New Year Walk 2015 (by sarah)

A new year is upon us and after a night of much fun and poetry writing and the such like it was time to do lots of DIY and go for a walk. We went to the Forest of Dean. We love walking but it has not always been a possible pass time, this year we hope that will not be the case.

In all aspects life is exciting and uncertain at the moment but in good ways and Mary is starting to actually like walks through trees though she was still very glad to get back to the car much to Jean's disappointment - she wanted to run around in the "wilds" more.

We found a dragon pretending to be a tree - no really!

Alaric got stares and stares and stares (there were a lot of people about), I don't know if it was the three pairs of legs, the cloak, pink/purple hair or the Christmas Pudding hat - he say's they looked like they were worried he was a weirdo who would eat their dogs or something - I don't think he was wrong. The girls loved it.

I thought he looked brilliant - he said the Christmas Pudding hat was the least surprising of the combo for the norms 🙂

We found a river - it had been bound - like the rest of the forest.

It is sad and wonderful at the same time.

We thought on resolutions and projects and goals and wants and wishes as we walked round the lake.

One of mine is I want to post my stuff here more rather than being sucked into Facebook - having said that there is a 2015 Walks album but I plan to post one or two pics from each walk only - we plan on there being a lot of walks. People have been asking me to do more of the poetry photo twitter things I sort of started doing accidently this year just gone - ah what happens when you get a smart phone.

My camera is a bit broken so it started to act up at this point - but there were birds - lots and lots of them - they seemed happy 🙂

I love the muted colours of winter - greys and browns that seem smudged together and expectant.

Some of the birds were walking on water - there was some ice but not sure if they weren't just birds that do that - with the surface tension. It was still a wonder what ever.

The day light was beginning to go bringing the first day of the new year to a kind of close - we are expectant and awed by this year already and what ever happens it will be busy but fluid, adaptable and hopefully lovely.

There are writing projects and events including being guest poet and lunching a comic book - there is cuddly science and knitting, metal work and house decorating, there are friends and family and climbing. Mary and Jeany are progressing at astounding rates something that should not slow. We look forward to sharing parts of their adventures as they explore the world around them.

Happy New Year.

Day 20 – Two Hats (by sarah)

Today's painting was supposed to show that lensing/clarity you get with really clear ice - it did not turn out the way I had imagined but never mind!

I have a three year old who wont believe my laptop is not a touch screen and she likes wearing two hats 🙂 (photo)

Advent 14 (by sarah)

This is day 14 of Advent and this is water colour number 14 - I call it The Gateway and there will def. be a story. In the mean time my toddler is astute.

Mary: where's the cat door? Me: we don't have one Mary: why? Me: because we haven't gotten around to installing one yet Mary: poor cats shakes head Mummy make the cat door

Day 13 – Winter Blaze (by sarah)

I love the sunshine through the woods especially in the snow - though I have to say I am relieved to live in a warm house these days and we haven't had good snow for the last couple of years. I've been looking at the sky alot since starting the paintings 🙂

Also I have been listening to lots of the Celtic Women 🙂 Mary refuses to believe that I am not one of the singers but this is purely as she had curled her hair in one of the shows and has a dress like mine.

What A Lot of Allotment…. (by sarah)

This week we made it too the allotment twice during the evenings and Saturday we were there from lunch time until the night was closing in and as I think that was the longest day that is saying something!

During the week I also used up the produce we had harvested last weekend - namely the raspberries and the broad beans - the raspberries are the main reason we are going during the evenings as there are more ripe ones every few days. We have already gotten to the point of making smoothies and stuff 🙂

We also got to try out are roof rack for the first - I told my Dad that we needed a chair for the allotment or a bench or something and that I had been trying on Freecycle to get one for ages - we talked about making one from the spare decking and old table that is lurking around our garden. But what happened is when he went home he restored a chair frame he'd been given for fire wood and made a seat for it and painted it so it would last outside and sent it down with my brother. I kind of didn't believe it was for the allotment but it was! So it got tied on the roof rack.

We picked up some coloured sharpies on route so the girls could decorate it.

Jeany did get a bit frustrated with her sister as she kept scribbling over bits Jean was trying to do nicely but it all worked out well including decorations from Alaric such as a castle and rocket and snake that he and Jean did together.

There is still more to be done on it but that is fine as we can just keep taking the sharpies with us 🙂 Jean also made sure we all knew what the seat was for 🙂

Whilst there I did so much weeding I lost count - I know I did at least 7 buckets full and filled up the new composter we had to buy on Friday (or rather Al bought whilst I was walking Jeany to her drama group). To be fair the first of the buckets only was weeds and all - the others were damage limitation (ie cutting the tops of the thistles that wouldn't pull nicely) but the last two buckets where veg bed weeding and I even managed to do some hoeing and raking whilst Al was off getting shopping.

Jean collected a bag of lemon grass, a bag of hay and a bag of dandelions as well as harvesting the raspberries 🙂 She was most excited about dandelion stalks that were as tall as she was 🙂

I have crowned her Jean Bean the Allotment Queen 😀

We were also gifted some french bean plants by one of the other allotment holders which we planted along with the spare tomato plants and the runner beans I got fro Prinknash Abby last weekend. These are in were the sweetcorn has failed to come up. Radishes and spring onions are doing well and we are quiet happy with it though there is still a lot of work to do to get the site maintainable. Alaric brought dinner back to the allotment which was great 😀

We were also given a load of peas and half our fridge was full of home produce - this is the way we like it 😀

Sunday morning I cleaned the chickens out and made pancakes with home grown eggs, I picked the strawberries in the garden - unfortunately breaking our bench chest that the neighbours gave us. And I made a coolie from some of the raspberries 🙂 We also used the neighbours home made cherry syrup and it was fab 😀

Lilly - Jean's chicken is sadly still ill and sadly producing soft shells again - she is the only one of the four rescue hens not to have grown all her feathers back. I found the rabbit eating the soft shells so we decided he had to come back out of the run which is unfortunate as they provide him with company, but with Lilly sick as well we just thought it was best.

Of course the hutch which was origonally Blacky's now has no doors so we've bought him a little run thing for now whilst we build him a run that is big enough for him and a friend and he is being let out for supervised time to hope around the whole garden.

(it's just as well we are growing lots of food as it cost our weekly food/domestic shop budget!)

ALso we have discovered that we have corn and wheat and stuff growing in the garden where we used to feed the chickens and rabbit before their new run was built!

Apart from that we didn't get the tip run done though we did build a mount for the festival trolly to go on the roof of the car (on the roof rack) and we found Elmo and a funky car.

Of course I also cried because a) the pedometer and stuff shows I am active even though it hurts and long walks are with a stick and the calorie counting shows I am eating 2/3 what I am supposed to as a woman and I am still expanding round the waist :/ and b) Jean wanted a hamster and I am so broody that though I said no I really wanted it so when I didn't get my coffee I cried but it wasn't really about coffee - sigh. But mostly all fab at the moment.