Chasing the sun with old wheelbarrows

I've never forgotten the sight of the garden at JoJo's, a little (well, it was back then) mezze restaurant in Whitstable, England. Nikki and Paul inspired me on so many levels when I met them back in 2004. I'm not sure they realise how much of an impact they had on me. And still do. Every time we move house, I go in search of a JoJo's. I'm half referring to JoJo's as a restaurant and half referring to the actual people. Friends who share my values to do with food, our environment, and a tremendously inspiring sense of style and resourcefulness...

Seriously, I really do go looking for a JoJo's everywhere I go. I haven't found one yet. I realise now as I type these words that this is another factor in why I gave my blog the name I did.

Anyway, I'm not getting to the point as usual... I remember one night Graeme and I took the train from London to Whitstable to catch up with Nikki and Paul. We sat at the bar and ate beer-battered calamari*, haddock goujons and patatas bravas, then when everyone else had gone home, they shut shop and we drank wine together.

I was pickled that night. So pickled I fell off my seat on the train back to Victoria.

This is that moment.

Thems were the days before kids...

Will I ever get to the point???**

Here it is, here it is: Somewhere between the lamb cannon and the cave-aged gorgonzola that night, we wandered out to their garden. An olive tree stood right at the back. I remember talking about their plans for a wild meadow. Nikki talked about how you can buy packets of wild meadow seed that you just scatter and voila, you have a patch thick with cornflowers and poppies.

What really stuck with me, though, were the butler sinks that she had planted with herbs, charming old troughs picked up in a nearby scrap yard, and was there a bath?? Can't remember now. You're picturing a higgledepiggledy mess of other people's rubbish. And yet, it was a higgledepiggledy thing of beauty.

I don't yet have any chipped troughs or butler sinks, but a plastic baby bath is doing the job nicely.

What I have been looking for, though, is a wheelbarrow. An old wheelbarrow that has served someone well for years, but can't go on anymore. I've looked on the roadsides for months.

Then two come along in the space of two weeks. Two garage sales. Both were going to the tip the minute their owners had sold all the bric-a-brac in them. Neither could believe I would want an old wheelbarrow.

But rescue them I did.

Graeme drilled holes and Luca took a hammer to old terracotta tiles and lined the bottoms.

We're not really sure what we're doing, but we mixed manure with organic compost and some mushroom compost. Then a wet blanket of sugarcane mulch and a drenching with worm juice.

I've replanted the leeks in one (replanted because the poor buggers were fighting for space in a tiny pot).

Now they can soak up all that sun in the front garden. Sunshine that has gone to waste till now.

Which has just given me another thought. All that lawn... A wild meadow. Just think, no more mowing. Cornflowers, poppies. Do they grow over here? Anyone?

I'll be picking two winners for the Amazement giveaway this coming Friday. If you'd like to visit, make sure you enter here.





* We've eaten a lot of calamari. Around the UK, in Spain, in France, in Greece, around Australia... OK, I'm just showing off now. Point is, Nikki's is the best. I haven't had any since my visit in July 2010.

** Believe it or not, I had to change the title of this post. I'd planned on talking to you about wintry pears, Hugh FW's savoury muffins and a rhubarb crumble. I was just going to mention the wheelbarrows. But all this just poured out. I needed to say it. 

Book ledges, fun with Grandma and pooch's birthday

Don't you love this way of displaying books?

Image via here

Image via here

Luca's book collection is resembling a small village library, and they no longer fit in the Ikea baskets we bought a couple of years ago. Plus with Kian in his room every minute of the day, his books are getting trashed.

I came across this tutorial and got to work straight away. Well, alright, I got to work nagging he-who-works-with-the-wood. For those of you who'd like a bit more detail, I do know he had a 150mm x 19mm plank of wood and put it through his table saw to get two different widths, plus he had a 40mm x 19mm length to use as the lip.

