Make, Bake, Sew, Grow

{ Make }

I'm making a concerted effort to read more, and during the day or in the evenings, rather than for ten minutes before falling asleep in bed at night. What happened to the English graduate bookworm who devoured book after book, who read adventuoursly and widely, who spent her twenties working in a book shop, reading and recommending and knowing exactly what was coming by which author...oh yes, that's right. She had children. 

Recent purchases include Sense and Sensibility, bought purely for the beauty of the cover. (I do have a paperback copy somewhere but it's covered in my own earnest undergraduate scribbles and underlinings which annoy me), The Wonderful Weekend Book (thank you Mimi for the suggestion) and Lost in Translation, a lovely, funny little coffee table book about words that do not have a direct translation into English. A particular favourite of mine is the German "kummerspeck", literally "grief bacon", ie the excess flab gained from emotional overeating. I've gained and lost a fair amount of kummerspeck in my time I reckon.

I've begun re-reading Sense and Sensibility and am loving it. I forgot how readable Austen is, and how funny.

I don't know about you but I always match my cake to my books. It's how I retain my figure. 

We are failing to make any kind of decision about ceiling lights in the hall and continue to embrace bare bulb chic. It annoys me that we decorated the hall last autumn and it's still not finished. Particular hatred is always aimed at that stupid, pewter, slightly wonky single plug socket you see in the wallpaper. I would like it to be changed to a white one, and level at that. John says it will "be a bugger" to do. It remains unchanged. 

{ Bake }

Lighter, greener eating continues to go well and I am really enjoying it. This green smoothie of banana, pineapple and kale was delicious. I've worked out that kale is nice in smoothies is you use a really small amount and then blitz the hell out of it.

I recently saw a recipe in The Guardian magazine for Prawn Bun Cha, little spicy Thai flavoured prawn balls served with rice noodles and salad.

As a rule, if a recipe contains things like ginger, lemongrass and chilli, I will want to eat it, and eat a lot of it. 

This did not disappoint. It was totally delicious. The only thing I would say is it's more of a salad than a dinner and I had a hard time convincing John that it was, in fact, a Proper Dinner. I'll definitely be making it again but in the summer, perhaps to be eaten outside with a cold beer...(Hayfever and insects do not feature in my fantasy.)

And although I am not eating cake, I was big enough to make a batch of chocolate covered flapjacks for everyone else. These are always satisfying baking as they take about five minute to make and they are very popular. 

{ Sew }

It's all about the finish here, as two projects I started last summer finally reach completion. 

My Cedar River Blanket is so nearly finished. I'm currently darning in the ends then it's one quick border, possibly a blocking, and done!

And, (I'm on fire here), my Midsummer Sprigs cross stitch sampler is ready to be ironed and sent to the framers. Yay! I have a renewed passion for cross stitch at the moment and have all sorts of plans and ideas for things I want to make this year. 

{ Grow }

Out there, in the wasteland, some stuff that I planted last autumn is coming up! I'd kind of forgotten about it. The grass needs cutting so badly, the borders need tidying, the earth all needs weeding and turning over. But, if you look carefully, you can see little pops of yellow and purple here and there.

I feel a gardening day coming on, perhaps in the Easter holidays.

I have such a long list of things I want to do around the house this Easter. Nothing exciting, just everyday things; sorting, cleaning, tidying, washing, clearing out, chucking out. It's going to feel good.

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{Make } Something for our home, or for me.

{ Bake } Something from the kitchen.

{ Sew } Something crafty.

{ Grow } Something in the garden.

A Proper Weekend

Thank you for indulging my weekend related whingeing last week. I was determined that this one would be as weekend-y as possible, as relaxing and enjoyable as it could be, and it was a beauty. If only all Saturdays and Sundays could be this way. 

Friday night started with games of Uno in front of the fire when the kids were in their pyjamas. We like Uno. Bella is mercilessly competitive and takes such delight in beating people, it is a little unnerving to be honest. 

Then a tv dinner (spicy pork and broccoli with noodles) and a glass of wine once the kids were in bed.

On Saturday I had arranged long ago to meet up with a dear friend from Leeds in London for the day. It was really lovely. We didn't rush around but just kind of wandered and went where our feet took us. I carried my big camera around in my handbag all day but forgot to use it, taking photos on my phone instead. 

Top from left to right: St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, The British Library exterior and interior.
Bottom from left to right: The Brunswick Centre, "Tokens" on a pavement in Bloomsbury*, A Routemaster.

