So, the Easter holidays are here and with them the chance to escape from routines and school uniforms, to just enjoy being with the children - after all, isn't that why we had them? Lucy and I got off to a good start by making hot cross buns, something I haven't baked since I was at school long, long ago. Dave and I use our breadmaking machine several times a week and I had forgotten how lovely it is to bake bready things the 'proper' way. Lucy read out the recipe, weighing out the ingredients as we went along. It is so good for kids to get involved in cooking and I haven't come across many who don't enjoy it. Most of all it is just lovely to spend the time together chatting about why we do something and how it works. I realised as we worked away that we were also baking up more memories to be stored away alongside all the others, the ones of countless games around our kitchen table with her siblings and friends, the ones of so many huge family dinners that stretch on for seemingly endless hours, evenings of films and fireside and precious days on the beach. In amongst them all would be the ones of us cooking together.
And this is how they turned out - very yummy and we are definitely planning to make more. They really were so easy and though I am the first to admit to loving the Asda ones and the ease with which they go from packet to mouth, I did like the fact that these were so filling only one could be managed (well, another was forced down after a short intermission). Particularly delicious toasted with oodles of butter dripping over fingers and chin.
Other good things about the holiday so far? Mr Davey has been working hard in the greenhouse and it is now packed with seedling of both vegetables and flowers as he has cut out a cut flower patch at the allotment which will soon need planting out.
Inb case any one is horrified by the bright blue slug pellets apparent in the photographs I would like to put your mind at ease for they are organic pellets. Worry not.
The damson and Victoria plum have now finished flowering and are sprinkling the last of their confetti over the garden. Apple blossoms teeter on the brink of opening just waiting for a little more warmth from the chillier sun now with us.
The Cornish Aromatic is so nearly there.
And the sloe outside the boys' room is just beautiful. We always make sure that we use our own sloes as well as the ones we gather from the hedgerows to make our sloe gin in the autumn. Of course, the bottles with our own are always the best!
Just so beautiful.
Trips to the beach have obviously taken place, though sometimes they have been in cold grey weather as yesterday proved to be. No matter, a walk in the blustery winds with the sea rolling onto the shore cleared the cobwebs away nicely, especially for poor Isabella who finally recovered from a nasty tummy bug. Today, Dave has taken Lucy and Elias off to buy supplies as he is taking them camping for a couple of days (mad fool that he is). They go a few times every year to one of our favourite quays tucked away in the woods far from the world with only the birds and the sound of water to keep you compnay...proper camping out in the sticks. Isabella and I have plans involving chocolate buttons, magazines for me and comics for her, and adventures of our own. I also have great plans for a glass (or three) of wine, some knitting by the fireside and a box of chocs for the evenings...bliss.
In all then, not a bad start to the holiday.
Happy Monday x
