Date and coconut squares

Couldn't resit another foodie post. On a sugar-free kick right now, but needed something sweet to satisfy that occasional craving.



Ingredients:
Base
Dates about 250g
Coconut cream, one 200g block

Topping
Coconut cream, little sq. inch
coconut oil (organic cold pressed sort)
Cocoa or carob powder
tiny dash of maple syrup or runny honey or brwn rice syrup etc
couple of table spoons of desicated coconut

Melt the coconut cream on lowest heat, stiring all the while as it very easily burns. Put dates and then melted coconut cream into blender and blitz until well combined and mushy (remember to stone the dates). Turn into little inch high baking tray and pat down flat with spoon or hands. For the topping, melt the coconut cream and coconut oil together in a small pan, stiring all the while again. When melted turn off heat and add cocoa powder, desicated coconut, dash of syrup and what ever else you fancy (I also used flaked almonds). Pour and spoon over the base and refrigerate. We lasted half and hour before tasting and the topping had only just set, but overnight is great, today they are lovely and thick and chewy. Big hit in this house!

See that plate? I made that too :)

Strawberries

Our first strawberries this year (or the few that were left over from our four punnets!)

Organic and local to boot. Delicious.

Enjoyed with balsamic, and later with lashingings of tangy yogurt and then finally just as they are.


Another fluffy yet delicious post :)

Boys Only!

Knitted nappy cover/soaker: It took me three attempts to get the rolled edge leg cuffs right, but the rest was easy-peasy. It's a Noro yarn in a wool silk mix. I'd like to try a pair of longies next, my SIL's baby is due in winter and she loves cloth but I don't know if she has used wool soakers much, she can try these!

I get a Suma order once a month. If you don't know, Suma is a big wholefood supplier and supplies health food shops and farm shops with everything from orgainc grains to tomato ketchup to chocolate to Weleda soap. If you live rurally enough you can make an order, I get together with a couple of friends. The thing is though, everything comes in bulk, so say 30 toilet rolls, or a giant box of six olive oil soaps... as you can see the packs of kitchen and toilet rolls are played with more than toys in here right now. Isaac and Felix have made sofas, houses, walls, toilets (!) and so many other things. Yesterday they sectioned off the laundry room and told me it was 'boys only'. Don said, oh great that means me! Certainly not! You are a man, Isaac told him sternly.





Felix the pastry chef. He sees a rolling pin and he is a whirling, pizza throwing, dervish of a worker scattering snippets and shape cutters like a mad man. I am squished to one side to make the humble chicken pie dinner, slightly in awe of his pin wielding.

In clover

Finished!

Felix in his knitted sweater (Regia 6ply (DK) sock wool in Forest)



It's raining this week. I cancelled the willow weaving woman who was coming over to my garden to show a bunch of us home ed. folk how to use willow... baskets, fences, animals. Date moved to next week instead (fingers crossed for a bit of sun).

Doing a daily walk despite damp and drizzle (sometime with boys sometimes not) of about 3 miles, my speedy-but not-quite-jogging walk. It's such a delight let me tell ya - almost the entire walk is down little lanes banked with foxglove, red clover, comfrey, and masses of vivid lime green ferns. The other day we took backpacks and snacks and little notepads and a native plant book and Isaac identified and I drew comfrey. Not one car did we see on our journey, quite fantastic. We could run and skip and lark about in the middle of the road because no one ever seems to come along. Wonderful! And then, crossing a little river over a stone bridge and we hear intense baaa-ing. Three old Welsh farmer men had cordened off a couple of pens at the side of a field and were in the process of getting the sheep to run through a chute, the lambs they forked off one way and the Mama's another. Then they weighed each lamb, squirted some worming medicine (we asked) into their mouths and some had tags punched through their ears, some had a red mark sprayed on their backs. It looked to be related to their weight but these guys were not forthcomming with their conversation as obviously (to them but mystifying to me) we were English, they Welsh, so it was not important for them to explain stuff. Actually not so mystyfying. Only the non local and non Welsh would have time to be out walking just for fun. Makes me smile. And them too probably, but for different reasons. One of the old guys, the most curious, sharper chin, slightly snazzier flat cap asked me (in English) where we lived. I said the name of the house and he nodded as if yes, that explains everything, no need of further conversation. We live in a most modestly named house which when translated literally means 'lots of land'. But of course it's not ours in any case (we rent) and was sold off in pieces bit by bit by the previous owner a ninety year old woman who lived here her whole life. I sometimes walk around touching things, squinting and trying to imagine the life she lived. Pretty hard to do to be honest, the pig shed now stores bikes and paddling pools and other modernn bric-brac. The long pantry/larder/cold stoere and cheese making room is our kitchen with mod-cons and her old kitchen is our sitting room and in place of giant range, stands little pretty woodburner. To be honest, romantic notions aside for a mini-second, I think I prefer the centrally heated version of this house/life, this house can get unbearably cold.





