10 things

Bertha

• Bertha is broody.  Whoever opens the eglu door gets treated to a display of her inflating herself like a pufferfish, and shouting irritably at us.  
• I went to Kew and took dozens of photos of roses, as I do every year.  They smelled incredible - I wish there was some way to replicate precisely that smell of rose.  There isn't, but Crabtree & Evelyn's rose water comes pretty close.  I love this stuff and splash it around quite liberally.

• My parents have acquired some hens, which is very exciting.  My mother, and her father before her, used to keep hens when I was growing up and I am sure that is why I keep hens too.  My Grandfather kept urban hens - long before such a phrase was used - in the grounds of the rather grand vicarage in Sheffield where he and my Grandmother lived when I was small.
• I am undecided about what sort of birthday cake to make myself this weekend.  Perhaps I should ask Olivia to make one for me?  Or am I too much of a control freak about my own birthday cake?
• I start a placement with a local District Nursing team next week.  I am excited - this is going to be very different to all the hospital placements I have had so far.
• I am still loving the running.  This pastime is a keeper, for sure.
•  On Sunday, Graham ran seven 5K Parkruns in one day as part of the Parkrun Longest Day event.  He did the North East London loop, and I joined him for the last race of the day at our local parkrun on Hackney Marshes.  Graham usually runs 5K in around 20 to 21 minutes; my fastest 5K to date has been around 33 minutes, and that included some walking.  I wondered if he'd already run six 5K races whether he might be going slow enough on the seventh for me to be able to run with him for a little bit?   In the end he very sweetly offered to pace me for a 30 minute run (meaning that he ran at precisely the speed required to finish a 5K race in 30 minutes, and all I had to do was run with him).  I wasn't at all sure I could do it, but being paced (and being exhorted by Graham to "focus" and "dig deep" in rather a severe tone as we ran) made such a difference - I ran the whole thing in a time of 30 minutes and 25 seconds.  I was elated and told anybody who would listen that the experience was "harder than childbirth" - but on reflection I think that was endorphins speaking.  It wasn't really harder than childbirth.



New PB!




Red faced, after our race

• I go bright red in the face when I run.  Is this because I am unfit or just because I go bright red in the face when I run? I am unsure.
•  I have made a rhubarb crumble every week for the past three weeks.  All of us are wild about rhubarb.
• There is still a little bit of the rhubarb and peach one I made this past weekend, waiting in the fridge for my lunch today.  Sometimes I love a day at home by myself.

Flowers and flags

Olympic Park over there -->

We've had two incredible days in the Olympic Park so far this week, watching inspiring sport in person and on the big screens, soaking up the festival-like atmosphere and pinching ourselves that this day has finally come.

But from two days of amazing memories, what I shall remember most are the flowers and the flags.

 

The Park is full of flowers - great banks of them rising up from all the waterways that wind around the stadium.  Olivia and I spent hours taking photos, trying each time to get that perfect shot.

So many other visitors were taking photos too.  I chatted to people with cameras who had come from Australia, the Netherlands and the USA to be at the Olympics.  Everyone exclaimed over the beauty of the flowers before they discussed the sport.

Many of these people were wrapped in flags, or dressed in national colours.  We had come with our giant Union Jack, and Cam also bought a Brazilian flag when he discovered that Brazil was one of the teams playing in the handball session we had tickets for.

Olivia, Cam and Graham with our enormous Union Jack

Cam turns Brazilian for the day

Olivia and I spotted a great many sweet, fat babies in patriotic babygros and one charming toddler wearing stars-and-stripes tights.  We learnt what Montenegro's flag looks like (red, with a magnificent double-headed eagle and shield in the centre), we admired the Dutch people's wholly enthusiastic approach to wearing bright orange curly wigs, and we argued over which flag was which for France, Russia, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

Olympic flags and flowers. A riot of colour and a feast for the senses.

