Nice Things

Here are some nice things.
We have been growing a few berries in the garden. We have Raspberries, a couple of varieties of strawberries, (3 if you include the Alpine ones)  and we have 4 new dessert gooseberry bushes and 3 new blueberry bushes.

And here is the babe, with a pink face, after eating lovely raspberries...

She is also wearing a Confection Shrug that I made for her last week. I finished of with crochet instead of the ribbing, and the collar is a bit floppy, but it still looks cute, and is just the thing when the sun stops shining and it cool off.



Other nice things, the kids performed their productions today, from the Home Educators Drama Group Experience. I haven't laughed so hard for a long time. They were BRILLIANT! Absolutely hilarious, and real performers. I shall be laughing spontaneoulsy for ages.   :-)

Joyce Sutphen

So the poetry book that I asked my mother to get for me arrived. It is Joyce Sutphen's 2010 collection, First Words.

I must say that I am really enjoying it. I haven't read it all yet, but it resonates within me on many levels. There are poems recollecting her childhood, poems about her parents, poems about her children. And I just guess that I am in a space where I can look at all of these things. I am now old enough where I can look at my childhood and adolescence without the anger that I felt for a long time. I was adolescent for a very long time. I blamed everything on....whatever there was. I didn't grow up on a farm like Joyce Sutphen did. I didn't have an idyllic childhood, I just had a normal childhood. There were good things and bad things, and I like remembering the good things. Like cookies with coloured sugar on them, playing tennis in the street, making a situpon at Brownies, and feeling that I could go anywhere on my bike.

Being a liberal minded teen in midwest America was crap, but we will save that for another day's recollections.

For today, here is one of the poems, called Krinkletop Cookies

What was nice about that recipe
was that it didn't require eggs
and that it was something my mother's

mother's grandmother made. "Krinkletops,"
we called them, close to what my great-great-
grandmother called them in the Old World.

I always measured the sugar first
(white, scooped from the bin),
then added lard from the crock

and dark molasses poured out
in a mahogany ribbon.  Then flour,
sifted with ginger, cloves,

cinnamon, and soda to make
a sweet and spicy smell, which was
another nice thing about that recipe-

that and the pleasure of rolling
dough into balls (dipped in sugar
and pressed down on the cookie sheet)

and seeing the righteous hills
rise up and collapse into rows
of cracked and krinkle sugar deserts.


When I read this, I remember rolling cookies into dough balls myself, and realizing what it meant to roll them about the size of a  walnut. For some reason, I thought that that  knowledge made me grown up. :-) We had a walnut tree in our back garden, so why I didn't know what walnut sized meant was a mystery. Maybe it was because to me, walnuts were big green things that fell off  of that tree. (The tree had boards nailed it so I could climb, and it also had fuzzy caterpillars every spring.)

I remember making Snickerdoodles, rolling them in sugar and cinnamon.
I remember making sugar cookies and flattening them with a glass that had been dipped in sugar.
I remember flattening out those rolled dough balls with a fork, making a criss cross design, and sprinkling on the green and red coloured sugar for Christmas bake sales. We were always baking for bake sales.

I remember pumpkin cookie cutters for Halloween, Raggedy Ann and Andy cookie cutters for fun, and heart shaped cookie cutters for Valentine's day, and more red sugar crystals on the hearts.

I miss the coloured sugar.

Busy June

I have spent several of the last few weeks just thinking, "I just have to get through the next few days, and then I can relax." I don't know why anybody who has kids can ever think this, but I have, and while I am not necessarily relaxing,  I am probably going to have time to eat properly today.

This is probably going to be a boring post that is only interesting to far away friends who want to keep up with what we are doing. 

End of May we had my my birthday, and S coming home from uni for the day, and C being in the finals of the Chorlton Young Musician of the Year contest. We managed a family dinner in between rehearsals and show as well. We finally found Due Fratelli in Chorlton, which is a great place to take a big family with lots of different eating habits.  The vegetarians were happy, the carnivores were happy,  and the bank was happy.

Then we we stopped off home to get a belt for the boy, so his trousers wouldn't fall off his skinny body while on stage, and went to the Blue Box Theatre so see the young perfomers. I was mightily impressed with all of them, but of course, mostly with C. He didn't know many of the others, as they had lots of school friends there to support them, and he got a nice polite applause when he took the stage. When he finished though, he got a louder, appreciative applause, especially from me and M, who whooped and yelled. 

