it's here, summer

~ being by the side of the sea











No front teeth!



Best friends.







She was a blur of excitement-by-the-sea







~ celebrating a man we all love

He held hands, procured ice cream, spades, hats, dandled toes and wondered why we live away from the sea. Why indeed?





~ lamenting freak brief flooding; water swept down the lane and into the garden and washed away a lot of the veggie stuff and paths (farmers this year plowed their fields in furrows for potatoes and now the water channels direct to lucky-us). Thank goodness for raised beds. Poor (quite literally) people who live downhill from deforestation. I have Sainsbury's and Mrs Organic Veg, so perspective is all. I spent the whole morning munching my way through a mega bag of peas so delicious I will have to flinch when buying store bought come winter. Gratitude that most veg is intact, although goodbye strawberry bed.



~ joy in the kitchen: nettle and comfrey ointment making whereby a foolish woman stuffed her hand into the jar to pack it down. I am cured for rheumatism for life if sting-cure really works.



My mind is racing ahead with ointment and balms and massage oil recipes I shall try, some new (st.johns wort oil) some tried and tested (calendula and chamomile). I'm ahead of the game in pickings, having decided months ago a good few crops would go towards the medicine chest, I've planted many wondrous herbs and flowers just for this, but chamomile in it's star-burst glory grows at every field edge here, so little effort on my part for that. Elderflower cordial was made, Isaac is the sous chef, it's his calling I think to spend much time in the kitchen (or are all nine year old boys in love with re-runs of River Cottage?). Wonderfully shaped old olive oil bottles get another use and with so much lemon; pureed, grated, peeled, squeezed the infusing cordial wafted through the house like the sweet summer it is. I used the recipe from this book.



~ Isaac and I get lost in our badminton 'battles' each day (I don't like to keep score, he does - mainly because he beats me:) ). Green shady light, chickens underfoot and Esmé using her racket to chink with ours, or flicking away chook poop in the long grass. Lovely. It is actually. Summer reigns and I am glad to be in it's hold.