It's funny how you can sometimes read something that just rings so true that you wonder why you didn't realise it before. A eureka moment. In this case I'm talking about this blog post by Nancy, who I had the pleasure of meeting whilst staying with CompostWoman this last weekend. The principle she talks about is that to be truly happy people should look to have a livelihood rather than a job. Putting it into simple term, what this means is finding your niche in life and finding a way to use your skills to provide something useful for those around you. A livelihood is ... read more
West of the Wall – Marcia Preston
Following Little Miss C's arrival I've not had much time for reading, but when my mum recently lent m a copy of West of the Wall and told me how much she'd enjoyed it I thought I'd try to see if I could find the time to read again and I'm delighted to say that I could squeeze in a few pages here and there between feeds and nappy changes.In this Marcia Preston book we follow the fortunes of Trudy who lives in what was then East Berlin with her young son and mother in law. Her husband Rolf is missing, believed to have crossed the wall into West Berlin. The ... read more
Putting faces to names
We've arrived home this evening after a wonderful weekend staying with CompostWoman and her family at their small holding in Herefordshire. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet them (and various other HML forum people) and also get to finally see "Compost Mansions" and in particular their wood. Their hospitality was fantastic (definitely a five star establishment) and I've come back feeling very recharged and determined to make things happen here.Little Miss C loved having new surroundings to look at and different people's faces to study. She seems exhausted ... read more
Potatoes and Tomatoes
It seems that not all our growing efforts are in vain this year after all. Our first attempt at growing potatoes was via a free kit that you could send off for from the BBC Gardeners' World Magazine. The kit contained Vales Emerald seed potatoes and also a patio bag to grow them in. It really was as simple as filling the bag with compost, putting the seed potatoes in and ensuring that they got plenty of water. This afternoon we decided to see what the bag contained and we were pretty content with our results. Hopefully we'll get to eat them some time this ... read more
Not exactly a bountiful harvest…
... but better than nothing! I'm also hopeful that there are more courgettes still to come. ... read more
Escape to River Cottage
Somehow, and I'm not entirely sure how, I realised a while back that I'd never actually seen the original series of River Cottage. I also recently had a birthday - cue a very unsubtle hint to Mr C for a birthday present. Escape To River Cottage covers Hugh's original move to Dorset and his first attempts at self-suficiency. It's amusing looking back and seeing him tackle things in a slightly naive manner when he would do exactly the same things today very confidently. In a way I found that there was actually a lack of information about some of the things ... read more
Getting back to “normal”
Little Miss C is eight weeks old today. Eight weeks! Where has the time gone. From a small baby who came into the house and did little more than sleep, eat and fill her nappy, I am instead looking down at a bigger baby playing on her play mat, making noises, hitting the toys hung above her and occasionally breaking into a smile too. The transformation has been amazing and it seems that every day there is some small change that we can marvel over.Now that we're both getting used to each other we're learning to live with each other pretty well. I'm incredibly lucky as she's not a ... read more
Tired and weary…
It's amazing how tired and weary you can feel after a day in which I struggle to list what I have actually achieved. This is so different though to the tiredness that I used to feel after a day at work. More emotionally and physically draining, but at the same time satisfying. At the end of it all Little Miss C smiles and suddenly the screaming and tears, dirty nappies, endless feeding and hours pushing the pram are forgotten. The aching weariness is a bit harder to shift though... ... read more
Thank you Rattling On!
I'm often amazed at the kindness of fellow bloggers and once again I'm feeling that way today too!My MIL came to visit at lunch time with a package for Little Miss C from the lovely Dawn over at Rattling On. The absolute darling that she is has knitted this adorable cardigan for Little Miss C. The colour is perfect (as her daughter says very "this year") and I'm in love with the buttons and desperate to know where she got them from. As you can see it goes perfectly with LMC's outfit this afternoon (a gift from her Auntie) and she was very happy to ... read more
Life with Little Miss C
This adorable little lady seems to take up most of my time at the moment, but I'm certainly not complaining about that! It is funny though how whole days can just vanish now without me realising it. Still I'm amazed already when looking back at photos of when she was born as to how much she has changed in just three and a half weeks. Making the most of her therefore is my priority so again please forgive me if the blog takes a bit of a back seat. ... read more