Weary Week

Many apologies for the sparse nature of blogging around these parts. It has been a horrible 10 days or so. Rob brought home a nasty little virus that proceeded to wreak its virally havoc throughout the family. It hit Elisha the worst: I was so worried about his breathing that I took him to the doctor. The doctor examined him and promptly called for an ambulance, which bore us off to the hospital blue lights and sirens blazing. Miraculously, we were only at the hospital for seven hours. A cautious doctor wanted to admit him but there were no beds. There was talk of transferring him to another hospital (miles away) but thankfully the demigod they brought down from the paediatrics ward agreed that as his condition had stabilized (thanks to oxygen and steroids) he could go home, provided we promised to call an ambulance if things changed at all. Within 48 hours he was his usual bouncy self, praise God, by which time I had gone down with it!

We are trying to be disciplined and have early nights since there is no guarantee of sleep after midnight - the virus has temporarily altered all our body clocks it seems and we are waking at all sorts of odd hours. We try to be in bed by 9.30pm (Rob and I, that is) but the hour between 9 and 10 must be the fastest hour of the day and bedtime has been sliding towards 11 or 11.30pm. Disastrous!

We'll Go Gathering Nuts In May

Well September actually. Last Monday I decided to take a walk with the boys, down the hill to meet Daddy at bus stop on his way home from work. It isn't a rural walk - 'down the hill' means walking down the side of a major road - but there is always something to see or find (you know the kind of things boys like to pick up: feathers, stones, sticks, unmentionable things). It is quite a little nature corridor, for all the cars screaming past. The road was dug out of some fairly old woodland and the last vestiges of it overhang the side on which we normally walk (our allotments are behind houses on the other side).

As we ambled along, I stopped to pick up the feather that had dropped from Elisha's hat and spied treasure on the grass. Small, very green but unmistakably ... a cobnut. We continued on our way to meet Rob and on the way back made a comprehensive search of the grass verge. The squirrels had gotten there before us and of the 20 or so we collected only 6 or 7 actually had nuts inside them, but I was thrilled. Cobnuts are a variety of hazelnut that grows particularly well in the UK, traditionally in the county of Kent (where we happen to live). I had never seen them growing wild before. We'll mark the spot and remember to come back before the squirrels next year, we told ourselves.

'I have a surprise for you!' Rob told me, a couple of days later on his return from the allotment. He had discovered a cobnut tree growing not far from our plot, in part of the 'common' hedgerow. He only noticed it because he had dropped something and saw the nuts on the grass. Their husks are green so they are hard to spot unless you are up close. He went out the next night with a bucket! We stripped them, but left them in their shells and the tally so far is 6 pounds in weight. Treasure indeed. Nuts are not cheap to buy and properly stored these should last until Christmas - if they get the chance! I haven't found an empty one yet either. Their taste is like a hazel nut but fresh and 'green' if you know what I mean. They will dry out and get more 'nutty' and you can also roast them.

I wish my Mum was here to see them. I remember her telling me many stories about growing up in the East End of London in the 1920's and 30's. She often mentioned that in the summer large numbers of men and women (either unemployed or on the annual factory shutdown) would travel down to the market gardens and farms of Kent to go 'hopping': picking the hops needed for the breweries. She never went herself. Her father considered the work too hard for a young girl and the moral climate in the tent communities that sprung up to house the workers far too lax. Her older brothers went though and brought back souvenirs - enormous 'hopping apples' and cobnuts, both of which were a great treat and never forgotten. At one time Kent 'The Garden Of England', was full of, amongst other things, cobnut orchards or 'plats'. As I've said, the cobnut grows well here and is naturally hardy and pest resistant. You would think there would be a market for them, wouldn't you, but most of our hazelnuts in the shops come from Turkey or even China. It can't be right. 'Our' cobnut tree seems to have been overlooked by other allotment holders and squirrels alike and I wonder how many others are in this area unidentified. Our eyes are peeled.

For Dinner Tonight:

Hmm, start homeschooling and fall off the blogsphere.