Cam and Graham, with flag cloaks



Olivia and her macro button

Extreme

I've never known a year when I've thought more about the weather, talked more about the weather, or watched the weather forecasts more closely, than 2012.  Everything about the weather has seemed so extreme this year - in a part of the country, and indeed the world, that generally has such very unremarkable middle-of-the-road weather.

After a dry, bitingly cold winter which triggered an official drought, we moved into record-breaking high temperatures in March, followed by some of the most persistant and heavy rain I have ever experienced in April.  May started off very cold indeed; just last week I still had the central heating on once a day, and Olivia was going to school in thick black tights and her winter uniform.

And now...now it seems to be set fair.  There is sunshine all day long, and the temperatures are soaring towards the high 20s.  Olivia is wearing summer dresses to school and the hens lie panting in their dust baths.  The flowers in the garden are burning with colour.

Bee lavender

Fuschia

Geraniums

It is these prolonged extremes of weather that I find so un-British.  Most of the time in East London we bumble along with mild, dry-ish weather, punctuated by occasional scorching days in summer and icy days in winter.  The distinct, and extreme, phases to the weather that we've had this year feel new. 

Mostly I suspect that these extremes are the result of climate change.  But then I look at the children, and they just don't care about the weather in the same way I do.  Cam moans when it's hot and his hayfever is bad, and Olivia likes being able to wear hats that Granny has knitted her when it's cold - but mostly they just ignore it.  Could it be that rather than climate change I am just getting middle-aged and like nothing more than a good chat about the weather?

Set fair

Spring greens

It is raining outside.  A constant drip-drip-drip for pretty much the past ten days.  Living in East London this is a novelty because we haven't had any significant rainfall all winter, and we are now officially in drought.  I am rather excited about the rain, because I haven't seen it for so long.

The garden is green and lush - I'm not allowed to use a hosepipe any more because of the water shortage, but I don't need to at the moment.  I've been buying geraniums, herbs and lavenders for the garden, and potting them up a few at a time, when the rain eases to a drizzle.  The vivid pinks of the geranium flowers, mixed in with the bright, wet greens of all the grass and shrubbery, is very pleasing to the eye.

And when the rain gets too heavy, I come back inside and pick up my knitting, which is in the same shade of vivid spring green. 

French spring green shawl

I am knitting myself another shawl from this pattern, but instead of the multicoloured sock yarn version I did last time, I am making this one from a green linen and wool handspun yarn that I bought with Mum in France over Easter. 

Walking through Bruniquel to the castle.  We filled Mum's basket with yarn.

A poster for Bruniquel's textile fair

We heard that there was a textile fair at a local castle, and went along on a cool, wet day much like today, not really knowing what to expect.  What we found was the most amazing selection of hand spun and hand dyed yarns and knitted and felted garments from right across the South of France.  Mum dived in to the mohairs, alpacas and angoras, and I was captivated by the linen blends and the bright colours.  We filled Mum's basket with yarn - a modest three skeins each - and came home with hastily scribbled notes about needle size and yarn blends stuffed into our pockets.

The colour of this green yarn was exactly the same shade as the new oak leaves bursting forth in the French forests while we were there, and now it is the exact same shade as the geranium leaves in London.  Perfect.

Municipal planting

I drove O to school this morning, and although Epping Forest was bursting into green leaf all around me, I still thought wistfully of the banks of wild cowslips and orchids which ran alongside almost all the roads in France this Easter.  Green and lush is lovely, but spring flowers lift my spirit in a way that no amount of oak foliage can.

Then at lunchtime, while I was walking through Walthamstow, out of the corner of my eye I spotted something very startling.

A snake's head fritillary sunning itself calmly in a corner of a municipal flowerbed.

For a moment I thought I might have made the urban wildflower discovery of the decade, but then I remembered that you can actually buy cultivated snake's head bulbs these days.  I still crouched down to take photos and admire it though, and the mad, purple checked petals were a delight.  Sometime in my life I want to own a pair of trousers made from fabric just like this - they would be fabulous. 

