zebra crossing

Children learn best through play. So in order to teach the younger boys a little basic (but potentially life saving) road safety I decided to make it fun. First they painted their own zebra crossing. Then they built a road from wooden bricks. Next they found lots of cars for their road and also some Lego people. When I asked Mide to name all the things that might be dangerous on the road he had an impressive list- trucks, tractors, lorries, milk tankers, cars, motorbikes, vans, BMWs... ?! (BMW drivers take note) We chatted about crossing the road, using a zebra crossing and also what to do when there wasn't one. Then they got to make their Lego people cross the road - for the most part, you'll be glad to know, the Lego people made it safely across. 

what are you afraid of?

William asked to paint this morning. He got out his watercolours, filled a cup with water, found his sketch book and painted. He painted with no thoughts of 'what if this goes wrong'. He painted with no thoughts of 'what if no-one likes this'. He put the brush on the page and made his mark, no hesitating, no doubting. As he mixed colours trying to find the best one for a volcano he talked about why Vincent van Gogh cut off his ear. He wondered if it was because Vincent thought he wasn't very good at painting. I watched him silently hoping that he would never lose his ability to create without fear of judgement, fear of being wrong, fear of self doubt.

granola :: recipe

250g rolled oats

50g sunflower seeds

50g pumpkin seeds

25g sesame seeds

125g runny honey or maple syrup

3 tablespoons sunflower oil

Preheat the oven to 150C/ Gas Mark 2. In a large bowl combine the oats, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds. I also like to add about 2 heaped tablespoons of milled organic flax seed. In a saucepan gently heat the sunflower oil and honey/maple syrup. Whisk them together so they combine and when they get frothy and creamy pour over the dry oat mixture. Mix this all well together. Put some greaseproof paper on a large baking tray and spread the mixture out evenly. Bake in the oven for about half an hour until golden. I stir the granola quite often as it’s cooking so that it browns evenly. And I add sultanas and dried cranberries and nuts when it is cool and ready to store. This is lovely with porridge and maple syrup and the boys love it with yoghurt and honey.

adapted from Monty and Sarah Don's The Home Cookbook

a grand day out

The festival season has well and truly kicked off here. This bank holiday weekend it's the turn of the Drogheda Arts Festival so we took the boys to the historic town to watch some of the street circus performers. We loved the excellently moustached Star Man climbing up the rope to get a rose for his beloved (a blushing audience member who said to her son 'don't tell dad' when she got a kiss from the star man). Sir Edwin Longbottom also had everybody laughing with his juggling antics and buffoonery. We snuck in a visit to the Highlanes Gallery for their exhibition 'Re-framing the Domestic in Irish Art' but saved the best til last when we called into the Brown Hound Bakery for coffee and tarts...

The bakery is just on the edge of Drogheda town and is well worth tracking down. With dark painted walls, polished concrete floors, glass cloches and lots of quirky vintage touches you can easily while away a morning over coffee and papers. We've also enjoyed lunch there- they do fabulous parmesan and chive scones filled with vintage cheddar and apple relish or slow roast chicken with herby mayonnaise  (for example) but I think the breads, cakes, pies and tarts are possibly the stars of the show. The afternoon we called in there was a pop-up vintage shop run by owner Jeni Glasgow which had me wishing we lived a little closer to the magical Brown Hound. 

happy May Day

Wishing you a happy May Day! The first day of a new month and the beginning of a new season - let's celebrate with some flowers from the garden- cream and purple tulips, dusty hellebores, Solomon's seal, zesty green euphorbia all in a jam-jar and hung on the front door. Celebrating the coming of summer (Beltane) dates to pre-Christian Ireland when protective bonfires were lit and livestock were let out onto grazing lands. It's a pity that today couldn't be less summery- it's been raining all morning and it's decidedly chilly...I think the fire tradition might just be in order!

joining in with Littlegreenshed's Nature in the Home series

sloe and steady

This morning I slightly deviated from my usual walk, instead going up the track beside our house which winds and bumps between fields and onto an old roadway, wide enough, really, for only cart and horse. This is where we forage sloes for sole gin, a Winter treat. For the last two years we have had no sloes and therefore no sloe gin, but this year...this year the blackthorn is full of frothy white blossom and I've my fingers crossed that when the first autumn frosts are over there will be plump, dusty purple sloes in abundance for picking.

The windowsill in the dining room is often a place for bits and bobs, leftovers from a busy day- books, pencils, small toys, pieces of Lego and whatnot. I sometimes make the conscious effort to clear up the detritus and so today I am enjoying the delicately scented geranium and the bright sunlight, for a while at least.

recommended reading

Do you ever read two or maybe three books at once. Starting something new before finishing another one off? I do it all the time and now that there's no TV in the house I've found my reading time has (blissfully) increased. So, with only a couple of hundred pages of Emma to finish I read Life after Life and was immediately swept along in a story where a life is lived again and again, getting second and third chances until it is somehow right. Parts of the book are based in World War II and the Blitz and it made for awful, compulsive reading. It was a wonderful book - doing exactly what a good one does- making you believe in the world you're reading about.

I first came across Life after Life as a recommendation on the lovely Circle of Pine Trees The Year in Books- a great idea!

And so to finish Emma and begin Jen Hadfield's Byssus... the wonderful endlessness of reading...