seventy-seven

we love books

 I saw a fabulous post over at quilt while you're ahead.  Monica, another book lover, has given up a meticulous system of book organisation and sorted her books by colour.  The effect is beautiful.  I would love to be so brave.  In our house we have organised the books by subject and/or author.  The system and it's in-built idiosyncrasies have evolved over fourteen years of marriage and three house moves.   

 

My husband loves his books and I fear if he came home to find I had re-arranged everything by colour we might not make that fifteenth anniversary.  (I am kidding about the divorce but he would not be happy).  So for now when I want to gaze at a beautiful bookcase organised according to colour I shall have to go elsewhere.

PS - I will show him the second photo as evidence that he doesn't always put the books where they should be.  I mean to say The Spanish Civil War smack in the middle of American political autobiographies tsk tsk. 

summer muffins

Last Friday there were lovely raspberries and blueberries at the market and although most of them were were scoffed over the weekend there were a few left this morning.  They were a little bit smushy and there not quite enough for a cake but plenty for muffins.

makes 12 standard muffins

• 10 oz/280g self raising flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• pinch of salt
•  4oz/110g caster sugar
  
• 1 egg
• 8fl oz/240ml milk
• 3fl oz/90 ml vegetable oil OR  3oz/85g butter (melted)
• 6oz/170g summer berries (you can use frozen straight from the freezer)

1. Pre-heat oven to 375F/190C/gas mark 5, and put liners in the muffin tins.
2. In a large bowl sift the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.
3. in another bowl beat the egg and stir in the milk and oil (or melted butter).
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir until just combined.  The mixture will be lumpy but that's fine.
5. Gently stir in the berries and spoon the mixture into the muffin papers.
6. Bake in the oven for about 20-25 minutes.

those magnificent men in their flying machines

We had a lovely day on Sunday in Victoria Park in East London.  My favorite steam fair Carter's was there as part of a bigger shindig called Paradise Gardens.  However the best part of the day was a show we caught just by chance from a theatre company called Hoodwink.  The show was called Leap of Faith and was (in their own words) a celebration of the human aspiration to fly: paper wings, balloons, feathers, and flying monks.   The children from aged 2 to 12 and all the grown-ups were engaged for the full 45 minutes.  There was a even a monk fired from a cannon - honest!

I couldn't write about the day without a picture of the merry-go-round.  

P.S.  The title of the post comes from a song I remember from my childhood but I must point out for the sake of vanity that the film from whence the song came was made BEFORE I was born.

smitten

 There are few things I love more than a a piece of homemade cake, accompanied by a cup of tea of course.  Poppy seed and lemon is a particularly good combination but I have tried many recipes for lemon and poppyseed cake and they were all lacking something.  But now the long search is over, and I am smitten. The recipe for this slice of heaven came courtesy of Smitten Kitchen.   It is rich with butter, heady with lemon and dark with poppy seeds  - a perfect summer cake.  As it seems that Smitten Kitchen and I share a common view on what we require from a good cake I may have to work my way through the cake recipes on her site.  In the interests of research of course! 
I would like to have shown you a picture of it's rich seedy interior but the cake was a gift for our hosts on Sunday and I think they have thought me a little more odd than usual if I had brought it along with a slice taken out.

distracted

Usually I am distracted by things on the web. Links on blogs that send me off journeying deep into other peoples worlds. I love blogs.   But  this past week I have been distracted by tidying, sorting and spring cleaning.  My sewing corner in particular was a disaster.  I had to make some tote bags for a summer fair and realised that things had become more than a little disorganised.    I had previously found these glass jars at Ikea for 99 pence and they were perfect for my plans.  So calm has returned and I'm really inspired to get some serious sewing done.

doubt

I had a busy two weeks and haven't written much and nothing here.  I wondered about how many blogs are started and then abandoned.  I wondered again about why I was doing this.  I wondered if I was too busy to write or did I just not have anything interesting to write about.  But then I looked back over the posts I had written so far and I was happy with my work - room for improvement of course - but it seems OK and I like the effect it has already had on my photography. So, onwards and upwards.

the best of times and worst of times

 

There came a point sometime ago when any inquiry about how the the school day was greeted with a single OK from my beloved eldest daughter.   Overtime I came up with a strategy.  I asked her to say what the best and worst thing about the day were.  It's something I've continued with all the children and it's been a great way to get the children to talk about their day.  

However there are some days when the answers are hard to hear.  It's an evening when I have to take a deep breath and prepare to send my dear boy back to school because as I know from the answers to my daily questions this will pass and there will be days soon when I'm overwhelmed with a list of all great things that happened that day. 

 

happy feet

Our half term holiday was a great success and the garden largely survived my absence.  (There was one exception but I will save that moan for another time.)  The sun came out and N announced that her feet were happy feet now they were back in her crocs.  We had lots of lovely days on the beach but managed to drag ourselves away to visit the magnificent Forde Abbey.  

  

The house was originally a Cistercian monastery and has been added to by the families who have lived there in the hundreds of years since the dissolution of the monastery in 1539. It's a lovely house to look round.  There is a wonderful sense of it still being a family home unlike some of those houses which seem to have picked a point in history and preserved it behind heavy red ropes and no entry signs.  

There are also 30 acres of beautiful gardens with three huge ponds - one of then dating back to monastic times,  and a great letterbox trail which the children really enjoyed.  A is nearly 12 now and it's great to see her still enjoying chasing round and rolling down hills with her younger siblings.

 

I also came away with some serious greenhouse envy.  Mr W is worried.