After meeting for food in Kings Cross we hopped over the road to the British Library and spent a while looking at the exhibitions inside, then strolled around Bloomsbury, calling into shops and cafes as the mood took us. We chatted a lot and spent a really long time lingering in bookshops, both the one at The British Library and the big Waterstones on Gower Street. I think that may have been the highlight of my day, actually, the bookshop lingering. I don't spend nearly as much time in them as I used to and it was so enjoyable just browsing, picking books up, reading the back, putting them down, admiring the displays, flitting from one shelf to the next, stroking the book jackets, gathering up a small pile in my arms.  Not going anywhere near the childrens' section. Heaven. 

This morning we went out for breakfast. I had planned it this way - even booking a table for 9am! - otherwise I knew it just would not happen. I love going out for breakfast, I really do, something about it just tickles me so much. Maybe because it's not really a very British thing to do, or it wasn't when I was growing up. We went to a popular, friendly cafe in Southsea called The Tenth Hole.

Angus worked his way through a plate of cinnamon French Toast which was enough for two adults and so gooey and light it was like eating a doughnut.

Then out into the cold for bike rides, a visit to the park and a walk along the seafront. 

We saw blossom and birds and smiling families out and about with their bikes or scooters and the tiniest bit of yarn bombing on a tree branch - just things that make a person happy. 

(Ok, look, I wont lie - on the way home we did have to stop off at the supermarket to do the weekly shop. Sorry to shatter the illusion. But it didn't take long and the kids were good and I was still floating after my morning out so it didn't feel so bad.)

This afternoon we pottered around the house. I sat down with a book, a cup of tea and one of the macarons I bought yesterday in London and I ate it on my own, not offering the box to anyone else. The rest of the afternoon involved family and food, ending in a big Sunday night roast beef dinner and lemon surprise pudding. I haven't done the ironing and I haven't supervised homework and the world hasn't ended yet. 

I feel I should mention my diet here. It's been going tremendously well, right up until 6 pm on Friday night. I'll be back on it tomorrow. Weekends like this are for cake and wine. 




* The small metal fish, pictured above, is part of a series of metal "tokens" embedded into the pavement of Marchmont Street in Bloomsbury by artist John Aldus. They are replicas of small items (coins, trinkets etc) that mothers would leave with their babies at the Foundling Hospital in Bloomsbury, in the hope that when they were (rarely) reunited with their child in better times, the token would enable mother to identify child. You can view the original tokens at the nearby Foundling Museum. If you ever find yourself in the area do take a moment to look down at the pavement and notice the tokens, they are beautiful in their simplicity and incredibly moving. 

Green

I have started my usual spring meltdown about how none of my clothes fit and how much weight I have gained. I do this every year like clockwork. Spring: Noooo, none of my clothes fit, I look pregnant, summer is coming, I need to change the way I eat. Join Slimming World or similar. Lose a stone. Summer: feel light and happy, eat sensibly. Autumn: Still feel happy but the nights are drawing in and the carb loading commences. Christmas: wine, cheese, cake, chocolate - all good habits are gone but it's Christmas, so who cares? Winter: I am cold. Give me all the carbs - bread, pasta, potatoes, rice - I do not discriminate. Spring: wah, why do my jeans not do up?? And so it goes on. Every year. And so I am making smoothies and baked kale crisps (actually really tasty!) and eating a lot more green stuff and a lot less brown stuff.

I'm glad it's March, even if it has turned so cold. Spring is coming, slowly. Apparently March is going to be colder than January and February. Typical. Thank you, endlessly unpredictable British weather.

Lately I am really struggling to find time to do anything blog related like write posts or read the blogs I enjoy, or even answer emails. How do you all fit it in? I am too tired in the evenings to do anything more than watch tv. The Great Interior Design Challenge is a lot of fun and, of course, I have an opinion on everything they do. (John pretends he is doing me a massive favour by sitting through it with me but I know he likes it too.) We are also very much enjoying Trapped - it's been a few weeks since we had a gloomy subtitled Nordic crime drama to watch.

I am just loving the flowers you can buy at this time of year; snowdrops, tete-a-tetes, hyacinths, tulips, tulips and yet more tulips. That sounds like I must spend a fortune on flowers - I really don't - but they lift a room so much. A little green here and there. I think I need to buy some house plants. 

I resent the way that our weekends are increasingly lost to chores, errands and things that are not fun or exciting or in any way relaxing. Is this what being a grown up is all about? I do as much as possible during the week in the two hours before I go to work to keep our weekends free, but those kids keep needing shoes and haircuts and help with their homework, dammit. 

Thank goodness for last Sunday's walk in the woods which did so much to restore my mood and equilibrium. It felt good to be out among the trees, some of which had buds, and there was greenery sprouting up all over the place. In a month we'll be able to smell the wild garlic, and in another there will be bluebells. 

