made: two things

First off, on this wet wet day I made Wild Garlic Pesto (vegan version since I am trying to curb my cheese cravings). You would never know this has no cheese, said from someone who ate a large slice of raw Brie for breakfast yesterday.

Wild Garlic Pesto (vegan)

50g nuts and/or seeds; I used a handful of cashews, same of walnuts and a sprinkle of sunflower seeds that I had dehydrated with tamari
50g of wild garlic (this is approximate, I would say two big handfuls of picked leaves)
olive oil, to drizzle, couple of glugs
sea/pink salt, couple of large pinches
1/2 tsp dijon mustard
1/2 tsp of white wine vinegar

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~ So, pound the nuts in a pestle and mortar or food processor,remove and keep separate for a minute.
~ Chop the leaves and then pound or process them too
~ Add the oil, salt, vinegar and mustard
~ Add the nuts back in and give a final blitz.

Done!

Beyond Puerperium

brooding

We have a broody hen sitting in an old Victorian Broody coop. I love this contraption. It does look a little jail-like, but it's so solid and perfect. I wonder how many hens it has held?

Speckeldy is sitting on 9 eggs. Esmé and I had to collect eggs over two or three days in order for her to have enough. After much deliberation I consented to her becoming a mother hen. Remember what happened to our last batch of chicks? One word: fox.

She is sitting on her own eggs crossed with our Warren/Red cock, plus a mixture of white, blue and black hens mixed together agin with the red cockerel. I am interested to see the variations that will occur in these new magical strains of hybrid hen!

Once on the nest if you have more eggs to add, you just need to place them near her and after a minute or so she nudges them underneth her along with the rest - she acts all; oh! How did I let two of my precious eggs roll out! Hens are so simple. It's a pleasure sometimes to deal with the simpler creatures on this earth (I tell ya).

I have been marvelling in Spring, see that little yellow golden field perched on the hilltop? It's like treasure.

Blossom on my new little apple tree.

And very glad that I can do so whilst still being able to view my feet. Hello feet! I am growing daily. And have already moved onto sleeping with a pillow between my legs and lying on top of a lambskin. Soothing for hips.

Isaac's little low celinged room has been painted in his vibrantly chosen sunny yellow. Those Earthborn paints are GREAT to use. They *are* more expensive, these clay paints, but *one* coat. Seriously, was all it took. So I guess if you were using a lesser sort if paint and applying many layers it may work out similar priced. I enjoyed the feeling of painting with this stuff. And no scent, of course, other than a rich wet-clay smell. We used their range of eggshell for the wood work and it dried super matt and super super quickly. So good!

I am still deep in curtain making, but feel reluctant to hang them in a room that will not be painted for a couple of months yet.... we have some damp issues over winter and need to strip lining paper from ancient crumbling walls. So not a quick neat job like the boys rooms. Still, it feels so nice to paint and freshen things up. I am winging it with the curtains, lining and all. They are turning out so well. So grateful for my MIL giving me her mothers very very old Singer. My new cheap-o version bust up pretty quickly. This is heavy and steady a machine and churns out stitches just perfectly. Felix picked himself the 'colour of the sea', clay paint and for him this turned out to be a pale-ish lilac. We have yet to start his bigger room. He has sooooo much junk Lego, that it's a big effort to even contemplate starting to shift it all out. But we will do it. Of course. he is eager and slightly envious of his brothers non-cream room. And his room has no ceiling beams! Joy of joys. Cobwebs and cutting in. that is what ceiling beams mean. Although they are useful for being so solid one can bang in nails and hooks for various hangings....

My super old banger-car finally gave up the ghost. So it was time to hit ebay and get another. We snagged what seems to be a wonder (fingers crossed it stays so). And I feel I have crossed to the dark side by driving a 4x4. BUT. It's a 7 seater! With room for the dog too! It's like a little diesel tractor and we are all enjoying it. Especially Esmé, as seen. I think my average journey is five miles, so hopefully this car will last a good while. I have never driven either an automatic (it's like cheating!) nor been so high up, I sometimes feel like I am in a lorry or bus, we are getting to see things over hedgerows we didn't know existed previously. It's pretty fun.

