Not so guilty pleasures?

    As you can see I have been trying to make good use of my time now that my university courses have finished for this year. I have been putting absolutely everything off until the studying was finished as I kept feeling guilty if I did something that wasn't studying!!... Even if I was up to date or ahead with my studies or the project was small, as in the patch on my daughters jeans that you can see above, I wouldn't allow myself the time off from studying because I felt guilty. I will have to work on this and be a bit more lenient with myself... everyone is allowed free time... right?

   The patch above was one of the first things I did after the exam finished, before you laugh and point out all the mistakes in the sewing I must just say that this is the first time I have done anything like this for a very long time and my daughter really loves the little bee. I have chosen to patch the jeans as they still fit and have a lot of wear left in them. The embroidery on the patch also fits in completely with the jeans as they have lots embroidery all over them in the same style.

    I have also been catching up with some reading and have got through quite a few books and I have been trying to re learn how to crochet... I have practised all of the stitches and I am now the creator of many granny squares with which I am going to make into bedding for my daughter's dolls cot. I am hoping to give it a vintage feel hence the crochet blanket and maybe a patchwork quilt too.

   It is so nice to have some free time to do all the things I've been putting off for so long... It is quite hard to shake the feeling that I should be studying... but I definitely have a few months off to enjoy my not so guilty pleasures.

Rock Painting

I have been thinking of ways of making the garden look a little more interesting or magical lately, to the children over the stark winter months, and also introduce some more fun crafts. This time we have killed two birds with one stone (excuse the pun). It was a really rainy day, the children were a little upset that we had to cancel our trip out so we had to come up with something to do last minute that was fun. We didn't have any acrylic paint so we have had to use normal poster paint but they loved making these little rock monsters so much that we will probably make some more when we have the proper paint. My husband sprayed them with lacquer to make them a little more waterproof.

 When they were dry and the sun was shining, we hid them all over the garden. As you can see above, some have had some finishing touches of googly eyes and the toadstool has a little hand carved stalk. But these were mostly painted and made by my youngest children aged just 6 and 2 with much love. 

Now when winter comes and the garden is bare, there will be little folk or things of interest hiding everywhere. So far my daughter has been finding them hilariously funny every time she spots one lurking. Some of them like the one above are very colourful and will brighten up a dull corner.

I spotted this lonely one playing in the dirt. We did something similar to this for my husband on father's day, my son painted a rock and we wrote "dad rocks" on it. you can see it here. can't wait to paint some more using acrylic paint. we have quite a few crafts lined up to cheer up the garden for winter and to try to make it a little more magical for the little ones.

Beach Love

How I do love the earth. I feel it thrill under my feet. I feel somehow as if it were conscious of my love, as if something passed into my dancing blood from it. --James Russell Lowell

A couple of days ago we visited the beach, an Autumn visit, to compare the difference in the things washed ashore by the sea at different times of year. We visited earlier in the year too, in spring, and went beach combing, the things we found this time were a lot different to the spring visit. It was wonderful to get to the beach again and we chose a really sunny day, even though we went to a beach with a town attached it was so quiet, hardly a soul to be seen strolling on the sand.

Spring

On the spring visit we found mostly young cuttlefish bones and some shark and ray egg cases. The photographs show a small sample of our finds. On our Autumn visit, there were no cuttlefish bones, there were a few egg cases (or 'mermaids purses' ) but this time we mostly found a few different kinds of shells. Mussel shells, dog whelk shells, some limpets and slipper limpets. Also much driftwood.

Autumn

We have decided to make some things from our finds to remind us of the times we spent on the seashore. I will post about the things we make at a later time but we have decided to use some of the small perfect whelk shells as jewellery charms for bracelets and to make some beach wind chimes with some of the other things.

Before leaving the seashore , while the children were playing, I took a little time to myself to feel at one with nature. Just for a second between the beach combing and playing I looked far out to sea and took a deep breath... with the wind in my hair and the sand between my toes, then as the breath left my lips I felt a kind of peace, a calmness spread over me... just for a second, I felt the freedom of the gulls and the wildness of the seals... then the call came to leave.

After our beach adventures, we decided to visit the sea life centre, which again we mostly had to ourselves. The children had the the touch pool all to themselves and the staff still gave them the educational talks. They got to touch a large crab, stroke a starfish and be cleaned by a sea anemone. There were some very happy children that day! We absolutely adore the seashore, my children especially, and often speculate what it would be like to live by the sea.

I wonder... does the seashore still hold it's magical quality if you see it everyday?

photographs numbered 1,4 and 5 were taken by my lovely husband.found here.

Getting ready for Winter!

   We have been so busy here, preserving things for over the winter months, that time seems to have flown by! After making four batches of jam / jelly, I feel totally jammed out and ready for the end of the world ( should it come). All of our jam has been made from free, foraged fruit this year. We have made blackberry jam, apple jam, wild plum jam and crab apple jelly all without adding any extra pectin,  we added a couple of apples to the blackberry jam to provide the extra pectin instead. Some of the  jam colours are very vibrant.

