An Important Life Skill

Rainy Sunday afternoon

To my wonderful husband

When I wrote your card last night, and had to stop and think how old you would be today, 37 just didn't seem possible. Was it really over 11 years ago that Bronnie-chan and I made you choke on your udon by guessing you were 35, when you were really only 25? Did I really know you when you were that young??

A lot has happened since then, but one thing has not changed: how happy I am to be with you. And now there's the added happiness of our two boys, of being a family. Thanks for everything you do for us - for being a fabulous dad and my perfect partner.

(photo by C's cousin, S.N.)

Happy birthday sweetheart!

Provision

The other night, as I turned and turned the handle of my neighbour's food mill to remove skins and seeds from a second batch of tomato sauce, C asked me if this chore gives me satisfaction. Well, actually he asked if I find making tomato sauce more satisfying than ironing, to which the answer is a whole-hearted shit yeah, but as there's very little I like less than ironing, this answer seemed too easy. And it's a fair question, why I'm spending days and nights making things I can easily buy at the supermarket. (In the last couple of weeks I've also made jam and baked pumpkins and then frozen them to make soup later.)

One answer is yes, I get satisfaction from making healthy food for my family. I like knowing what goes in to what we eat, and having control over this. I like that we hardly eat any processed food, I like minimizing the sugar and salt content of what I make, I like using local, organic ingredients whenever I can. I like that my kids are interested in cooking, I like teaching them healthy eating habits, I like it when they enthusiastically like something I've made.

Another answer is that having planted the plants, I can't bear to waste the fruit.

It's the same for the walnut tree. I compulsively picked up every fallen walnut last year, we spent several long nights cracking them open... and now I'm determined to eat them. Not just the nuts, but the oil we had pressed from them, and the flour that was left behind from the pressing. Six kilos of it.

We need to hurry up - this year's crop started falling yesterday.

So today I made a walnut slice.

Cakes and biscuits are actually a bit of a dilemma for me. I am against the regular eating thereof (and especially of store-bought versions) - which means we are the house that offers fruit and air-popped popped corn for afternoon tea, instead of lollies, biscuits and ice creams like all the other houses. But I like making the occasional sweet thing for the kids, because they love them so much. And, well, I'd like to be remembered as a nice mum who provided yummy treats. So what I do is adjust recipes to make them a bit less bad, and so justify winning my children's hearts by feeding them sugar and fat.

But really, walnuts. Packed full of protein and omega 3. And this recipe has lots of eggs, also good. And do you know you can reduce the amount of sugar in cake recipes by one-third, and no-one ever notices? Plus I use stone-ground flour (lower GI!) and I would cut it with wholemeal flour, only I have that walnut flour to use up, so I used it instead. So really, it's even kind of healthy! (We'll just ignore the margarine and chocolate. Although I did use fat-reduced margarine, so it's not as bad as it could be).

Anyway, this slice is DELICIOUS, and definitely worth making even if you don't have loads of walnuts to use up. Here's the original recipe - as mentioned I reduced the sugar by one-third and used reduced-fat margarine for the topping. I also suggest adding more cinnamon if you use wholemeal flour.

Base:
1 1/4 cups self-raising flour
1/2 cup margarine
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup chopped walnuts (or pecans)

Rub flour, margarine, sugar and cinnamon until mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add nuts. Press into 9x12" ungreased pan, cook for 10 min at 180 degrees C.

Topping:
30g dark chocolate
1/4 cup margarine
3 eggs
1 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 tablespoons water

Melt chocolate and margarine. Beat other ingredients, add melted chocolate/margarine, pour onto base. Cook for 20 mins at 180 degrees C, or until topping has set.

Try not to eat it all at once.

Relativity

Lukan these days is a Big Boy.

He wears underpants. He pees in the loo like a pro. (Don't ask about the poos.) He has moved out of his cot and into a big bed with a big mattress.

He is very happy with his new status. He refutes any suggestion that he is still small.

From his brother:

- Lukan is a baby, Lukan is a baby.

- I not a baby, I a big boy cos I got underpants.

From me:

- Hey look at you, my little pirate!

- I not a little piwate. I a big scawy piwate.

And just in case:

- I big cos I have this many years (holding up 3 fingers).

So when I said the reason he can't join Téo's soccer team is because he's not big enough...? See for yourself:

The other side

The train station forms the northern(ish) boundary of the village, from which the fields become meadows and forest as you go up into the hills*. Here is the southern(ish) boundary, above the vineyards that rise steeply from the valley** below and run along this first foothill.