My garden is a pleasure to be in. Everything is growing growing.

Any idea what these are?

We know what this is - do you?

King Alfreds Teacake fungi of course :)

Growing... me too (21/22 wks), and looking sort of tired in these pics.

my own

I am a third of the way through the Beyond Puerperium pattern, which I did end up buying (about ten seconds after my last post). BUT.... well it is very similar to the (free) Coffee Bean that I have been so in love with, the construction is virtually identical with a different amount of stitches between markers. And I *think* I prefer the look of the Bean, it seemed to knit up faster. Or perhaps that was simply the colour changes which kept me moving on. Anyway, it's happening with this one, and too bad I picked a bigger size to work is how I am feeling right now. Perhaps the end result will be worth it.



I dragged for days about sewing the final button on to these tiny shoes, and when I finally got my act together and did it, it took about 30 seconds. Funny how the things you put off really are tiny things, but in your head are these huge boulders weighing you down with their unfinishedness.



I am unfinished too on these curtains I am sewing for the kitchen/dining room. But that is ok, because I only have the linings to go and the tape for the tops. Plus I *just* started them, and then in about half an hour they were pretty much done. They were so easy to whip up, it has left me feeling less daunted by making the two sets of full length ones for my bedroom.



Felix made this mallet at Forest School yesterday from one piece of wood using another mallet and a HUGE big bush knife, like a machete. It was pretty impressive. Esmé wanted to make one too but I distracted her (Esmé and a machete? I think not) and she ended up dipping every ones scraps and shreds of wood into mud to make 'chocolate bars'. There really was a lot of mud, it would pour down with rain for about three minutes and then the sun and blue skies would burst out again as if a trick had made us imagine the rain. Only the slick mud (chocolate) underfoot gave the game away.

Today my day will be going something like this: get us all dressed soon since breakfast is done. Feed the chickens and check on the broody one who won't budge from the nest. Check on washing - is it dry enough to bring indoors? Can I hang out another load which I already have here waiting? Pop to town and take Esmé to the library, then go to the butchers to get bones for the dog. On the way back stop off to buy more hay. Once home make a new nest in the broody coop for said chicken with new hay and move her in with whatever eggs she has so far. Walk the dog. Make rice pudding for kids (with goat milk honey and cinnamon). Make lunch. Sew some more on my curtains. Knit. Check on rice pudding. Make play-dough for The Girl (who already asked and I promised - ditto the rice pud). And then. Well, no doubt Isaac will be back and the late afternoon stuff will kick in. Another dog walk, dinner prep. I need to clean the bathrooms. And goodness knows what else. A friend called to say she may pop over with her new baby. Yum. I need to call the midwife (s) both NHS and independent. And book swimming lesson for Felix, and call up about a trampolining class he wants to take. I really should paint some of the deliciously scented clay- Earthborn eggshell on the woodwork in Isaac's room if I get the chance.

