Wondering: kinda blue

January can be a pretty rubbish time of year. The high of Christmas has been dropped-off, lemming-style. Spring taunts us with the odd glimpse of snowdrop but we know it is weeks and weeks and weeks away. Up here, at least, you are almost guaranteed snow. And it doesn't just melt away. It crunches, it slips, it compacts. It changes from winter wonderland, sledges and snowballs to a health-and-safety nightmare. And there are 31 days of this bemoaned month. Oh those l-o-n-g days.

 

And yet this year, I can't help but feel we've been let of lightly. We almost got to the middle of the month without snow, and had even got through the first half of winter without it too. When the snow did hit, we had two strong bouts of it, about a week apart. And just when everyone was saying they'd had enough, a warm front threw a rainstorm over us as it travelled past, and the next morning the snow was almost gone. There were little full-stops of it here and there, where it hadn't noticed that the sentence had stopped speaking. And someone had run an italic pen of snow along the north-pointing, shaded walls on all the hills.

 

And today I woke with the winter blues. With the not-good-enough, can't-get-my-head-around-it blues. Then I got to thinking. Not always a good thing, but today it worked. You see, I have been spending a lot of time waiting for better days. I have been spending an embarrassing amount of time starting thoughts with the phrase "when we win the lottery..." or "when the boys are at nursery and school..." Then all of a sudden I realised how much good life, how much great life, can be missed while waiting for the better life. Small boys playing nonsense games and discovering the concept of a joke. Boys chasing and questioning, playing and imagining. Big boys discovering who they are and what they want to be. Husbands doing their best and not being told that it is good enough. Neighbour kittens tiptoe-ing in the snow. Rivers running tumultuously with the thaw. Friends noticing my croaky throat and showing genuine care for me.

 

And it's not only the simple joys that may pass me by. There are so many parts of the 'better' that can be brought into the now with a little creative thinking. The last two days, for the first time in our two years in this house, I have been decorating. We never won the lottery, so the decorators were never paid for. The crumbly walls were never re-plastered. But I have learnt the joy and the satisfaction of a house that humbly shows off the work I have done. The good-enough job. The polyfiller that I waited to dry and sanded down instead of the anonymous, characterless perfection of a stranger's freshly plastered wall. I am building a bit of the better, and making a good life for now.

 

And that is enough paragraphs starting with 'and', thoughts on today being yesterday's tomorrow, and blue thoughts being back-lit. My good enough life does not sit here at the computer. It is upstairs with a boy watching telly when he deserves a story, a floor wanting the quick sweep of a mop, and the to-do list that is waiting to cheer me up with all the ticks I can draw and the new tasks I can write, if only I could find the darned thing under the mess of a house that my parents have only just left. Time to turn off the computer and stir a little happiness into my cup of blue.

Wandering: around the aquarium

Just look at that.

That's a giant octopus. And we were only a pane of glass away. Sometimes all the imagining of aliens seems just ridiculous, when you realise what strange, unimaginable creatures live in the depths of our oceans. I wonder why we so often ignore the watery mass surrounding us and instead aim up for the skies.

We took the two little boys to the aquarium for the first time. The Big One and I used to go at least once a year when he was little, but somehow in our countryside life it didn't seem a usual thing to do. The Big One was at a friend's, it was too cold to spend a long time outdoors, and we just rifled through the 'days out' leaflet collection and landed on this. I took a little persuading (tight wad) but I am so glad I agreed.

The entry price was made worth it the moment the two little ones entered the first room and galloped joyfully from one tank of large fish to the next, pointing and shouting "huuuuuge!" They really, really loved it. There was a lot of adventuring, gawping and skipping. While the lovely husband and I were mesmerised by the large creatures swimming over our heads in the tunnels, the boys just ran up and down laughing. They peered at all the fishes, frogs and crustaceans and repeated their names. They loved the sharks but they loved the divers even more.

We had lunch in the aquarium ampitheatre, watching shark after shark swim past the huge screen in front of us. It was the best 'tv dinner' ever. The next day the Little One drew a picture of a fish and octopus to take to his nursery. It's wonderful when you take your children somewhere and can keep talking about it and learning from it in the days afterwards. The Tiny One, at one-and-three-quarters, was definitely old enough to have a whale of a time (boom, boom). The Big One would have enjoyed it too, though I'm certain had a better time playing 'warhammer' at his friend's house. 

We went to Chester's Blue Planet Aquarium and highly recommend it. It's a little pricey if you're on a budget but it's probably only a once-every-couple-of-years trip, and comparable to most other days out to zoos or attractions. And it's a great one to have up your sleeves for the anticlimatic, long, cold and quiet month of January.

Baking: butternut squash muffins & pantry re-stocking

Baking has been on my 'to do' list ever since Christmas, but other than the breadmaking (that's next week's post!) there hasn't been any baking going on. There's always so much chocolate hanging around after Christmas, not to mention the post-festive pounds, that baking always takes a back seat in January.

 

But I had a butternut squash sat in the banana basket (who knows why) and a Jamie Oliver butternut squash muffin recipe, so I thought: go for it!

