Camping in St Davids, Pembrokeshire

I'm going to overwhelm you with beautiful photographs of our camping trip to St Davids in Pembrokeshire (SW Wales), while telling you the best and worst of our holiday. I hope you've got a cuppa handy and have given the kids a big box of Lego! Yes? Right, then let's get started...

Firstly, it goes without saying, it was just stunningly beautiful. Rugged yet not barren, imbued with all the jewel colours you could imagine. That sapphire sky! Those emerald cliffs! And the sea, oh the turquoise of the sea.

Pembrokeshire is also full of pretty, ice-cream coloured towns and villages. There are the tacky bits, but most of it is the sort of place that makes you wonder about moving there. Look, I even dressed nautically for the occasion (let's pretend it was happy happenstance instead of my usual embarrassing need to theme everything).

We had a beautiful day out in Tenby. The beach, well just look, are words needed? I highly recommend the little walk around the headland that the tourist office there suggests. You get to see the most amazing lifeboat you'll probably ever see.

It's got all the little nooks and crannies you'd hope for, whether those in the town or down on the seashore. I'm not sure how to say this without sounding like a snotty southerner, but Pembrokeshire will appeal to you if you like Cornwall!

Another highlight, during the second half of our week, was the most beautiful coastal walk along the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path. It really was my most favourite part of the holiday. The Little One and I caught crickets, we all watched in awe as coasteering teenagers appeared through gaps in the cliffs, we ate ice creams at the beautiful harbour of Porth Clais, and marvelled at every new view as the path twisted and turned.

It was worth the holiday alone. And that's saying something, because on our second night at the campsite half the tents were irreparably damaged by a huge storm, and ours was broken too. We were lucky to find somewhere to fix our broken tent poles. Being huddled in a tent with screaming winds around you, frightened children clinging to you and your husband and mother outside wrestling guy ropes while being battered by the elements does not appear in the dictionary's definition of 'holiday'. When the second storm hit 48 hours later, we weren't going to take any chances so we packed up our entire tent and luggage, drove to the nearest Travelodge for the night, and then came back the next day to set everything back up again. This does not appear in the dictionary under 'relaxing' either.

But just look at those views! It was almost as though the coast was apologising to us. And, battered though we were, we crumbled under the pressure of such beauty and forgave it.

The second half of our holiday also included a trip to the surfer's Whitesands beach for paddling, wave jumping, sandcastle building, and, of course, wind breaking.

Some geometric castles were built! For this one my husband was the put-upon assistant. I helped with the square and circular variants but I think his was best (don't tell him I said that).

Some beaches were sat on and, dare I say it, slept on. Some fields were flown on by kites and chasing boys. The wind did have some uses after all. And the football! Oh a lot of that was played too. I'm sure our neighbours on the campsite remember the odd ball hitting their tents (why do boys always forget to keep it in the middle of the field!?)

Possibly the most beautiful yet missed part of our visit was St Davids Cathedral. We briefly saw it (just look at those cloisters!) when searching for somewhere to eat lunch between rain showers (it has an impressive refectory) but because the weather truncated our holiday sightseeing, we missed out on a proper visit. I'm sure this was fate's way of getting us to go back to St Davids again.

We stopped off, near the end, at Pembroke Castle which has to be one of the best I've ever visited (and I've visited a lot). It was stunning. Truly stunning. Even under grey skies and with the highest sections shut due to the wind speed. Our boys relished the chance to be knights and kept in character all the way around our exploration of battlements and rooms.

They even have a giant map of Wales and giant chess knights to play with! I don't know exactly what they were in those boys' eyes but they played very earnestly with them for a good twenty minutes!

Go. I suppose that's the two letter word that sums this all up. Just look at those skies below! Just look at the sun on the calm sea. Even with all the hell thrown at us in the first four days, we came home slightly in love with the place. Though if we book to go again (and we stayed at St Davids' Caerfai Farm campsite, which was organic and a little basic in places but just what we were looking for and exactly what we'd recommend) we'll change our minds at the last minute if storms are forecast. We're fair weather campers from now on!