So we watched the sheep for ages. Really there were a lot of lambs. Then for the rest of the walk home Isaac and I told story after story about a special black lamb who liked to eat red clover and who was friends with a unicorn... and so they went on, getting more and more fantastic until a white chimmney stack spouting a delicate plume of smoke signaled home. Felix? He LOVES stories of any description, from books, made-up ones, with fancy dress, on a tape in the car... he is mesmorised and then acts them out. So he loved the sheep tales. Sheep and red clover featured highly so far this week for us. I picked masses and masses of just ripe flower heads and have spread them out to dry at one end of the kitchen. Can't decide whether to dry them out for infusions or look into making an oil... red clover is reputedly amzing for enhancing fertility amongst other things, is high in protein and absorbable calcium and magnesium, has a high mineral content, alkalinises the body and regulates hormones. It is very tasty with equal parts nettle. I alternate this on a regular basis with raspberry leaf, usually I order it all from Neals Yard Remedies, but hey if it's right here I ought to try picking and drying it myself.

When it rains too hard for little boys to want to go out (even with exciting full body waterproof's on hand) then jigsaw days are in order. Jigsaw days which apparently require chocolate spread on toast to make them just right.

Flowers versus Spiderman

This weekend:

Isaac was really into making these, remember them?




Also the drawing of rocket ships zooming off into space featured highly.



Felix mastered What cards and so naturally wanted to play as many times as possible. They are the same set of cards my sister and I played with, so I was happy to oblige him.



Isaac went shopping with Don and decided to buy me flowers, butter, sausages and a spiderman figure I could share with him. I like the flowers best! The Spiderman came a close second though and I have very much enjoyed my few alloted minutes playing with him. Thanks Isi!

Collecting treasure

Windy, wild and grey day here.

A few days ago the boys ran nymph like into the sea here naked, while today we needed wool hats to keep the chill from our ears.

Treasure collecting, a daily occurence:



We walked far, with the wind behind us, pushing us on. But the walk back was powerful and we had to sing marching songs to keep us going such as The Grand Old Duke of York. Isaac and I dithered collecting driftwood, our arms stacked and when we reached the car it was so warm and comfortable, in the best way - the way cars can be after a cold long walk.



This morning we picked a huge basket load of nettles and made nettle soup - just like this. Thanks for the inspiring recipe! Our garden is so chock full of nettles that we could feed an army with nettle soup, but fortunatly for our fingers soup enough for four was all that was needed.

The lambs in the field behind us have grown and still scarper when we try to coo and get close.



Fabulous for me to walk the lane and see the hedgerows blooming. I walked slower than the boys today, my eyes greedy for green life - or maybe I was just collecting treasure!





And just because I am on a roll here this week posting garden photos, Felix wanted his hair tied up and specifically asks me to take photos of him on his swing, here you go Fe - see yourself now?



Grandma this one is for you - Isaac LOVES his new jumper - you are a super knitter :)

Nits

Oh and just for a little upper-bit-of-fun Felix now also has nits (eggs) and the headlice nicely shared from his generous big brother.

Arghhh! They are the most horrible things. Ever. The eggs are so small you can't see then, and they are sticky, they stick to the root of the hair shaft. The fine toothed combs, nine times out of ten, are not fine enough to pull them off. So for every few strands of hair I need to go over several painstaking times (whilst wiping the comb free of eggs beteewn every stroke so as to prevent re-infection). Leave just one egg and that one hatches and lays eggs (over 100 within 3 days) and then they hatch out and so on. Just from one little left behind egg. It's impossible.

