Berries, moss, a bit of wind and the mysterious cosmic power of FC

How I love a walk in the countryside. It's been a while since we've laced on our boots and gone out on an adventure. There's something particularly magical about a winter walk. All that soft grey light. I love to hurry back as the sun sets after lamps come on in cottage windows.

It was really windy up on the top of the ridge. By the beacon the boys were leaning into the wind at about 45 degrees. They loved it of course.

Father Christmas came round tonight in his sleigh with his friends from the local Round Table. When he came to the door to see if we'd been naughty or nice, the internet connection cut out. It didn't come back until he was a street or two away. I think he is channelling some sort of cosmic interference. Hardly surprising giving his mysterious powers. He may be headed your way next, so do watch out.

Five on Friday

allotment garlic and rose petals

rare sunshine

the view on a winter's day

in summer we can't see the castle from our house; in winter it reappears

Joining in with Amy and Five on Friday.

1. Thank you for all your good wishes for Tudor Day, where I was supposed to go and supervise onion chopping with sharp knives. When I got there I was relegated to breadcrumbs. Given that I already had a cut on my finger after a fast-bread-cutting incident a few days ago when in a hasty moment I slashed towards my hand with my mega-sharp bread knife, it probably wasn't a bad idea. Apparently there was only one small onion-related cut, so all in all quite a triumph. Hygiene standards weren't up to much. I tried to ignore where some of the small fingers were going.

2. Little advent packages on the mantelpiece and the top of the piano. Chocolates, a few coins, some stamps. I broke the advent candle in trying to ram it into the glass holder. I half melted it back together again, even though it has a chunk out of it. Mending is one of my specialities.

3, Mindful colouring. The littlest boy and I like to do a little colouring-in together. We sit side by side and work on the same picture. It's happy quiet time for chatting and being nice. Sometimes it can all be a bit frenetic here with three boys all fighting their corner (and each other). But colouring-in time is calm. I was talking to a lady who designed a colouring-in book the other day, and she was saying that children have been so absorbed in the more grown-up colouring, even the livelier ones, it's been quite amazing. I'm a bit impatient, the tiny leaves drive me a bit bananas. Maybe I'm learning something though.

4. On the subject of impatience, have any of you ever tried writing Morning Pages? It's three handwritten pages, written first thing, about anything. A sort of emptying of the mind, a loosening up of the brain. I gave it a go but it's quite time consuming. I'm not sure whether it will be a good thing for me or not. Mostly I'm conscious of time ticking by while I'm not really achieving anything. I'm too impatience for my own good a lot of the time.

5. I gutted a fish today. The middle boy is still quite fish obsessed and desperate to get some fishing tackle after Christmas. In the interests of getting to grips with things in advance I bought a whole sea bass and looked up what to do online. Suffice to say it wasn't as easy as it looks when other people do it. And given that I was a vegan for about 25 years it was a bit of a struggle at times. (Middle boy: "He said you have to put your finger right in there and hold it." Me: "Sweetie, I'm trying very hard not to be squeamish here but I'M NOT PUTTING MY FINGER IN THERE". Between us we managed it and learned a few things along the way. Should he ever catch his very own sea bass, I'm ready.

I'm wishing you a good weekend. Today is a bit of a bonus day actually as I was convinced it was Friday for most of yesterday and was most surprised to find that it wasn't when I wished a friend a good weekend. "Thursday??? You're kidding." I'm all caught up now though.

Vagaries

Well that was a wild and windy weekend wasn't it. If I can upload some photos you'll see a palm tree that looks a bit like a photo from the Caribbean when there's a hurricane about to hit. But at the moment Blogger is refusing to load my pictures. I do hope I haven't reached my photo limit on Blogger or anything drastic. Maybe I'll never be able to post another picture and you'll just have to imagine what it all looked like.*

My printer is refusing to print as well, honestly I find this stuff SO frustrating. It doesn't like the new ink cartridge. I've tried shouting, "THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH THE CARTRIDGE" at it, but so far nothing.

We've all had colds around here, the sort that make you a bit furious and irrational. The littlest boy has volunteered me to help at Tudor Day tomorrow. I shall be in charge of Cutting With A Sharp Knife in the Tudor Cooking segment of the day. Not sure what they're making, but I'm led to believe an onion will be involved. Swan and onion? Four and twenty blackbirds? Giblets simmered in blood?  I have slightly lost my voice which might not bode well in the event that I have to scream, "DON'T SLICE IT TOWARDS YOU". I'll give it my best shot, and I'll see you on the other side.

* I did it! After a lot of crossness I finally managed to upload photos. I logged out and logged back in again. The hi-tech solution. Honestly, is there anything quite as exhilarating as conquering technology? From the depths of despair to complete euphoria. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating slightly, but it's not far off. Just the printer to go... CJ xx

Apples

A couple of weeks ago I took the boys to the country park and paid a visit to the orchard. I have a bit of an obsession with orchards, especially when they're full of fruit. So many windfalls go to waste, it's a shame. I picked up a bagful of the not-too-bruised ones and took them home for crumbles. I wish the trees were labelled, but the varieties are probably long forgotten.