It turns out that London has spring flowers at the side of the road after all - I just had to spot them.  They may not often be wild, but they still make me smile.

Dix choses

• C's favourite French pudding is Iles Flottantes, but he also enjoys a caramel ice cream.

• Mum and I found orchids in the village after all - they are sneaky, and like to hide down steep banks and amongst the other undergrowth.  They have just come into flower this week.

• I love orchids - they are just too weird for words.
• The cowslips are still out, and I love them too.  Rural France is full of flowers at the moment.
• We have bought some local Gaillac wine to bring home.  When I say 'some', I actually mean 'quite a bit'.  The children will be more cramped in the back of the car on the journey home than they were on the journey down.
• I found some lichen which matches my hat.  It is now known as The Lichen Hat, rather than The Mustard Hat.

• France has Presidential elections coming up in a couple of weeks.  The boards for political posters have been erected in the village, but so far only one candidate has put up a poster.

• It has been a wet and blustery couple of weeks, but we haven't cared at all.  This is still a wonderful part of the world to be in - perhaps especially when there is thunder and heavy rain in the sky.  Even the clouds are gorgeous here.

• G and I have done some good long hikes together, and we love going for a stroll around the village before supper, with Mum and Dad.  The children prefer to stay at home with a glass of orangina and the tele.


• I love France.  I'm not ready to come home.

Cowslips

Last year I was obsessing about all the orchids in South-West France, but this year we are here a couple of weeks earlier, and this part of France has had a very harsh winter, so there are no orchids about yet.

Instead, I am obsessing about cowslips.  These beautiful spring flowers are endangered in the wild in the UK nowadays, because of the loss of their habitat.  I don't know if they are officially endangered in France too, but they are certainly thriving right here in Tarn-et-Garonne.  Along all the verges, and in all the fields up the sides of the mountains, there are big patches of these acid yellow-green flowers.

They look shy, and bashful, as they raise their little flowers just ever so slightly towards the sun.

They are bright, jolly, sweet little flowers - the essence of springtime.

Flowers - paper and real

I bought myself some daffodils from the supermarket, but until they come out I am enjoying this paper and twig bouquet made by O and her friend F last week.

They were inspired by this excellent and inspiring papercraft book of F's - I am planning on getting O her own copy very soon, and writing an update to my post in January about art and craft books for older children and teenagers.  Stay tuned!

The view from here

It is the time of year where I buy a bunch of daffodils every time I happen to be anywhere near a supermarket.  These ones from Waitrose are glorious - a fluffy cloud of yellow sunshine on the mantelpiece for only £1.99.

I have come to realise that if I don't take photographs, I don't write blog posts.  I've been cooking, knitting, writing, stitching, thinking and planning a great deal over the last few weeks, but not blogging about it. I've stayed around the house, and the house is dark, so I've not been taking photos.  But in a way this suits January, which I love for its quietness, wintriness and sense of hibernation.  I'm happy to have some daffs on the mantelpiece and a hot cup of coffee on my desk.  I'll be out in the world again soon enough.

So from my desk, my kitchen, and my computer, this is what I've been doing lately.

• Loving this panoramic photo, taken from London's newest skyscraper, The Shard: http://www.willpearson.co.uk/virtual-tour/shard-360-dusk/ 
• Adoring this blog post from the awesome and talented Teen Granny.  If my daughter ever knits a model of me, I will burst with pride.
• Thinking of a great group of women I met twelve years ago this week.  Some of them are amongst my very closest friends, and two of them have lovely blogs.  I just wish I still lived close enough to Nina that I could pop round for a coffee and eat some of her cakes!
• Cooking in my slow cooker (and not photographing the results). 
• On Tuesday I made lemon chicken: a whole chicken sat on a bed of chopped carrot, onion, fennel, rosemary and garlic, with a whole lemon chopped into chunks tucked underneath too.  150 ml of chicken stock poured over and left on low for about 6-7 hours.  Then chicken removed and the meat pulled off the bone.  We ate the veg, half the chicken and the lemony sauce with rice and peas.  The other half of the chicken will become a pie.
• Yesterday I made Indian potatoes: about 6 big potatoes, peeled and cut into large dice, along with an onion, a tin of tomatoes, a spoonful of curry paste, a spoonful of mango chutney and 100ml of vegetable stock.  Cooked on low for about 5 hours, and then stirred in 100ml of double cream before serving with naan bread, cucumber and yogurt.
• Putting all the postcards we've received this year into a tin, so that in December I can make one of these.
• Loving these two new London food blogs - The Skint Foodie and The London Review of Sandwiches.

