Moments

An unusual moment of winter coats and gumboots in the middle of December. We ventured out in the rain to jump in puddles. I'm getting to the point where I can hardly tell the difference between my boys if they've got their back to me or if their eyes are hidden. I can't quite believe that last picture of Kian – he's not even two. I was in two minds to put it up here, because whilst I think it's beautiful, it's a reminder that he growing up so fast. Too fast.

A lovely moment at the end of a strenuous week. Mummy, Mummy, please can you take a picture of me with my orange beetroot?

The moment we found a cicada with its glassy, veined wings on our doorstep, followed by several moments of giggling and whispering between two brothers as they discovered its chirping, buzzing sound whenever they gently touched it. It was as fascinating for me as it was for them.

More fleeting moments.

Joining in with Lou here.





Blogging vs real life

I went out on Friday night and had a lovely evening. Not only did I get to see some familiar faces, but I met another blogger (hello Kate), which brought home even more that real life interaction is so much nicer. You get to see a person's eyes and hear them laugh, and you can comment on things that you wouldn't be able to online, such as a striking skirt they might be wearing. It's real and the conversation flows and you open up to things that you wouldn't ordinarily confess to (please Kate, don't tell anyone what I do on trains), because the connection is different. A better different.

I know these are camping pictures but bear with me.

I was introduced to someone else that evening, someone I could have talked and giggled with all night. We had lots in common: we both have two children, we both like gin and we both agree that it's perfectly acceptable to answer the door in our nightwear in the late afternoon and jump up and down when it's a case of wine being delivered. Not sure what else we share, but I'm sure that's enough for a friendship to begin.

Anyway, she found my blog afterwards and wrote to me saying she was glad she met me before she read it, otherwise she would have been all 'oh god, she cooks and has pretty children and makes things and I don't do anything near as creative and her garden actually grows things'. (Hope you don't me quoting you, S.)

Which really got me thinking. How much of the real me comes across in this blog? Do people turn away because they think life here is beautiful moments from the minute we wake up to the minute we close our eyes at night? Surely not?

Yes, I cook, but Kian doesn't eat any of it. ANY of it. He would rather eat cream cheese on toast than the quinoa and roast pumpkin I presented him last night. Yes, I cook, but I don't clean up after myself, and so I only see my kitchen benches when someone comes to visit (the same approach I use for cleaning the house as a whole, actually). 

I grow a lot of food because it's something I believe in, but I have days when I'm so exhausted I don't want to do any of it. The cooking, the gardening, playing shopkeeper or pushing them on the swing.

It doesn't mean what I post here on my blog is any less authentic for it. Everything I write about and every picture I take is real and it comes from the heart. These are largely our best moments, much like a child's photo album or a collection of wedding pictures. 

It's focusing on the good bits so I keep striving forward and not end up on a heap somewhere all tired and miserable. It's remembering the good feelings so that it keeps inspiring me to do more, and hopefully inspire you who comes to read my words.

Like our camping trip, for example (you knew I'd get there eventually). If I wrote about the boys running through an old fire pit and walking the ash all over our beds, I'd probably not do it again. If I took pictures of the filth, oh dear god, the filth that comes with sticky hands and dirty bodies... If I gave any thought to those bloody flies that had me yelling at Graeme that we were mad to go... If I was reminded about how much hard work it was pack it all up and pitch the tent and find a clean plate amidst the filth in the tent and get any sleep on filthy sheets and find any shade in 37 degree heat and get through the washing when we got back...

No, instead, I'm going to look at that beautiful shot of Kian standing by the river playing with his fingers. I'm going to remember the sticks we collected together for the camp fire that got the boys so excited every night. The moment that we all sat down and toasted the marshmallows that Graeme made before we left... The time we spent cooling off in the water beside our tent and the hour that we spent on the canoe drifting down the river with Sydney splashing next to us...

If I just focus on these, it will mean the boys get to go camping again. Because that's what matters.




