beach but didn't have the energy to face the traffic so we've pottered here instead, all of us inside and outside and doing our own thing. The children have been in the paddling pool most of the day but have now come inside, Bella making friendship bracelets and Angus playing on the Xbox. We're at that lovely stage at the start of the school holidays where it stretches out ahead of us, gradually filling up with plans and arrangements, where six weeks feels like the longest time. Of course I know that it will go in a blink, it always us. We're starting to think about what we want to do, where we want to go. I've told the children to write summer holiday wish-lists mainly because I love to see what kinds of things they put on them. There is always something random that hadn't occurred to me.