We chose to glue and screw to make it stronger (and because I'm an instant gratification kind of gal, and I didn't want to wait around for glue to dry).

Whilst it may look like I know what I'm doing here, I really didn't. Graeme only let me do one or two.

After a quick sand...

I gave them an initial prime with a dollop of the pale blue colour I wanted, followed by a proper coat of paint.

(Really isn't fun to have the one table in the house used for Luca's craft, three meals a day, my little projects and household paperwork. It's driving me mad.)

Graeme wanted to fill the screws, but I was happy with them as they were.

Ta da!!!! What do you think?

I just love them. Course, two was hardly going to fix the problem. But it's a start. Two for Kian next.

Yes, yes, I know Ikea have very smart $10 picture ledges, but Ikea is quite a distance away. I hate driving, I hate traffic, and I'd much rather stay at home and clear the table umpteen times between licks of paint.

Speaking of Ikea, look what I picked up in a garage sale at the weekend for $5 each! They were initially meant for the boys. One each. But I'm not sure now. I think I like them too much. 

Mum is here for a month. It's already going so quickly. With family living overseas, there's usually a period of adjustment, getting used to each other again. But the boys behaved like Grandma lives just around the corner. Instant cuddles, kisses and conversation. For that I'm grateful. 

Cuddles with Kian...

And baking with Luca...

Luca making butterfly cakes for Sydney's 6th birthday. She enjoyed every last crumb. Plus the bone he bought for her. Plus the fish that Graeme caught that morning. One spoilt little doggie.

Happy birthday pooch.

Butterflies are for boys too

Are you tired, bored and more than a smidgen irritated by how much gender stereotyping goes on in our children's world?

You know what I mean: pink for girls, blue for boys. Dolls, cuddly toys and tea sets for girls; blocks, dinosaurs and space rockets for boys.

For most of my life, I've gone along with it all. You don't really question or think about it, do you, until you watch your own children make their choices.

Luca loves his trucks. His cars. Dinosaurs. Lego. Trains. Wooden blocks and everything else he's meant to play with.

But he has a lovely nurturing side, too – like most children. He loves tucking his 'friends' into bed, so for his 2nd birthday, we bought him a little wooden cot. He still plays with it today. He also has a little pushchair and a baby doll, after I noticed he was fond of rocking dolls to sleep at playgroups.

They're by no means his favourite (Luca would happily play with Lego alone all day every day), but I'm really glad that he isn't yet aware of what he should and shouldn't be playing with.

I can't say that I'm a big fan of pink – I think girls look beautiful in pale blue dresses. In fact, sometimes I thank my lucky stars my house is free from pink fairy outfits and glittery wands. But I like to think that colours are just colours in our house.

Much like bugs. Luca spends a large portion of his day with creatures in the garden. He's fascinated with butterflies. To him, they're another insect, like beetles, ladybirds and cicadas.

And yet, butterflies 'are for girls', aren't they?

Oh and flowers. I love how Luca talks about the flowers on our walks, and often holds the flower heads in his palm to take a closer look. But very soon he'll work out that flowers are all frou frou and so remain quite firmly in the girly domain.

This was all put very succinctly in an article I read last year in the Guardian.

How should children ignore gender, not be influenced by the assumptions and expectations it brings, when they continually watch it, hear it, see it; are clothed in it, sleep in it, eat off it? Little wonder that children become "gender detectives" eager for their behaviour to fall on the right side of the all important social divide.

 You can read the piece (Let's end the great gender lie) here.

...children are getting the message conveyed to them (however inadvertently) from the way their clothes and bedding, toys and crockery, greeting cards, and, yes, even wrapping paper, comes gender-labelled from birth.

...these gender cues pack a psychological punch.

Anyway, the reason I'm posting about this today is because I've just finished painting Kian's book ends. I picked them up at a garage sale (surprise surprise) a few weeks ago.

Before

After

What do you think?

I'm really pleased with the colours, but I wish I spent longer painting the actual butterfly.