Hanging out for bruschetta

We're spending every afternoon in the garden at the moment. I'm loving it. With our tomato plants standing proud and next door's jacaranda in perfect purple bloom, it's where I rush to in-between meals.

Five plants aren't quite enough – not when I'm planning tarts, salads and plates of bruschetta for lunch, not to mention that a certain four-year-old round here ate half our crop last year straight off the vine. So I bought two more on Saturday and couldn't resist some purple basil to keep them company – all in the name of companion planting, of course.

The big boys shovelled homemade compost into a $3 fruit crate I found, while my little boy wanted to mulch. We staked and pinched, tied and watered.

Still no red ones, but plenty of green ones. Not long now.  

Meanwhile, as chilly as it was yesterday, we picked the first of our summer basil for pizza. A bit of purple and a lot of green. It went into the tomato sauce with a handful of fresh oregano, and the rest was piled on top at the table.

(And duly picked off by our two saucepots.)




My mum used to...

Isn't it funny the things we remember from our childhoods? I remember mum making bread, pizza dough and pastry without any scales. I remember her hands smelling of wet rubber from her washing-up gloves.

She'd be in the kitchen at 6am making our egg and basturma (air-dried cured beef) sandwiches before she waved us off at 6.30am onto the hour-long school bus ride across Cairo. I remember rich spinach flans, crisp potatoes in the pan and waffles filled with icing sugar.

I remember her knee getting infected from washing the parquet floors on all fours. I loved how she let us watch Knots Landing late in the evening with her, looking out all the time for Dad to come home so we'd have enough time to run back to our bedrooms and feign sleep. Mum was always on our side.

This afternoon as Kian helped me shred newspaper in the garden, I wondered what things the boys will say about me. Will they remember that I called them little pickles and little saucepots... When they're older and talking to friends, will they say Mum was always buying bags of crap from the side of the road and you should have seen how ridiculous she was whenever she saw a cockroach... and the way she chased flies around the house with that green swat (didn't we call it a splat?). 

Or will they look back fondly and say Mum let us stir and chop in the kitchen, and she always gave us the cake spoon to lick. She said 'goodness gracious me' an awful lot and sometimes she'd yell 'ssshhhhhhh' and say 'sugar'. 

There are images I hope will always stay with them. Images of stories read over and over and songs sung over and over at bedtime. Our sushi and a show ritual and squares of dark chocolate in the top cupboard.

Except maybe what will stick is this one thought: Mummy always had better things to do than clean.

What will yours say about you? What are your lovely childhood snippets? 





Growing up

I knew he wouldn't nap forever, but after over four and a half years I couldn't imagine how he'd ever get through the day without a sleep. My days for as long as I can remember have been split into a morning and an afternoon with a nap in the middle. Kian (eventually) slotted nicely into how Luca had carved our days. Whatever we do in the morning, he'd start showing those signs around lunchtime and he'd say he's tired and take himself off to bed. On preschool days when he doesn't nap, he comes home and does very little. He's snoring by 6.30pm.

My life as a mother would have looked very different had I not had those two hours to myself every day. To be able to split the day in two and know there is a break in the middle has saved me on countless days. It's when I eat in peace, read in peace, and write here in my little space. In peace.

It's when I also nap myself, stealing twenty minutes or so to rest on the sofa with my feet up and stare at the sky and trees all around the house. Oh, I love it when quiet reins after lunch.

But quiet reins no longer. He doesn't desperately head for his bedroom as soon as his tummy's full. I still insist on quiet time (for both our sakes), so he reads on his bed until he can't keep away from his craft table any more.

He draws and writes, paints and cuts. And with Kian asleep and not at his elbow knocking over his tools and screwing up his paper, he realises that this is his golden hour.

It will be our golden hour too (eventually), because once I've reorganised my time and kicked my four-year habit I will spend one-on-one time with him and enjoy it.

But right now, I'm trying to kick the habit. Of being on my own, falling asleep without being prodded, and relishing two hours without questions and demands.

It's the end of an era.

