This moment... one year on

This moment .. in Soulemama style.

Today one year ago, I planted a tiny apple tree. Look, how it has grown and blossoms. New life pushing towards the sky, soon to bear fruit and nourish my little ones.
But this little tree was also planted on the day my darling daddy passed away. Rest in peace, dad, you are loved always and much missed by us all.

Thrifty Thursday - bargain hunter

I do  love a bargain, I know thats not unusual but I also have a love of 1950's crockery and often the two most definitely do not go together. Vintage is huge here and so are the price tags.So, treasure is indeeed, just that. We only have charity/ thrift shops here, unfortunately yard -sales do not exist in Ireland. Everytime I get a chance and with a limit of £5 per item (maximum!) I hunt through the second hand shops.  Then, sometimes, very occasionally I have "the luck of the irish". As i did today. I was dropping off two bags of the kids clothes to my fave charity outlet and had a good nosy at the same time. These goodies came out with me!

JAJ Pyrex Meat Platter £2.00

JAJ Pyrex Autumn Gold veggie dish with lid £1.40 & huge ball of Sirdar wool for 59p!!! (one hr scarf, £8.99 retail)

  definitely a good day!

Nature's larder

For weeks the hunt has been on. With every hint of increasing spring weather we've been looking, searching. To no avail. The recipes waiting. Last night we were down on the beach, a new path back through the forest was found. Still no sign - lots of bunny rabbits, tweeting birds, vetch, nettle, dandelion, clover - abundance of nature, but not what I was looking for. We clambered into the car, and as I siganlled out I checked the drivers wing mirror and lo! up on the bank at the edge of the mirror was reflected acres of little white chirpy flowers. My bounty at last!

An afternoon of bliss was had making pesto (read playing like a kid!) with the garlic, good parmesan and some nuts, olive oil. I don't use a recipe per se, its more rough and ready than that. I throw it all in and taste and flavour.

I added some lemon juice (all Italian mamas will shudder) but it does give it another layer of freshness.

Its perfect for pasta, marinade rub on meat and fish or lovely with toasted crostada.

The rest as you may be able to see from the pic was mixed into some lovely fresh irish butter  which was very soft and then rolled into some baking paper(you can use cling also but the paper is thriftier as at the end any waxy bits of butter can be used to a pan or two). I then pop it in the freezer and any time we need garlic butter i just slice a bit off. Delicious.

I'm reading Anna del Conte's biography which is just glorious gastronomy. She makes it all sound so simple and in the book is a great recipe in it for risotto with nettles and I think I'll cook it one night next week and add some of my lovely wild garlic. Will let you know how it goes.

Peace to you all

Beach school!!!

I totally agree with Richard Louv who wrote this.  I know that as a family we are more grounded, more relaxed and more together when we get outside and breathe and smell and move and see. The stresses of the day seem to ebb away when we 're walking through our local landscape. We are very lucky and live within walking distance of a fabulous beach and forest. Whether the sun is shining or the snow covers the ground, its all about enjoying nature's bounty. Much as I enjoy technology and I do believe it has a valid place within our society (thought thats a conversation for another day), nothing can replace the gorgeousness of being outside with the kids.(hopefully I'll be able to show you some of my bounty tomorrow night!!)

And so to today - who needs school when you've got the rockpools,  beach, meadows anda disused lifeboat station as your teacher! I was poking around in the wild flowers with my camera and didn't get a chance to capture on camera the little bunny family that Andrew and I saw through the trees. Maybe they were out for a walk too.

MONKEY BARS!

SOCIAL HISTORY

WEIGHT LIFTING

MARINE STUDIES

When I see the sun setting over the ocean I always ponder at the sheer magnificence of creation. This poem  i did for A level  reminds of it too.

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

The Windhover 

I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,	5
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion	10
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

Old fashioned fun in the sun

The weather in the UK and Ireland is glorious and if its good weather, the whole country pops on their shorts and heads to the beach. I don't know if its just me, but as a crowd hater I prefer it when the beach is just me and mine, the starfish and the seagulls. So on holidays and high days we tend to stick to the quiet spots.After baking some pies this morning we chilled out in the garden this afternoon. Kiddos decided to paint their feet. I  was chuffed imagining beautiful portraits of little footsteps framed and given to the grannies as pressies. That idea didn't quite work. I painted  their feet the first couple of times mutli -coloured, bright and gorgoeus shades of the rainbow. But when left to their own devices, they mashed all those colours together and made.... brown!!

