The trouble with figs

Thank you all for your book recommendations, I have taken note and ordered a few from the library. Hana reminded me that I have The Trouble With Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon, so I've started with that. I'm enjoying it, and I love that it's set in the 1976 heatwave, which is working in nicely with the good summer weather here.

In the garden, the grass is back to greenness after a brief day of rain and the figs are ripening. I do love fig trees, but sadly no-one really likes figs around here. I don't mind the odd one, but I can't eat pounds of them. I am popping them into the freezer in the hopes that I can sneak them into things and people won't notice. Although the crunchy seeds might give them away.

I'm also wondering if I can dry them and put them in mincemeat ready for Christmas. Honestly, you can get away with almost anything in a mince pie. Ask me how I know.

I've been faffing around with fabric this week, in between moaning that I don't have enough time for anything. You know how it is. I have lots of odd bits of fabric and pictures of lovely quilts to inspire me. I'm always drawn to simple squares, and I also like the ones with lots of restful space. Any favourites?

The top two are by Cassandra Ellis from her book A World of Quilts, the grey one is one of Ashley's (from Film in the Fridge) from The Modern Quilting Bee Block Party by Alissa Haight Carlton and Kristen Lejnieks and the last two are by Yoshiko Jinzenji from Quilting Line and Colour.

I think it will all have to percolate for a bit. I don't have time to be fabric shopping at the moment anyway. I shall let it all swirl around in my head for a while. It's been a while since I made a quilt. I like to sew them by hand, late at night, as my brain shuts down for the day. And although I make them slowly, I think I've made around four, as well as a couple on the sewing machine. It wouldn't do to make them too quickly, we'd end up suffocating in them.

Bert is waiting for a moustache trim at the groomer's. And a neatening of the ears. Persuading him to Sit Nicely and be brushed is a work in progress. In fact, much of what we ask him to do is a work in progress. I spent most of last week at the cricket club with him, and he dug holes all along the fence when he was supposed to be lying down dozing like the good dogs were. It seems he doesn't hold with doing nothing.

Any good plans for the weekend? I have Lists to get through, so I'm hoping to be excused from too much traipsing about. We shall see.

Sunlight on marmalade

Hasn't the weather been amazing. Glorious winter sun and the longest of long shadows. I made jam tarts, one of the littlest boy's best things, and put lemon and lime marmalade in some of them. Winter sun shining through a lemon and lime marmalade tart is a very fine thing. There's little more than eight hours between sunrise and sunset here at the moment. I do love closing the curtains early. The other morning there was a long tube of mist above the river and a soft pink sky. Pretty.

Succulents have (mostly) been rescued from the garden before the frost struck. I left one of them out there as it had some sort of insect attack. I did take a few cuttings though. Just as well as the original plant has been well and truly frosted.

I'm on the home stretch of a big quilt. Just the binding to do. That's my favourite bit. Taking the pins out one by one as I hand sew it on to be left with a neat (hopefully) finished edge.

I 'm trying a Jodi Picoult book to see what all the fuss is about. Apparently she is the most read author in this country or something like that. Also flicking through one or two cookery books. I found gingerbread sausage dogs. Yes, yes, yes. A couple of years ago we made a big gingerbread house which was delicious but really far too much gingerbread when you consider the mince pies, Christmas cake, yule log etc. etc. etc. that had to be got through too. But a few little sausage dogs will be just the job. Maybe we'll make them a kennel.

Wishing all a good weekend. Do we have the festive season in hand? I'm holding my nerve and not panicking yet. And aiming for as green a time as possible. Not for us the inflatable PVC Santa or a load of straight-to-landfill plastic from China. Just need to tell the children...

Your best book please

Do you ever stand in front of a bookshelf and find it impossible to find anything at all that you fancy reading? I often have moments like that. I went to the library in a fog of post-referendum gloom and stomped up and down looking high and low for the right thing. Nothing.