Down at the supermarket there are bags of delicious little English apples for sale very cheaply. They also buy apples from Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Chile, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, the USA, South Africa and Australia. AUSTRALIA. What sort of madness is this? Our orchards will all be ripped out if we don't support them. And replaced with goodness knows what. Wherever we are in the world, we should be eating local fruit where we can.

I've ranted on about Pink Ladies before, but maybe you'll forgive me if repeat what I said about them once before. Pink Lady is not an apple variety, it's a commercial brand owned by Apple and Pear Australia.  UK farmers are not allowed to grow it, and yet our supermarkets are full of it.  Each and every apple shipped here from far away, each and every apple pushing the market share away from our fantastic British orchards.  The marketing behind Pink Lady is phenomenal.  It has a logo, a slogan, a club and an all singing all dancing website with a blog and a whole section aimed at children.  The apple itself, in its plastic wrapper, with its countless food miles, is available all year round.  Don't buy it.  Have a lovely British apple instead.

I really feel passionately about saving our remaining orchards and supporting our farmers. I love the sight of rows of fruit trees in spring, a mass of blossom and bees, and heavy with fruit in autumn, ready to fill our stores for winter. I hope you'll forgive me for banging on about it a bit, but orchards really are one of my favourite things.

Colour Collaborative: November: Wood

Wood is such a fundamental part of our homes and lives, even in this age of modern fabricated materials. Despite man's synthetic inventions, there is nothing which comes close to the beauty, usefulness and versatility of wood.

There is a colour of wood to suit everyone, from the palest maple and light oak through the warm middle ranges of cherry and hickory to heavy dark walnuts and the pitch black of ebony. Every wood has its own qualities. Soft pine for simple furniture. The exquisite distortions of burrs, polished into table tops. Durable oak, lasting for centuries as building timber.

Around the house I have an eclectic mix of light and dark, old and new, practical and pretty. My old piano, bashed by children and nibbled by that enemy of all things wood, the woodworm.

The sun has faded it in places, but the wood still holds a soft beauty, from its paler tan sides to its rich cherry lid.

A chopping board, bleached and scarred over time. The natural antibacterial properties of wood make it perfect for use in the kitchen. I'd never swap it for a manmade material, the wood is perfect.

Knitting needles, warm and smooth and quietly clicking. I love the feel of a natural material in my hands while I work. Why oh why do they make plastic needles for children? I always think children should have nice tools to start with, to inspire them.

An old table, bought years ago from a shop in Tetbury. Nothing flash; scarred and pitted. But a practical thing, that one day could be just returned to nature when its days of usefulness end. That is the main beauty of wood, that it is part of the environment. There don't need to be any harmful contaminating processes in its production or finishing, and it need never end up in landfill. The growing of trees is about as sustainable as it gets.

And in almost every room here, wooden bookcases. Somewhere for all those stories to live, while they're waiting for someone to escape into them. Somewhere for a plant to grow or a candle to flicker. And while the small people are at school, it's somewhere for a bear to take a rest.

Wishing my American friends a very happy Thanksgiving, I hope you have a lovely day.

To visit the other Colour Collaborative blogs for more of this month's posts, just click on the links below:

         Annie at Annie Cholewa                                  Gillian at Tales from a Happy House

         Jennifer at Thistlebear                                      Sarah at Mitenska

         Sandra at Cherry Heart

What is The Colour Collaborative?

All creative bloggers make stuff, gather stuff, shape stuff, and share stuff. Mostly they work on their own, but what happens when a group of them work together? Is a creative collaboration greater than the sum of its parts? We think so and we hope you will too. We'll each be offering our own monthly take on a colour related theme, and hoping that in combination our ideas will encourage us, and perhaps you, to think about colour in new ways.

Weekend light

I love the late afternoons at this time of year. Long shadows, low light and muted blues and greys. The lights in the shops look inviting and in living rooms lamps are lit and fires are flickering. The first picture was taken in that moment just before the sun sets. The town lit up in apricot light, It was gone in a minute.

I watched the sun rise as well today, on a run. I headed out into the countryside and saw the sky turn pink over the bare fields. The trees have mostly lost their leaves now. It's good for birdwatching and seeing last year's nests appear. Winter is on its way and I really rather like it.

We had the second consecutive football free weekend this weekend. Didn't know what to do with ourselves. The littlest boy and the biggest boy have horrible colds, so in fact we didn't do much. We did manage a bit of fresh air each day though. I think it helps with sleeping. It's one of the reasons I run sometimes. I'm very good at falling asleep, but I always wake up too early in the morning. The more exercise I get, the longer I sleep.

The garden has been battened down for winter. I put the tayberry back up today after its hazel wigwam blew down in the gusts of wind last week. Everything has been cleared from the raised beds now, the hedge has been trimmed and the raspberries have been cut down. Inside the candles are out on the kitchen windowsill and we've even had the heating on a bit. I'm eating extra chocolate to get me through the dark days. All those chocolate stimulants and chemicals, 300 or so of them apparently. It's an enchanting and mysterious substance. Who am I to fight the power of the bean?

Have you watched any of the new David Attenborough series, The Hunt? Honestly, the BBC are in a league of their own when it comes to wildlife documentaries. Watching seals hunting sardines is utterly mesmerising. Quite amazing what goes on in the deep blue sea.

I'm off to look for more chocolate now. Wishing you all a good week. CJ xx