Glastonbury and Burnham on Sea

So... we went away, and came back, and here we are!  Two days in advance, we just decided to take off and have a nearly-free weekend, another one of those utterly unplanned chaotic rush-to-find-clothes-and-wash-nappies fits of madness.










It was glorious.  HUGE thanks to Ashleigh, whose floor we stayed on again, and who paid for both our trip to the Abbey and for pizza - without which our weekend wouldn't have been the same!  HUGEST thanks to Izzy, whose weekend cabin we then took over for the weekend because she couldn't go.  Every little thing that could have gone wrong just didn't.  And we had a wonderful time.  :)



"Mama - croissants!!"

I'm likely the only person who has ever made croissants in that cabin.  I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who has ever washed a cloth nappy in the sink on the basis that we might run out and it was only barely damp when I took it off the baby!


Anyhow.  The beach.  We had blazing sun all weekend (sorry Izzy)!






We did forget to take a proper sling.  Thankfully the old pouch I made years ago was in the car, without which we would have been in quite a pickle!

This is the rest of my children, in October, in the sea.


Up to their middles.


In October.  In the sea.  The sea was BITTER.


We have come home buzzing, and contented, and filled up with sea air and blue skies (and croissants).  :)

A Winner!

So here is Rowan, stirring the slips of paper in their basket this morning and pulling out...

...a name!  :)

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Congratulations, Sam, you win the green and orange play silk!  Thanks for playing all of you, I wish I could mail you a silk each, I really do.  :)  Happy Autumn!

Seven Days: Autumn pastels

1.  Plant dyed yarn.
2. Mushrooms by Jenna.
3. Lots of parcels to send!
4. A beautiful parcel of unexpected gifts. 
5.  Mama and baby and sling and that darling little tongue sticking out.
6.  Tiny plant clinging on to worn stone.
7.  Lichen on bare branches.

Spaces

When Talia moves out of our bed, it will be straight into a bedroom with her three sisters.

Straight into a bunk bed in fact, in a teeny bedroom containing four beds.  Whilst I really don't worry about them sharing a room, them each being able to get time away from the others is a concern - more or less, much of the time.  They also really have nowhere to put their things where the others can't get at them.

We are trying to get shelves up for each of them beside their beds.  And they have art and things on the walls marking out their special space, their retreat from each other.

We do everything we can to defend those bed spaces, helping to remove sisters who don't respect property rules.  Oh it is only going to get harder as they get older and seek out space from each other more often!

There is a small spare room here.  Right now it is a guest room /play space, and they take it in turns to sleep on the floor in here if and when they request an escape from the shared space.

I do wonder if this will be enough, whilst knowing that we are unlikely to ever move.  In many ways, we have chosen to be poor - at least, we have chosen to pursue our dreams and what we wanted for our children even knowing that the compromise would likely be money.  :)

I love their little room spaces, the things they have chosen to display.  And I really am going to get around to sorting out shelves for them all.  Before Talia moves in.  ;)

PS: can you guess which bed belongs to which girl?  :)

In a Year

A year ago, my sweet little girls stood by the lake...



And yesterday...



Oh my darlings.  How quickly you grow.



The scariest thing, though, to me...  Is how soon the tiny will join them off out there in their adventures and exploring.



A year from now, she will rather more rarely be comfortably cuddled up here wrapped against the elements.  She will be right there in the middle of her sisters, finding tiny caterpillars hibernating in a log, feeling the texture of bark, chasing each other down the hill, climbing up to watch the ducks on the lake...

Yarn Along and Beautiful Breezy Autumn!

I'm knitting up a couple of little bags for a commission right now, and also slooowly working on this rib scarf for my Morgan in yarn she desperately fell in love with in a wool shop recently!  Sorry for the dark picture - my living room is so gloomy in the afternoons right now.

I'm just about barely reading a page at a time of the Irish Fairy Tales, the precise reason I chose that book because I am feeling rather time-pressed!  :)

Oh, look, this is what the adorable but mischievous toddler did to her hair.  *sigh*  Second time in a month.  I tried not to freak out.  I know, I know it will grow.  Darn sister leaving her scissors in reach!


Today has so far been mostly about the lovely breezy walk. :)  We really really needed to get outside.


Joining in with Ginny again.  :)

PS: don't forget to comment on the playsilk giveaway for your chance to win one of my hand dyed silks.  I've even extended your deadline slightly to make up for the mad weekend we have planned here!  :)

Imperfect day!

The girls have been working hard all day doing nothing at all that looks like school and yet the learning is plain to see. It has been an awesome peace filled busy day. Late last night I got around to something Jenna has been asking me to do for a while - post up some of her artwork for sale online.

This morning she had orders, and commissions, and was totally thrilled. So she has been painting to order, and designing stationary, not to mention the maths she has been doing to work out her profit and pricing and so on.

Then the two biggest ones set up a cafe upstairs, made some dishes in the kitchen (a foraged wild salad, biscuits with chocolate spread, a dish of marinated olives, some very pretty drinks with umbrellas in) and wrote a menu... and invitations to their grand opening. I have been kept busy facilitating like mad! On call for help reaching things, finding things, suggesting ideas, helping them to evaluate their "work" and decide how to improve, doing the online stuff, checking prices.

