It’s feels as though I’ve fallen through the rabbit hole and I think I landed somewhere really really good this time. The past few weekends I’ve not gone to Pilates which has allowed me time with the family for a long Saturday morning walk – something we’ve not had since we’ve been back.

There is nothing quite as lovely as a long, beautiful, late Summer walk on Hampstead Heath without any timetable, just walking, wandering, up to the playground, across to the village shops and back home for a late lunch.

On the advice of my doctor I finished my contract a week early and I’ve had the most slow, marvellous week of just getting myself back. I’ve been quietly working on a project of my own, which has been an utter joy. Days of utter focus, walks under a beautiful blue sky. Slow mornings reading the paper with a cup of tea at the local café after dropping the girls off.

I am just so happy we are here. I really couldn’t think of anywhere I would rather be.

I’ve just discovered Thompson & Morgan as I was trying to find a non high-street online shop for bulbs – how had I not discovered them before?

So as the seasons change and we move house in just a couple of days it really is time to start thinking about the garden – and most importantly, the bulbs for next Spring. That’s the one job I never fail to get done. Imagine a Spring without beautiful bulbs coming up – it’s just not worth it. I am so excited I just had to compile a list and I’ll whittle it down from here.

Did I mention we’re moving home on Tuesday? Can’t wait! A proper, big, whole house. A beautiful rustic English home. With a proper garden just waiting for me to get planting. And a whole blissful month of quiet, doing my projects, writing new blogs, having some time for glorious end of Summer walks on the Heath. It really doesn’t get much better than this.

Anyway, here’s my garden wish list;

Buddleja Buzz™ Half Price Collection
Allium Cottage Garden Mixed
Tulips pink passion mixed
Brodiaea laxa Royal Blue
Daffodil poeticus Plenus
Hyacinth Midnight Mystique™
Hyacinthoides English
Lily Oriental Miss Lucy
Russian Snowdrop
Tulip Paul Scherer
Daffodil – Fragrant Jonquil Mix

Now we’ve had the kids and I’m getting old and fairly well paid it is now one of my life’s missions is to ensure I only drink good wine. And, just like food, the better the quality the less you actually want to drink.

But just when I thought I was all clever and grown up we went out with friends on Friday, which we very rarely do, and got a little carried away on the inexpensive wine front. A mistake I certainly paid the price for.

Wikipedia talks about abstinence as the best hangover cure, while this article takes a more lenient approach and does say quality is most definitely a factor.

And what do I think? Next time I’ll be opting for a nice glass of fine wine.

Advertorial

Based on a Donna Hay recipe these swap out spelt flour and ground nuts for the white flour, and ricotta for the sour cream.

Here, therefore, is the new recipe;

Make sure you don’t overwork the mixture – just like scones, these always come out better if you mix only until just combined.

Measure the flour and baking powder into a bowl. Add the sugar and stir to combine. In a separate bowl place the ricotta, eggs, lemon rind and oil and whisk until smooth.

Stir through the flour mixture until just combined. Add the raspberries and stir just once.

Spoon into 12 x ½ cup-capacity (125ml) non-stick muffin tins or silicone cases until ⅔ full.

Bake for 15 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer.

Turn muffins out and cool on a wire rack or wooden bread board.

I am saving up to buy The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts. But in the meantime I cheat with my breadmaker. And I cheat by buying non organic pre-made pastry from M&S. I don’t have the time to be a purist. Much as I’d like to be one. For now as an Art Director in Advertising Mum, I use machinery and pre-made pastry. Heck I even bought the kids Walls ice creams and Waitrose pizzas this week.

What does bother me is that I take my food photos at night with the terrible dark black and yellow light that brings. Last night I stayed up till 12 waiting for the bread to finish and the pie to be cooked. I set my alarm for 1am so I could put the cooled (it wasn’t at all) pie in the fridge.

Every night when Astrid goes to bed we talk about things and I tell her stories and the last few nights I’ve brought the laptop in and I read her stories out of my blog. Tonight she asked me to tell her about Grandma and I told her about Grandma and I told her there was the story of Grandma dying on my blog and she asked me to go and get it and read it and we read it together. The night before she wanted to see a photo of me when I was younger.