Except I'm not really lamenting the end of my quiet time – I've had it good, I know. What makes me a touch sad is it's the end of Luca being little. He's growing up.

I know every parent sees more in their children's art than anybody else, but will you look at that kookaburra? We had to frame it. Every morning while everyone still sleeps, Luca creeps out and draws from books. Plants, wildlife, anything. Lately, he's started painting with watercolours. I wonder how much all this will shape the school decision...




Three children

It was winter last week (with thick snow only two hours away!) and it's full-on summer this week. The weather's confused and so are we. I've been back and forth digging out winter clothes that I thought wouldn't have to come out again until next year. Now it looks like I can definitely put them back.

I stay in when it gets to the thirties, otherwise it starts to fry my brain and whatever smidgen of patience and capacity I have for listening to my children just dissipates in the hot sun. I start madly scrambling around looking for a way out and I start to panic.

Panic is what I almost did two weeks ago when it reached 35 degrees. I had promised the boys a trip to the Reptile Park if they sat quietly while I took pictures of the sourdough bakers for my deadline later that day. A promise is a promise. Even if I didn't know how hot it would be. Thick sunscreen and wide-brimmed hats did nothing to stop the panic from creeping in. But something else did.... Sprinklers. I scooped Kian out of the buggy, took my shoes off and told Luca we were going to get wet together. We ran in and out till we dripped. After a quick cuddle with a koala and a pat of the Galapagos tortoise, we were dry again. So we did it again. Kids joined us and parents thought I was a little crazy.

Water saved the day yesterday too, when my long-haired pair were starting to drive me loopy inside the house. I found some shade on the decking, filled their wading pool and gave them empty laundry bottles and straws. They played together for almost two hours, only coming in to ask for chalk to draw on the outside of the house. We kept Sydney wet and she took shelter in the shade of the trampoline. She was too hot and bothered to ask for a walk.

It was blissful for once, listening to running water and the sound of my children giggling without anyone tormenting Sydney and without Sydney nagging me to go out.

That is, until I discovered Kian bent one of my hydrangea flowers and Sydney lopped it off with her tail. Until Luca had a pee in the pool and Kian started to drink it by the bottle. Until Kian decided to feed all his chalk to Sydney. And until they decided to dig up the garden and pour mud all over Sydney's kennel and themselves... When it wasn't bath night.

It's like having three children out there sometimes. Except it's nothing like having three children.

I've found myself wondering lately what that would be like.  Would it tip us over the edge or would it complete the picture?*





* I can wonder all I like. It's still very much a 'no, thank you' from my spearfisherman.

Fleeting moments

There are moments that I just want to freeze. Or maybe what I mean is I'd love them to last a little longer than a few moments.

When they play on the trampoline as they do every morning and afternoon and all I can hear as I'm pegging washing is Kian's giggle and Luca making him laugh.

Or when Kian falls over and Luca takes on the role of carer and passes him a muslin and tells him it's OK.

Luca has taught him how to play hide and seek and I don't know if Kian understands 'it's my turn to hide', but they work it out somehow.

They chase each other down the hallway (what would we do without a hallway???) and then fall in a heap on each other.

But they're all just fleeting moments, before it all comes crashing down.

I don't like conflict – that's my trouble, so when I get moments like this, I stop what I'm doing and watch. That's usually when it all goes to pot.

I know parenting isn't a stroll in the park, and I imagine, like any other journey, it probably has something to teach us.

But, really, does it have to teach us every. single. hour. of. every. single. bloody. day? Can we not just schedule the lessons say once a fortnight or so? Once a week? Then you see, I can deal with my conflict issues in an appropriate manner and have time to think about what I might do to prepare for the next lesson?

Gosh, wouldn't that be nice. Don't you think?




Slow bread

I pitch lots of ideas all the time. Some get commissioned, some don't. Of the ones that get the go-ahead, there are stories I would happily write for nothing. La Tartine, an organic sourdough bakery here on the Central Coast, was one such piece.