The house started off tidier than average today. We were expecting a visitor, who was then busy and is coming next Monday instead. I was up very early with Talia and Morgan awake with the sun, and had one load of laundry done and away before the others even woke up. I feel like I have barely stopped. I've had moments to check in and chat with friends, time to do one whole row of knitting ;) and a long cuddle with Talia when she fell asleep on my arm and I elected not to try to put her down.

And yet, and yet... The house looks like a bomb hit it in spite of the cleaning this morning. The gymnastics the girls have been doing for weeks resulted in two injuries in the last hour alone. I haven't had enough water today and my head is starting to ache. Rowan has cut her hair (again) and is really upset, saying she wants it to come back. The children fought.  I didn't feel like getting up to fetch more cordial, and I didn't like having a conversation interrupted by the baby's urgent need to pour her sister's drink out and paddle in it.  The tendency to panic when things doing go how I want them to is still looming. I am cheery and contented one moment, and miserable the next.

I find myself usually telling half a story, when I sit down to write about our lives. Either I need to vent and can only see the hard work and heartache, or I want to dwell on the positives and find myself looking back at a record I can barely recognise as our actual real messy life. It's both. I had a great day today - and a terrible one - all at the same time.

(But yes, biased mama has to say, the kid can paint beautifully.)

Seven Days: an artsy and mellow week

1. Jenna and Connor, the day before his birthday.
2. Nursing strike, unhappy sleep.  All OK after a good dream feed.
3. Leaf mobile made with the kidlets.
4. Apple leaf yellow dye vat.  :)
5. Watercolour painting session.
6. Doodle Bug showing off museum makes.
7. The remains of a summer, cleared from the season table.  (Spot the empty chrysalis!)

Michaelmas

Season table change over for Autumn.  Happy happy happy!


Friends over for the afternoon, and a visit from Grandad, and a generally sociable time today.


Golden cloaks, sanding and polishing the wooden swords, singing harvest songs, Waldorf painting stories, listening the relevant chapter of Voyage of the Dawntreader, and baking dragon bread.


Yes, as always, our dragon bread is frankly ugly and misshapen.  But delicious, anyway.  Especially with a hearty stew.


Since I effectively missed all but the barest essentials of the High Holy Days this year, and we are barely managing to use our booth in the garden with the freezing cold week we are having... spending today really thinking and talking about what we wish to leave behind, and what is really essential to fight for, work for, and carry with us on our journeys, has been immensely positive for me.

For me, my "dragon" of the moment is control, and the panic and unneccesarily raised voice that goes with every loss of my ability to control others.  This is the primary habit I want to outgrow this season.  As for where it comes from and how it can be lost, well, as Terry Pratchet puts in the mouth of a very wise witch, "people as things, that's where it begins."

Oh Great Light, grant me the strength to begin again and leave behind unhealthy habits.  Help me shed this dragon skin, and treat my family as sacred whole human beings, companions, and not as objects to be managed.

GIVEAWAY: Autumn Playsilk - sharing the love

So...  Would you like a hand dyed 90cm playsilk?  THIS hand dyed playsilk?  (And, yes, I will ship it anywhere in the world absolutely free.)

Well, I'm giving one away, for no other reason than that I love Autumn inordinately and am having such a satisfying and enjoyable time with all of the dyeing right now.  :)  All you have to do is comment on this blog entry, nothing more (though if you wanted to follow me on Facebook, or favourite my Etsy store or share this post, that would all be very welcome too, but no obligation!).

The winner will be announced next Saturday, so you have just over seven days to enter!  I am currently dyeing an array of Autumn silks, because the colours make me happy, so there will be more listed on my shop soon.

Many many thanks to my customers for giving me such a wonderful and encouraging start.  And gratitude to all of my friends for cheering me on.  You are fabulous!  I hope you are having a wonderful Autumn so far.  :)

I AM EXTENDING THE GIVEAWAY by a couple of days in anticipation of a very busy weekend!  You now have an extra 48 hours to comment and join in.  I will announce a winner on Monday morning, so check back to see if it's you!  :)   GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED AS OF 10:50am October 8th!  The winner is SAM!!

Autumnal

Yarn Along: wherein tidying takes the place of reading...

Adult socks: finished!  The pooling has made these look rather like melted candy cane - which the consensus is rather in favour of liking, but I find annoying.  Hmm.  Well they are a really neat plain pair of warm comfy socks, anyway, and the unintentional stripes are kind of funky!

Now I have no commissions at all, I am determined to get on with some Christmas knitting and have cast on both Morgan *and* Jenna's Christmas knits.  :)

I haven't had my usual late night or early morning reading times, because Talia's sleep is still all over the place after her nursing strike.  I did manage to write morning pages both yesterday and today though, which is amazing and has been on my self-care wish list for years.  :)  Plus, I am attempting the "if not now then when" approach to de-junking and sorting the messy areas of the house.  First on the list, the old microwave (evicted) and the fish tank (newly scrubbed and with very much happier fish)!

On my draining board, well, I was planning some dyeing tomorrow but the pot just happened to be out already, so...  :)


Joining in with Ginny for a weekly peek at current projects and reading.  :)