The 2015 Summer List

I feel like I can finally say, without jinxing it (though you know it really will be jinxed now I've said that)... summer's here! But what to do this summer? My list of activities for the boys' six-seven weeks at home is coming up in July, but here's my list of things that I want to accomplish, for me and the family. You know me, it's going to have nine things in it...

1. Get outdoors every day. Once the school holidays kick in it can be tempting to stay in with the Lego on a miserable day, but my boys are like sheepdogs - they need to get out. They need to work off some energy, they need a change of scene, they need inspiration and adventure. And I also need the inhalation of simplicity, appreciation and good old fresh air.
2. Visit more National Trust properties. Once a week - yes really - once the holidays kick in, and occasionally on weekends before then. We do go often but we went to Tatton Park last weekend (post to follow) and it cured all ailments, at least for a while.
3. Sew more for me. With the job I have (curtain & blind making), if I'm not sewing for someone else I'm not sewing at all. I've got to shift some of my plans from the 'to do' to the 'done' list.
4. Watch less telly. It's beautiful outside, there are books inside, conversation to be had... to be honest, I would've gladly done this a long time ago but my husband needs television to manually switch him from 'work' to 'relaxed' mode. I need to tell him that I don't.
5. Bring more of the outdoors indoors. Fill every vase at least once. It finishes a room, and it elevates my mood. It's better for the environment and my bank balance if I don't go and buy the ubiquitous cellophane-wrapped store flowers.
6. Keep spending less. Every little helps (no, I'm not referring to the supermarket). Not that we spend much anyway but we're trying hard to be even thriftier at the moment. I'll be making more ice creams at home, looking for free outdoor adventures, cutting off my jeans rather than buying shorts.
7. Bake more. We've been on a healthy eating kick recently and, with all the Easter chocolate still around, there's been no reason to bake. But there are healthy cakes out there these days (it's no longer an oxymoron) and the baking element of this blog's subtitle has been sorely lacking.
8. Make a little cot quilt for my first ever niece or nephew. She or he will be a summer baby and will have to get used to an auntie showering it in sewn gifts!
9. Fix myself. The rubbish anxiety condition that the PTSD left me with four years ago has been niggling a bit recently. I can usually go four-six months absolutely fine before a few days or weeks of a dip. But recently, though much less severe, it's been kicking in every few weeks and to be honest I'm fed up of it. It isn't me and it stops me from living the life I want and need to live.

Days out with the kids: West Green House Gardens in Hampshire

Let me pique your interest with these beauties...

Come for a walk with me. We're going to West Green House Gardens in Hampshire, a third of the way down the M3...

We'll potter along formal garden paths, boxed by hedges and planted with such an array of beauty that your heart will sing, while your children run around excitedly playing hide & seek...

We'll explore woodland paths too, tickled by ferns and sheltered by boughs laden with all the shades of emerald...

We'll find nooks and outdoor rooms, and every now and then a peek at the house we wished we lived in, the chicken coop that is fancier than any we've ever seen, the statues that surprise us...

And if we're there in spring time, the blossom, oh the blossom. And for tulip lovers (like us), every shade, every form, every delight we could imagine. The children will hop over the channels of water while we soak it all in...

We'll take note of the colours we see, the flowers we love, and vow to take our mothers one day, who would love it so much...

We will show the children the flowers they can smell, the insects buzzing around in spoilt gluttony, let them run down the paths and play hide & seek some more...

And every corner we turn will bring us a fresh view of elegance, of artistry, of wonder. We'll imagine sitting by that fountain in the thirties, cocktail in hand, band playing in the distance. Or pushing open those formerly unlocked gates and strolling, Victorian dress swishing around our ankles, with someone we hope likes us back...

Our families will rest by the lake, searching the depths for signs of fish, watching the ripples as they dance away, looking at their reflections...

If we're there in early spring, the magnolias will be out in all their gravity-defying beauty. We will muse on their bold promise of warmth and daylight to come...

