Simple Holiday Activities

Today began swathed in a shawl of white mist rolling in from the sea and with everything beaded and dripping. Not cold, but not a day inviting one on to the beach. A day to spend doing easy holiday things that are on the doorstep rather than trekking further afield.

Simple Holiday Activity 1: Holiday hooky in the window seat. I love window seats and would install them at every window at home if I could. They are somehow just the perfect places to read, to sew, to write, to dream and of course to crochet. Why sitting in a window seat should make a difference to the feel of these various activities I know not but I find it to be so. Partly it's just that the light of course is good in a window seat, which is why the colours are a bit over-exposed in my hooky pic below. This is the beginnings of my mother's birthday present. Don't worry, she doesn't read this so I am not letting any cats out of bags! As you can see, it's another flowery cushion, or will be, but not so much a rosy one this time; more a dahlia or chrysanthemum one with tawny golds, burnt oranges, deep reds and plum colours. Very appropriate for a September birthday when dahlias and chrysanthemums are out and dotting the garden with their big, velvety, pom-pom heads. I am finding the flower cushion much easier the second time around, even (dare I say it?), the counting! So here's hoping it will be finished in time, without too much frogging!

Simple Holiday Activity 2: Making lunch out of the simplest things - a brown paper bag of ripe cherries and some homemade bread. Yes, I do make my own bread even on holiday. A small secret about Mrs T - she cannot stay in hotels for more than a very few days at a time because she gets withdrawal symptoms if she doesn't have a kitchen to potter and make things in. So self-catering cottages have always been her preference for holidays. Of course this does mean one has to travel, if not with the kitchen sink, something not far off it, as not all self-catering holiday cottages are equipped with kitchens for serious cooking, but over the years I've got it down to a fine art and a minimal "batterie de cuisine" so to speak, that, with a bit of ingenuity, copes with most scenarios. At the very least a baby pepper grinder, my trusty cup measures (that have had the handles soldered back on more times than I care to remember), one of my own sharp knives and one of my own wooden spoons (because you never know what flavours alien wooden spoons have absorbed) will do. The rest can be improvised!

Simple Holiday Activity 3: Walking for miles among the fields and flower-filled hedgerows that lie between here and the sea. which, on a clear day, you can see as you crest the rise; along paths and over ancient stone stiles that have been here for centuries; surprised at every turn by the wildflowers that have grown in these undisturbed hedgerows since time immemorial and whose curious, tactile names roll on the tongue like smooth, misshapen pebbles and read like some ancient English roll-call from the Domesday Book - Campion, Ragged Robin, Vetch, Bird's Foot Trefoil, Pimpernel, Cat's Ear, Stitchwort, Knapweed, Viper's Bugloss and Yarrow; encountering hidden springs that feed little gurgling brooks tumbling through secret, fern-filled tunnels where the light is green. So much rain this summer has made the ground soft and very muddy in places but it has also kept everything green and vividly, excitedly alive when sometimes the English countryside by now can feel a little tired and in need of refreshment for the last haul of August until the blessed cool and dew of earlier September nights and mist-filled mornings.

Simple Holiday Activity 4: Reading a novel - "Summer At Fairacre" by Miss Read - an old favourite that I've read lots of times but still love - curled up in the window seat (again!) with a cup of tea

Of course one could spend days like this - give or take a few details - at home - the question is, "Why doesn't one?"

Haven't figured out the answer to that yet!

Kimmeridge Bay

Kimmeridge Bay, between Swanage and Weymouth, is one of my favourite places. I came here first when I was three years old and regularly thereafter as a child. Amazingly, it has changed almost not at all in the intervening years. It may not be to everyone's taste - it is a beach of flat, dark grey shale rock - no sand or even shingle so it's not a beach for building sandcastles. You can't swim easily here either because the rock shelves so gradually and so far out. There are no amusements, no cafés, no sophisticated facilities. It is just itself. But what a delight! The shallow, sloping shale that uncovers gradually as the tide goes out is full of rock pools and hidden crevices. The rocks warm easily in the sun and so the water that lazily laps a few centimetres over them is warm too. Very different from the chilly waves a few miles round the coast. Softened by the buffering effect of the rock that stretches out from the shore the waves here are gentle and lazy, their energy and force spent before they reach the limpets and sea anemones that await them. The only hazard is the slipperiness of the rocks when wet, which is considerable and while aged three this didn't bother me in the slightest, in my forties, I am slightly more circumspect about how and where I plant my feet! How did we manage before Crocs came along?! Answer: those jelly sandals or flip flops but I was never allowed these as a child. My mother disapproved of plastic shoes I think, along with other forbidden delights such as lilos, one of which I longed for every year in vain! 

