To England and Bangkok and Back again.

I had a fantastic trip with my older girls and little Thomas. The girls were great travel companions, we had so much fun! We all love markets and food and lovely accents and well we pretty much loved everything. We'd love to go back again but I don't suppose we'll ever all travel so far together again.

We just loved exploring the history, it's just so amazing for us to visit such old sites. We did an audio tour of this castle, I could have spent hours there, it was just so interesting and amazing to hear how different historical figures lives fitted together.
We had a great time is Windsor, again we would have liked more time based here to explore both Windsor and to take day trips to other places of interest to us.
Niels Yard, I loved it 20 years ago and loved it again this trip. I think the girls loved it as much as I did, it was so nice to share those special places and experiences with them.
Borough Market was smaller than I expected but great to see, especially the chocolate shop!
In Bangkok we had a mixed experience staying here at the lovely Windsor Suite Hotel with it's air-conditioning and having one night in the slum at Klong Toey.
We had a Thai cooking class in Klong Toey and this was part of our wonderful meal. Before the class we were taken to the market to buy our ingredients, that was quiet an experience! Rather different to Borough Market!!
There were many interesting creatures for sale, fortunately we didn't buy any of them.

We didn't get photos of the live toads tied together with rubber bands, or the turtles scurrying about in buckets, or the fish parts fermenting about the place

Out of all the wonderful places we visited Iffley was our favourite and we'd love to house swap with someone for a time.
WE walked down this road to the Thames which has a walking path running beside it, it would have been so lovely to take this path into Oxford but again we didn't have time.
This is part of that walk we did manage walk. When we find someone willing to house swap with us we'll be able to walk the path when ever we want. In our dreams.

Daffodils!

Every year we look forward to a wonderful flush of yellow in the paddock as the daffodils burst into flower. They were flowering like this when we first bought the house and the children thought it was so wonderful to be able to play amongst such beauty.
They also very quickly realised other people would enjoy the beautiful blooms too and so they began their first business, selling huge bunches of yellow daffodils.

There is a lot of excitement at the prospect of making some pocket money but I think most of all they simply delight in the abundance of the wonderful yellow daffodils. Aren't the colours great? I love the vivid yellow against the vivid green with the blue mountains in the background.

Geocaching

It's been so wet and cold lately. One sunny day we decided to head back through these hills geocaching. It's feeling a bit like treasure hunting. The children and their Daddy love it.
This little one enjoyed his trip in the car but it was so cold outside I left kept him in the car most of the time.
Isn't that lovely what a little mother she is! (I can imagine her Mummy smile down on this picture.) And he loves being fussed over.
So where are we then? This was a truly stunning lookout, sorry no photos of the view though.

The first cache we found, it was just so wind blown here, icy cold as you can see from the way they are huddled with hands in pockets.


All eyes are on the prize, what is it? They don't really mind, the excitement was in the adventure of the hunt. And I guess the shared goal.

Sourdough Bread

I've wanted to try to make a ciabatta style sourdough bread for a while but couldn't get my head around working with such wet dough. Finally I just jumped in and did it. Not nearly as difficult or as messy as i expected. I'm really happy with the way it turned out. The dough was soft and had a great flavour. Serena made some more of her wonderful dukkah to go with it, perfect.
This is the whole wheat style I have been making most days. I'm experimenting with wetter doughs like the books I've been reading say to use. The results are good in flavour and texture but I'm not happy with the crust of the free form loaves. Too rough. I definitely have plenty of learning to do but it's fun learning. I was able to cook some loaves in the neighbours new wood fired pizza oven this week. That was fun. The bread turned out great, the tinned loaves we're a little dark on the top and I excepted them to be under done in the middle but no, they we fine. The Turkish style breads were great. And the smell was wonderful. Maybe one day we might have our own pizza oven ...maybe. Surely much better than a solar oven in Tasmania.

And Then She Was Eight.

Such perfect weather for a birthday! Lots of blue sky and sunshine. By midday it was a balmy 10 degrees. The birthday girl had lots of fun with her little friends including her birthday buddy. How special it is to share your birthday with your friend.
Putting the neighbours paddock to good use. A game of soccer was played and lots of running done.
A picnic lunch and a surprise visit from her much adored big brother a visit to wish her a happy birthday.
Look at those beautiful birthday crowns, so special, to be treasured.
This aunty was a gem, how would we have managed without her. What a wonderful aunty she is.
Her most special birthday gift, this cocktail. It's bringing her so much joy. Yes it has been in some scrapes and lost some feathers but we are sure they will regrow in a few weeks. We were so amazed at how quiet this little bird is, it's perfectly secure on Gracey's shoulder and doesn't she love that! A perfect day for a perfectly beautiful little girl.

