Sweet Summer

There is so much making me feel happy at the moment, I just want to soak it all up and remember if for when life isn't so sweet. I've had a few moments this week - nothing special, just weeknight family meals - where I've looked around me and felt really deep down content with life and what we have. I can't put my finger on exactly what is making me feel this way but I think the following things have something to do with it:

:: The gorgeous weather. It's been fantastic this week, warm and sunny and just a little breezy. Perfection. 

When I get home from work the first thing I do is take off my shoes, make a cup of tea then take it out into the garden and pad around on the grass barefoot, looking at the plants.

:: The way the evening light moves around the house.

:: Watching hot air balloons float across the horizon from Angus's bedroom window at bedtime.

:: Peonies. My love for these blowsy blooms knows no bounds and I take so much joy from them. The shortness of their season only makes me appreciate them more.

:: New houseplants. This oxalis was given to me by my mum and I've separated off lots of shoots and am trying to cultivate more plants. All my houseplant propagating is trial and error but it's good fun.

The tiny pileas I repotted at Easter are now are looking robust and I've got lots to give away to friends and family. I absolutely love the deep vivid green of their leaves.

:: A little trip to Bosham with the children last Sunday afternoon. We bought ice creams and just mooched around a bit, had a little walk. 

I'm really looking forward to this weekend. The weather is supposed to be a-mazing so I'm planning little trips out (shopping and a bit of lunch in Winchester maybe?) plus we need to do some gardening, and maybe a barbecue too. Lots of time outside. End of term is five weeks tomorrow. I've already started planning my six week holiday, writing a list of all the things I want to do, one of which is decorate our bedroom, another is get a puppy. I think I need to do the painting before the puppy! 

Enjoy the sun everyone, and have a beautiful weekend. 

A Saturday

Well, what a week. With a full few days at home and at work and all the excitement of the general election, I staggered towards the weekend and just sort of collapsed into a heap. I can't even remember what I did on Friday night. Did I watch something on TV? Possibly. I've not idea what though.

John was working this weekend and I had decided to keep the two days as empty as possible, as free of excursions and obligations as could be. I needed to catch up with myself, catch up with the washing and ironing, with shopping and cooking, with the children. I can cope with a busy week and I can cope with a busy weekend, but I don't like it when they roll in, one on top of the other, like crashing waves.

So this was yesterday:

8.00 am (ish - all timings are very approximate)

After what is now considered a lie-in, I go downstairs to make myself a hot water and lemon. Once the children have had breakfast, I go back to bed for a little while to read. This is one of my weekend treats.

I have just begun Into the Water, having recently finished and really enjoyed The Girl on The Train by the same author. So far I am having a little trouble separating out all the different characters, but something is making me read on.

9.00 am

Back downstairs, showered and dressed, into a sun-filled kitchen.

I potter around emptying the dishwasher and tidying up, before making some breakfast and taking it outside to eat. It's not my usual weekend breakfast, just porridge with some frozen blueberries stirred in, but the cupboards are bare so no toast this morning.

10.00 am

Food shopping. I usually arrange a delivery to come towards the end of the week, but time ran away with me. John and I had already planned the week's meals and written a long list, so I bribed the kids with Lego cards for good behaviour and off we went. (Otherwise they squabble over who gets to push the trolley/hold the list, and hassle me for sugary breakfast cereals.)

11.30 am

Home, shopping put away, I hang out the washing I put on earlier, open all the doors and windows, pad around the garden in my bare feet.

1.00 pm

Lunch. I love my weekend lunches and often plan them during the week. Yesterday, I'd chosen a recipe in a May's edition of Olive, a food magazine that I hadn't tried before. I liked it and found a lot of recipes in there I wanted to try and will definitely buy it again. This was spring greens shaksuka, essentially peas, asparagus and spinach blanched then sauteed with some eggs and herbs.

It was tasty and light but filling, which is good as I am trying to lose a little weight at the moment and it's so easy to head for the bread every lunchtime - out of habit, as much as anything.

2.00 pm

An afternoon in the garden.

I swept, tidied and weeded, spending a long time on the lawn again. After so much rain the dandelions came out easily, and I started to enjoy myself. It's very satisfying, pulling out such a long root.

My sweet peas still have not flowered, but I am hoping that they are not too far off.

I love the way time passes in the garden. I think I've been out there twenty minutes and am always amazed to find it's been a couple of hours. I make myself a cup of tea and drink it outside sitting on the bench after a gardening session. It's one of my favourite things to do.