My pressies included the following...
S got me The Princess Bride DVD, some Lowry cards, and Mr Booja Booja truffles. Al got me the gift certificate,   R got me the new Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip CD, M gave me the Bag,   there is a book of poetry on its way from my mother.

I don't know why I am going on about this birthday that was a month ago...I guess because it was a nice day, and we've had a few of those recently. During this time, we were also frantically trying to help R through her Maths GCSE. We managed to cover a lot of ground in a few weeks, but it did mean that I ignored the other kids for a bit. Actually, I think they like me to ignore them every once in a while...I don't notice how much chocolate they are buying.  And of course, the car went into the garage the  week of her exams. She had 4 exams in one week, and now they are all over, and we are waiting for August 24th.

Then we had to get S home from uni. Drove down to visit Martine and co so we could break down the journey with the baby. Which didn't really work all that wellas a journey break, but it was a nice excuse to go visiting. :-) Got up on the Sat to go get S, and arrived an hour later than we had planned, in spite of leaving 20 minutes earlier than we had planned. R and S managed to get things shoved into the car...and I am still wondering how she had so much STUFF!?!

Then we headed off to visit P, a great friend who I had lost touch with. I just realized we didn't get any photos!? How did I manage that? But it was great to see her and her family, and that is it, we are back in touch, so more reasons to travel down south to see people.

But it was a long day. First driving from Moreton to Bristol, then Bristol to Nailsea, then Nailsea to Manchester, via the A449 as the M6 was closed. Lots of stops for the baby, and coffees and kidneys, and to look at a map because my two intelligent, lovely daughters are useless map readers! Too late do I find this gap in their education.  Finally got home about half past midnight, and then had to spend a while driving around trying to find a parking place.

This is how we got through the day!

We did manage to get the car unloaded the next day in time for me to take C and M to go take part in the Manchester Day Parade! They had a fab time, and came home with screen printed Tshirts from a workshop they had done during half term - and sunburn. :-)

M gave her Tshirt to S. It has a lion on it, which you can't see cuz the cute babe is in the way.

And here is C's Tshirt...

This is him on his new (to him)  bike, which he got for his birthday and which he was ridden every day since! His birthday was lovely. Lots of boys, and lots of food, and some Magic Cards and DVDs.

 

So this post has been in my 'to do' list since 23 June and it is now 29th June, so I think I will just post it, and worry about all the other things I was going to say later. I lost my train of thought anyway, if there ever was one!

Haiku #4

Heading North  from Bristol
M n Ms on the M5
Beautiful sunset

Allotment Haiku

Under the plum tree
Head resting on my shoulders,
She reaches for the leaves.

Another moment to remember. What a lovely day at the allotment, with a happy baby, and bees buzzing, and things growing everywhere.

A Most Wonderful Thing...

So it was my birthday last month, and I got a few lovely presents :-) One of these was a gift certificate for Sew In!  We have been busy cramming for exams (more on that to come) and then the car was in the garage for 10 days, so I didn't get a chance to go and choose some wool to make something for ME!
I had decided on this pattern - the amazing thing being that I actually paid for it! There are so many lovely free patterns out there that I forget you can actually buy them. But pay for it I did, because I like it, and did I mention I am knitting something for ME!?
I have also enjoyed the past week or so looking at different yarns, getting people's opinions and dreaming about all of the other things I could make for ME!
So Al and I get up this morning, dress, breakfast and feed the baby and off we go so I can get my yarn. Now here is an annoying little fact...Sew In DON'T STOCK ROWAN PURE WOOL! Once I came to grips with that fact, I went back to my slighlty more practical idea of Sirdar Click. They didn't have any colours that I liked, so I have ordered the dark green Kilt, #122. Should be a couple of weeks until I get that.


In the mean time, I had money left over so I bought some of this

It is Sublime soya cotton which is on sale. It all started because I was going to play around with some Bamboo. Having never knitted with bamboo, I was looking forward to seeing what all the fuss is about. So how I ended up getting a soya/cotton blend is a mystery. Actually, no it isn't. It was ON SALE!

Other things I have been doing...

This is the baby  hip dress I made for lovely baby in Sirdar Calico, which is quite nice to knit with.

I wish you could get something like Sirdar Calico in nice colours in 3ply so you could use it for all those rather fab baby vintage crochet patterns out there. Somebody should produce that....

And I have been hanging out down at the community allotment rather a lot.

Very exciting day today...the polytunnel is going up...

So now I have to get my wellies on, and postpone the desire to cast on a new something...

EXAMS!!!!!

...is why I haven't been posting...

Kid's exams, not mine...though I reckon I could ace GCSE Maths...