On Monday we had:

Cold Roast Lamb

Gajar Aloo

Chocolate Cake

On Tuesday:

Chicken Mayonnaise Salad

Jacket Potatoes

Apples

And tonight:

Pizza

Hot Chocolate

Monday was a repeat of Saturday because, well, it was just so nice. This time I added some cabbage to the recipe and used more potatoes and carrots. I wanted to have some leftovers for lunch - delicious with an egg on top. The chicken salad on Tuesday was made with some leftover roast chicken, chopped celery, spring onions, carrots and apple plus lots of mayonnaise and some curry powder. As for tonight, I'm afraid that Thursday evening feeling came a day early!

For Dinner Tonight:

Apples

Eccles Cakes

Chocolate biscuits

Um, well, yes... We just weren't hungry tonight. The boys had something slightly nutritious - peanut butter and jellyjam sandwiches and grapes. Rob had the eccles cakes (his favourites and marked down to just 19p for 2 in the supermarket), I had the chocolate biscuits. Lots of hot tea for both of us too.

Much to think about tonight. Tomorrow is Isaac's first 'official' homeschooling day. We have some fun things planned, but Isaac's parting shot on going to bed was: "I don't want to do school at home. I shall stay in bed all day and not get up at all!"

For Dinner Tonight:

Cold Roast Lamb
Gajar Aloo
Hot Chocolate

I do so love meals that are as simple as this: cold meat, leftover from yesterday and something interesting on the vegetable front that can pretty much be left to cook by itself. And I love Indian food!

Gajar Aloo (Carrots & Potatoes) is a variation on a recipe from the wonderful Cooking Like Mummyji by Vicky Bhogal. The original is Gajar Aloo Mattar, the mattar being peas, which I did not have, and also contains lots of lovely fresh coriander (cilantro) leaves, unobtainable in these parts. I didn't have any ground gram masala, so used curry powder instead. All these alterations made it far from authentic but the spirit of the book is one of 'adapt and innovate'. If you like Indian food, I highly recommend it. It contains recipes for the sort of food that you would eat if you went to stay with some Punjabi friends for a week, rather than the sort of thing you might eat at a restaurant. It also gives a fascinating insight into the life of the Sikh community in the UK.

Here is the dish I ended up cooking - enough for two greedy people or four as a side dish with other things.

2 onions, chopped
1 fat clove of garlic, chopped
oil to cook them in
1 tsp salt
1 tsp tumeric
1 tsp curry powder
2 inches of fresh ginger, grated
Tomatoes from 1 tin of plum tomatoes, drained and chopped up
As many potatoes and carrots as you want (we used about 6 medium sized potatoes and 10 tiny carrots - potatoes, peeled and diced, carrots sliced)
Butter, to serve

Cook the onions and garlic in the oil until golden. Add salt, tumeric, curry powder and ginger and stir well. Add chopped tomatoes and cook until it looks shiny and the oil begins to separate a bit. Add the potatoes and carrots and stir well to coat. Add 1/4 - 1/2 water, cover and cook until the veg is tender (about 15 mins). Remove lid to evaporate any excess water and stir in a large or small pat of butter as you feel so inclined.

For Dinner Tonight:

Lemon Roast Lamb

Boiled Potatoes

Carrots

Hot Chocolate

Potatoes from the allotment (it may have been a bad year for everything else - but we have an amazing number of potatoes), organic carrots from Lidl (and Rob was heartened to find that they were no bigger than the ones we lifted from the pots outside) and a frozen leg of lamb from Iceland (a frozen food store). Rob boned the lamb for me and I marinaded it in a mixture of garlic, olive oil, dried oregano and lots of lemon juice. It turned out very tender and really very nice. A shivery evening here, and failing a good hot pudding, hot chocolate is just what we need.

For Dinner Tonight:

Frozen Pizza

Blackberries & Russet Apples

Well, it is Thursday. The apples are the first (ever) of our eaters. Very, very nice - and I am not really an apple fan.

For Dinner Tonight:

A day late again ...