We'll grab an ice cream from the cafe, or sit at one of the pretty little tables, adorned with little pots of flowers, and drink coffee from a filter or tea from a teapot - served as it should be, - drunk with birdsong in the air...

If we're there with our husband, we'll hold hands and talk about life and our plans, delight in our children as they play, and think how lucky we are, and how many blessings we can count...

If we're there with our friends, we'll note the hellebores and bluebells hidden in the flower beds, plan our own gardens, tell each other of how our lives are changing and blossoming too...

Perhaps we'll be lucky enough to be local enough to visit again. Perhaps we'll plan trips to the opera there, staged in the summer, or the garden parties with strings. Perhaps though, like my family and I, we'll know that the chances of us ever passing by again are so very small, and instead we'll take photographs, breathe it all in, and then write a little about it to tell you that if you can't come with us, go with your own loved ones instead. It is heavenly.

Spring has sprung

Yes it rains a lot, and gosh hasn't it been windy? But every few days we wake up to this:

And though the frost is there, the sun is singing that old song, "Morning has broken....", and I know it won't be long before the frost turns back to dancing beads of dew. If I step outside to look at that rising sun - and I often do - the birds are carolling about it at the top of their little lungs, as if they too feel like skipping.

We take a walk along the river that runs through our village, and the stream too is singing in its babbling voice, chuckling to itself with the glee of new life. The riverbanks are still largely void of growth, but look closer and you'll see that the sunshine with its warm breath has blown a message into the soil, and shoots are appearing. Trees are beginning to bud. Rabbits are scampering in the still-vacant campsite. And the birds are still singing in giddy chorus.

Walk a little further, away from the shade of the riverbank, and these glorious fellows meet you. That's my littlest, the Tiny One, in the distance there. He's exploring the farm lane, looking for new spring flowers, searching for lambs in the fields, grabbing every stick he can find with his brother.

It's such a good time of year. Everything has promise, hope and beginnings. While the winds are still often cold and the frosts plenty, the rains still flying in our faces; even on these days the nature around us is standing firm and believing in the spring days to come.

Bringing nature in: walking, foraging, collecting and displaying - the journey of myevergreen sprigs

We walk a lot with our children. If they're not in school, we're off out with them. We love the outdoors; but on a purely practical note, we have boys and they need a daily dose of fresh air and exercise to stop us all going crazy! And sometimes when we walk, when my kitchen table is a little bare and I need a little outside in my indoors, I go armed with a shoulder bag and a pair of secateurs.

I have a theme in mind: wild flowers, seed heads, or in this case evergreens. There's not much about in January but the often ignored evergreens are sculptural and succulent, making a great centrepiece. Cut a sprig of holly here, some laurel there, ivy with its buds out, pine for its needles. Wear gloves: it's cold but a lot of your fodder is prickly. Cut the right sort of length for your vase and don't take more than you need - apart from anything else, detangling it all from your bag is a nightmare if you've not loosely packed!

Come home, warm up, put the kettle on. Fill your jug with water and detangle those evergreen sprigs that you've foraged. Arrange them in your vase, and suddenly your kitchen is - for free, yes, gratis people - adorned with a bit of the outside, a bit of nature, a bit of life. They'll be happy for several weeks if you're lucky. And so will you. 

A treat of a weekend: gardening, bringing nature indoors, re-upholstering an armchair, and other winter comforts

It's been a beautiful treat of a weekend. The weather has, for the first time in over a month, had a tinge of warmth to it. I got into the garden and cleared, planted and dug and it felt good. I don't know a lot about gardening but I do know that I really love it. It has the same feel as sewing for me - that when I'm engaged in the process it absorbs me and grounds me, and it's where I find my full self when I'm feeling a little off-kilter. I brought the last green fern indoors: I love their prehistoric sculptural shape, and it's best appreciated individually.