Point is, Kian has butterflies in his room now. So maybe, when he's older, he'll be able to ignore some of those gender cues out there.
















I'll leave you with a picture of a child's room. Bet you can't guess if it's a girl or a boy's room...

Might have to save up to get one of these beautiful teepees. And definitely that wooden tree.

Taken from here

Vanessa

Latest garage sale finds

It's a Saturday morning ritual now. We play in bed with the boys for a little while (until someone gets hurt), have breakfast and then I head out with the latest garage sale listings from the local paper.

For me, it combines a great many things that I love: me time (naturally), bargain hunting, giving old things a new lease of life. Plus, of course, it serves as a great way of stocking up on presents and buying everyday household stuff (my regular buys range from toys and garden pots to books and picture frames) without trudging through the shops (have I mentioned I hate shopping centres?).

Last week, I wanted to maximise on family time so we all went. Graeme wasn't so keen, until he spotted a fish tank at one house. Five dollars.

Brilliant, we've been thinking about a small fish tank for a while now.

We snapped it up, then headed out to buy some fish and fish food. Except there's more to keeping fish than we thought... There's the water conditioner, water ager, plants, pump...

Anyway, here are our new pets. Pip, Tat, Syd, Monk and Pop (all named after characters in Luca's books... kind of). Trouble is, we only remember who Pop is.

I thought Luca would be the only one getting any pleasure out of it, but oddly enough I love watching them swim around in our kitchen. They're strangely calming, though I do have to get used to the deep-fat-fryer sound of the pump.

Today, I came back with a $2 basket – just the thing for toys that drive me wild don't have an actual home, a few 2011 Country Style magazines and a stunning hydrangea plant.

I love hydrangeas. I love their fat, blousy flowers heads and their creamy lavender and violet-blue colours. One day, I'll have great big sprawling bushes of hydrangea, so that I can have them in vases around the house.

So I had a lovely Saturday. Afternoon spent on the sofa with magazines while all the boys slept, followed by a swim in the lagoon and lamb on the barbecue.


How was your Saturday?


Vanessa

A great find

Have I ever mentioned that I love garage sales? This country does them so well. When we first arrived two years ago and needed a load of stuff for the caravan, I went out and found kitchen goods, electrical appliances, and a fantastic portable fridge freezer.

Over the last couple of years, I've had some amazing buys, some of which have been brand new toys and books, an unopened hand-made wooden baby mobile, funky chest of drawers for the boys and a 14ft trampoline.

I went through a phase before Kian came along where Saturday mornings were for garage sales. It's a lot of fun especially practising your bargaining skills.

So far on the Central Coast, I haven't had much luck. Mostly junk. Until I saw a sign for a garage sale in Wamberal at the weekend.

An entire table of cookery books. Almost new cookery books. It turned out the lady ran a catering business and had to quickly get rid of hundreds of her books.

I could have bought plenty, but I made a rule for myself a while ago not to buy unless I definitely definitely had room for it.

The books were all $5. I spotted The Accidental Foodie by Neale Whitaker, ex- Food Illustrated editor, and instantly picked it up. I thought I was holding onto it pretty tightly, but I must have looked unsure, because I then hear you can have the books for a dollar.  

A dollar. It was in immaculate condition.

It's a coffee table book, on the one hand (if you go for that type of thing). But on the other, it's full of tales of great cooks and writers: Nigel Slater, Tamasin Day-Lewis, Kevin Gould, Sybil Kapoor, Maggie Beer, Darina Allen, Jill Dupleix, Terry Durack.

I bagged another two books and came home.

Every moment I've had in the last two days I've curled up on the sofa with a cup of tea and that book. A garage sale gem.

Vanessa 

P.S. How do you pronounce it? Ger-AAA-j or Gar-idge? I wonder if it's similar to lounge and living room? You know.... If you say it one way, you're posh, and if you say it the other way, not so much?