Thursday 17 May 2012

Returning to the zoo

I did say I'd share some Chester Zoo photos, didn't I? (thank you, lovely husband)...


This was the image of the day. We had such a good time, and it really did feel like 'conservation in action'. But. But...

But this orangutan, so close to our species, sat right at the window and stared at us. There was quite a crowd standing on the other side staring back at him. It just made me wonder what he was thinking, seeing the hoard of noisy onlookers jostle to take his photograph, faces replacing with new faces as the onlookers were replaced ad infinitum.

Looking into his eyes, it's almost one of us looking back. And the only thing it can make you think of is what those eyes would have seen if he was 'home'. He was probably bred in captivity, but his species should be looking out onto the verdant green of a luscious, diverse, intricate forest. I know his species are in peril, and that in the zoo (which was wonderful, and all the animals seemed well looked after) he was safe, but it just doesn't feel truly right. His was a sort of pensive sadness, looking back at us. His world was small and concrete-edged. The rolling hills of neverending rainforest territory are such a contrast. I couldn't help feeling so sorry for him and, on behalf of our species, so guilty.


Of course we saw lots of other animals. The Little One loved the giraffes the best. The Tiny One loved the monkeys. The Big One liked the sloths and cheetahs. And nothing else we saw gave me that sharp pang of guilt and sadness that hasn't fully gone away. Everything else seemed content, at home, looked after. Oh Mr Orangutan, you poor lost soul.


Thought I'd end with a few photos of less cliched zoo animals. Et voila...



Wednesday 16 May 2012

Thank you kindly


Little time, lots of thank you's needed. How do you send a meaningful 'thank you' when the child doing the thanking can't speak, when the parent thanking on their behalf wants to make it thoughtful, but when the thought of fitting in 14 home-made thank you cards is just, well... too much?

Answer: see above. It's a little thing, this drawing round a baby's hand in card, this cutting out around his finger images, this printing a little phrase, and this tracing around a little hand cut-out in a pen shaded baby blue.

But it's a big thing to say thank you. A meant thing. And I'm so glad I did it - not just the thanking, but the method. Because that little hand - with its baby blue pen marks - is now sitting by my sewing table reminding me of how lucky I am. One day I'm going to hold that little, chubby cardboard hand against the large, strong hand of a boy turning into a man. And smile.

Monday 14 May 2012

Bank holiday eating


I'm not doing too many cooking posts these days, just sticking to baking. But since it was a Bank Holiday weekend, and the lovely husband's birthday, I thought I'd show you some of what we fed him...
Duck salad from Jamie's 30min Meals. It was really delicious, especially as duck isn't something that crops up very often for us. I bulked it out with some plain rice and some sweet potato chips (you have to have these, they really helped complete the meal). The Little One decided he really liked garlic bread. And his pomegranate obsession continued!

We had a prosciutto & melon salad for lunch one day (same book), followed by bread and cheeses. The salad was really good - amazing how a little basil dressing completely changes the bog-standard melon-wrapped-in-ham experience.
And for another lunch, Superb Squash Soup with giant croutons, from a different Jamie book and, again, delicious. We do like a bit of Jamie. We eat a lot of his recipes and the chance of us not liking one, finding it too complicated, or it not filling us up enough is very, very unlikely. In fact, it's hardly ever happened. He's always reliable, our Jamie.
We ate other things of course, but didn't photograph them. If they're not snapped, they don't exist! You really should try all three of these recipes. All are great for entertaining, or just for a pimped-up meal at home

Sunday 13 May 2012

Nine things

The week that was; the week that will be...
Shipyard fabric from Fabric Rehab
  1. The Tiny One learnt how to walk! Oh the excitement in this house.
  2. He also learnt how to throw huge, arched-back, screaming tantrums. Over things like wanting a biscuit. Or a different biscuit to the one you gave him. Or a toy he wants. Goodbye little Mr Sunshine, hello toddler years (and he's only thirteen months old).
  3. My mother-in-law came, and we had a lovely, simple time: She arrives by train and we can't all fit in the car for daytrips, so we're forced to be creative with all that's in walking distance. This is a good kind of creativity.
  4. There have been some days of sunshine. Not quite warmth yet, but it feels like early spring instead of winter (don't tell the atmosphere that it's actually the last month before summer - I don't want to lay on the guilt too strong).
  5. The to-do list has gradually been whittled away. I can't tell you how good this feels. Tiny successes are like air to me - can't live without them.
  6. I have a lot of sewing and fabric hunting to do for the week ahead. Including buying the fabric above for the Little One's birthday.
  7. Invites to send, plans to make. And there's the village May Queen to prepare for (Olympic-themed house and buggy decorating). And the Jubilee street party. Stop. I'm exhausted just thinking about it.
  8. I need more quietness and kindness to myself, by myself. Perhaps I should forget number 7. for now.
  9. And there are nine long days until I see my mum again.