In the end I found it at home on one of our many shelves - Dodie Smith's "I Capture The Castle". I hadn't read it before, and it took me a while to decide that I was really enjoying it. Now I'm completely absorbed and loving it. But I'm also near the end, and I know that it's even harder to find a good book when I've just finished an excellent one.

So I'm here to ask for recommendations. Which book would you recommend? Nothing too dismal, I struggle with dismal. But I shall be open minded about your suggestions. Which is your favourite? I'd love to know.

I'm reading Cornelia Funke's "The Thief Lord" to the children. It's excellent. Set in Venice, which I like a lot. And with a great cast of characters. I'm constantly blown away by fantastic children's books. A couple of years ago we decided to get on a "reading streak" like Alice Ozma. It's been one of the very best things I've done with the children. Every day without fail I sit down with the youngest two and read to them. We've discovered some fantastic books and there are always more on the pile that I can't wait to get to.

I photographed the Dodie Smith book on the quilt I'm working on. It's a paper pieced one and I've just about taken all the paper pieces out of it. It's gone from being big and unmanageable to being soft and easy to fold up. Now I've finished the top I need to sandwich the wadding between the top and the reverse and quilt it somehow. Always nice to see a long project coming together.

I hope all is well with you and that you're happily in the middle of a good book. I shall look forward to seeing your suggestions. CJ xx

Mud, a monsoon and a little light sewing

Today was one of those days when you feel you've really earned a sit down. It's a blissful feeling.

The littles were at camp on Friday/Saturday and some of today, and today there was also a football tournament. I was helping out at the tournament, so all in all I was there from 9am until about 4.30pm. I got a bit wet on the way home, but that was absolutely nothing as to how wet the other half and the littlest boy got. There was some sort of monsoon event and they arrived back with water literally running off of them.

Can you imagine the washing? Camp, which included an assault course requiring commandoing along in mud, and football and torrential rain. I've lost count of the number of trainers, wellies and football boots I've cleaned. There is washing everywhere. But oh how soundly the little people are sleeping. I sometimes think that good sleep is proportionate to the amount of mud they encounter. We're off the scale today.

I balanced the weekend of sweets, sausages and pizza by making fish cooked in herbs tonight with brown rice and green vegetables. Followed by fruit. There were mutterings about chocolate cake, but I held the line and health prevailed. We've had too many days without enough fresh stuff lately. A lot of very speedy meals.

I've been reading Emma Bridgewater's memoir, which is full of delightful Englishness. In case friends from afar aren't familiar with her, she founded a successful pottery business back in the 80s. You can see her stuff here should you so wish. I do love the new vegetable garden designs. Alas they are not destined for a clumsy person such as me. I dropped four plates all at once on Friday. I do find they all break far more easily when they go down in a group. I tend to buy my china from the charity shop. It's a lot less disappointing when you drop a 50p plate. Although maybe if I had a big plate that said "Gardener Extraordinaire" on it I would be more careful.

The memoir is a nice light and enjoyable read, and it inspired me to dig out the patchwork quilt I'm making again as she talks about the quilts she's made. I'm not feeling it with yarn at the moment, but a little light sewing this evening will be just the thing. Wishing you a restful evening with your feet up too. CJ xx

Stitches, eggs, birds, bikes

This week I dug out the cross stitch I've been ignoring for months.  I've been inspired by Jennifer's beautiful work.  I loved her post about the one she's just finished and had carefully framed.  I find the one I'm doing quite small to count.  It's definitely best done in daylight, although my usual time for sewing is late at night.  Maybe why it's been malingering for so long.

The photos of the castle and the church are from the end of term.  The school had a lovely Eucharist service.  The late afternoon light was glowing through the stained glass windows, candlelight was flickering on ancient stone walls, the gold cross was gleaming softly and the smooth even notes of Bach played on the organ were tumbling over each other.  It was utterly enchanting.  The woman in front of me was checking her iphone.  I wanted to say to her, "Look!  Listen!"  These moments don't come every day.