The Colour Collaborative: February: Metal

Throughout my teens and twenties I only ever wanted to wear silver coloured jewellery. Solid silver, silver plate. white gold - but never gold. My wedding and engagement rings are platinum, and I notice that many women of my vintage also chose platinum or white gold wedding bands; thin and elegant, coordinated to match the engagement ring, and I wonder if their wedding dresses looked like mine too, this being the early 2000's and the era of the ivory strapless column dress. But I remember that I didn't like gold. I found it showy and too shiny looking, almost tacky, and preferred the quieter shine of silver. How tastes change though - now, I think there is nothing more elegant or timeless than a simple gold wedding band.

Wedding rings aside, my other favourite ring is also silver. I have a pot full of costume jewellery rings - called "cocktail rings" I believe - which I rarely wear, and two diamond beauties I inherited from my Grandma (one which I am almost too self conscious to wear, so much does it scream "mug me") but the ring I almost always wear on my right hand is this one.

Bought on holiday in New York many, many years ago, it was a gift from John. It was probably the only ring we could afford in the shop, and I'd take it over diamonds any day. A decade of constant wear means that the outside is now very bashed and battered but I love the shape and weight of it, and slip it on my finger automatically each morning. 

I have, over the last twenty years, bought an awful lot of costume jewellery; stacks of bracelets to be worn jangling together; chunky wooden bangles; fabulous feathery dangling earrings; long necklaces to wrap around my neck two or three times. I buy a lot less now but still, like a magpie, I am drawn to pretty shiny things and I love buying or making something to wear, usually chunky, colourful items in wood or fimo or acrylic. 

But I notice I am wearing less and less jewellery as I get older and I think it's because I can't be bothered with the fuss. Almost anything worn on my wrist irritates me when I type or write, and earrings make my ears sore if worn for more than a couple of hours. Long necklaces are hidden by the lanyard I have to wear at work and get all tangled up together. Unless I am trying to make a particular effort with my outfit, my jewellery is almost always the same few things; wedding ring, watch, maybe a small bracelet and a short necklace. And I've grown to love gold, to appreciate the warmth and lift it brings to a neckline or wrist, the way it glows against my skin. John gave me the most beautiful necklace for my birthday recently, with a tiny gold dragonfly hanging from a chain, which is short and so sits comfortably away from anything else I wear around my neck. It gives the most beautiful, discreet sparkle and warmth and I love wearing it. 

What about you: do you like wearing jewellery, and do you have a preference for gold or silver, or perhaps rose gold, with it's lovely pink tones? Do you wear a wedding band and if so, what kind did you choose and why? Do you have a single piece of jewellery which you cherish above all others, does it have a particular resonance or history for you? These sorts of stories fascinate me and I'd love to hear about them. 

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Thank you all very much for your birthday wishes, so kind of you. 

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Don't forget to visit the other Colour Collaborative blogs for more of this month's posts, just click on the links below:

Annie at Annie Cholewa

Jennifer at Thistlebear

Claire at Above The River

Sarah at Mitenska will be returning next month. 

What is The Colour Collaborative? 

All creative bloggers make stuff, gather stuff, shape stuff, and share stuff. Mostly they work on their own, but what happens when a group of them work together? Is a creative collaboration greater than the sum of its parts? We think so and we hope you will too. We'll each be offering our own monthly take on a colour related theme, and hoping that in combination our ideas will encourage us, and perhaps you, to think about colour in new ways.

Late February Days

We went to Yorkshire and it snowed. We were staying with good friends that we've known for years and years, in their house high up in the hills near Holmfirth, and we'd spent the morning walking off our hangovers in the sun and eating a cooked breakfast. Suddenly the snow came down thick and fast for about ten minutes. It didn't settle. When it stopped we went out for tea: pie, chips and gravy. (Eating is my path through a hangover.)

Then northwards to Durham to see John's family. I "persuaded" everyone that a quick trip to Seaham beach for a walk (for me to look for sea glass) would be a cracking good idea in one degree winds. We would have stayed longer were we not about to lose all feeling in our extremities, but what a lot we found. The trouble with looking for sea glass, though, is that you spend the whole time bending over looking at the ground when you could be looking at the sea or the sky.

We were home at the end of the week in time for me to celebrate being one whole year older. I tried to convince my niece that I was twenty eight, not thirty eight, and she just looked at me through narrowed eyes and really scrutinised my face, then said "I don't believe you".

I don't care. I had a completely lovely day. Friends from near and far sent cards and parcels. New friends from school called in with gifts and flowers which was unexpected and moved me a bit, as I was not expecting that at all. Bella drew me a new family portrait which nearly made me cry when I unwrapped it. My family came round in the afternoon and we sat in front of the fire and drank tea and ate three types of cake. John made a blackcurrant and liquorice cake (so, so, so good) and then my parents babysat so we could go out. A really top day. All birthdays should fall on Saturdays, don't you think? 

And when I look at myself through Bella's eyes I don't think I look a day over twenty eight.