Some new books and a Sri Lankan dish cloth.

After reading this post http://lifeasmom.com/features/booking-it-in-2011I had a little spend up on books online and then had the pleasure of parcels arriving in the mail...all for me! I have so far read 'A Sane Women's Guide to Raising A Large Family', which I enjoyed reading I wish I had taken notes so I could tell you more about it but I mostly read while getting the little one to sleep and taking notes then is not possible. Sometimes it felt like I may have written the book myself as the author sound very like me and sometimes I thought "yes that is an area I need to work on". I'll have another flick through with a pen and paper when I finish the other books that are inviting me in. A lot of this book was written for people deciding if a large family was for them or not, so really didn't apply to me.

I'm currently reading Organized Simplicity. Again it's an easy enjoyable book to read. I wondered at first if there would be anything in it for me, at first it seemed to me the author was saying growing your own food and using cloth nappies are extreme and that prickled me a bit but as my reading progresses I can see she isn't saying that at all. She is catering for a wide audience is all, and these things are not essential, though to me they may seem to be. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the book and will attempt to take notes this time.

Cooking for Celiacs, Colitis, Crohn's and IBS, arrived this week and has been a real winner. It's pretty much a GAPS cookbook. Last night I made Sri Lankan feast which was great though as usual I was a little heavy handed with the spices and our 'eyes bled' a little! Still we all enjoyed it and I will make it many more times. There are so many great recipes in there, the children have been drooling over them so I'm using many in my latest menu plan.

I still haven't finished Gut and Psychology Syndrome, partly because I do need to take notes with that one and partly because I have picked up much of the content on the internet already. It's a book I will refer to often and lend out regularly.

Down To Earth recently held a Dishcloth Swap (my first swap)  and my swap partner Dhilma send me this lovely dish cloth and locally made coasters. The dish cloth was quickly put to work and only rests while in the wash or on the line. I really like using it. All of my past handmade ones ended up with holes from washing knives carelessly and I'd forgotten how much nicer hay are to have around than the squares of blue cleaning cloth I have been using. I wasn't a very good swap partner, my cloth was a very plainly knitted bamboo one and it was posted late but still I enjoyed knitting for a new friend and I do like knitting with bamboo, it's so soft and lovely.

A Little Backdating.

We had an afternoon trip to the beach recently and by the time we were ready to leave the sun was casting great shadows that the children enjoyed playing with. 

 This little boy is rarely without a stick in hand, it maybe a sword or a gun or even a fishing rod but it's always very important.

 It was way to cold for me to get my toes in the water, the children really didn't mind the cold and I was happy sitting back watching and listening to the waves.

 Easter provided a challenge as I wanted to have chocolate of course but as we were all on the GAPS diet at that time buying chocolate without a sweetener was impossible. Thankfully I had saved this special bar of Willies 100% cacao from our trip to England. So I mixed it up with sour cream and honey both of which are GAPS legal, (although cacao isn't, I felt it was fine for us) and I made these truffles which were delicious. I also made some Easter eggs with cocoa powder, cocoa butter and honey. They were better than no chocolate but not great.

It seems the younger children can't get enough of cooking lately. Ella-Grace and Daniel sat together and prepared their own breakfast menu plan for those days the are allowed to make their own breakfast. So here they are making omelette together.

So, whats been happening?

I've been reading on different blogs a little about GAPS, so I've been looking into that as much as time allows and have now ordered Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Natasha Campbell-McBride. It all sounds very interesting and fits very well with Nourishing Traditions which I own and love. It is all about healing the gut and improving gut flora and how doing that can have such dramatic effect on overall health, apparently it has healed people with Autism, ADD/ADHD, Dyspraxia, schizophrenia and depression as well as less drastic conditions like food allergies. Fortunately we don't have any of those conditions in our family (except food allergies) but I'm always interested in optimising our health and would much prefer to prevent illness than have to cure it. From what I have read so far if the gut is truly healthy it will readily remove toxins we ingest. From my reading I was inspired to make some sauerkraut. I hope it is received better than the kimchi I made last year which I loved but everyone else complained loudly about as soon as I removed the lid. Maybe I used too much garlic. I'm keen to start some gingered carrots from Nourishing Traditions and some pickled turnips from Wild Fermentation. I watched a presentation by Natasha Campbell-McBride here http://gapsaustralia.com.au/gaps-utube/ and started watching one by Sally Fallon author of Nourishing Traditions they were both speaking at the Wise Traditions conference in London.
Totally against both GAPS and Nourishing Traditions Serena made this very yummy Danish apple pie. We've always has such trouble with the very buttery pastry but she made it work very well.
I finally finished this cupboard and am really happy with it. It was in quiet a state when I bought it but has come up beautifully.
An even worse photo but I wanted to include it because she is so lovely and I'm so prooud of her, she made herself this nighty from an old sheet. It was her first time using the sewing machine. Now she wants 'old fashioned dresses' and twirly skirts.

