This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savour and remember. Inspired by SouleMama.

Welcome back, sunshine!

Coming in from the garden today, I went to shut the door and discovered a red admiral butterfly had found its way into the kitchen and needed ushering out. Yes, we may have a few cold and wet days to come in fickle April, but today it was definitely promising the Spring and Summer warmth that had tempted this creature to spread its wings.
Trying to console myself for the fact that I'm going to be limited to the domestic sphere as far as work goes for the time being (although I have got some paid writing work to do from home), I gave in to the housewife within and set to with running errands, tidying up and, since it was the perfect blustery, sunshiney weather for drying, two loads of washing. There had to be some consolation to be had in being outdoors with the sun on my back, hanging washing, with one baby kicking her toes in the fresh air and yes, removing her hat as quickly as I put it back on again, the other (big now!) baby scampering around on his bike, while our venerable hen hurried from one to the other of us, on the offchance of a snack. Yes, it beats being in an office.


Back indoors, I've decided today is the day to tackle the sun room. All winter it's been a chilly, unlit at night place to scurry in and out of to fetch toys and books. As a result it's become more than a little- ahem- disorganised. With the sun out, however, it turns into a gloriously light, comfortingly warm little nook where I want to spend time with the children. So, supervised by Penelope the hen, it's getting a Spring clean.

Post bag of goodies

Just for a change, the post brought nothing but goodness today. No bills or junk, just bits and bobs we'd ordered from the internet, good news and letters. My bits and bobs were the yarns above, ordered from Deramores and Texere Yarns. There's the requisite materials to finish a couple of sweaters I've been working on. In theory they're for P, but given his distrust of all new clothes, in particular when they're knitted (could be down to his sensitive, eczema prone skin, could be just two year old attitude), they may not get a lot of real wear. No matter, as their other purpose is to try out patterns I've written myself and hope to publish, one way or another.
The pink, blue and cream yarn is the stash I need to use first, however, as I'm hoping to knock out a couple of my Union Jack teacosies for my Folksy shop in time for the Royal Wedding street party frenzy at the end of this month. We'll see whether that works out, but meanwhile I need to gird my knitting loins for all that intarsia.
Also in our post bag...news that P has got a place at the nursery school we hoped for. This means from September he'll go there each morning- I think he'll really love the social interaction, while it'll also mean M gets one on one 'mummy time' that hasn't featured much in her life to date. I think we'll all enjoy it.
We also recieved a lovely 'goodbye' card from our friends at the Steiner playgroup we used to attend in Lancaster. We had to stop going because it was just getting untenable to drive all the way there each week, with rising fuel costs. We do miss going, but I'll treasure all that we learned there.
Lastly P had a postcard from my parents. A while ago I asked his grandparents and great grandparents if they could send him the occasional card or letter, as he was so interested in the post being delivered every day as well as the written word in every form. It's worked really well- he loves getting the letters, as well as going through the tin he keeps all his correspondence in. I'm often asked to read the same letter to him over and over again. When we can get ourselves organised, I help him to 'write' back to people who've written to him and I'm hoping that in this way I can nurture the old fashioned but beautiful and valuable habit of handwritten correspondence in him, and in time M as well.

Mothering Sunday

A lovely day was had by all the mothers we know. Cake went down a storm. Happy Mothers Day all...

Family life

It's been a week of ups and downs. The ups have included some fairly unexpected opportunities to go back to my previous incarnation as a writer. This will bring in some welcome money and is so far proving to be very enjoyable, as I'm remembering what I enjoyed about producing copy to order. The downs, well it was one big down really as I failed to get a job doing what I love- teaching. I am trying to be philosophical, however, and see that these two opposing kinds of fortune are both pointing to me spending a bit more time immersed in family life, rather than being pulled back to the outside world just at the moment.
With that in mind I wanted to share this family moment from today- P's first ride on Daddy's bike. Despite my mummy-wobbles about it, I've given in to the idea of a 'jumpseat'- a little saddle with a safety strap, attached to the top tube of C's bike, so that P can hold the handlebars and ride with him. I agreed to it for several reasons: I trust C's experience and safety riding bikes; I know that P will love it and that it will open a new world of possibilities for going out and about with P in the saddle and M in the buggy; it will help P's development as a cyclist himself; we bought a new and better fitting helmet for P's rapidly growing bonce.
Guess what? He loved it. We went for a ride/walk at Rampside, marred only by the filthy habits of some irresponsible dog owners who don't pick up after themselves.
After that it was home for a spot of cake decorating- tomorrow is not only Mother's Day but also my mother-in-law's birthday so some whipped cream cheese icing and edible gold stars (I know! How fabulous!) were in order to finish off the lemon sponge P and I made yesterday. Just got to work out how to transport it to her now...

This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savour and remember. Inspired by SouleMama.

Slackblogger

I made up that word- 'slackblogger', sounds almost Shakespearean, doesn't it?- to describe how I've been recently with this blog. Maybe I just haven't been doing enough of the stuff I like to write about, making stuff and going out and about, or maybe I've just been lacking motivation to write in general. Anyway, a big distraction has been the chance of going back to full time work, but following an unsuccessful interview yesterday, it looks like home is where it's at for a while longer.
With that in mind, it's probably appropriate that some of my recent making projects have been of the homely variety:

This dishcloth is my first attempt at one. I ended up using a probably over-fancy yarn, Rowan Revive . I'd got it on special from but found it a bit rough and stiff when I knitted it up. Fortunately rough and stiff is quite good for a dishcloth. I used what my Grandma described as 'a sort of fancy rib' for the pattern. You knit a row, purl a row, then k1 p1 rib two rows, basically. In this yarn, this makes for some useful, grot-shifting bobbles.

You may also notice the drip-catcher below the draining rack. I think this was inspired by something Soule Mama put on her blog a while back. It goes some way to solving the problem of a draining board that is too small, doesn't slope enough and has areas around the outside edge where pools of yukky water form. Some reclaimed polyester cotton, from a charity shop duvet cover in glorious Seventies purple flower print, and some fleece fabric I had knocking around- bit of freestyle embroidery foot sewing and there was something that looked a bit better, soaks up the water and is easy to wash.
The only problem with both these items is they're meant to be chucked in the wash and replaced every couple of days...and I've only made one of each so far. With interview preparation over with, that's where my priorities should be now.
Except...sometimes the sun is shining at the moment, and there's a very convincing argument for why going back to work full time wouldn't really have been all it's cracked up to be. Or rather two convincing arguments, with big sparkly blue eyes ready to take in the world and its wonders. So when the weather is bad I'll get mundanities such as dishcloths knitted, but when it's kind I'll be grabbing the opportunity and the camera and working at kicking the slackblogger habit.