4.00 pm

I promised Angus we could make flapjacks together, and so we did. 

He is not as interested in cooking as Bella, so when he specifically asks if we can make something, I always try to say yes. These will be good for lunchboxes and after school snacks throughout the week.

5.00 pm

I do some ironing. Not all of it (there was another hour of ironing this morning) but just enough to make me feel better. I can't be one of those people who don't iron, I just can't. I like the way ironed clothes look and feel. I have, however, stopped ironing all bedding. Baby steps. 

6.00 pm

John gets home. I make the children their tea (pizza in front of the TV, a Saturday treat they absolutely love) then I sit down with some crochet. I am still working on the Wool and the Gang Summer Loving Bag. 

To my extreme annoyance, I realised a week ago - as it was almost finished - that I'd made a mistake with the stitch increases. I pulled it all back and started again, and am now about half way through. I'm still enjoying it though, luckily.

7.00 pm 

I remind John that's it's national gin day and that should not go unmarked.

8.00 pm

Bella and Angus are in bed, one reading, the other asleep. We cook and eat dinner, chicken ramen. It was ok but my broth was not up to Wagamama standards. A bit bland.

Then a film, more crochet and bed. 

I think this all makes me look a lot more industrious than I really was. There was a lot of tea and coffee making in between all this, a lot of looking at Instagram and the Guardian website on my phone, a lot of playing with and chatting to the children, a lot of staring out of the window.

Today was similar. I helped the children do their homework, finally conqeuered the ironing situation, cooked a big salad for my lunches during the week then took them to Bosham for a walk and ice creams. I really missed having a dog today. I always miss Molly, but some days more than others. 

Anyway, that is what my Saturday looked like. Yours was probably very similar. I hope you have a lovely week.

*

Flapjacks

Ingredients:

1 lb or 450 g oats

8 oz or 225 g sugar (brown or white, although I prefer the toffee flavour brown gives)

8 oz or 225 g butter

3 tbsp golden syrup

Method: 

• Pre-heat the oven to 180°C or 350°F.
• Melt together the sugar, butter and syrup. I always do this in a large bowl in the microwave, although you could do it in a saucepan on the hob. 
• Stir in the oats.
• Tip into a square baking dish and press flat.
• Bake for 15 minutes.
• Once they are cool, cut them into squares. You'll easily get 16 large flapjacks.
• Store in a tin - they keep for ages, a week easily.

If you like, top them with 200g melted chocolate. 

Town and Country

Hello. How are you all? Is the weather also completely awful where you are? We've been battered with rain and high winds for what feels like weeks but has actually only been a day and a half. 

Half term already feels like a long time ago. We had such a good, busy week, and were here, there and everywhere; up to Yorkshire to stay with friends for the night, then on to Durham to see my mother and father-in-law, then back home for a couple of days before a weekend in London with different friends. We travelled and had fun, laughed a lot, ate and drank too much, went sightseeing and shopping, walked a lot. 

Yorkshire was beautiful, even under grey skies. All that local stone made me a little nostalgic for Leeds, which I wasn't expecting. Our friends, who we've known since University, live in Holmfirth and fans of the TV programme The Last of the Summer Wine might recognise the cafe above. I never really got that programme, I have to say, but I remember my Grandma found it hilariously funny.

The weather during our time in Durham over the bank holiday weekend wasn't great, grey and wet, and much cooler than it had been. We spent a lot of time relaxing with family but also visited the Durham University Botanic Garden (above and below) which was a lovely place to while away a couple of hours. 

I really like Durham. John, having grown up there, does not view it so favourably, but it's such a pretty place, with the castle and cathedral almost always visible up on the hill. 

During our brief 48 hours at home, we were blessed with beautiful weather which was extra nice for John's birthday and just made life a little bit sweeter. I unpacked, did seven loads of washing, gardened, baked a birthday cake (Victoria sponge), coordinated play dates for both children, ironed all the washing, made a moussaka, and then packed again. Such a whirl, but with all the doors and windows open wide, and dinner in the garden in the evening, it didn't feel too hard.

I also thinned out my sweet peas, put in bigger stakes, and gave them a good water, and I now have lots more sweet pea planted in pots all over the garden, and they are just about clinging on for dear life in the high winds.