Result? Lovely muffins. Very quick and easy to make (since the recipe calls for a processor). But I over-mixed them (blame the food processor's - well, my -inaugural muffin mixing) and they're a little more like cupcakes than muffins. The topping is lovely (sour cream, vanilla seeds and citrus) and almost sugar-less. But the muffins, let me tell you, are sugar-full. I figured I could call them healthy due to the squash but who am I kidding? It's not stopped us eating them though. Especially the two little boys. The Tiny One keeps spotting their container and shouting "cake! cake!" He takes after his mother, that one.

 

If you want to make them, go to Jamie Oliver's 'Jamie at Home' book, page 364, or check out the website here.

On the same morning, once I got into the non-meal-making-still-cooking groove, I also made bread, made soup for lunch and made a double batch of my grandfather's famous apple chutney. It goes fast in this house and is a lovely one to make so long as you have time for all that apple slicing and dicing. I'd give you the recipe but since Poppa's not around any more, I can't ask him for permission and he wasn't the sort of man you'd want to get on the wrong side of! Maybe I'll make you some one day.

Making: Christmas presents for children

Hello friends.

Christmas is very over. So over that the decorations are boxed up, the tree keeps staring at me from the ginnel* and making me feel guilty (I feel like I have 'tree murderer' tattooed on my forehead), and I've started thinking about next Christmas! Oh, you don't do that too? Time to bow my head in shame and skulk into the corner.

 

But if you do think of the next Christmas to come, and all the things you meant to do this year and didn't get around to, then I'll show you some of the childrens' presents I made. In fact, they're great things to make for birthdays all year round, so let's forget the embarrassing pre-pre-Christmas planning and show you some pictures...

 

I made this monster drawing tote for a friend's little boy. Don't you just love the crayon teeth?! Sadly, I can't take the credit as I saw a similar bag on pinterest and decided to make my own version. Here's the original, made by Marigold of Hideous! Dreadful! Stinky!

But then, feeling pretty inspired, I decided to make a monster-less pretty bag as well. I used some lovely Jemima Puddle-Duck fabric. All the bags I made have a sketchbook inside that I made just the way you did back in primary school - thick thread, running stitch down the spine to hold the pages together, hey presto!



The totes are fully lined (in a brushed-cotton baby blanket that once wrapped all three of my boys in turn) and came together in an hour or two. The felt crayon pockets took quite a while on top of that though, although annoyingly I've now seen that the original monster bag tutorial (which I hadn't seen at the time) has a much easier and quicker way to sew them. File that for next time!

 

I have more pictures to show you (the Christmas that keeps on giving) but they can wait until next time. 

 

*Ginnel: northern term meaning a passageway between houses

Making: Christmas presents for friends

I thought I'd divide my Christmas making up into three posts: for friends, for children, and for family. I'd love to say I had a clever reason why. I just don't have photos of the family gifts yet, so I'm stalling.

 

Firstly, I know this is slightly bonkers in a 'I'm Pretending I'm a Perfect Mamma' kind of way, but we made our own wrapping paper. Kraft paper (cheap! tasteful! rare combination!), green paint, a big potato and two very messy kids. That's the Tiny One's hands there (not so tiny any more). And mine. I was going for the nice geometric tree print. The Tiny One was going for the wahey-let's-rub-that-green-potato-tree-everywhere look. He won.

Secondly, here are the bags I made for three special chums. I'd like to point out that this was my first time using a zip and it was just the same experience as my first time making souffle - came out fine, couldn't work out what the fuss is about. I think it was more luck than skill. But I love them. That mauve bottom left is from a corduroy dress from Clothkits that I wore at about age 6. I'm a sentimentalist, I know it.

I asked my friends for their favourite colours, which is how I ended up with these prints. All the bags were made using this pattern from Noodlehead. The blue print is from Amy Butler's Soul Blossoms range - Temple Tulips in azure. The whole sheet of fabric looked beautiful draped over my sewing chair. I think it would be fabulous in a large-scale upholstery project. The yellow fabric is one I've used before for a hanging wall pocket, but I can't find a photo of the project or a picture of the fabric online, so it'll have to remain mysterious. I love how autumnal it is and the contrast of such a spring-like interior.

I'm really pleased with those interiors. They really take the bags up a notch. I used the same prints for the zip tags. I keep having to remind myself to say 'zip' - I read so many American sewing blogs that I keep starting to say 'zipper'.

I also made this fabric necklace, inspired by this pin of a // Between the Lines // project. Hers is much better though. I planned to make one for each of my friends but ran out of time - sorry ladies, IOU!

Inside each bag was a felt single-string Christmas mobile in the colours of their Christmas decorations. Here are two. I really like them, even though they're simple. They looked lovely hung from my front window while they waited gifting, and I could quite happily have kept them.

That's me done for now. I had a sore throat yesterday, a terribly sore neck today, and I think a lurgy may be lurking. My mum and auntie are coming tomorrow (hooray!) so now I need to go and finish up some sewing and clean the bathrooms (not hooray).

 

PS I'm thinking of redesigning my blog again and going back to the old-school, scroll-down-for-each-post look. What do you think?