Birthday lemon cake anyone?


So it was the lovely husband's birthday. He loves lemon meringue pie, so naturally I made Nigella's lemon meringue cake from Feast. Except I was being a fancy pants so I made the lemon curd too.

Oh gosh. This is one you have to make. Go look at the one on Nigella's site, it's much prettier than mine. It tastes so good and unfortunately is lovely and light, which means you can't avoid having a second slice. Even worse, it looks like a faff (a sponge topped with a meringue, times two) but it is much easier to make than you'd imagine. Obviously, it's no Victoria sponge. But it's doable, even with homemade lemon curd (based on the passion-fruit curd on the next page in Feast - enough for a jar of leftovers, hoorah!).

Advice? If you make it, tightly clingfilm it to the plate and whack back in the fridge once you're done eating the first time. Otherwise, with all that cream and curd filling the cake, you'll watch the top very slowly sliding off. Luckily we caught ours in time! Fridge cold, it's not at such a risk as the filling is so much more solid. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Happy birthday lovely husband. Thanks for the photos! Now I'm off to eat homemade lemon curd on toast for breakfast.

Wednesday 9 May 2012

The pizza quest

Well here it is, the answer to my pizza prayers!

Let me backtrack a bit. Take-away pizza is seriously expensive. Pizza from the supermarket is okay, but usually means waiting for an offer on the Pizza Express ones and then there are only one or two toppings to choose from.

Pizza's a treat. And I always have in mind the pizza night that recurs in Barbara Kingsolver's personal story, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (read the book!), where they make pizzas with homemade tomato sauce as a regular Friday thing.

So I started the pizza quest: to find a pizza I could make at home that was delicious, authentic, but not too difficult. I started out with short-cut pizzas. You know, the kind that are made in frying pans in half an hour, or in the oven using scone dough. I must have made about five or six. Oh the disappointment. The crust is never crusty enough, the flavour's been too bland, and the crust also becomes very 'deep pan' when we're after the more original (and healthier) 'Italian' style thin-crust.

Then, for some unknown reason, on a whim over Easter I made bread again. I don't have a breadmaker, so this involves the full-on kneeding, proving and rising process. Surprisingly, it wasn't hard or onerous, or any of those negative things I had expected. In fact, I sort of enjoyed it. And my wrists didn't ache for hours from the effort (one of the great side-effects from carrying toddlers too much, I think). So all of a sudden, the pizza dough I had avoided making for so long didn't seem so scary any more.

I made the pizza dough from Jamie at Home. The recipe is here. It makes enough dough to feed our family (2 adults, a teenager & 2 toddlers) twice over, so half of it is now a giant clingfilmed sausage in my freezer. It cooked a dream - crispy, real pizzas. The one you see above is the lovely husband's. He topped his with quick tomato sauce, sliced mushrooms and mozzarella. Once it came out of the oven, on went the prosciutto, rocket leaves, dried chilli flakes and extra-virgin olive oil. Now, the lovely husband is a bit of a pizza snob. He's been the biggest critic of the previous scone-type versions. And he really liked it. Winner!

We'll be making pizza every few weeks now, if I have my way. Yum!

Tuesday 8 May 2012

Sewing gifts

I'll show you some of the gifts I've been making...


These tote bags are for the daughters of a friend. They both have the child's initial sewn on. The girls are little, and so are the bags - about 25cm long. I've made a few recently. I do like a bag! The fabric on the right is Ikea. I think it's really fun for little girl sewing projects. I wanted to give you a link but it seems they don't make it anymore.


This felt mobile is also for a friend's daughter. Not too hard to make but so effective. It's currently hung in my front window where I sew, and I haven't yet managed to part with it! Just cut out your felt shapes, thread your sewing machine with two contrasting colours (one for the needle, one for the bobbin), and start sewing through them, lining each new piece up as you go. Make sure you leave a good tail at the top to make a loop. And pop a bead weight on the bottom to make sure it hangs well. I've got a lot of plans for this technique.

PS This is my first post from an early morning blogging session (see Nine Things). Got up at 5.50. Let's see how long this lasts before I start falling asleep at the breakfast table!

