I spotted this cow parsley looking all fresh and newly unfurled and spring-is-on-its-way-y at the allotment yesterday, so took some quick photos (just before I yanked it up by its roots and added it to the compost pile). Is this more evidence for global warming, I wonder (actually I have no clue when cow parsley is supposed to start flowering). Either way, I was glad I had waited until the last day of the holidays to get down there as I spent a glorious couple of hours in the sunshine: by the time I came home the plot was looking uncharacteristically neat.

I had a small dilemma: should I make the most of my child-free time to listen to my nice new Christmas ipod, or should I stay unplugged and enjoy the birdsong and whatnot. In the end I plugged myself in but compromised by keeping the volume low enough to hear the birds singing and the clock chiming, and listened to the wigglywigglers podcast to keep it topical. I pulled the netting back over my purple-sprouting broccoli, which is starting to look pleasingly purple, and dug some Jerusalem artichokes for a gratin later in the week. I then started hefting about the bits of carpet we laid a year ago, to uncover what should now be weed-free (or at least relatively less weedy) ground and cover up the weediest bits again. I have some plans in progress, so if you are really interested watch this space. I also uncovered lots of slug eggs – left them out for Mr Robin – and an army* of frogs. I knew Cameron was bringing the girls down to visit so, once I’d realised there were 10 or more frogs in two colonies** under the edge of one of my carpets, I left it in place until they arrived, expecting them to be interested. Which they weren’t particularly (but Cameron and I were very interested indeed so I was glad he saw them).

*This is a proper collective noun for frogs, I checked.
**And this is another.

I’ve been out three times this week! Which from a standing start of not-at-all-after-dark for a whole year, is quite something. Monday, Sara and I went to a carol concert at the cathedral (you surely didn’t imagine I’d been on the razzle), which was lovely if utterly freezing. Proper carols and a bit of John Rutter: just the ticket. Tuesday, I stayed at home for a jolly evening of editing (until quarter to sodding eleven) punctuated by intermittent running up and down stairs to see T, who was most restless and now has a cold. Cameron went out (we are like the weather people). Wednesday I went to Sara’s festive girl’s night – Sara is like a bus too; don’t see her for ages then it is every day for a week – getting a taxi home! See me get the hang of socialising again! And last night Sara babysat while C and I went to see Beowulf. In 3D, which was very cool – we had to wear silly glasses and everything. The film itself…well, Mia’s review sums it up rather well: it is very silly, I giggled at his sahf lahndon “I’ve come ter kill yer monstah”, and the strategically positioned candlesticks are hilarious. I can’t believe it got a 12 rating as it was quite explicit and very gruesome in places, and Grendel was rubbish and just not creepy at all. Fun, though!
In between, I made stollen. Anybody who is anybody is making it this year: Christmas cake is just so 2006. I followed Nigel’s recipe, because I love and trust him, but (apologies to Lisa (whose permalinks are knackered but try the 14th December: she made stollen too but not without a little dig at people who mess with recipes)) I did fiddle it a little. I used dried yeast because that is what I had – surely that is what everybody has – and a sultana catastrophe* meant I had to use cherries/peel/currants/cranberries/almonds as the filling, but that works very well. The cardamom is glorious in it but it is rather more bready/less cakey than stollens I have eaten previously. Which is not necessarily a bad thing.
*The jar leapt from the cupboard in eagerness and smashed into a million tiny shards on the floor.

Originally uploaded by Turquoise Lisa

Despite the memory lapse that saw Cameron in London on Friday lunchtime rather than here-with-the-afternoon-off, we had a super weekend away (Sara came in my car, we went in convoy with Ian and Nona, and Cameron arrived by train that evening). If you can rustle up 20 friends* I can recommend Plas Glansevin enormously: never have I seen such a well-equipped kitchen (and I mean never, not just never in a holiday cottage). A barbecue in the pouring rain on Friday night; Maggie stayed up until 10.30! She was having so much fun running with the pack (children aged 7, 10, 11 and a couple of 13 year olds, plus a games room with ping pong and table football – though Tamsin’s walker was a big hit too - and a special secret lounge**.) Saturday morning, once everybody was up and dressed and breakfasted, a walk was proposed. Round the Usk Reservoir, “around 3 miles”, no problem, we thought. A bit grey and drizzly but it will be fine. And fine it was – once we’d crossed the dam and out of the chilly wind (that child needs a hat), it was really very pleasant. Maggie did spectacularly well and walked and walked and walked, despite it being significantly further than 3 miles (I reckon maybe 5),  despite nobody having brought any food or drink, and despite wearing wellies. Blackberries is all she (and the rest of us) had to eat en route. She was carried towards the end but nothing wrong with that. Tamsin, of course, was carried the whole way and had a lovely sleep for most of it. On the way home we drove past the red kite feeding station and saw loads of lovely birds! Didn’t stop, which was a shame, but we were engrossed in trying to get a convoy of vehicles (we were like rush hour all on our own) past a sheep trailer on a bend in a one-lane road.