Just recently I’ve noticed how things all manage to knit into each other somehow – and how sometimes ten years later, or twenty years later you look back and go, cripes, so that was how that worked out.

That’s happened twice, no, three times this week.

This morning on the bus I closed my eyes and watched my thoughts for five minutes. I would peep my eyes open every now and again just to check, but mostly, for five minutes I kept my eyes closed and watched the thoughts that went through my mind. They were; my shoulders are tense – so I relaxed them. I also noticed my mind was surprisingly still and had far fewer thoughts than I thought would be racing through my mind. I briefly thought of Bruce Forsyth watching my thoughts go by on a conveyor belt. I opened my eyes just to make sure nothing untoward was happening as we went past The Purple Turtle in Camden. I thought, I must be really good at this because there are very few thoughts going through my mind. I thought, of Jude and the ruby in India that I need to go and find. Rubies in India. Rubies from Vishnu’s sword.

And it was then that I realised and remembered how things you’ve thought of years ago, and planned years ago – they come back, and some important thoughts always stay and they keep on staying until you go and do them. And then I understood what I’d read about how you get an idea and it stays in you like a beacon until it is brought into reality. Hence those pestery ideas that never go away. Good for them.

Tonight when I was reading Mum’s dying story to Astrid – just before that was a blog post of seven things about me, with my favourite book, by Astrid Lindgren – and again, that was the story I told when Mum was dying – with Astrid holding her hand.

I love it when Astrid asks about Grandma. She’s really interested in Grandma – Opa’s wife. Tonight I explained to Astrid how Grandma was very ill and how her body wasn’t able to keep up the energy to stay alive anymore so her body died and her spirit, as in her mind, moved on to a different plane; a different place. Where we can’t see her or talk to her so easily. And tomorrow we’ll continue the conversation.

Astrid asking about Grandma means Grandma is around.

So perhaps we’ll talk to Grandma soon.

Astrid and I. Little brilliant Astrid.

Cream-free ricotta and yoghurt panacotta

The brief: to use up an enormous jar of Bonne Maman Cherry Compote that I’d opened, eaten a bit once for breakfast and then it became the weekdays when I eat breakfast at work and therefore I had to use it up before it went off because chances were I wasn’t going to be eating it for breakfast anytime soon.

Was it going to be a cherry and apple pie? Well, no it wasn’t. In Belsize Park on a Sunday it does not seem that one can buy fresh local apples. Nor did it appear that one could buy tinned apples. Anywhere. Peaches, pears, mandarins, grapefruit, lychees, no problem. Apples, yes problem.

Plan B was ricotta – I categorically didn’t want to put cream in it so I bought ricotta and gelatine and hoped I’d be able to improvise a recipe. Basing my recipe on a Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall one, and a Nigel Slater one I managed to work out a plan.

It set in our only bowl we currently have – a big one – no ramekins here. Edith had two big scoops for breakfast and one for dinner.

Recipe for Cherry Ricotta Breakfast Panacotta

Gently heat the milk but do not boil. Add gelatine to hot milk and stir the gelatine in well with a whisk or wooden fork. Once the gelatine has dissolved whisk in the icing sugar until smooth. Keeping a very low heat stir in the yoghurt, ricotta and vanilla essence. Stir for a minute or two until smooth.

Remove from heat and add the cherries. If you wanted a smooth panacotta you could blend the cherries first and also strain the mixture (I didn’t as we don’t have a seive right now and the kids were asleep so I didn’t want to use the food processor either).

Pour into ramekins or jelly moulds – or, do as I did and pour it all into a bowl, cover with cling film and leave overnight in the fridge to set.

This would probably also be amazing frozen.

Spelt flour bread

For the past few years every time we go up to Leeds to visit the family we wake up to gorgeous freshly baked bread machine bread. And finally the other week when I saw the new Panasonic breadmaker was out I caved in and bought one too.

It does spelt and rye bread and has a nut dispenser. And it does brioche. And it does your standard white loaf and it does dough and it bakes cakes. And it does gluten free. That’s all I need. The most awesome thing about it is you can do the spelt bread on the rapid bake function so I can have my rye or spelt loaf done and dusted in under two hours.