    We also have wine this year made from free, foraged fruit, we have several demi johns on the go containing blackberry wine and wild plum wine. They smell very nice and very strong, which I confirmed by tasting a little...YUM. As you can probably tell we found a lot of wild fruit, we ended up with about 14 pounds of blackberries, 12 pounds of wild plums, 8 pounds of crab apples and 22 pounds of normal apples, amazingly this was all free, wild and being unused by anyone. The children have really enjoyed all the preserving, freezing and extra baking that has been going on, and we have been learning about how people have been preparing for the winter months in this way for centuries. Well, until recently as the supermarket is open all year round, but we won't be needing to buy any jam and we have a freezer full of apples ready for pies.

    We have also been drying our own herbs in our dehydrator for use in the winter, as you can see in the above picture they have been a little rampant this year. All the herbs which die back in the winter have already been dried, we also have jars full of bay, sage, parsley and chive. If you want to investigate our wine, jam or dehydrator antics further you could see my husbands blog here.

    My son has been continuing with his football coaching as he loves it, my daughter also enjoys him going to sports club as she gets extra playtimes with all the other younger brothers and sisters of the home educated children. We have also been on many nature walks in woodland and meadows, as Autumn is a good time of year to look for nuts (husband has collected hazel nuts already) and my children love to go fungi spotting.

A new challenge

  Today we went to our local home education group's sports club. "What's unusual about that?" I hear you say... well 6 months ago my son (then aged 5) had surgery on both of his feet and was in casts for 3 weeks. I find that amazing and fully intend to update you all soon with a post just covering his journey...but today he played football.

 
   He did not show any interest in playing football at all until he watched the world cup over this summer, and when we heard there maybe some free spaces at the sports club he jumped at the chance to try. Today was the free trial session to see how things went. Luckily, he loved playing and he suffered no pain in his feet. It was quite unusual for us to see him playing football as his previous sporting interests were more sedate like golf. We were more likely to find him to talking about dinosaurs, pokemon or falling asleep with a book.

   
   He is definitely planning on going again and we are happy he has the chance to.

Courgette Relish

Still trying to find something to make with your excess courgettes?

We decided to be a little more organized and make relish this year, but all the recipes we found either contained something we didn't like or had enough ingredients to feed a small army. So we just tweaked lots of different recipes to fit our needs. We made it with courgette, red onion and pepper and fresh sweetcorn as my husband loves sweetcorn relish. It looked a lovely colour when we started.

The children have really been enjoying all the harvesting, working out new recipes to try and then seeing if they work. The cooking smells from the kitchen have been amazing too. This one was quite successful and I have been having trouble keeping it to mature (one jar completely gone already).

This is the finished relish, still kept it's lovely colour too.

    I love cooking when everyone is in the kitchen helping, even the littlest  ones,(who make lots of mess) it makes the end product a real family concoction, where everyone has had a little input into making the recipe work. The best bit is ... my son has declared it the best relish EVER!

Recipe for the courgette relish.

-750g grated courgette and 1 finely chopped medium red onion.

put in a bowl, sprinkle with salt (about 3tbsps), cover and leave overnight.
 in the morning drain, rinse and put in a large pan along with;

 -a chopped red pepper and the sweetcorn removed from a cob (recipe could easily take 2 cobs though).

-about 325ml of cider vinegar, a large pinch of cayenne and a tbsp each of mustard powder, turmeric and cornflour.

-500g sugar.

bring to the boil and then simmer for about 45 mins until relish has reduced and thickened and put into your sterilized jars (about 2-3 depending on size).

you might want to add some of your favourite things instead of ours if you prefer, then just enjoy.

Garden Love

    We are not lucky enough as yet have an allotment, so my poor hard working husband has to fit as much as he can in our garden. We have been blessed with some good crops though, so we definitely owe the garden a little love. One of our best croppers has been our blackcurrant bush as you have seen in previous posts it has produced many fruits, at the moment it is in the middle of a second crop. Sometimes you get surprises, the plums below were picked today from our new plum tree, which must only be three foot tall, we certainly weren't expecting any plums from it this year.

    Not only is the garden good for growing things it has excellent educational potential for our children. Right from the start they have been involved in the seed selection, planting, care and harvesting, and they have enjoyed every minute (especially the eating). We still have the "bean in the jar" science experiment on the kitchen window ledge in spring, but this is because my husband gets a little concerned if my son pulls up the beans to look at the roots.

    They also love their bug hunts, but even this has advantages when the cabbage white caterpillars are on your brassicas and someone needs to pick them off. There is great excitement in the tomato bed too, as this year we decided to grow four different kinds of tomato just to see the different growing styles and tastes, two are pictured below the plum tomato and the marmande.

   So, I'd like to say thank-you to my garden, for the bountiful crops, for the education provided to my children, for the fun times, even for the frogs and toads that jump out of the undergrowth and scare me half to death and the abundant mini beasts that I've had thrust under my nose... to the chants of "WOW, Mum have you ever seen one of these?"
    How about you? I hope I'm not alone with the garden love thing.