On Friday we dropped Bella and Angus at my parent's house and drove up to London to stay with our friends. Part of the reason for the get-together was to celebrate John's birthday, which is why we spent Saturday morning in the Imperial War Museum, at his request. John's a bit of a history nut, and I wasn't expecting to get all that much from it if I'm honest, but it was excellent and I think the children would have loved it too. We only had time to see a fraction of what was there but I will definitely visit again.

We spent the rest of Saturday in London with our friends walking, shopping, stopping for drinks, just generally relaxing and enjoying ourselves. 

We had planned to go out for dinner that night in central London but, as we were all tired, we decided to head back and get a take away instead. When we heard the dreadful news about the attacks in London on Saturday night we were glad we did, and when I think of those poor people caught up in it - people like me, just out and about, enjoying the weather, having a meal and a drink with friends, relaxing, just living their lives - I could cry.

I didn't know what to do with myself when we got back from London on Sunday afternoon. The children were still with my parents and I'd done all the washing and ironing before we went, and ordered a shopping delivery to come later on. I'm not very good at having nothing to do so I weeded the lawn in the back garden. (It's 90% dandelions so this kept me busy for a while.) Then the children came back and it was all noisy and lovely again. 

I'm feeling a bit flat today if I'm honest. It's not post half-term blues - actually I was glad to get back into some routine after all the travelling - but more a general anxiety about recent events, the state of the world, and of course about the general election on Thursday. I can't switch off from it, it's too important. Work is very busy. This last half term (and the first half term in September) are so busy in the school office, with all next year's new admissions and such a packed school calendar. I am at once wanting the next seven weeks to fly by, ready for the long summer holiday, but not wanting them to come too quickly as I know how manic it will be at the end.

One day at a time. 

The Cookery Calendar Challenge

My chosen book for May was Falling Cloudberries, a book I've had for about ten or fifteen years and love to flick through, but rarely seem to cook from. It is such a delightful book; evocative, dreamy, full of memories of cooking and travel, and some gorgeous sun-drenched photography. Tessa's mother is Finnish and her father Greek Cypriot, and her childhood was spent in the UK and South Africa, before she married an Italian and moved to Italy. This rich heritage makes for wonderful reading, with recipes handed down from different generations in different countries, and each chapter devoted to a different place. It's the loveliest book to read in bed at night, but I do wonder if it's slightly dated. A lot of the meals - desserts included - are pretty labour intensive, and I would have liked to seen more vegetarian options. Or perhaps I've just become one of those consumers with an incredibly short attention span and when I see a recipe and method that runs to two pages, I flick past, no matter how delicious it might look. What can I say, with a job and two young children I am a busy person.

May was a busy month and I spent too much time reading this book in bed and sticking post-it notes against recipes, and not enough time writing shopping lists and buying ingredients, so totally forgot to cook anything from it. And then we were away, so yesterday, on June 1st, one of the warmest days of the year, when everyone else was at the beach or barbecuing, I made a moussaka. 

I like moussaka and but dimly remembered making it about ten years ago and it being an all-day affair, which is probably why I haven't made it since. But when I read through the recipe it didn't seem that much more effort than making a lasagne. You cook the mince (beef and pork in this recipe) with onions and tomatoes and leave it to simmer. You fry the aubergine in batches. 

You slice and cook the potatoes (she said fry but I par-boiled them) and then you make a bechamel sauce. It took about an hour to get those things done - it was a triumph in multitasking, let me tell you - and put the assembled dish in the oven. 

After cooking for an hour, I covered it in foil and left it to rest until we were ready to eat. I cheated slightly and my second dish was a Greek Cypriot salad, from the same chapter in the book. It seemed like the perfect accompaniment. 

It was John's birthday yesterday and so we decided to eat when the children were in bed, in the garden with a bottle of wine. It's not often it's warm enough for that.

The moussaka was amazing with the creamy aubergines and the potatoes still with a little firmnesss to them, and everything covered in the mixture of meat and bechamel sauce. There are four portions tucked away in the freezer now, ready to be re-heated during the week. I am definitely making this one again. 

I am joining in again with Penny's Cookery Calendar Challenge as I dust off some of my less used cookery books and cook from them again. June's book will be Kitchenella by Rose Prince.

I hope you're all enjoying half term. We've been so busy, travelling and visiting family and friends, and after two days at home are off again this afternoon for the weekend. Bella and Angus are going to my parents while John and I go to London. I'll have so much to share with you!