I am keen to get back to my Isabel Allende book I am reading, but my goodness, that is bedtime stuff. No way have I ever managed to read during the day (unless breastfeeding and someone else has the other children). I picked up an Allende book in the second hand bookstore (one of the dozen in town) only it turned out to be one she wrote for older children, young adults. It was fabulous. I totally recommend them. Adventure story with mystique and magic. I am reading one of her adult ones now and it is equally as good. But different. I think I would like to read the other two kids ones in the series. So yeah, that will be the bulk of my day with all of the randomness thrown in that I can't imagine right now. Or it might take a whole other route. Depending. And yet. At the end of it all, should someone ask, I am usually at a loss to describe what I have done. Shrug it all away. It is the way of the women at home. You do everything and and also 'nothing' totally without clarity or singularly definable, like yes, I wrote a report, attended a meeting and secured a deal. Or whatever. I wrote a chapter in my latest book. Perhaps; I baked four cakes and five trays of brownies to sell. I never quite know what to answer. Because it is everything. And would fill up too many sentences with too many words. I read the same library book five times. I walked my dog and the sky and sun and wind were so beautiful I forgot where I was. I felt my baby kick and smiled a thousand smiles all wrapped into one. I already, just now while typing this opened three 'presents' Esmé wrapped up for me (with proper un-used wrapping paper!): a stapler, a pencil and a book. Yesterday she wrapped me up a mint. And a hairbrush. And a plastic Lego dog she wrapped late last night for the tooth-fairy and left under her pillow who then had to oblige with a silver coin. I helped Felix spell three made up words (the sort that one might experience/exclaim while being thumped with a hearty stick or sliced with a sword)for a Ninjago story he is writing with the help of a load of stickers and his pencil. I went and turned on the dishwasher. Esmé is opposite me, and just found some black card and is using white yellow and pink chalks to draw things and show me for my opinion roughly every 7 seconds.

raw chocolate brownie with hemp chocolate cream


I do not know how I get to write blog posts. I am not sure how mothers do it. But we do because we want to connect. And make other mothers, nod and go, oh yeah. Me too. Yep, I licked the spoon and went back for seconds. Yep I accidentally kicked the cat and then didn't feel all that sorry since it is just plain greedy. being underfoot as it is constantly. Yep I knitted and listened to someone reading aloud. I watered some cress-heads and wondered if the postman might come soon (not because he *is* the postman and I like, rather that he may carry exciting things to give me). Ha.

I had my 20 week scan on Monday and the baby hid it's face in it's hands and made all of us (all five of us in that tiny room) smile and say, wow, a real live baby! And I feel as excited and happy as I was with my very first baby. Wondering, dreaming, imagining. And your hands, already poised to take that tiny face and stroke it gently with a finger. I do not know how people make those comments, the ones that seem to imply - you have enough children, loosing one wouldn't be so bad, you have others. It's not like you only have the one. Your whole life. And I feel the vastness of space creeping in and the lack of understanding there. You don't split your love to share with the next child, and so on. It's like with each new child love you didn't know existed, or that you were capable of having surges in, and it's a whole new love for that particular child, all their own. Nothing to do with the others. They have theirs too and it's singular, completely theirs. Your mind splits and can focus on the love for each child without it mingling or distracting or subtracting from the others. It would be horrifying, devastating and life ending to loose one of those threads. It would not compensate to have others. Love is not like that.

I don't know where that came from. A remembered past conversation that sometimes springs up in my mind. And I defend and validate, as you when going over old conversations. Ones you are unlikely to ever have again. Thankfully :)

Time to go, and begin the vastness and undefinable day that will be my own.

Happy weekending :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

edited to add recipe for Uma :)

raw chocolate brownie

1 cup of walnuts
1 cup of brazil nuts
2-3 tblsp of virgin coconut oil
1 cup of dates
3-4 tblsp of cocoa powder
~ whiz/blitz up all together in food processor/magimix until crumb turns to squish together. Pat out flat into tin and squish down with back of spoon nice and flat. Refridgerate.

chocolate hemp cream

1 large tblsp of coconut oil
glug of hemp milk (I used Good Food version)
glug of maple syrup
1-2 tblsp of cocoa powder