Then painting feet wasn't adventerous enough, they decided to paint themselves like Easter eggs.... brown, again!

Though the real fun came in the cleanup operation. Obligatory for a sunny day?  Outside showering in the garden hose.

 Doing an Irish jig and loving the cold water.

We had a fab afternoon, what about you? How was your holiday?

This moment... meet new Fonzy

Missed one!!

There must be something about being a wildlife photographer, sitting all day waiting for the perfect shot, animal in action, bird in flight only to mistakenly blink or move and the moment is gone.I caught a tiny glimpse of that last night. The warm and sunny days have helped make our world full of life,laughter and fun. We've walked to the beach everynight, through the lush silent meadow and to our amazement found the long sandy stretch mostly deserted, apart from mussels, whelks, starfish and seagulls. Watching the still waters by dusk I sat on the sand , burying and stretching my feet in broken shells and listening to the birds chatter and call.
There was much climbing, feeling, poking and of course jumping. They've danced across the dunes while I have investigated the wild flowers and searched for samphire.  Of course I had the camera, to capture those kodak  moments. While I was snapping these something made me turn around and standing on the rocks above the beach watching us was a fox. Cool and erect he eyeballed me before slowly turning and disappearing once more. Where was the camera? In my hand.duh!!

Vintage chic (I think so anyway)

Let me open a door for you. Its the door into Ems bedroom -   we've been doing a little rejigging. I'd done the walls in pink / white and a gorgeous Laura Ashley paper. Ems was well pleased with the result. A bit girly and a bit vintage - I made the lampshade with a bit of trim and some stick on motifs. The breadspread I adore. It belonged to my grandmother and it isn't actually a breadspread - its a curtain. I remember them hanging in her house when I was a little girl. It seems so perfect on Em's bed.

This is the wall above her desk. I painted in white - so pure and pristine but I thought it was well, too clean (!)

but then I remembered I had lots of paper samples both from Ems room and ours.Quickly I traced around the yellow butterfly on some of the samples, cut them out and now she has butterflies flying across her wall. There are a couple more but you can't see them in this pic.

Perfect for my little butterfly!

Keeping it simple

I find todays world is trying to hurry us all along and I'm working for the polar opposite.  We do our best to keep it simple -  its the the little things like cutting out those far too grown up parties, gadgets and excessive TV  or unneccessary after school clubs.   And often our family simplicity is a way of being that I trymy best   to cling to when everything gets really frantic and threatens to overwhelm us all .. like this last week. What with all our usual commitments like work and school there was 2 days of miserable sickness, 4 performances of Emma's play, and a GB and BB display. Pics later when I get them uploaded.

So with a hectic, hectic week finally behind us we all needed to breathe, long and slowly, have a pyjama day, eat homemade pancakes and let the weekend unfold naturally and simply. They did what they wanted to.

Having a watefight while washing dads car-  simple fun!

Its was a sports car, a superfast horse and a super spacerocket - frugal simplicity!

 He drove/rode/flew it for 2 days and 2 nights til it fell apart.

Collecting and making nettle pesto - yummy simplicity!

we love this pesto - not exactly true italian ingredients but its so delicious and so simple

1.half a carrier bag of nettles - washed  + steamed for 5 minutes

2. pop into food processor with handful of grated cheese ( i use whatver hard cheese is in the fridge)

3. Throw in some toasted walnuts and 2 cloves of garlic and whizz.

4. Drizzle in some olive oil to bring together, season with salt and pepper.

DONE!

How do you keep it simple? Post a comment and let me know!

This moment...Little seedlings

We've had a blog break this week - I've been sick and inbetween running to rehearsals.But I managed to capture this moment today.

A girly, thrifty kind of day…

One dressed as Batman and the other as power ranger ( no pics were allowed) they met up with other spidermen, woodys, buzzes, obi kanobis and off they went for their BB away day  - off climbing, bouncing, racing and of course eating. They have been so excited,looking forward to this  - an opportunity to be independent, to spend time with friends, and most important to have fun. How could I stop them?
Even though I knew the house would be eerily silent without their constant rough and tumble. So Ems and I decided to have a real girly day. We treated our bodies to a  “temple” lunch ( no mention of the bag of midget gems that followed… of course not!) cheese, crackers, fruit and camomile tea... the zen(read easy!) way to lunch on a saturday.