I am seriously thinking about trying to persuade the boys to cut their hair really, really short. But, they really like having long hair. And yet they have already told me 1) they don't like their heads itching from the nits and yes they want them out, but 2) they can't abide the combing....?????

I have tried lots of solutions which kill the lice but not the eggs. So rather pointless to use apart from stopping any itching for a few days (itching caused by lice sucking the blood from scalp). I have spent a mini fortune on natural products online. Yet, when I look at info on the regular pesticide based solutions (which I remember having as a child - once) studies from BMJ and such point out that they don't work, or when they do it's on small numbers like 13% of subjects. And that the harmful chemicals in them have been linked to increases in childhood lukemia and other nasties. All info points to 1) shaving the head or 2) vigourous daily combing.

Currently we comb once or twice a week if I am in luck and have willing subjects. Even then I have to bribe (can I say 'tempt' instead?) statue-still boys with treats in the form of unusual snacks, new toys and new dvd's. So yeah, another mini fortune spent on staying-still 'temptations'.

I have read so many success stories online with many of the products I have tried and am just thinking what?

Answer: These people must be lying.

Can't face the thought of self being less then miraculous wielding my powerfully round shaped stainless steel super-comb, or shoddy in the solution sloshing department.

The next time we are near school children it's hair tied up with headscarf knotted for extra protection. Of course that will be our strategy when when I get rid of our current new hatchlings. Or should Don and I volunteer to shave our heads in sympathy too? It really is getting desperate. Felix would hate it if I did that though. He already cried once this week - he noticed I had tinted my eyelashes.

Are you my real muumy or her naughty sister Clarabelle?

Er.... I''m your REAL mummy.

Well please go and wash your face again to get those nasty eyes off.


Really. Beautifying effects amount to zero in this house as achieve same results from Felix when I attempt to sneak a bit of mascara past his beady eyes.

Better stick to the (unfound as yet) baser joys of de-lousing. Shudder.

Green

We were reminded of this particular rhyme form a Shirly Hughes book this morning when the grass in our garden became literally the 'green waves in a green sea'.

A small Viking Long boat battled with the Pirate ship. And won.

Our sunny mornings have an early pattern of play in the garden. Today I lounged feeling head achey and today I am photographed.

This afternoon was a hot trail through the bluebell woods. Magnificent. But not photographed as I carried Fe on my shoulders uphill for a good hour. Stretch. Hot bath called for.

Sand writing

A life well lived isn't one of accumulation but of what we give away.

Of inhaling and exhaling, of holding on and letting go, giving away.... That is life with children! Giving what people need, giving an extra bit, just for the sunshine in doing so. Letting go of the need to control and direct, and *see* every little bit of lives lived. Exhaling the accumulated stress, inhaling the cherry blossom. Holding on to tiny hands and doing it for the sheer pleasure of soft skin and rounded knuckles. Letting go of the need to have clutter free and holding on to the snapshot visions of creativity flowing messily in abundance in sunlit rooms.

Feeling strongly today that spirituality and energy can be expressed through home and family relationships. And creativity just pours out when you can dream and loll and let your hands twist stems of flowers, bake a pizz and eat it off the grass. Yum. Of course non of these photos are about that! Nah, these are of today's day. Lived and breathed and now ready to dream away in slumber.

Wildflowers tied with a silver ribbon and presented by friend at Beltane :)



See the mutant dasiy flower? :)


It's a catterpillar of course! As soft and furry and life like as an imagined fairy one. The boys ask me to make these a lot. They get excited every time.


Some boys like to write backwards don't you know.

And forwards and downwards and upside down......

Some boys like to draw a field....

...with one little pig inside!

Sometimes, it's all about rebuilding:

Mummy! What's that? I asked for a castle!

I'll just jump and squish it so you can do it again!

Today was one of letting go and holding on. Dreaming and seeing and exhaling and inhaling. Mostly giving away. And getting more back than your heart knows what to do with :)