We have had an eventful morning… spent an hour or two lying on the sofa bed reading the same books over and over..

(and just when I was getting into doing the voices and making it all very animated, I was usurped by someone needing to watch The Snowman.

Me: “Sweetpea, will we read “The Paper Caper” again?”

Herself: “No. Me like ‘Nowman now”…)

Then we wandered out to the garden to pick some tomatoes for lunch- our Autumn fruiting raspberries are only  coming into fruit outside, but are ripe and delicious in the polytunnel. We picked a bowl for our dessert, and  before we got as far as the back door …

Me: “Hey! Where did our raspberries go?” 

Herself: “Heh heh heh” (evil cackle) 

“We” made egg fried rice with some left-over rice 

(Me: “do you want to scoop some coconut oil out for the frying pan?”

Herself: “yes” (and scoops out a spoon. And eats it. Then we have a minor altercation over allowing me to have a spoon of it to fry the rice)

Someone had to test each tomato before I could cut them up

and artfully toss some over the rice

(“Isn’t that pretty?”

“No”)

And then after lunch we decided to be creative and cut up the felted blankets to make cushions and a photo tutorial too (cue: delightful images of mother and daughter measuring and smiling and working completely in harmony)

Well. That daughter of mine!

she is so bloody independent, decisive, impatient (with me!!!!) single minded (where did she get all these traits from, I’d like to know?) determined, creative…

funny and soft and cuddly and warm…

I have to run… Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work I go!!!

and isn’t the little gathering basket gorgeous? Beloved Husband made that a while ago from some of our willows (sallies) from our “sally gardens”… he has been commissioned to make many of these, as soon as the willows are harvested, for our shop. They really are incredibly useful, from gathering blackberrries, eggs, tomatoes… or as often happens in our house… dolls or lego!!

Here is our Wee One with a few delicious tomatoes we picked in the polytunnel… the little wrist purse is from Lush Stuff, it’s also lovely, and beautifully made… check them out here!

Using our tomatoes:

I made a tomato and cucumber salad and dressing a la Sophie (merci mon ami!!) The dressing was liberal amounts of olive oil, balsamic vinegar (oh holy moly, I use Llwellyns Irish Cider Balsamic Vinegar, and I could drink it from the bottle- actually, I have, for scientific purposes you understand – it is truly divine) and some basil… delicious…

 and then…

I chopped up some bell peppers, courgette, tomatoes, ginger, onion, and garlic, stir-fried, and doused in a good soy sauce, and of course some cider vinegar. Beloved ‘Ubby made the brown bread, (he has been closely watching my mother make hers when he gets the chance) which was the perfect accompaniment.

*Sigh*

I’ve found the past few months pretty overwhelming- I had way too much to do, and no time to do it… but now at last, thankfully, things are starting to slow down… and I’m ploughing through my “to-do” list with relief. Orders are being made for new books, puppets and wooden toys; I’m working on a whole new series of personalised illustrative paintings, prints and stationery- more, and photos on that later in the week!- and I’ve started other mixed media paintings- ones I’ve been gathering materials, ideas and drawings for, for weeks and months. 

I’ve also sorted out where we will start our crochet get-togethers – Andrea of Lush stuff and Dream Interiors very kindly has offered her beautiful shop space in Ballinasloe- so we now just to get in a few hooke – (ooops, was just about to say hookers- mightn’t be quite the terminology I was looking for) crochet-minded individuals (on that note: Clare, if you are reading this, will you get in touch with me, my phone has wiped out my entire contact list…  ) and we are away. Hopefully we will have our “Crochet Appreciation Society” up and running in the next few weeks!

And just to leave you with an image that makes me weep…. with delight..!

All from the polytunnel over the weekend… yay!

Where do I start? Well, I got up that little bit extra early today and trotted out to the polytunnel to get the handful (literally) of ripe fruit there (raspberries and strawberries) before my delightful little monsters children cleared the branches. So, with my 120gms of fruit, I cooked them up with 120gms of sugar while I made a few scones and whipped up some vanilla sugar in the cream. 

 Beloved and I had our scones in a rather boring fashion- jam with cream on top; Wee One just dispensed with the scone altogether and just ate the jam and cream (definitely my daughter)

(Mother, and all those doubters out there, this photo is pictorial evidence that we are actually out of bed before 11am)

So, with brekkie out of the way, and the menu for the day planned, I finished off the sewing I needed to do. (Didn’t want to disappoint anyone and be actually organised)

And here it is!

The hand-stitched, thrifted, recycled, crocheted bag!

I used a cream vintage, Irish wool blanket that I bought for a song in a charity shop, felted it in the washing mashine, hand stitched with a running stitch in orange, then top stitched in cream. The crochet granny squares were stitched to the front; I covered a button in the wool felt ( that was the HARDEST bit!!) and made a little crochet loop. 

I’m thoroughly delighted with it, and am in the middle of making a tutorial, I’ll hopefull post it tomorrow or Sunday.

Thanks Andrea for hosting such a great “Lush Friday” event! Pop over to her blog: Lush Stuff to see all the other great makes!

Note the green leaves people!!! These are our first salad leaves of the year, and I’m unbelieveably excited. We have been harvesting rhubarb for a few weeks now and I’m in talking to the seedlings in the polytunnel every evening in the hope that it will encourage faster growth 

(I’m serious) 

(apparently it does work, I’m not just mad) 

So for lunch today, it just had to have a decorative green leaf theme.

Hence the artfully draped leaves over the hawaiian bap (chicken, cheese and pineapple melted under a grill) and chicken fried rice. 

Our boys favourite meal is egg fried rice. I fry some spring onion, then chuck in the cold rice in my wok  in on top of a good spoonful of melted coconut oil,

(which, by the way, (don’t get me started, oh, all right then, I will!:-) is just the healthiest oil, the health benefits of coconut oil include hair care, skin care, stress relief, maintaining cholesterol levels, weight loss, increased immunity, proper digestion and metabolism, relief from kidney problems, heart diseases, high blood pressure, diabetes, HIV and cancer, dental care, and bone strength, as well as being one of the only foods apart from breastmilk that is perfectly digestible by the human body),

fry up and then add in one egg and a good glug of soy sauce. Add some cooked meat and/or vegetables and you have just the quickest, most delicious meal ever.

We retired outside for our tea afterwards

(and yes, we always sit in the sun under the pergola with bunting and white linen tablecloths, sipping tea and eating petit fours. Doesn’t everyone?!)