Then we did a little thrifting.There's nothing like an eager, little girly hand holding yours for a saturday afternoon to be perfect.  I love to thrift,delving amongst racks, rails and baskets, seeing someone's unwanted stuff all of a sudden become wanted and maybe loved again. There's always the possibilty of buying a curtain but seeing a homemade skirt, a duvet cover cut up to become a rag rug (yes,  those are current projects in my craft basket!)  More importantly it teaches the kids that creativity, patience and giving are good traits. And that sometimes we walk out of a shop without a plastic bag .
But look at what came home....

This cheerful stripey teapot for my homemade herbals came to me for a £1.

3 tops for Ems for £6.00

 A gorgeous winter jacket  for £4.00

And finally, the best for last..... yarn, woo -hoo look at the lovely blue & green wool - it’s the treble strand stuff - I can see mitts for the boys ahead. And will hold the rest in my small stash. All for £1.50

 It was a good day.

When the sun had all but gone we went to pick up the two super heroes but they were nowhere to be found. In their place stood two worn out, weatherbeaten little boys, masks in backpacks and dirty faces.
Glad to have gone but glad to come home. Ahh...... balance restored.

This moment... 12 years and counting

12 years ago it was my wedding day and we are still going strong. In fact i love him more now.

Good intentions....and all that

 

 

Last spring I started gardening - a real desire to try to feed my family fresh, local vegetables that don't cost the earth and provide all the nutrition we need.

I can't get an allotment as the list is too long and I know I suffer from "land-envy"  for those of your with a decent green space. In my teensy little plot only really cut and comeagains and patio produce are going to be possible but still, there's hope.  Last year i had modest success with spinach, kale and lettuce. 

 

 

Not quite enough to have the canning fest I so so want( and dream about nearly every day),  so this year I promised to be much more organised. Over the long snowy winter I drew plans and bought seeds, read copious gardening books and even more preserving books. I've lusted after maslin pans and scoured websites and auctions for canning materials.

According to the extremely rigid schedule I made in November I should have had most of the garden dug and the sunroom should by now have been full of verdantly fecundant seedlings. Green life was due to have bursted forth.. no exploded forth.  

 

Note the repeated use of the word "should"  

 

This so far is our crop.

 The comfrey hasn't germinated and neither have my tomatoes and the courgettes are very, very sleepy. In the garden the situation is equally as dire. Our compost bin which we have been filling diligently from last year with the appropriate mixture, (taken from these books The Thrifty Garden and this. Don't you just love Alice's garden?!) is still the same as it was last year. I'd kinda of expected to lift the latch and for crumbly, moist, dark earth  to fall out but no joy there either... its still full of twigs and carrot peels.

 

The sun on my back was very spring like and I made to resolve our situation and today more seeds are going into the pots and I have  little helpers...

 

 

although as you can see the able gardeners prefer the slide! 
peace to you all.

a very prehistoric weekend

We like to believe we have a super hero in our house. Our 5 year old has an endless supply of swords, light sabers, wands and sticks. His dimunitive frame never stops hom from being the warrior of the hour... and of course the "goodies" always win.

He'll fights monsters by jumping  on top of them from off the sofa,slay dragons by climbing up walls and spearing them, ride unicorns and horses every day, kill baddies with sticks and yell spells at every opportunity.

Then on Friday night he met a real live stegosaurus. Well, maybe not live . but trust me... it was close enough for all the adults to be laughing nervously...

Tiny the animatron was at a party event that our family went to. 

And when our super hero, dressed up in his shirt and tie and his oh so special super hero leather jacket came face to face with the Dino - he was petrified.  When his little eyes connected with mine,  they conveyed the fear he did not want to show to everyone else. It's a poignant and sweet moment  that makes your mummy heart do a backflip when they realise their own very human limitations.  A discreet cuddle from mummy so not to embaress him and a helping hand from daddy to feed Dino and we were back on track.Even tho he has his eyes shut in the pic! I can't say the other two weren't a teensy bit scared and they know Dinosaurs don't exist!!! 

It was a wonderful night for both adults and kids. There was too much cake and cookies and lots of utterly fantastic puzzles, camera and tech wizardry Truly, we could have stayed the weekend.

 What did you all get up to this weekend? peace to you all.

This moment - when your heart overflows with love

This is Emma's Mother's day "poster" to me. She snuck it on the fridge 2 days early. The wording is all her own - from her beautiful, loving 8 year old heart to mine. This moment I will forever cherish. No more words needed.