Epic Epping

Epping Forest is massive.  The trees are giants and their roots curl up from the forest floor like pythons; it is London's largest public open space and I still get lost in it on a regular basis.  I love the size of Epping Forest and the feeling that I am only a small being within it.

Today, though, my eyes were drawn to things far smaller than me.  I saw tiny curls of bracken unfurling.

We walked over crispy carpets of empty beech nuts.

And I marvelled at a strange knot hole which looked just like rising yeasty dough.

There was even a tiny little dormouse, crawling through some brambles.  It was smaller than my thumb, and had tiny little round ears.  It ran away, looking very purposeful and busy, before I could focus my camera lens on it.

Epping Forest is both epic in its size, and in its abundance of tiny details.  And of course, this is why I love it so.

 

Walnuts, orange juice, cotton buds and baked beans

There's a lovely place I know.

• Which is only two minutes walk from my front door.
• Where you can turn up at 7:40am without having cleaned your teeth, wearing dirty jeans and a University sweatshirt that is over 20 years old, and nobody minds.
• Where even dressed like this you are still greeted with a big grin and a shout of "Morning, Gorgeous!" as you walk through the door.
• Where you can be sure of being able to buy whatever it is that you need - even if that's walnuts, orange juice, cotton buds and baked beans.
• Where you can chat as you do your shopping and find out about how his bad back's doing and discuss the water main up by the hospital which burst again this weekend.

This magical place is my local corner shop.  A good corner shop is the nerve centre of a local community, and I think ours is one of the best.  Their friendliness and always-open-fully-stocked policy means that knocking up a quick coffee and walnut cake for Dad while he's out on his early morning training run is...well...a piece of cake.



From pink to purple

Olivia's pink phase has come and gone.  Pink is now Not The Thing at all.  The 9 year old girls I know are all about purple these days.

"My favourite colours - in order"

She asked me to make a purple patchwork cushion for a friend's birthday this weekend.  "My friends are all VERY into purple too," she informed me.  So I did, and while I was making one purple cushion I thought I might as well make two.

A birthday cushion for J

Olivia now has a purple cushion on her bed, next to the one I made for her when she was in her pink phase.  "The purple one is closest to the top, because I like purple best," she told me.  I now want to make her cushions in every colour on her list, just so that I can see them arranged - and re-arranged - along the edge of her bed in order of colour preference.

The pink has been demoted by the purple

The perfect setting

I sat in the woods as the sun set, listening to the wind rustling the tops of the trees and marvelling at the changing light.  I had a plastic mug of very nice wine in my hand, and a campfire to toast my feet over.  I felt utterly content and took a self portrait.

Just two nights camping with friends was an idyllic break from everyday life.  These short trips usually seem to pan out like this, and it occured to me that over my many years of camping we - and our friends too - have acquired a great deal of experience.  It's a slick operation these days; we bring everything down from the loft, check it off our list, and stuff quilts and pillows into compression sacks.

Compressed quilts, sleeping bag and pillows



Decompressed quilt, pillows and sleeping bag

We stayed at Forgewood Campsite, in Kent, close to the Sussex border.  It is a delightful site which manages to create the perfect blend of wild camping (no electicity, no caravans, campfires permitted and acres of ancient woodland to pitch in) with helpful facilities (plenty of clean showers and toilets, purpose built washing up areas and a farm shop).  When we are camping with friends we want a campsite that lets us pitch our tents together, build a fire to sit round and cook over, and has woods for the children to run free in.  Forgewood had all of this.

Olivia, coming back to camp for food

We all brought great quantities of food - both to feed our own family and to share.  On Friday night we shared vegetable curries, made at home the day before by my friend, Cathy, and reheated over the campfire.  We mopped them up with breads we had all brought with us. On the Saturday we ate salads, also made at home and brought with us, fruit, slabs of homemade cake and endless cups of tea made on the Trangias and gas stove (of the three families camping one favoured a Coleman gas stove, one favoured Trangia with a gas bottle adapter, and one favoured Trangia with the meths burner - they all work brilliantly).  That night we barbecued sausages over the campfire, and ate them with garlic bread that Cathy made.  The children then toasted marshmallows later in the evening. 

Camp kitchen

We feasted like kings all weekend - good food is a non-negotiable element of a camping trip for me.  The only thing that can improve sitting in the sunshine, drinking beer with good friends, is when there's a perfectly cooked, juicy, pork sausage (or two) to eat at the same time.

The weather is something you can't control when you're camping - you just have to prepare for it.  The whole point of camping is to get outside and ground yourself in nature - whether that may be sun, rain, warmth or a cold breeze - but there's no denying that warm sunshine is what we're all after, really.  We pitched on Friday as the rain clouds started to clear from the skies.  It was extremely windy, and we were glad to be in the shelter of the woods.  The ground was very damp, but not too muddy because of the leaf litter on the forest floor.

My and Graham's tent, with added jubilee bunting

Over the evening the clouds moved further and further away, and by the time I crawled into my tent at about midnight, there were stars all over the sky.  It stayed dry for the whole weekend, and only started to rain as we brought the last of the bags in from the car, back in London on Sunday afternoon.

No wonder I look happy in that photo - I had good friends, good food, plenty of wine and beer, and I was sitting beneath green beech trees listening to them whispering.  The weather was incredible and our dirty children were running around in the woods jumping into ditches and plotting adventures. 

Every minute of packing, driving, pitching, unpacking, putting away and washing is entirely worth it for weekends like these.

Olympic questions

Red, white and blue bunting - up for the jubilee, and coming back very soon for the Olympics.

I was tagged by my dear friend Janine, who blogs at Chouxchouxbedoo, to carry on this Olympic meme. We don't have very long to go now - just 50 days until the Opening Ceremony. We live so close to the Olympic Park - just about 1 mile away - that the excitement around here is palpable.