~Melt oil over low heat, add rest and mix. Pour/spoon over brownie. The longer you stir off the heat the thicker it gets (as the coconut oil begins to solidify again). Refridgerate again, then cut into slices when cool and firm.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

on birth, wool and easter eggs

I am kind of behind with posting on the everyday-ness and also the extraordinary from our lives. Sometimes..... well sometimes I just don't want to blog. I just want to live without writing every scrap of it down (or at least the handpicked nicer bits). Or feel burdened by the task of feeling I *have* to keep it daily or bi-weekly up to date. It is an insult to every other blogger to say something along the lines of stop writing about living and just live! When of course this is a good space in so many ways. But that is sometimes how I feel myself about my life and blogging. I see from this Land called Blog that people make friends, people form relationships, people create businesess and then also support more small mama-businesses. I see this and it good. And the information, well it's overwhelming and fabulous too. I love it all mostly. And then there are times when I just don't. And lately I just have wanted to put my feet up from blogging. Not to 'keep on top' of my life by means of this screen. I don't *have* to and so bizarrely now I want to again :)



So I have missed blogging about the three birthdays, and the trip to Legoland and all the bits around the edges of that, the meals and the walks and the trips and the knitting and the pondering, celebrating. It all happened just not here.

I am just going to dive back in where we are right now. Because that's where I am.



I have been a bit ill this week, since eating out on Friday, some sort of gluten contamination of my food which resulted in four days of headache, tiredness, lethargy, breathlessness, a puffy face even and then being teary over feeling so horrible. Today though I feel so much better. Goodbye headache (and yogurt). It's been a good teacher this episode, showing me that wow, my body really really does feel different if I don't eat well. If I add even bits of dairy in I get tired and brain fog and a rash around my eyes. And the gluten, well, obviously I just can't go there, or even eat out unless I am sure it is all prepared in an area without gluten. Unlikely and a I think most places don't get that gluten free really means gluten *free*. Not just a bit less gluten.



So I am getting over it, and I am feeling better already today about my food choices. Today was blueberries and then turkey slices with egg for breakfast. Dog walking and then raw brownie snack, late lunch was a big green salad with grated beetroot, olives, cucmber and shredded chicken with a dressing made form olive oil, vinegar, dijon mustard and garlic. I ate an apple then too. Now I need to get on with dinner and use up this leftover roast chicken with more veggies. Maybe some hemp milk for me and a smoothie for the kids.

I wish I could make good food choices all of the time. But life doesn't always present good food choices. used to be that if there was nothing good around I just wouldn't eat. It's a fairly sure way of loosing weight, but not a good choice now when I am pregnant. As I type this the tiny baby is doing it's own little tango in my belly. hello baby. I am hardly showing really, but it's there, I lie on my back and out pops a melon.







Today I made cut and zig-zagged around some fleece nappy liners I made from a blanket I bought (and still have 3/4 left - any cloth nappy mamas want some fleece?). They look good. I have such a mental sewing list. This was a tiny snip of it, but it's a job done, and satisfying to make something instead of buying them for so much more.

I also knitted some sweet things this last week, gifts, for a change, not for me. Both from Sublime Baby cashmere merino and silk. So soft it slides away, perfect for right next to baby skin. The vest is a gift of course, I mean how many Milo's do I need?).



The Small Things wrap sweater is also knit in Sublime Baby cashmere merino silk DK. The colour is 'Pebble' but I think they ought to really be more accurate and re-name it 'old dishrag'. Still it *is* silky silky soft and a very sweet design. Unusual to knit but turns out quite fast to finish up. I also knit the Sweet Things bonnet.

Carina the designer is an old friend from back in the days of my first pregnancy so it is fab to see her as a knitwear designer making such sweet baby and adult knits.





I am knitting boot number two of the lovely Saartje Booties pattern. I am really not sure if these will stay on tiny feet. Do they? I have seen these around online so often, but do they actually stay put on baby feet?