A transportable birthday.

The second birthday of our birthday season, for this one we took the party to him. He is a lovely lad. Growing up nicely. We all enjoy the time we get to share with him. As you can see he is very much admired by his brother, all of his brothers in fact. We had a very simple meal together and simply relaxed and enjoyed being together for a couple of hours.
The little ones have decided this birthday season that fairy bread is an important part of birthdays. It's not something we usually have, doesn't sit very well with me but it brings then a lot of joy.
Relaxing and enjoying one an other. My precious children. There's nothing like watching them having fun together.

Winter Solstice

We celebrated Winter Solstice for the first time on Monday. I know it's not something Christians normally celebrate but I think it's great to celebrate the amazing way God created this universe and the amazing planet we live on. So we draped the walls with pine and holly, made some candles and gingerbread men and some winter comfort food and away we went. We had little time to organise as it was a last minute decision to celebrate at all.
The children enjoyed setting decorations to make a festive table. We had gingerbread laid amongst the pine and candles which were rather tempting to this little one. Here he is simply drawn in by the wonder of candle light and expectation.
The birthday trip to the chocolate factory finally happened this same evening. The girls worked away on preparing the food and when it was all ready we rugged up jumped in the van and headed out for a late hot chocolate. It was lovely to huddle around the wood fire and admire the beautiful pressed tin and led light windows of the factory's cafe. And so lovely to come home to hot food, good smells and a lovely celebration. In fact we've decided to celebrate each solstice and equinox.

Sweet 16

Yes time does fly as we all know it is just that sometimes it really hits us just how fast it's flying by. Really it was no time at all that she was a precious babe in my arms and I was feeling so ecstatic at having a beautiful baby girl. I couldn't take my eyes off her nor the smile off my face. She has grown into a lovely person with a strong character and a determination to make her life count, to use it in someway to help others. We are so proud of her.
Pass the parcel was played for the little ones. I love the way the older children include and involve the younger children in their activities, for this birthday funny face biscuits were made and hide and seek played. Still there was time for big kids games while the little ones slept.
Part of our birthday banner which was made for the last birthday and will now be used for each one. I guess it will stay up for the next 3 weeks as we work our way through a little winter birthday season. Somehow we forgot to have the mulled wine and didn't get around to the New York Cheese cake she had chosen as a birthday cake. Thankfully they keep. We decided not to embarrass her by giving her our traditional birthday blessings in front of her friends. That too can wait, she won't miss out. And with some sick ones in the house we couldn't stick to the plans we had to visit the chocolate factory. We hope to make it on the weekend when all of the family should be able to make it including big brother who's birthday is the following week, we'll make it a double celebration.

First winter days in the forest.

We took a break yesterday and headed to the forest for a little while. Most of the leaves had fallen and the ground was deeply littered with them. Amongst them we found brightly coloured fungi and other surprises. We decided we need to go back for a longer next time with blankets, hot drinks, good food and our nature study notebooks. We'll have a good few hours just to enjoy the season and the forest before the real cold of winter sets in.


Waiting for the leaves to fall, the tree was being shaken to encourage the last leaves down. Here they are waiting to try to catch them as they fall.



The little girls had so much fun fungi hunting. They had a ball.

Constructing a fort. Of course we left the forest at just the wrong time when the boys had found the perfect site for their construction.
One of the surprises a bright yellow worm, we will look up some more information about him.
With all the noise we disturbed someone sleep.

I know these are not the best photo photos but I wanted to included them to show their lovely colour.

In the yard at the moment.

Some of my apple trees seem confused, they seem to think it is spring and now have new little apples forming on their branches. I'm just going to watch and seem what happens to them.

Josh helped me fix the bottom of a new fence in the veg garden so the chooks and ducks don't get out from underneath it...hopefully. He's developing great working man hands.

These ones are content in there new home. We bought them as day olds and have enjoyed raising them, it's something we will do again. Currently I'm trying to work out the cost of raising them, I suspect it isn't as economical as I hope. We plan on eating the roosters and hope the others will provide us with more eggs than we need. It will be lovely in the spring to have a surplus of eggs.
These ducks we supposed to keep us in eggs while the chooks have their winter break but we've had two eggs from them in the last couple of weeks. The Rouen Clairs are a recent addition and still have a few weeks to prove themselves. The lady I bought them from assured me they would be wonderful layers and would start to lay in June. The Indian Runners I've had since January I think but they have given me very few eggs. We did get the odd one when they first arrived and then nothing until last week. Maybe they're not satisfied with their diet?
These children had lots of fun zooming around on their bikes yesterday, it was such a lovely sunshiny day. They are happy little possums.