* Really, they are mountains, but C dismisses them as hills because they are not the Alps.

**And really, it is called a plain, but I dismiss it as valley because, well, it's a valley.

See?

(If you look closely, you can just make out snow a real mountain - Mont Blanc.)

Hard life

Splotch isn't allowed outside yet. And while he certainly would like to get out and explore...

... he doesn't really seem to be suffering to badly from his confinement.

Welcome

If you catch the train to our place, and are seated close to the front, then when you get off, you find yourself in a field. Various visitors, whom I have forgotten to warn, have reported this as being a little disconcerting. Which I can understand. But I love stepping out into the wide open space, and a view whose changing light and clouds and colours never fails to make me pause. Which is maybe why I keep forgetting to give the warning.

What happened on July 7:

Oh look, it's the 7th of the 7th. Janet's birthday. She's 40 now. Hang on... actually no, she's turning 41 today. Shit that means I'm going to be 41 soon. F***!!!

What happened this morning:

There was a card propped up against my bedside light.

The kids bounded into the bedroom, sang me happy birthday, gave me a kiss, and bounced around happily.

C revealed that, contrary to what I had assumed last night, he did in fact have plans to take me out tonight.

Various people called/emailed/texted/facebooked me to say happy birthday.

And, that 4 aside, I remembered how much I love the 9th of the 9th.

So glamorous

If you had told me, say, 15 years ago, that one day I would be going to Brussels for a business trip, I would have thought that sounded so glamorous. Brussels! For the day! Wow!

The reality is somewhat different.

You get up at sparrow's fart, leave while the rest of your family is still snoring, and drive for an hour in the dark and pouring rain to the airport.

The plane is late. You wait.

You fly. You are hungry as you haven't yet had breakfast, nothing appealed at the airport, and nothing appeals on the plane.

You walk and walk and walk to get out of the airport, feeling several blisters developing from your hardly ever worn high-heeled shoes.

You get to the organization you are visiting.

You wait. You meet with various people with whom you may be working. You wait. You eat a canteen lunch. You wait. You meet with further people with whom you may be working. You wait. You are starving.

You get back to the airport. You devour some fast food, but not much in the hope you might find something a bit more healthy. You do some quick clothes shopping (that part is fun, not because there's any particularly glamourous shops, but because the prices are MUCH cheaper than at home).

Something beeps as you go through security, prompting a full body pat down.

You board the plane. You are still starving, having found nothing healthy to eat at the airport that didn't have a huge queue. Nothing appeals on the plane, once again.

You arrive back in your country, eyes watering and very tired. Your feet are killing you.

You snatch the last bread roll from the small food shop at the airport, along with some camenbert.

In the car, you make a hasty sandwich and gulp it down. And see your fly is undone - since when, you don't know.

You drive for an hour in the dark and rain back home.

You go to bed.

Very glamorous indeed.

Cat v2

So, ah, Tabby is no longer. I let her out one morning and we never saw her again. My niece is sure she tried to go back to their place and simply took the wrong road, but I suspect a fox.

There were tears. From the kids too.

After a couple of weeks I started searching for a new kitten. And this morning we got one!

Hopefully we'll manage to keep little Splotch alive...

Fruition II

You've seen the before, here's the after:

There's sunflowers!

And cornflowers!

And some kind of pink flower!

So pretty!

What's that? Oh, right, it's meant to be a veggie patch, not a flower garden. Well, you know we have lettuces... there's also pumpkins!

And cabbages (slightly overtaken by the pumpkins)!

And leeks (also slightly overtaken by the pumpkins)!

And carrots, corriander, peas... and tomatoes. LOTS of tomatoes.

Which the kids eat like lollies.

And which fulfilled a dream for this year: making my own tomato sauce for winter! (and also some oven-roasted tomatoes)

I suspect I'll be making more...

Fruition I

8.30pm. Kids in bed. Washing up done. Right, what's next... the raspberries. Sigh.

And so you go out, across the road to your in-laws, where your raspberry plants have their 2-daily batch of fruit ready to pick.

Trudge trudge trudge up the drive.

Mind whirring with all the other chores you have.

At the vines, quiet. Just the sound of the water gurgling from the old-fashioned water pump in the garden of your child's friend's grandparents' place next door, the jingle of the cow bells in the paddock across the road, the odd swallow above.

The fading light silhouetting the mountains is gorgeous.

The air has a bit of a nip, reminding you that autumn is coming.

The berries are dark, swollen, delicious.

You are all alone.

And you are struck by just how beautiful this life you have is.