Another barbecue tea and the children went to bed earlier if not exactly early. I have no idea how M survived the weekend (but she has slept until 8 every morning this week so I am not complaining).

Sunday was warm and sunny so we decided to go for a short stroll up the hill. Predictably, Guy with the GPS and the map could not prevent us getting lost (we are not lost we know exactly where we are) and it turned into another 5 mile trek. Interesting, though: we met some farmers, a lady with a chainsaw, and I wonder if the old farmers are still talking about the woman who pulled a baby off her back, perched on a gate and breastfed it in the field while waiting for a herd of sheep to run past – complete with sheepdogs, Maggie was thrilled. More blackberries and one apple between the whole group, we were very happy when we finally found the house and discovered Nona and Irene had lunch all prepared. Could have done without the kitten death in front of some of the children in the afternoon (stray terrier running amok), and it was a shame our second expedition to the red kite centre was mis-timed so they had all been fed before we got there. But otherwise we had a lovely weekend and came back all refreshed. And with bags of laundry, naturally.

*I didn’t rustle, I was rustled.
**I sneaked off upstairs with my book on a couple of occasions: most comfy.

Back from a lovely girls’ holiday in sunny St Ives. We really did have sun and Maggie got to the beach every single day. Tamsin was not at all sure about sand to begin with, but soon got the hang (yum yum). A shame the adults took it in turns to get a 48(ish)-hour lurgy; bizarrely, the children were immune but it meant shifts to the beach in between lying pitifully on the sofa. My mother is now known as “normal granny” (much amused muttering under breath about relativity), which distinguishes her from great granny.

Cameron came home from Texas with new jeans for me (hoorah), a shiny ipod for himself (hoorah also) and the inevitable jetlag (boo).

The spider was no longer in the bath on our return so presumably the cleaner dealt with it.

Back to normal this week: preschool, swimming, rain, good intentions that fail to be acted upon. Hey ho, we did make jam yesterday. (Preens.) Took T to get weighed today so this afternoon I am mostly sighing despairingly at the incompetence and unnecessary-ness (what word do I mean?) of health visitors.

…and all I got was this lousy orchid*.

*(four fuschias, a house-leek, and three nice hardy perennials. Very restrained. Sara, who I went with, had to buy a trolley to carry her haul.)

Tamsin’s naming ceremony went really well: the sun shone (for only the second day this summer) – we even managed a barbeque in the evening without needing the emergency gazebo I’d bought – the children behaved impeccably*, the registrar was jolly, the flowers pretty and the afternoon tea delicious. Everybody looked very nice (though in an ideal world my hairdryer might not have broken down 10 minutes before we needed to leave the house – lucky I had a baby to distract people with, eh!). There are some photos here.

We had three lovely readings, read by Tamsin’s three lovely ungodlyparents (or whatever one is supposed to call them):  

Children, from The Prophet (Kahlil Gibran)

And he said:
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness; for even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

A piece by Francis Thompson and William Blake

Know you what it is to be a child? … It is to have a spirit yet streaming from the waters of baptism; it is to believe in love, to believe in loveliness, to believe in belief; it is to be so little that the elves can reach to whisper in your ear; it is to turn pumpkins into coaches, and mice into horses, lowness into loftiness, and nothing into everything, – for each child has a fairy god-mother in his/her own soul; it is to live in a nutshell and count yourself the king/queen of infinite space; it is:
To see the World in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

A wish for my children (Evangeline Paterson)

On this doorstep I stand
year after year
to watch you going

and think: May you not
skin your knees. May you
not catch your fingers
in car doors. May
your hearts not break.

May tide and weather
wait for your coming

and may you grow strong
to break
all webs of my weaving

*Apart from Maggie and Mia having a wee nibble of the cake icing, but who could blame them when it had such beautiful flowers on!

Dinners usually go to Lisa’s Dinners (as the details of this one have also) but I just needed to gloat a little. First allotment excursion in weeks; I am a little overwhelmed by all the weeds and spent a good 45 minutes trying to tie up my Jerusalem artichokes who decided to have a lie down when confronted with wind, but we came home with potatoes, broad beans, peas, radishes and lots of lettuce. The minute carrots were grown in pots on the patio, too.

…and jolly pleased with my new sandals I am too. Despite the cynics on Downsizer who claimed it was all a sop to the middle classes: I needed new sandals anyway, my Birkis having done 4 summers’ hard labour and really being fit for no more than hanging out the washing. So I sent off a pair of old jeans, a cheque for 45 quid, and got these lovelies back. And I have to tell you that their claim to be the most comfortable sandals you will ever wear is not at all exaggerated.

The only thing I should have thought about beforehand is the blue-denim thing: OK if you are *not* wearing blue-denim jeans with your sandals but a bit odd-looking if you are. And I do, about 30 days each month. So I am on the lookout in charity shops for some old red jeans I can have converted. How cool will they be?!

http://www.recycleyourjeans.com/