Less beach combing finds today because most of what we encountered was alive! Big blobs of sleepy, dark red jelly - dormant sea anemones, repletely content and waiting for the tide to turn; limpets everywhere drying their shells in the sunshine, clinging immutably to their chosen spot - did you know limpets are homing creatures? When the tide is in and they get on the move, apparently they always return to the same spot.  Iridescent pearl-and-purple top shells with their inhabitants drowsing in the warm water; bright yellow periwinkles following suit; small dark green crabs scuttling busily in the clefts of the rocks between the shade and the sun; snake-lock anemones with their luminous green Medusa tresses, tipped with violet, waving in the water of the rock pools still under the outgoing tide, accompanied by their slightly less exotic, ruby-coloured cousins; tiny, pale, translucent shrimps darting among the seaweed, easier to spot by their shadows through the clear water than themselves.

And above the bay you can walk up onto the headland along a narrow path with the sea as blue as the Mediterranean on one side and the scents of English wildflowers mingling with that characteristic sea-scent of salt, seaweed and the wind that blows off the ocean surrounding you. Bliss!

Not sophisticated or complicated or perhaps everyone's cup of tea but I found it bliss and despite the notorious difficulty of appealing to teenagers without the aid of electronic devices so did H. We will return all too soon to normal routines and the complicatedness that besets everyday life, but for these few days it is good to dispense with them. 

I suppose these posts are a kind of diary. A way of recording simple, sea-scented days while they are happening. I hope you don't mind their meandering nature. Thank you for stopping by and slowing down with me during these few days. E x

Flotsam and Jetsam

H's photo because, as you can see, my hands are full!

One of the loveliest things about being by the sea is the endless possibility of treasures and finds that seem to make their way into pockets and hands as one walks along the shore. Pebbles, shells, bits of driftwood, even seaweed - all are fair game. The only limits are size - no rocks, or what I consider rocks but H regards as wee pebbles! And nothing with anything living inside it; also nothing with anything dead inside it. I love collecting discarded shells and it makes a nice holiday challenge to come up with some way of doing something with what one has collected. Just piling them into a sea-coloured bowl as a table centrepiece with or without a candle is lovely but one or two other ideas have come along over the years.

For this one you need imperfect shells with holes in them. I love this idea very much because it makes something intriguing and beautiful out of what one would normally discard as being broken and imperfect. In fact the more damage done by sea and erosion the better, especially to complicated shells, because it makes them easier to thread.

All you need is a selection of broken shells with holes in them and some thin string (and a bit of patience for any curly-wurly shells as they are not easy to persuade the string to go through always). Thread the shells on the string in whatever order pleases you, making a hanging loop at the top and knotting a couple or more shells together at the bottom to give a bit of weight and you have a sea chime to hang in your porch or your kitchen as a happy reminder of carefree summer days when they are long gone.

This is today's one. May make another tomorrow depending on what my beach combing throws up!

And for those of you curious to know where on the British coastline I am - this is West Dorset not far from the cliffs that collapsed last week. A salutary reminder that in the midst of life ....

All the more important then, to live what we've been given because, without being morbid, none of us knows how long that is.

Sea Snaps

For a few days I have swapped my normal staid, land-locked location for the liminal, changeful one of the coast. It's a bit of a nostalgic journey - I came here for holidays when I was small and some of my happiest childhood summer memories are tied up here. The British coast is both uncompromising and incredibly accommodating. The sea is seriously cold  - I cannot believe I ever regularly swam as a child in these chilly waters, but I did - every year, without fail! And you have to be careful even if just paddling, as the undertow is fierce, even quite close to the shore and not to be messed with.