1. If every day tasks were Olympic events what would you get a gold medal in?

Gold for coffee making, tidying up and writing lists. A silver currently for my bread-making, but I'm hopeful that will be gold too by this summer.

2. As a child (or now even) did you excel at a particular sport and if so which one?

Erm...no. At my secondary school we were put into ability sets for PE and I was always in the bottom one. This did nothing to improve my sporting skills because it meant I was always playing with or against other girls as hopeless and unenthusiastic as me.  My exercise of choice these days is walking or cycling.

3. Michael Phelps (swimmer) or Michael Johnson (runner) – which sport appeals to you more?

Running appeals much more.  Swimming is the absolute pits - water up your nose, the stench of chlorine, the nasty wet floors of the changing rooms. Gah!  I used to run when I was at University, but I was never very good.  I still love watching running though - especially long-distance running and the very upright Kenyans.  I am constantly tempted to take it up again and do Parkrun regularly, but I am intimidated by the extraordinarily good running skills of my husband.  There's probably enough lycra in our house already.

4. How fast can you get out of bed and ready to go out the door if miss the alarm and sleep in?

I don't think I've ever missed an alarm in my life.  I'm pretty good at getting up in the morning; I can be up and out in about 10 minutes if I have to.

5. What fantasy sport would you like to see made into an Olympic event?

Cross country or trail running would be good to see in the Olympics; but they're real sports already.  My fantasty Olympic sport would be eyebombing.

6. Claim to fame time – Have you ever met an Olympian and who was it?

I interviewed Jonathan Edwards last year - he was charming and friendly, and had very long elegant legs.  I once queued behind Colin Jackson in the Vauxhall branch of Sainsbury's.  He smiled at me and I swooned.

7. What event in past Olympics can you remember most vividly?

I vaguely remember the Steve Ovett and Seb Coe rivalry in the 1980 Olympics.  I was only eight.  More recently I remember Cathy Freeman's win from the Sydney Olympics and Kelly Holmes's incredible double at the Athens Olympics.  All runners again - I really do like (watching) running.

8. Tuning in at home, not for me or tickets clamped ready in sweaty palms?

Just you try keeping me away!  We were lucky enough to get Athletics tickets in the very first round of ticket allocation, and since then we've also bough tickets for Handball and day tickets to the Olympic Park.  Cam is going to be performing in the Closing Ceremony, but we don't have tickets for that so we'll be watching him on the TV.  Along with 4 billion other people - oh my.  Must remember to get his hair cut in good time.

9. Who do you think most deserves a gold medal (any walk of life not just Olympians)?

Oh, so many people actually.  But right up there at the top for me are nurses - very under appreciated generally.



Olympic rings greeting Eurostar arrivals at St Pancras Station

I'm going to tag Clair at Kids, Crafts and Chaos to keep this going, because I know how excited she is about the Olympics (and eyebombing!). But feel free to join in as well, and let me know if you do.

Breaktime

Changing footwear, in the car park

Gill and I took a break from our usual routines to meet back up in Epping Forest for a lunchtime walk and picnic.  Oh, we have missed this - so much.

We were surrounded by green - oak trees and beech trees, thick grass, nettles, caterpillars and brambles.  Epping Forest is lush, thick and sumptuous at this time of year.

We strolled, chatted, laughed, ate lunch, compared sunburn, reminisced and swapped stories.  And when we left we both promised each other we would do this again - very soon.

Lunchtime in Southwark

Gazing over to St Paul's from outside the Globe Theatre

Seen and overheard at Bankside in the sunshine today:

• two German teenage girls wearing gladiator sandals and heavy backpacks, doubled up with hysterical laughter
• a school party, neat in pale blue and grey uniforms, walking in an impressively ordered crocodile
• a tall, fair, curly-headed man going for his lunchtime run - with a long, lolloping stride like a labrador
• a young man on a pink Brompton bike, weaving in and out of the crowds
• a middle-aged woman with red, round-toed shoes, speaking to someone precious on the phone: "Oh you darling girl! I've been so very worried about you."
• office workers in suits without jackets, turning their faces towards the blue skies and drinking in the sun
• a lady wearing a buttercup yellow shirt, sucking deeply on her iced coffee
• an American woman running after an elderly man striding purposefully towards the pier, calling after him, "Dad, please let me pay for this - you've done so much already."
• a young woman easing off her shoe and wincing as she examined a blister on her heel
• two young men chatting enthusiastically about the step class they'd just been to

Heading back to the office

The French spring green shawl

Yesterday evening, as the temperature hovered somewhere around 29 degrees, I finished knitting this very thick, heavy, textured shawl. 

I have called it my French spring green shawl, because I bought the yarn in France at Easter (and wrote about it here) just as the vivid green oak leaves in Tarn-et-Garonne were coming out.  I used all the yarn I had, and have a sumptuous shawl for my shoulders now.  I love it.

All the details on Ravelry, here.

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

Appeasement cakes

I put too much smoked paprika in the bean and squash stew.

Cakes cooling, butter softening and stew simmering

I know that come tea time tonight, the paprika will be even more pungent and the children will moan and sigh because they do not like spicy food.  And then I will moan and sigh because I do like spicy food, and I cooked it for tea, and so please just eat it without complaining, just this once.  You know how it goes.

So I decided that it might be a good tactic to make something more crowd-pleasing for pudding.  I made some fairy cakes.  You can see the production line above: cakes cooling, butter softening to make the icing, and spicy stew simmering very gently.

I iced the cakes with rosewater buttercream, and decorated them with pink chocolate buttons.  Double pink appeasement cakes; hidden away in a tin for now, until everyone has eaten their veg.

Pink crowd pleasers