Pork Chops with Lemon Sauce

Boiled Potatoes

Green Beans

Nothing fancy - the sauce was just the juices from the pan with some vegetable stock, cream and lemon juice. The chops were from Lidl (of course) as were the frozen green beans, which I highly recommend

For Dinner Tonight:

Roast Chicken

Boiled Potatoes

Courgettes & Tomatoes

Homemade Raspberry Ice-Cream

A very simple and easy to prepare dinner. The potatoes were ours, so too the courgettes, tomatoes and raspberries. The chicken was from Lidl, perfectly okay but with, no doubt, a sad provenance. I would like to be able to buy free-range organic but they are hard to come by round here and horribly expensive when you can find one. It is an ongoing guilt inducing dilemma for us. We try to make our meat go as far as possible but that still leaves organic meat about three times as expensive per meal portion as non-organic. Yet maybe with a little creative budgeting I could manage it. I hope so.

For Dinner Tonight:

Or rather last night:

Jacket Potatoes

Leftover Sandwich Fillings

Homemade Raspberry Ice-Cream & Blackberries

A busy day today (it was a Bank Holiday here, so Rob was off - hurrah!). The afternoon was spent blackberrying and elderberry picking in a nearby field, with a picnic under the big oak tree. The place was deserted - I had expected to see lots of people about enjoying the warm day, but I guess most people around here decided to go off in their cars somewhere. Not that I am complaining, it was a beautiful afternoon. We spent the evening bottling blackberries and pickling onions in spiced vinegar. Treasures for the winter.

For Dinner Tonight:

Mr Wolf's Tea Party

Ever since we got our paws on a copy of Mr. Wolf and the Three Bears , the boys have been agitating for a proper tea party. What better occasion then than a visit from Rob's brother and sister in law and their two little girls. The menu was:

Sandwiches - egg mayonnaise, chicken mayonnaise, cheese and relish, and smoked ham with cream cheese.
Cakes - Chocolate and Banana Bread, Lushious Lemon Squares and Quark Cake with Lemon Icing and Chocolate Raisins.
Grapes, Plums and Chocolate Dipped Bananas
Homemade Raspberry Ice-Cream Cones

The Quark cake was from Lidl, and I just prettied it up with some icing and cholcolate raisins (ick, can't stand them myself). It is most certainly true that sandwiches taste better with the crusts cut off and sliced into little fingers but I am now left with enough crusts to make 3 bread puddings! But much fun was had by all - and there was no need to bake anyone into a pie at the end of the afternoon!

For Dinner Tonight:

Sausages

Garlic Chicken

Mashed Potatoes

Green Beans

Grapes and Bananas

At last, a warm and sunny day! A busy one too - shopping at Lidl this morning (almost all of their vegetables were half price today!), then lunch and off on a short bus trip (a visit to a new supermarket and charity shop). Hot and tired, we settled for something simple and quick. I didn't think we had enough sausages to go around, so I added the chicken (just some pieces dusted with some seasoning mix). As it turned out the boys didn't like the sausages - too peppery and they weren't too keen on the chicken either. Ho hum. Mashed potatoes always go down well though.

For Dinner Tonight:

Lamb Kebab

Vegetable Soup

Plums

Rob had the delicious kebab - made by the ever friendly Ali, who runs our local fish and chip/kebab shop. I finished up some vegetable soup I had made this morning. The children had sandwiches and yoghurts, watching a dvd on the computer. Bad, bad Mummy. It was a Beatrix Potter story, though and not something with mutant space aliens or brightly coloured blobs, honest. Can you tell I'm carrying mummy-guilt?

We cleaned out the refrigerator tonight, Rob and I. I wish I had taken a before photograph but it really would not have been pleasant viewing. Threw away an embarrassing amount of rotting veg and various jars of stock that had been mouldering in there for goodness knows how long. Rob washed down the shelves and baskets. We've had a problem for sometime now with water pooling at the bottom of the fridge and then freezing. Tonight we discovered that the drain hole at the back was blocked with a horrid, quivery white substance. No idea what it might be (or might have been). We cleaned it out, fervently hoping it was not some lubricating substance vital to the running of the machine. Now we have a sparkling clean but very empty fridge. Shopping tomorrow!