But the shore is as engaging and welcoming to me in my forties as ever it was when I was four or five and the same things that delighted me then, still do.

There is something rather wonderful and timeless in that. Staying in a three-hundred year-old thatched cottage emphasises the timelessness - even the beams in the rather low ceilings are made out of wood rescued from long ago wrecks off the coast.

Apologies in advance for the humble nature of these snaps. My son has taken far better ones at every turn (just for a change!) but for me they encapsulate a lot of what is still timeless and delightful and simple in an ever-complicating, ever-complicated world. I feel a real need to reconnect with some of that.

A couple of examples of H's rather better efforts (with his permission but only just without having to make payment - no one more open to commercial opportunity than teenagers!)

Summer Has Come From The Sunny Land ...

... finally!

And what a joy it is after so long in the waiting. And not only is the sun shining and the skies are blue but it is really hot. Of course there are plenty of places in the world hotter but 27 C feels pretty hot after the long spell of damp and chilly grey that has been the history of the UK summer so far. Not to waste any time, (because you never know, the sun may be here today but it may be gone again tomorrow or next week!), I have taken the Roman poet, Horace's advice of "carpe diem" at his word and, as far as other stuff has allowed, I've gone a bit lazy and summery for the last few days .

Lazy And Summery 1: There has been breakfast in the garden in the very early morning - one of my all-time favourite summer pastimes at the beginning of a hot day when even early in the morning it's warm outside and everything has a quiet completeness about it that simply isn't there once the day has got started properly. Drops of dew dance in the sunlight that is already beginning to dry them to nothing; just the pigeons are cooing gentle good morning noises; the frenetic swallows have not yet taken off in their swift-wheeling, calling flight that will criss-cross the blue sky like flashing, indigo sickles later in the day; the flowers that have closed up overnight are thinking about silently opening their petals to the sun and there is virtually no other noise at all. The odd car perhaps but almost nothing else. I love this time - it's as if time itself stands still for a moment or two and holds its breath before exhaling and moving on. And if you can catch it over breakfast, even if work is calling you and the business of the day is waiting, the day is somehow always better for being begun like this.

Lazy And Summery 2: There has been sewing in the garden later on, once it is too hot to sit out in the direct sun. An after-lunch idyll among the humming bees and drifting scent of sweet peas intensified by the heat. My mother always used to cart her sewing machine outside in the summer -  I recommend it. And I've had several containable sewable projects just right for an hour's sewing before the rest of life has cut in. I've been doing more sewing than crochet in my spare time lately - I think it's having my elderly sewing machine repaired and serviced and given a new lease of life that's triggered my amateur sewing mojo!

Lazy And Summery 3: The moment has come for my Summer Has Come From The Sunny Land blanket to sun herself! She is quite small as blankets go - about 36" square so more of a throw really than a blanket but I love her. She is everything I hoped she would be - summery, light and reminiscent of wallflowers, sweet peas, roses and lavender. I half expect to smell these flowers when I hold her to my face!

The pattern is Attic 24 Lucy's Summer Garden Granny Squares which you can find here and I've used a mixture of the Sublime yarn I bought on my Teensy Yarn Spree back in February and some Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino that I had in my stash. I added a border, the first I have done for a blanket which I modelled on Lucy's picot border that she added to her Granny Stripe Blanket which she shows how to do in her post here.

I think I should possibly have increased the number of stitches at the corners more than I did as they have a tendency to curl a little but not enough to worry about.

Hope you too are enjoying a bit of Lazy And Summery - life needs a bit of it in my book!

Teenage Sleepovers

This weekend saw my son's summer "sleepover" party with BBQ. Thank God we picked this weekend when it was actually dry, sunny and warm and not any of the last umpteen previous, cold and wet ones! Not least, because owing to my own facetiousness, it was an "under canvas sleepover". The last major sleepover we had was on New Year's Eve and H insisted that it would be far the most fun if everyone kipped down round the Christmas Tree and the open fire in the living room rather than decamped at a suitable hour to bedrooms equipped with beds. The result was that nobody slept at all but sat up all night gambling with the contents of my button box at Poker, Pontoon and the like. It was not the most restful night even for H's past-it parents who tried to get some sleep. His mother, who had to get up early for work the following Sunday morning did not find it an entirely satisfactory formula particularly when after a very disturbed night she crept into the kitchen at 5.30 am to make a quiet and restorative cup of tea, she was joined by an assortment of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed teenagers wanting to argue about the meaning of life! Generally I am up for these kinds of discussions but at 5.30 am, after very little sleep, it can be pushing it a bit!

