Simple Pleasures

Joels help in the garden, "a pile for you Mummy"

In just over a year Joel starts school, he will be amongst the youngest in his year turning four a mere five weeks before term starts. I cant imagine how I'm going to feel when the time comes but right now it feels like a panicky tick tock Countdown clock is starting up inside my head. I'm trying not to get flustered but I want to make sure we do lots of nice things together, we always have as this blog is testament to, but now he is at an age where he will get more from the experiences (and hopefully some memories) than he has in the past.

A big part of this is celebrating the simple pleasures in life; we made a wigwam using canes, string, pegs and a 1960s sheet. He loves it and asked for his picnic lunch to be served in there.

We have been preparing our allotment for the imminent arrival of our runner beans, courgettes and purple broccoli.

We spent quite some time today watching a snail we found whilst weeding slowly emerging from it's shell. It was a beautiful moment and the longest he has ever sat still in the garden.

We are lucky enough to have a post box at toddler height in the wall near our house, as well as being lucky enough to have a toddler with a Royal Mail obsession!

He tries the handle every time

Joel has started to take more command with Myrtle and loves holding her lead. "Heels" he tells her

Dream Kitschen

                         

I've kept these for years, ever since my Granddad died, they have moved house nine times. These samples of Formica worktop had been hanging up in his garage since the 1960s; a proper garage with tools, seedlings and keeping apples wrapped up in brown paper and stacked high in boxes. I remember playing with them as a child during my summer holidays in Wrea Green, my grandparents village; a proper Lancashire village with a dub (duck pond), a cricket team and an annual Field Day (a highlight of my younger years).

I love the way each sample is so delicately thin, like a posh biscuit, and they make a nice clickety clattery noise when you try and pick them all up. Each pattern is very stylish, you can imagine 1960s housewives pouring over them, hankering after just a couple of metres of such a dreamy prep space in their kitchen.

This gold speckled pattern is called Sequin, available in Black, Red (pencilled on the sample are the dimensions required for the Wrea Green Institute bar) and Mushroom. I imagine the sales pitch; Let the glitz and glamour of the ballroom breath elegant rhythm into your veg prep, 'Cha Cha Chop'

The mosaic pattern is called Capri; Echoes of jet bound ventures to holiday islands, transporting you while you task to warm climates and early evening cocktails.

I think I'll keep them forever, just because.

The Beet my heart skipped

In the weeks running up to our big day Wednesday nights evolved into maids nights here at Oakbank. Left free in our diaries, frantic googling and making occurred (blog post 'Make Our Day' to follow) in what remained of the evening after eating some delicious meals.
I used quite a few of these sessions to work my way through various marked recipes from my cook books for our tea. It seemed a good exchange for the girls expertise, easing my guilt about them having to put up with my 'bridezilla' outbursts.
I won't bore you with all the recipes but here was one which we had twice as it was so bloomin tasty. Hugh Fernley Whittingstalls Baby Beetroot Tart Tatin. A good 'hands free for drinking/ leave in the oven' dish, perfect for evenings with the girls. I was quite excited selecting and preparing the beets, their colour (even before halved) is quite unlike any other root veg I've used....

I'd never cooked with beetroot before, it's my pickle of choice and I'd struggled to imagine how it might taste slowly roasted in it's own juices, turned out on a pastry base, scattered with feta and drizzled with dressing. That struggle was over in an hour or so and with scrumdiddlyumtious results and full belly's all round!

Beware though, what happens the next day is quite remarkable. We were so genuinely shocked by what we saw when we went to the loo that alarmed texts were flying around saying ''pink poo!!''

A wedding shared is a wedding halved

We were blessed to have such brilliant maids to help us with our wedding plans, so many maids are relatives forced upon you who just turn up on the day, wear the frocks and that's about as much as they 'do'. Our maids were far from ornamental, they know us so well that if push came to shove, and we'd had a total melt down, they would have created and styled a day to do us all proud.

It wasn't easy to get the three of us together for wedding planning sessions; what with toddler bedtime randomness, new jobs, college and commitments we were (and still are) very busy girls. About six months before the big day I set up Wedding Belles, a private/secret face book group (now set to public view so you can take a look), as a way for us to share ideas, inspirations and general weddingy stuff in a quick and accessible way, without fear of Mr B our guests getting spoilers. That's the trouble with facebook, it's so instant that if you are someone who, like me, suffers from 'blabber mouth' it can really stuff things up!

I set the tone of the group page with this image, which I found on one of the many blog posts I was reading. I still stand by it summing up so much of what our day was to feel and look like.

 Then as certain aspects of the day were defined (dresses, decorations, catering) I invited these people/businesses into the group. It then started to act as a networking site and some harmonious links were forged, like our decorations designer  The North Pom and dresses designer Make Me A Dress hooked up their items in this lovely photo shoot (click to see full article)

Image courtesy of Make Me A Dress

The group, Wedding Belles, proved very useful. Looking at it now I realise it was where we chose our fabrics, designers, decorations, shoes, bags, jewellery, flowers.....the list just goes on and on. It also meant our real get togethers were much more productive having made so many decisions in cyber space. For example the maids Amy Butler fabric, was chosen and shipped from the states using the group chat facility.


Then friends (near and far) who'd offered help in making bits and bobs were also added to the group, so they could get a feel for what direction/style we were going in. For example we were able to show the decorations colour scheme (I truly hate that phrase and we didn't really have one in the end anyway) with this rather technical plan of our hanging pom poms. Oh yeah!