And probably the more superawesome thing is that Astrid actually loves the spelt loaves I make in it. As long as there’s a suitably generous helping of unsalted butter to go with it.

Here’s my breadmaker recipe which is based on the Seeded Spelt recipe in the manual.

1.5 tsp yeast
400g or 3 1/8 cups spelt flour
1 cup coarsely chopped almonds and walnuts
2 tbsp agave syrup (or sugar)
2 tbsp maldon sea salt
2 tbsp oil
2 tbsp linseeds
2 tbsp sunflower seeds
2 tbsp pumpkin seeds
300ml water

Bake on rapid bake for 1:55 and turn out onto a wooden board or wire rack to cool.

Check if the new Cass Art shop is open in Hampstead and buy a paintbrush and a painting board for Astrid.Get myself a .13 pen. And tracing paper. And an artline pen. And a clutch pencil.
Go for a big long Heath walk.
Go to Astrid’s secret playground and take a picnic lunch on Sunday.
Do my portfolio.
Start working up my poster ideas. Done
Buy my new font.

Tidy up the front of the house.
Make walnut and apricot bread for Astrid. Done
Try very hard not to buy an ice cream maker.
Set up an account with Bluehost and begin the task of moving all the sites over.
Do my hosting invoices for the year.
Start getting really excited about Astrid starting kindy in September!!!!!

This is way too much for one weekend, so it’s now my general to do list.

It almost midnight after a weekend of jumping in the car at five thirty on the dot and going away for Friday night. Back home Saturday late. A Sunday walk from Spitalfields up through Brick Lane to Columbia Road and at long long last to Rob Ryan’s shop with the most beautiful and covetable umbrellas ever, in navy *sigh*.

Last weekend up in Yorkshire picking wild strawberries with Astrid. Wandering around small villages, school fetes, browsing in small shops, drinking bad motorway coffee and eating questionable motorway sandwiches – the bits the girls wouldn’t eat. Next time we’re packing lunch and a thermos. The girls were happy though, with their blankets, their dollies and Radio 3 on the stereo.

So much news. Exciting work news. Exciting school news. Stories of our new house. Photos of our old house. The cats are here. My new Toast wardrobe is filtering through in a series of cards to call. The food is marvellous – today I baked an accidental disaster cake that is also a step towards my macrobiotic cake recipe with acceptable and nice ingredients. Kevin says it needs more sugar. I think it just needs Astrid’s yellow sprinkles. You know, the India Tree sparkling sugar we bought at the Wholefoods Market in Kensington, although you wanted it and I didn’t buy it and you said purple was ok but I felt so bad for not buying your yellow I went all the way back and got it another day. You like the yellow don’t you little pie.

www.selvedge.org

“Now I’ve seen all the nice photos you’ve taken of Edith recently, Mummy, you’re allowed to take photographs of me again now too.”

Somehow this morning seemed to organise itself. We arrived in true London fashion twenty minutes late, after making several phone calls from the car to Eireann, who was also running a bit late. Erin, Fatty, Jane and Kate were all there looking very fresh for people who not that long ago were sitting on a long flight.

Lunch was noisy and chatty and everyone was relaxed, apart from Astrid who was having a severe bout of hunger-induced shyness. It’s always so hard to hear in noisy restaurants so I’m sure I spent the entire time asking everyone to repeat themselves *sigh*.

And then our trip to Loop. The new Loop in Camden Passage hooray! Beautiful, like a little house, with an upstairs – and soon even a downstairs too. That’s where the lace knitting class will be. Oh joy!

We got some lovely yarn, stitch holders and some 3.25cm needles seeing as I have utterly nothing – no stuff, no gear. We even forgot the very important papers for the cats, and I forgot my very important aromatherapy papers as well as my precious skincare recipes. My tried and tested recipes. Oops. This is called living without stuff. And it’s really rather a very happy thing.

Tomorrow is pilates again. Monday is Pilates day.

And if you haven’t noticed I’ve been taking my camera out of late.

But back to this morning. By the time it was two o’clock I didn’t want to leave – we all felt right at home with Erin and her family. The blokes had been standing out the front of Loop talking beer, while we took loads of photos, played with wool and talked to the people working there.

More days like this one please Universe.
Today, Today, I liked you.