Other random happenings, Tim and I are both listening to the one year Bible in our separate quite times, I've read the one year Bible for the last two years but it's rather nice to have the iphone app with someone reading it to me. It's even nicer to know Tim is reading the same thing as me so we can talk about it together.

Thomas' s toilet training is going very well. He sometimes tells me when he needs to go but mostly it's a matter of me just taking him regularly.

We are back to doing school work every day, the children had been doing maths through most of the holidays but now we are back to a full load. It's going well as I continue to try different approaches. This year instead of covering every subject every day we do either science, history or geography as our core subject for the day and all writing stems from that subject. I think its going to work well for us.

Apart from that I keep feeling a strong pull to my spinning wheel and as is so cold now and my feet are so cold all the time I think I'll start by spinning and knitting myself a pair of slippers. Maybe I'll be able to start today, maybe.

A growing garden and a growing boy.

The sweetpeas self seeded from last year and are tangling up with the climbing beans. The children are busy in the sandpit, they are spending as much time as possible there at the moment.

Our strawberry beds have done well this year despite being transplanted so very late. However it has been rare that a bowl full of strawberries have made it into the house, most being plucked straight from the plants by little hands like these and popped straight into little mouths.

This is Daniels bed. We have had such a cool summer everything is slow to mature, I only hope the frost can hold off for at least another month. Daniel has very much enjoyed caring for his bed, weeding it and watching the little cucumbers develop.
These are my temporary beds, in place while my big veg garden gets it's major face lift. They have done very well too, though again some heat would be great.
One little boy turned 4 yesterday. What a lovely day it was too. He wanted a 'ginerman' house for his birthday cake this year after reading Jan Bretts The Gingerbread Baby. He believed his house was the exact house that was in his library book.
Yes his birthday present, and a refilled sandpit to use it in. All of the children have loved playing in the sandpit since it's refilling. It's been so lovely watching them play together.

Rain, rain and more rain.

We have been feeling for the flood victims on the mainland, amazed at how suddenly people's lives were changed, the damage done to the land and the way people came together as a community offering support with money and deeds. Sometimes the worst situations bring out the best character.

Over the weekend we had our own little taster of flooding, just a wee taster but enough for us. We had water over the floor in two rooms but managed to contain it with constant mopping from 7:30am until about 9pm. The flow had stopped before my 2am mopping shift.

The girls were a great help in mopping up without complaint. One wonderful neighbour spent much of the day digging out side trying to stop the flow into the house and inside mopping. He was soaked though all day just helping us. We are so blessed with the neighbours we have. We are surround by wonderful neighbours.
Railton was struck pretty badly with many houses and businesses flooded.
Josh spent the morning after our clean up in Railton with Tim digging out gutters and drains. He enjoyed his work and the ice-cream one business owner gave him! By lunch he was ready to leave Tim and the others to the task. There is still much work to be done.

A visit to Tasmazia.

Yesterday the children requested an outing to Tasmazia So we very quickly packed a picnic and headed out. We also packed books, thinking we might get a chance to read while the children played in the mazes. The books were not opened as we spent so much time lost in the mazes!



The children loved Cubby Town, running off to explore each house, dashing quickly from one to another and back again.

We had planned a picnic at the 'Three Bears House' but what fun trying to find it! The great maze trapped us until the children were hot and sweaty and the mothers we well ready for a lunch break.

I found this little boy smelling the daisies. He had a lovely time and selected his own house from amongst those along 'The Yellow Brick Road'.


Of course the fairy house found a fan too. The lavender was so lovely not fully open, just looking delicate.





Rain threatened while the children played on the balance maze and bought an end to our outing.

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.