It was the school holidays, or in our case, preschool holidays, so Luca came with me. He sat on the floury floor and drew. He drew the mixers and he drew their fruit loaf.

His Mummy talked to the bakers. The bakers that make the best kind of bread. The same bread that was made thousands of years ago. The oldest kind of bread.

His Daddy took pictures (although I hasten to add that I took this one!)

I could have talked to them all day, but they had hundreds of loaves to roll, shape and prove. They had been there since early morning and wouldn't leave till just before midnight. Their days are long and very physical. But they do it because they're passionate about sourdough. They believe in bread made this way.

In what was really only a few hours, they managed to inspire, teach and even scare me.

The inspiring part is why I started my food artisan series. They're definitely next in line. I'll be writing another post very soon to celebrate the people at La Tartine. (I'll explain why they scared me – and I don't mean Halloween scary.)





Fritters, peas and glorious orange

I love the seasons dictating what we eat. We haven't had any tomatoes since last summer, so we're eagerly awaiting our next crop. The seedlings are coming along nicely. I think I may have added too many in the one patch, but there's plenty of basil in there too – a favourite companion in the garden and on the plate.

I can't wait for fresh basil again and warm tomatoes grown in my own soil. I thought I ate seasonally before, but not compared to now. Tending a garden and growing your own, even if it's only some herbs and a few vegetables, connects you in so many ways to nature and shows you a much simpler way to eat. What it also does is disconnect you from the trappings of supermarkets. Once you get used to all that year-round choice, it sucks you in, making you believe that choice is a good thing, when in fact choice is a whole lot of stress and it makes me dizzy.

I've always known this, but I still did buy the occasional tomato in winter. I still bought those over-priced over-sprayed wrapped bunches of herbs. Now I wait. If I haven't got the herb in the garden, I haven't got it.

We've waited all winter to plant our tomatoes, to sow our borlotti bean seeds and to see our peas get fat. We've watched our coriander show its first feathery leaves only to bolt and do that annoying thing that coriander does.

I've had a lot of coriander to use up – I'm cutting it in a bid to stop it going to seed. I won't stop it, of course, but I might delay it a bit this way.

So there it was sitting on my kitchen bench top narrowing the choice for dinner. Not only was this satisfying in itself, but having to wait for something to grow and then use it to make a meal is even more satisfying. It may not be everybody's idea of simple (not when you think about how easy it is to just go out and buy it versus building the beds, sourcing the materials to make soil, sowing the seeds and waiting... waiting... waiting...). But it's certainly mine. And it's satisfying beyond words.

I made corn, coriander and coconut fritters* with some spring onions I picked up at the co-op that morning. I think they might just be the tastiest corn fritters I've ever made. They certainly beat these ones.

After Luca feasted on all the fat peas hanging six feet above the garden beds, I had to pull the whole lot out. Powdery mildew got the better of them.

But sitting right there by the cabbages was one single nasturtium flower. That wild cutting worked.

So while my coriander plants just want to run away and flower, and while my peas have turned white and furry, it seems I know how to take a roadside nasturtium and make it flower in my own garden.






* Those tastiest corn fritters I've ever made: Mix 150g plain flour, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp ground coriander and 1 tsp ground cumin. Add 1 egg, 125ml coconut cream and 100ml water and mix well. Add 350g corn, 2 chopped spring onions and as much chopped coriander as you like (I like a lot) and stir through. Heat 2 tbsp coconut oil in a pan and cook dollops of the mixture until golden brown. 

Round the countryside

Sarah Humphreys was one of the first people to follow my blog. I discovered her little space and, in turn, realised I lived around the corner from a lovely singer-songwriter. But I had no idea just how lovely.

I've been meaning to see her play for a while, and when Sarah posted a link on her Facebook page to the video of her latest single Like a House Needs a Door, I booked tickets to one of her first album tour gigs on Sunday night.