This time, when the sleepover party thing came up, I said, "People really must go to bed at some point. We can't have an all-night gambling den again." H left me under no illusion that this was party-pooping of no mean order and "What was the point otherwise?" In response, jokingly, and with hindsight, I realise slightly rashly, I said that in that case they must sleep outside. "What a good idea!" said H. "Let's do it."

One tent later here we are:

I suggested we might have a theme for this extravaganza. A degree of "discussion" took place on this and in the end we went for an amalgam of British Jubilee / American Independence Day / French Bastille Day which meant that food had to go red, white and blue and include British, American and French offerings. So far so good.

Have a tricolore burger bun anyone?! H's view is that these are "seriously weird" but I love them!

Before cooking...

... and after!

These lurid little numbers were made to contain homemade lamb-burgers which are this household's favourite BBQ food. I did wonder about tinting the mince but I was told in no uncertain terms to go no further with the idea! Shame!

These burgers are just straightforward minced lamb mixed with grated apple, grated courgette and plenty of chopped fresh mint and lots of black pepper. The courgettes nearly never made it into the burgers as H, who was helping me make these, decided they could be put to better use as baseball bats for batting balloons up and down the kitchen! Never a dull moment cooking in this house, I tell you! You can't taste either the courgette or the apple in the cooked burgers but both lend the meat a lovely juiciness and lighten the mixture beautifully. I don't put chopped raw onion in as I find it never gets cooked enough for my taste on a BBQ and if you're not careful it can dominate everything rather unpleasantly.

Again, (of course!) nobody slept at all and because I left the patio door open to enable access to the bathroom etc there were a lot of comings and goings in the small hours to recharge phones (who decides to recharge their mobile phone at 3.00am, I ask you?!) and to raid the larder in case terminal starvation set in between an enormous supper and an equally enormous breakfast. Leaving the patio door open possibly was a mistake with hindsight, as of course every time the door was slid open and shut, the noise reverberated wakingly upstairs. Also the lure of a James Bond computer game, playable by a number of people at once on a split screen, appeared to be compellingly strong around 4.00 am which was fine apart from the fact that winning or losing was an extremely noisy business!

But a lot of harmless fun was apparently had and although they are (of course) all substantially larger and noisier than they were just six months ago, which Mrs T, who feels herself by comparison to be shrinking visibly!, finds slightly disconcerting, they are a great bunch to have around.

Again deals were done and stakes dealt high, way into the small hours and beyond - never have buttons been so hardly fought for and won! Again I am amazed at just how much food hungry teenagers can put away. I am not sure whether I would put more money on teenagers or a plague of locusts in this respect! And although the sheer quantities takes me aback a little, it's absolutely lovely to cook for a bunch of people who hoover so appreciatively whatever I produce - even my weird and wonderful lurid rolls! But also ...

a gargantuan snowdrift of cheese straws,

a veritable mountain of chocolate brownies,

and two large, red, white and blue trifles!

I remain staggered at the stamina of teenagers and also the discrepancy between normal service in the holidays when I can barely get H to stir before midday and these occasions when he seems to be able to go for almost 48 hours without any sleep at all. Something doesn't quite add up here! I on the other hand cannot go without sleep for that long and felt distinctly fragile yesterday! I am not sure I ever could go for that long without sleep either, even when I was 14 / 15! But may be it's just so long ago, I  can't remember!

Something to go home with, in case starvation should set in again en route!

If anyone has any tips for teenage sleepover parties that enable parents actually to sleep even if the teenagers don't, I'd be glad to hear them!

A happy aftermath of this, is a tin of the most delicious shortbready biscuits made by the mother of one of H's friends as a thank you. They are exceptionally good and like Scrat and his nut in "Ice Age", these are going to be all mine! Thank you, Heather, so much. Shall be emailing you for the recipe and for where you got the lovely, big, flower-shaped cutter!