And in between, gazing at the daffodils again.

The ordinariness of January

I love January for its ordinariness - its everyday qualities.  After the excitement, busy pace and indulgence of December I relish the plainness of January.

The first daffs are in my glass vase above the fireplace, good meaty things are in the slow cooker, and I write and read as much as I can, immersing myself in imaginary worlds which contrast nicely with the ordinariness of life in January.

Yesterday morning I went to the British Museum to see the Grayson Perry exhibition, The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman.  Visiting this exhibition is to enter into someone else's madly imaginary world.  Perry has created an exhibition celebrating the life of unknown craftsmen through the ages.  The exhibition has a great deal of Perry's work alongside objects from the British Museum's collection, arranged in themes to do with death and the afterlife such as pilgrimage, worship, magic and relics.  

There was so much humour and thoughtfulness in the way the objects were selected and displayed.  I wandered around with a big grin on my face, chuckling at the captions beside the items and the cartoon-like quality of the big, beautiful ceramic pots that Perry has made.  Everybody else in the exhibition was smiling too.  Have a look at the little 2 minute film on this page to hear from Perry himself about what he was aiming to do with the exhibition.  It exceeded my expectations, which were very high to begin with.

His beautiful pastel-pink custom made motorbike, which is on display just outside the exhibition, is anything but ordinary.  It dazzled the senses against the beautifully plain cream stone and clear glass of the rest of the museum's Great Court.

January - I love your ordinariness, and your calm.  But just a little bit of colour and jazz is very welcome too.

Winter and woollens

I've used Silverpebble's and Thrifty Household's excellent Making Winter project to start something I've been meaning to do for a while: taking time out of my day, every day, to stand or sit outside for ten minutes and drink a cup of tea or coffee.  I think even in the very depths of winter I would get enjoyment from wrapping up warmly, stepping out into the garden and watching what's going on around me as I sip a hot drink and think about what needs to be done with my day.

Today I looked at the lavender bush where I saw Mr Toad back in May.  The lavender bush did pretty well this year but I realised that I still need to cut off the dead flower stalks.

I checked that the hens were happy under their new rain cover.  They get a new one every winter, and I spend each spring and summer looking for perfectly clear shower curtains that I can use.  Gill found this one for me in the Habitat closing down sale.

I marvelled at the amount of cherry leaves that had fallen in just one day since I last cleared them all up.  I love how they look on the green grass, but if I leave them there, we will have no grass next summer...so every week or so I rake them up.

And I drank my cup of tea and rejoiced at my toasty warm shoulders and wrists.  As well as Making Winter, there's something else that has caught my eye this month: Wovember.  This is Kate Davies' and Felicity Ford's campaign and celebration of 100% wool.  I was as appalled as Kate was to discover, when I read her blog last month, that an item of clothing that contains no wool whatsoever can still legally use the word wool or woollen in its description.  Wovember has been set up as a way to highlight this issue, campaign to change it, and at the same time celebrate everything 100% wool.

My shawl is knitted from sock yarn, which is a wool blend of 75% wool and 25% polyamide.  This enables socks and shawls and anything else knitted with it to be subjected to lots of use and regularly chucked in the washing machine.  My armwarmers are 100% wool, from merino sheep, and I just love them to bits.  They are incredibly warm, and perfect for pulling over my hands as I clutch my early morning cup of tea.