At home we've been watching carrion crows building a nest.  They've collected their sticks and carefully slotted them onto a branch.  We checked the Birds' Eggs book, which says they'll stick it all together with mud and then line it with moss and grass and feathers to make it nice and soft for the chickies.  It'll be a shame if we can't see the chicks because the tree has burst into leaf, but I suspect that that is what will happen.

I snapped the flowering quince from the car park of Aldi.  Beauty bursting out all over the place.  It's one of my favourite spring flowers, along with magnolias and camellias.

The kale shoots are from the garden, an early spring delicacy.  In the house the tomatoes are doing well on the windowsills.  I've put foil behind them to reflect the light and it's really helped stop them leaning too much.

At the wildfowl and wetlands place there's a swan nesting, magnolia blooms fading and an avocet egg was laid while we were there.  Several swallows have been seen as well.

We spent a damp afternoon at the museum yesterday, marvelling at all the stuff.  So many wonders, natural and manmade.  The skeleton is of a wandering albatross.

This afternoon we went on a bike ride to make up for not using much energy yesterday.  What is usually a two-hour ride took three hours today.  There were numerous hiccups, but it was still a pretty good ride.  I feel ten times better about life when I've had some exercise, especially if the countryside is involved.  It makes me think I should take up running or something.

Anyway, that's all.  Have a lovely Easter, I hope the sun shines and there is chocolate.  I'm off to set the Easter treasure hunt now.  Enjoy.

Bad hair day

I overslept today.  I don't like alarm clocks, and I'm usually awake really early so it's not normally a problem.  But every so often I don't wake up, and then we're all late and there's no time to wash my hair, so it's frizzy and fuzzy and feeling wrong all day.  Today was one of those days.  I had to make a second trip to school as well, to drop off the middle boy's recorder for a lesson he hadn't been told about, which added to the feeling of the day getting away from me.  It was one of those days where I didn't really accomplish very much.

I did hack open the last winter squash though, and used some of it to make brownies.  It was really hard to get into though, it make me think I probably won't grow this variety (Turk's Turban) this year.  I had visions of the knife slipping as I pushed down on it with all my weight.

Yesterday was far more productive.  Down at the allotment I did some weeding, spread some manure over the asparagus bed and planted two dozen broad bean plants.  At home I started unravelling a pink silk scarf that I've never worn.  It's very bright, but I think if it was nicely knitted I might wear it sometimes.  The yarn is gorgeous, too nice to be stuffed sadly at the back of the cupboard.  I've got yarn for this cardigan as well, and I'm still thinking about that blanket.  Is it a symptom of spring I wonder, that desire to start too many things?

I spent some time "randomly" arranging quilt squares as well.  One hundred and twenty of them.  Now they just need to be sewn together.  Check back with me in a year or two.

The book belongs to the biggest boy, but I love looking through it too.  It's the Observer's Book of Birds' Eggs, and all of the eggs are illustrated in actual size.  We've been reading Arthur Ransome's "Great Northern?", so I had a look at divers' eggs.  The tiny ones are fascinating as well.  Imagine how small those little birds are.  The goldcrest's egg is about 13mm long.  Some of the eggs are beautifully coloured and speckled too.  The Observer's books are quite lovely, small enough to fit into a pocket or rucksack but full of information.  If you want to see a couple of pages from the book of birds, have a look at Jacquie's post, she has some photos of hers.

The piggie has been a bit under the weather for the past couple of days.  I'm hoping that sunshine and grass will help.  The vet is a great believer in sunshine therapy.  Let's hope the high pollution goes soon as well.  And a nice cloudless sky for viewing the eclipse would be good.  The children are all going to be not looking directly at it at school tomorrow, with some complicated arrangement of cardboard.  I've no idea how I'll be looking at it, without actually looking at it, but if the skies are clear tomorrow I'll think of something.  Wishing you safe viewing.  CJ xx