I played the song over and over before the show. The boys were drawn to her voice and would sit on my lap. We watched the video together and tried to remember which came first out of the shore, the lion and the child.

Can you play that song again, Mummy was all I heard for a few days.

I couldn't tell Luca where I was going on Sunday evening because I knew he'd insist on coming. I pictured a smoky boozy music venue (I haven't been out in a while...), but instead it was like a private house party in somebody's oversized garage. Children ran around and people sipped chai.

I so wish he came with me.

As she sang and played her ukelele and her dulcet tones filled the room, I kicked myself for not buying tickets before. She was utterly amazing and her music is just beautiful. I'm not a music journalist so I don't have the right words to tell you what she sounds like. Watch the video.

I looked forward all night to her playing Like a House Needs a Door, but I fell in love with so many others that I bought her album. She signed it and wrote lovely words on the back, and I haven't stopped playing it since.

As the boys and I drove round the countryside yesterday, wind blowing through, to pick up our weekly box, she sang my favourite line take me round the countryside in a van, we'll make a life together holding hands.

Luca kept asking for more, Kian clapped at the end of each song and I'd turn it up a little more.

It was beautiful. I feel blessed to have discovered Sarah and her music and even more blessed that she lives and plays nearby.

I can't wait to take Luca to her next gig. We'll know all the words by then.




Working with nature

It doesn't take much nowadays to get me excited about the prospect of a few hours in the company of other adults (excited beforehand and then I fall asleep, huh?).

A council-run composting and worm farm workshop. Riveting, don't you think?

Well, it was. Even more riveting was the fact they were giving away free compost bins and worm farms. What a fabulous thing for a council to organise.

The local CWA hall was packed on Wednesday. Full of people who wanted to learn and go home with a freebie for their garden. The room had a beautiful energy about it. There were people – like the gentleman sitting beside me – who kept an immaculate lawn but knew nothing about composting or worm farming. Others had tried to compost in the past but ended up with a sludgy mess and gave up as a result. Surprisingly, I was one of only three people who use a compost bin and keep a worm farm.

I feel quite confident about composting now, having done Nicola Chatham's online gardening course earlier this year. Our worms do their jobs well, and even though any niggles I have about harvesting the castings will get covered in Nicola's next course*, I went along because I knew I'd learn something. I'm in my element when I can delve deeper into something that inspires me. It's why I ask lots of questions. It's the one thing people always say about me...

Anyway, aside from feeling very sad at one point when it was pointed out that over a third of everyone's bins is made up of fruit and vegetable scraps filling up our landfills, and how all this needless waste gets converted to ozone-depleting methane, it was a worthwhile morning.

Here are some notes I made for you.

• Composting is really quite easy. The reason why people give up is they add too much nitrogen-rich matter (kitchen scraps, fresh lawn clippings, manure, mushroom compost) and not enough carbon, or poor layers (newspaper, brown leaves, dried grass, hay). I follow the 2:1 ratio for layering – 2 parts carbon to 1 part nitrogen or thereabouts. I keep it in mind, but I certainly don't lose any sleep over it. As long as there's enough carbon in there, your compost won't turn smelly or wet.
• If you fill your compost bin right up (the way I do it, layering with as much variety as I can get my hands on), and you turn it, say, once every 10 days, you will get beautiful rich compost within 10 weeks. How exciting is that?
• If you just want to add your fruit and veg as you go from the kitchen, you'll still get to make 'food' for your soil; it'll just take longer. Always finish with a carbon/poor layer which will keep any flies at bay.
• As for worm farming, you don't need to go and buy one of the expensive kits. All you need is a polystyrene box or two. I might be making one of these myself to extend our little worm family. (I promise I'll try and get out more.)
• You generally start off with around 1000 worms. You can buy worms in garden centres or get some from someone with an established worm farm. Or get your little tikes to harvest worms from the garden – they don't need to be special composting worms. Ordinary earthworms will do the job just as well (according to the workshop).  
• Worm juice, which is actually their pee, is liquid gold fertiliser. Just dilute with water to a ratio of 1:10 and it'll make your garden (and your indoor plants) very happy.