All in all the group worked a treat and I'd recommend using this format to other brides or maids to be, even if you all live locally and can meet up regularly it's still great to have an online group page to act like a mood board/shopping list/scrap book/rantings outlet!
I still enjoy looking at it now as a memento of the fun we had looking at so many beautiful things with such purpose.

Toy Story

Joel moving into a big boy bed was a big deal, not just that he would need to train himself to sleep without the security of two foot high sides all around him but his room needed completely Joel proofing, just in case he climbed out in the night. This meant moving his bookcase and most of his toys downstairs to the fancily painted under stairs area we created for him when having the hall decorated before Christmas. It was the perfect size and makes a great addition to the hallway.

Naturally he takes over the whole house when he plays but I've tried to create a few designated storage areas for his things. In the kitchen he has his own cupboard which has kitchen related play in it.

As well as a pretty standard set of play food I put empty packets and tubs in there, as they get used, so each day he has a new item to use. It's nothing spectacular and he usually loses interest in it after a morning of play but it keeps the kitchen role play going nicely without the need to buy more and more foody toys.

Like most toddlers he knows that mummys purse is the best thing in the world to get to play with, that and any remote control, so I used an old purse and filled it with expired cards for him to play with. This lives in his Noddy shopper along with my old diary.

When it comes to wheels it's all about tracks, and what better track is there than the 'sheer drop window sill of doom'? Never mind the paint work, get those wagons rolling! Back and forth they go shunting each other along. So yes, cars mostly live on the lounge sill and go brrrrroooooommm!!

One important and yet sometimes costly lesson to learn when having children is they usually favour very simple things over expensive toys. Apart from a ball, some toy cars and his ride along Joel likes nothing better than to climb and run round the house with seemingly important things in each hand, being busy playing at being busy, and I like nothing better than to watch him, when I'm not playing at being busy too that is.

Crushed

This isn't the first time I have blogged about a kitchen utensil, but it is the first time I've had to replace something I love with something I never will.

Susi the Swiss made garlic press has been part of my life since I can remember but not for bringing the flavours of the world to our Blackpool kitchen. You see Susi is really something, she didn't just press garlic, in fact in our house I doubt she ever even saw so much as a clove until the late 90's, no instead Susi formed the main part of a northern housewife's 'toolkit', taking many a blow in aid of  my mums Christmas card strings, decorations, pictures and repairs to the garden fence. Why buy a hammer when you have this eh?

Susi met her match with a new brand of dishwasher tablet, stripping her shiny coating off she now leaves grey marks on my hand.

Every dint tells a tale

Bye bye Susi, you just weren't made for these times, Susi 2 will have nothing on you x

Bags of Fun!

I was given a lovely little project a while back which I haven't had the chance to tell you about. When our friends got married in September I was asked to organise party bags for all the children attending, along with snack bags too. Organised fun at it's best, in a bag!!

I got all their names and ages so I could tailor fill each bag to best suit the little guests. I found some really good stuff on the indoor market, brilliant joke/party stall which seemed to have stock from about 20 years ago (in a good way though) funny masks, squidgy toys, bubbles, fortune telling fish and whoopy cushions to name but a few of what I used.



This bag was for a 7 year old girl.



This bag was for the brides 7 year old nephew.

I kept the snack bags on the healthy side with home made heart shaped vanilla choc cookies, natural corn crisps, cheese, fruit and raisons and some delicate little round sandwiches made with half brown and half whites slices of bread. Fun.

There were some new babies there too so I gave their mummys some bubbles, a light up wand to keep baby entertained along with an energy giving biscuit (which I wrapped in baking paper and stuck with pretty tape) for them to munch during the speeches, feeding your baby starts with feeding yourself.

Grandad B's Birthday Bash

Mr B's Dad was 70 last month, we wanted to mark such a special birthday with a family party. He has 3 children and a fair few grandchildren (Joel being the youngest) who are rarely all gathered together in one place.

Instead of making a birthday cake we made birthday muffins and arranged them in a 70. Half were strawberry cheesecake and the others were triple chocolate, I got the recipes from a great little baking book by Good Housekeeping. It meant everyone could eat one flavour and take the other one homefor later.

The North Pom made this pom pom garland (dubbed 'the new bunting') in colours to complement our kitchen. The colours looked so good you can now order them yourself.

I finally got to make good use of my bargain birdy glasses (£2 for 12 at a really soggy car boot sale) when we did a champagne toast to the tune of 'Happy Birthday!'

A Brit of a 'do'

April 29th was a super day at Oakbank, we hosted an all day and night party in honor of Prince William and Kates wedding.

Guests arrived at 10am, both here and at Westminster Abbey, and we drank cups of tea from the family china whilst watching the guests arrive in all their posh outfits.

This china has been in my family for generations, now it's all mine.

Mum bought me these silver sugar tongs from an antique shop, aren't they fabulous!

This china madame wears a huge yellow knitted skirt which doubles as a tea cosy. Fun stuff eh! Funnier still is that the man who sold it to me in a charity shop thought it was a hat!

We set up a teashop in the kitchen, so we weren't making brews all day.

Buffet (L-R) egg and cress, plain crisps and peanuts (in striped paper bags) coronation chicken, banana and poppy seed cake, bread rolls, Tunnocks mountain, traditional lemonade.

Not eaten this since the 80's

The Tunnocks mountain. With 'very British' red phone box topper.

I used the box illustrations to make a mini bunting

We toasted the Royal kiss(es)

Good old M&S didn't let the side down with their fantastic biscuit tins

All in all we had a right Royal knees up with laughs, tears, fun and more union jack bunting than you could shake a flag at. Congratulations to Will and Kate, for a day we will all remember.