For Dinner Tonight:

Pizza

Chicken and Courgette Stir Fry

Plums

The pizza was for Rob, the low carb chicken for me. Well, okay, I had some plums as well. Just too delicious to pass up.

Paddington Bear

Paddington Bear is a great favourite in our household. Both Rob and I are old enough to remember the wonderful television version of the stories, narrated by Sir Michael Hordern (not the dire cartoon version that appeared much later, no, no, no). The books are so much better even than this - but make sure you get the original, unabridged versions (sigh). The audio book CD, read by Stephen Fry, is delightful and just right for long journeys and wet afternoons.

This week The Sunday Telegraph published this interesting interview with Paddington's author, Michael Bond. I do so enjoy reading biographical articles about children's authors, although so often they turn out to be far from jolly individuals. Michael Bond seems a sweetie - but the article is, I think, one for adult eyes. Don't let this put you off his books though. I knew about his Olga da Polga stories but didn't know about his gastronomic detective Monsieur Pamplemousse. An addition for the library wish list, I think.

For Dinner Tonight:

Sweet Corn

Frankfurters with Courgettes and Tomatoes

Jacket Potatoes

Plums

You can tell we have never grown sweet corn before - it is such a novelty and we can't eat enough of it. I'm going to try and freeze some tomorrow but freezer space is pretty limited so we'll just have to munch our way through most of it. The courgettes are our own which we are very thankful to have; for a few weeks we thought we would have none at all which would have meant no courgette relish to brighten our winter! The tomatoes are ours too - but they are a sad story. We should be swimming in them by now and off-loading them left, right and centre, but the dreaded blight struck both varieties. We have had a couple of pounds of 'Sungolds' (a cherry) and about 12 'Romas' (plum). Ho hum. Tonight we are being adventurous and bottling plums. We might try pickling some too.

For Dinner Tonight:

Sweet Corn (lots of it)

Leftover Stew

Homemade Bread

Plums

Last night, after a frightening encounter with our set of bathroom scales, I decided to start low-carb eating again. Today my husband brought home the first of our sweet corn and plum harvest. Ah well. I did pass on the bread, so that's a start I guess.

For Dinner Tonight:

Beef & Vegetable Stew

Green Beans

French Bread

Flapjacks

When is something a casserole and when is it a stew? I must google this - I think it is something to do with the kind of pot it is cooked in, or at least it was originally. Casserole sounds more genteel and as there was nothing genteel about this meal, stew it is. I made enough for lovely leftovers tomorrow. The flapjacks were the oaty, not the pancakey, kind, made from my sister's recipe. The panful disappeared in a flash!

Back Again

Hello everyone! I'm hoping to get back to regular blogging after my break. Thank you once again, everyone who sent such kind messages and for all your prayers. Healthwise, I am fine (as is the rest of the family). We have been so comforted by God's Word and the Holy Spirit over this period. We continue to seek His guidance for the future, in all things of course, but especially with regard to our family.

We've had a busy weekend here. Along with the usual activities a weekend brings, I visited a quilt show on Saturday (and was gone for the whole day) and Rob put in a huge amount of work on one of the allotments (stripping out all the dead stuff and failed crops - not a good year this). Plus we are thinking ahead to next month when Isaac starts homeschooling 'officially'. More on all this later, I hope .......

Update

Thank you so much Laura and everyone else who has been praying for us. It has not been an easy week for us by any means. My trip to the hospital confirmed that we had, indeed, lost our precious baby; when, they could not say. Our hearts have been very heavy coming to terms with the news. Others have written far more eloquently than I ever could about the pain of miscarriage and of the hope that our faith in Christ Jesus affords. I can say this, however, the knowledge that our little one is safely home in heaven, along with our daughter Esther, is an immeasurable comfort.

I'll be back to regular blogging soon: at the moment I'm feeling a bit muddly and just need to concentrate on the 'home essentials'.