Luca and I spent the next day starting to fill our third (freebie) compost bin. We cut down the last of our winter broccoli and cauliflower and tore them all up ready to go back into the next cycle.

I came home that day and looked at my worms in a slightly different light, now that I know a little more about these spectacular creatures' anatomy and how they breed.

I discovered melon is one of their favourite foods, so that day they dined on melon skins and their usual banana skins. I made up two watering cans of diluted worm juice and drizzled one lot over the tomatoes and basil, and the other can went over my leeks to perk them up after the aphids almost got them.

I love working with nature. I really do.

Do you like composting? Do you skip in the garden knowing you're turning waste into magic? Do you squeal with delight when you turn that tap on the worm farm and it all comes gushing out?

Perhaps you think I ought to get out more too?





*I'm joining Nicola Chatham for her next course on organic gardening in pots. Nicola's also covering worm farming – yippee! I'll post more details soon, but you can get her free Organic Veggie Patch Kit here in the meantime. 

Happiness is...

Finding roadside horse poo for the garden on an unexpected detour in the country one Monday afternoon...

Seeing free-range eggs for sale next door to the distillery down the road that not only makes a terrific gin, but a coffee liqueur so good Graeme has been having it for breakfast...

Making friends with the people who make the best coffee in town and discovering it's their coffee in that liqueur...

Watching the garden grow before my eyes. Feasting on falafel and kofta spiked with our very own coriander and parsley... mint and lemon in the salad... flowering thyme to go on the sumac flatbreads...

Hearing Luca say to Graeme yesterday: can we go and live in a forest? Mummy won't mind living in a forest. She likes trees. Trees relax Mummy.

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I'm thinking I might change the name of this blog. I think it's time. Something snazzier.

Graeme has come up with something for me. The Fork 'n' Blog.

He's a funny man my husband.





September giveaway: Australia Walkabout Park

While my brother was visiting, we spent half a day at the Australia Walkabout Wildlife Park. This is the place to see Australia's wildlife. Reptiles, koalas, flying foxes and dingoes are all here. But we come for the indigenous marsupials who roam. Free-ranging kangaroos, wallaroos (not quite a wallaby, not quite a kangaroo), wallabies and pademelons in a peaceful bush sanctuary.

We arrived just in time to watch all the kangaroos and emus gather for their 10am feed.

Luca was three and Kian a few months old when we visited last. It was a different experience this time round with a toddler who charges everything in sight.

What I remember from our first visit were the incredibly tame kangaroos – I was amazed at how comfortable they were with children running around. They lie about while you pat them and snuggle up to them, and when they've had enough, they just jump away.

What I don't remember is their cheek. One madly rummages through the picnic bags in the buggy and steals an apple, while another buries its head in my lap looking for the last cream cheese sandwich. I try and guide it away but I am too busy laughing.

Meanwhile, an emu chases Luca and his lunch around the picnic table. Kian just watches in his own way.

We think we have it all under control and turn our backs for a second, and there are kangaroos all over the buggy. Heads buried in the bags. Graeme has to literally pull them away. Very gently, of course.

So, naturally, we give up and pack up our food.

After a long walk along bush tracks and ancient Aboriginal sites, Luca gets a lesson in throwing a boomerang. The boomerang-throwing workshop is held every day at 12pm.

The lovely people at the park have given me a family ticket worth $60 to give away to one of my readers who'd like to experience kangaroos in their element and emus peering over your shoulder as you picnic.

Look at that beautiful face... All you have to do is leave me a comment and be a follower (the grey 'follow' button up there on the right). Did you know I have a Facebook page by the way? You could earn yourself an extra entry by joining me there too. Just leave me an additional comment to say you have. I'll pick the winner a week from today.

Oh, look at that, the boys are wearing stripes again. The same stripes. At least you know I don't plan my children's wardrobe...

Update: giveaway now closed. Congratulations Anna!