I look at them made and think not, however they are so fabulously cute I'd love to be proved otherwise so as to have more reasons to knit them. I enjoyed the Vanilla soaker pattern so much, I just printed out another of her patterns the Puerperium Cardigan to knit too. But the free download is only in newborn! Man alive I have so many newborn knits now, I sort of wanted to knit a bigger sweater in this design. Can anyone tell me if the pattern is really good and a pleasure to knit? I don't mind at all investing in downloads if they are good. I'd like some opinions on this one. The ravelry photos have almost won me over in any case. Also, any favourite baby knits out there I have not spotted? Pleas let me know yours, I would LOVE to check out more. You can see I am on a roll. After all my summer plans so far involve the following:

~knitting
~lounging on a sun lounger with a big belly in the sun (I don't have a lounger yet but it's a definite future purchase) and probably knitting
~ work on my veggie garden
~walk the dog
~odd bits of house painting and sewing (Earthborn Paints here I come)

I mean, for sure there will be lots of children's plans and activities to accommodate and cater for around this, of course there will be, but these are my own particular wishes and hopes for the summer :)



We did our Easter stuff and walked uphill to roll our eggs down-hill. My favourite childhood tradition which we have carried on since my big 11 year old started walking. A favourite of their's too now I think.





My baby is kick kick kicking in these little pop pop type movements. It's pretty much constant now that I notice, and so reassuring. I have a scan on Monday, and am still half weird about it, not having had scans with any of the others, I feel sort of bemused by myself. But I really want to know where the placenta is lying, VBAC'ing for me, is more reassuring if I can know it's not adhering to old scar tissue. Although if it is then I guess I will cross that when it happens, I am not sure what it may mean. I am planning on contacting my lovely independent midwives I used for Esmé's birth next week, in the hope they will consider being present for just the birth and missing out on their pre and post natal care. Just to make it affordable. That will be interesting too. Of course I loved seeing them so often in my pregnancy last time, and building up a relationship with them, in some ways it feels like four weeks ago rather than four years. They were such a special part of my memories of the birth. I don't feel I have the issues to work through with this being my potential second VBAC though, and feel really happy with managing my own prenatal care along with (perhaps) the NHS midwives (who I have to say are not that interesting to me, after I was told I am not a candidate for home or a birthing centre birth, despite already birthing normally, I am actually just a walking uterine scar, apparently. Luckily I find this amusing rather than off-putting eh?). So little baby keep on a-kicking and I'll keep on a-knitting. Too much cheesiness I know.

Here are my 20 week pregnancy photos. Yes, I could really just be mistaken as having put on excess weight. Only myself and kids and The Man who see me naked know the truth :)





Whoops, sorry didn't mean to hide, I really do have a face too.



I am in the midst of trying out the organic natural pregnancy products I am reviewing for The Green parent magazine.



Wow, my bathroom has usually a bar of soap and a face cloth. Now it has bottles! I never actually indulge in these things really (I indulge on good foods instead) so this is such a luxury. My favourite product of all is this belly oil, wow it has a fantastic lemony passion fruit vanilla scent. Which usually would not interest me at all, my being a lavender favoured person.



This is delicate and delicious though and I am in love with it And also there is a fabulous little black bottle for labour, a labour oil with clary sage and other delicious smelling goodness. But um, I do laugh at that bit; so long stretch marks!. I mean this is baby number four. I have stretch marks already enough for a dozen women. But oh well, maybe this time I will be spared even more :lol

I was telling my dh that he had best practice his massage techniques so as not to piss me off whilst I am in labour by being wishy washy :) Ha. He *was* my pain relief last time, honestly. Forget a measly massage oil. He is like this ROCK of a human. He is not disturbed by things. He is solid and dependable and so reassuring. He always always finds the best in a situation, always. Just seeing him when I don't feel well, or am lost and feeling low makes me feel better. In labour I could have been rid of every other thing in the world but him. And he would have been more than enough. It is true. I am not even sure he even knows I feel that way. I have never needed anyone so much as when in labour as I did him. It was phenomenal really. My world disappeared to a pinpoint of him, myself and my baby, the three of us and the huge pain that was pushing our baby towards us. I actually look forward to that again. Pain and all. It's an altered state of life, just for a few hours. Nothing else matters. It is so intense.