Monday 7 May 2012

Nine things

The week that was; the week that will be
Lotta Jansdotter's 'Moira' in apricot, from the Echo collection & found here
  1. We had a lovely walk, just myself and the two littler boys, across a gorge and up into town. There, we visited charity shops to buy provisions for our village May Queen celebrations (and toys too, of course), and checked out our new lovely greengrocers (wicker baskets!).
  2. The lovely husband and I talked about ways to better manage our time, so that I can concentrate more on the sewing.
  3. The Big One joined the army cadets. Downside: I'm not so into the soldier thing. Upside: discipline, sport and community. Good things for a teenage boy to be doing.
  4. The two littler ones have been hard work. Tantrums and arguments. The Tiny One certainly knows how to stand up for himself now.
  5. I baked a lovely rhubarb and stem ginger crumble. But we gobbled it up so fast, I forgot to photograph it to show you.
  6. Finally ordered a new phone, with a decent camera. This is my solution to the whole blogging-without-a-camera problem, when I have to rely on a lovely but forgetful/busy/opinionated(!) husband to take blog photos for me.
  7. The Bank Holiday weekend has mostly been filled with walking and cooking. The cooking has been good. So far, I have made the crumble, squash soup, hot dogs with homemade ketchup, prosciutto & melon salad, lemon meringue cake, fish pie, and boiled ham with pease pudding. I have so enjoyed myself!
  8. This week I plan to focus on more sewing and more friend-seeing/calling.
  9. And I'm aiming to try getting up at 5.30 for a bit of 'me time' or sewing/blogging before the little ones wake. I know, I'm going to be knackered. But the Tiny One wakes around then anyway, and if he's not gone back to sleep by 6.15/6.30, I have to give up and get him up. I have come to accept and not feel guilty about needing to start the day with time to myself. I just need a bit of 'me' before I spend my whole day devoted to everyone and everything else. Dawn it is, then.

Friday 4 May 2012

My first quilt

Ta-dah! Here is the Tiny One's birthday quilt...


This is a first quilt in two senses: the first one I've properly made and his first quilt on his first birthday. There are lots of things I've learnt and will improve on, but I'm so proud of it, and myself. I really love it so.

There's a bit of a zoo animal theme in his room, hence the Noah's Ark fabric (from John Lewis). I bound it in yellow and backed it with a lovely, rich orange. I machine-quilted in straight lines either side of the squared rows, giving a striped look on the back (I love the back). All the fabrics are new except the blue stripes which came from a dress I wore as a child.

It is a pretty basic design, perfect for a first quilt. I loved making it. I can't wait to make another! I wonder if there's much of a market in quilts? I'd gladly be a quilter for hire. The next quilt I make will be a strip quilt, trying the 'quilt as you go' method (see here for a tutorial) and using a spray-baster to hold it all together, since it will be a full single size. Oh I wish I had a rotary cutter!

There's something really special about making a quilt for your child. It will wrap them, warm them, comfort them through the years. They will still have it when they grow out of it. It will soften and crease with time (it's already got a few). If you're lucky, and you made it well, you'll see it wrap, warm and comfort your grandchildren one day. I know, I'm a little odd to be thinking about my grandchildren already, and a little young. But I do. And I hope I'll be quilting for them too.

Wednesday 2 May 2012

May Day - or my attempt to be 'glass half full'


Happy May Day to you all (yes it was yesterday, but I started writing this yesterday). A day to celebrate the start of summer in the fields, fecundity in flora and fauna, warmth on the ground, and a community to share it all with.
The reality: we've had two or three days without rain in the past week. That makes two or three days in the last month, almost. It has been the wettest April on record. I drove out on Sunday around midday, at the car thermostat said 3.5oC. I'm itching to ditch the jumpers, to see some blue in the sky, to leave the kitchen door open so we can all flow in and out to the garden. I have to say, I'm not feeling very May-ish.

But I am trying to count my blessings and mark my glass as half full. The photos here today (lovely photographing: lovely husband) are from our day at the zoo, when it was dry and we all had such a fabulous time. The rain has brought more time for indoor activities all together. The food in our fridge is gradually changing as British asparagus and rhubarb start to arrive (heavenly). And spring will come, eventually.

PS I crossed my fingers when I wrote that.

Tuesday 1 May 2012

Place it here

I made this placemat for a little boy we know who loves his trains and vehicles. You can't really see it, but I machine-embroidered his name on the bottom right. Never done it before. I used white thread so that, if it wasn't very good, it wouldn't matter too much! It wasn't bad, but not good either. It puckered a lot, especially on the 'o'. Conclusion? Find a free-motion machine sewing tutorial and learn how to do it properly!
PS I have since discovered that you need a particular foot for your sewing machine to do this, so I'm not too disheartened with my effort using the regular foot!