I've also been slowly plugging away at a re-upholstery project our bedroom. We were donated a lovely old armchair that needed updating and I thought, 'well I'll just have a go and do it myself'. It is far from a conventional re-upholstery job! But it's working nonetheless and I'm enjoying the slow, purposeful rigor of the process. (I'm using Anna Maria Horner's Raindrops Poppies in bronze, from her Field Study collection) (My three-year-old took that picture of me without me knowing!)

We've also had dear friends to stay, good walks in the last remnants of iced snow, warming soups and an unheard-of afternoon of reading papers and chatting while the boys played (courtesy of one of those soulless soft play places that children always adore and parents get a little peace at!) It's been a good weekend. I hope yours was too.

preserving the blackberry season... without preserving

These have been the joy and the bane of my life recently:

Why? The two little ones are obsessed. 

It's such a joy to see their purple-stained faces as they scour the hedgerows for more midnight-coloured jewels. To teach them the rules of picking (none too low; check for bugs; go for plumpness and colour) and watch them put those rules into action. To see them brush off the thorn scratches and nettle stings that would usually breed misery, yet are now a minor inconvenience on the way to berry heaven. To feel like I'm the mother in an Enid Blyton, rose-tinted childhood story.

But it's also been a bit of a pain to have every walk take three times as long, as every single bush needs to be stopped at and inspected before being devoured. To clean yet another stained and ingrained fingernail. Make yet another ignored plea that "you've had more than enough" and "we really do need to go."

I'm surprised these boys haven't turned into blackberries, in the style of Roald Dahl's Violet Beauregard. Despite eating ridiculous amounts, we have managed to pick just a few to keep rather than eat al fresco. They are hiding in the freezer waiting for the blackberry season to be over - and it's almost done. They're destined for a crumble, but until then we mixed a few with banana, peach, milk and a tiny scoop of vanilla ice cream to make an after-school smoothie treat. There's no point in giving you a recipe: just add a bit of this and a bit of that, and don't forget your milky-mauve-mustache smile at the end.

Let's make a Home Nature Table with the kids - in 10 easy steps

Well hello autumn! And this is our goodbye to the summer: a nature table in our home, made by my children.

So for those of you who have young children and have spent a good deal of your summer holidays out and about, walking, playing, in the woods, at the beach, on the hills... I bet your hallway looks like this every time you get back:

So did mine. Repeatedly. And after twice catching my husband trying to bin all our finds only a day later, I decided to act. We took what had been lovingly collected but carelessly discarded and actually made it into something beautiful and memorable: a home nature table. Want one too? Then let's get started...

1// Find yourself an under-used table, ideally a low one, made for children. Cover it with some fabric or a tablecloth that will make it feel special and present your finds nicely.

2// Group your nature finds by type and look for some nice containers to vary the height and presentation for each. We put our feathers in an old golden syrup tin. (That's the Tiny One's hand in action)

3// Pine cones look best in a bowl (if you have lots like we did) or a clear jar. That's the Little One proudly placing his big bowl at the back.

4// Use a jar or vase to arrange your leafy twigs just as you would a bunch of flowers.

5// I resisted the urge to do some artful arrangement, so this is the Little One and the Tiny One squeezing every fallen oak twig and random stick they had collected into my little jam jar. They did a fab job.

6// We then placed our beach drift wood and pine cone twigs lying down a the front, for a bit of height variation.

7// The Tiny One chose his favourite beach stones for his favourite blue bowl (there are another few dozen decorating our garden!)

8// And the Little One chose his favourites for his best yellow bowl.

9// Ta da! When we'd finished arranging everything we stood back, had a few proud photographs, then realising we were missing something. What's a nature table without a bit of naturalist labelling?! It had been a long time since the Little One had practiced his writing so we sounded out the letters together while he wrote each label. It was a great opportunity to introduce a bit of literacy without it feeling like homework.

10// We placed the labels by each of our finds and were done! The boys were so excited to show their daddy when he came home. And my hallway is remarkably tidy!

Ps thank you to those of your who took the time to leave kind comments on my last post. They worked!