I am too tired for words. Subhan’allah. In a couple days the boys and I are heading for last of the summer wine up in them thar hills again, so I’ll say goodbye now. Goodbye.

I’m having problems with my gmail - it won’t let me send replies - humph - so if you are waiting for a reply then I LOVE YOU but it prolly won’t happen. Sabera - love the cushion! You are talented lady masha’allah. Just needed to say that

And now for some fruits of our hard work… and cream… mmmm.

What can I say? So far summer has been lousy so when we get a slither of sunshine? We hit the ground running…

It’s just so much nicer when you have extended family to picnic with.

Even simple pleasures like sitting in the garden seem so much better with a whole family around.

Been crafting and knitting and getting ready for a shop update before Ramadan starts. Enjoying this hand dyed yarn from etsy seller Hands and Notions. Was going to knit bootees - but now after seeing it in the flesh? I think some winter woolens for us is in order.

Enjoy the sunshine while you can people!

xx

Cake eating and knitting - with either Elderflower cordial or iced coffee… bliss!

Cracking out the face paints and watching the show…

Snuggling under a quilt with child reading and bonding over a favourite book

Enjoying the (brief bits of) sunshine with caffeine…. sigh

Knit something - anything - with Debbie Bliss Cashmerino.

Buy handmade - something pretty and practical.

Learn to french knot. Very useful! Do not underestimate le knot français!

Arrange thread by rainbow colour order.

xx

Is that the time?? Sorry I’m so late. Let me fill you in…

Insha’allah on Friday Mama Qalballah is coming to stay for a few days and much anticipated frolicking in pastures and forests and Ikea are envisaged.

After her parole is up we are shipping her back up North and insha’allah staying over a couple weeks for some (hopefully!) last summer beach and lake-side chilling before heading home to prepare body and mind for the ensuing Ramadan.

I am trying to get as much done beforehand, cleaning out some dark messy cupboards, making space, rearranging and sorting the house, making new Eid decorations and trying to raise money for Eid presents.

A shop update will be therefore shortly upon us for this very purpose insha’allah. I’ll post here as and when.

A few WIPs or KIPs sneaky peaks…

I’m fussy. And fat. And Muslim. Combine all that information and let’s just say that you would *hate* clothes shopping with me. In fact, let’s just state for the record that I don’t actually clothes shop, OK? I just find something I like and I wear it and wear it over and over again til it falls apart. Then my mother or a passing Samaritan takes pity on me and foists clothes on to me until I find my next victim which I wear without mercy.

I don’t like tight clothes. I don’t like short tops. I don’t like short arms. I’m pretty nerdy about low neck lines. I kind of like comfortable cotton and linen over spangley nylon. Call me weird. Finding clothes on the commercial high street is therefore truly an exercise in transporting water uphill. There is nothing there which meets my nerdy criteria.

My saving grace? Making my own clothes. This to be exact Simplicity 8463
vintage 1978, thrifted and loved to death for ease of cut and speed of piecing and more importantly, comfort

I modified the length so it is just above the knee and added a pocket, because I’m crazy like that.

It has everything I need to keep me happy: modest neck line, arms and length. And I’m content to make a zillion of these to wear day after day.

A fashionista I ain’t, but comfortable? Oh yes.

But the amount of people greeting me with Aloha and asking if I play the Didgeridoo - just weird… I can’t explain it…

who was my Grandfather’s mother (he died when I was a baby and have no memories of him) was a child of Victoria. And I remember her vividly. She was called Emily and had about three hundred children, most of whom were boys.

She was, by the time I was born, mostly bed ridden and her bed was by the window which looked onto the high street of a sleepy market town in the Lake District. Her sitting room was really the only room I ever saw, and the rest of the house was never used and sat under years of dust. I used to look at the stairs with a kind of foreboding; I was told I wasn’t allowed ‘up there’ and so imagined all kinds of terrible things above my head…

The kitchen I only ever peeped into once when my mother had gone to fetch something, and I remember it as grey and dusty and funny smelling. Like a death rattle hanging in the air.

The house was quiet punctuated only by the tock of an old clock somewhere. Tock tock tock counting down the seconds til I could leave the house and breathe fresh air again in a world that lived rather than waited.

We probably only ever stayed half an hour but oh it dragged so so painfully on. I would have to sit still all that time, not touching anything, not scuffing my feet, not sighing, huffing or staring at the ceiling, and even for a girl with about as much bounce as a wet tissue it was still painful.

But I could look, and that’s what I did. I looked at all the knick-knacks from a bye-gone era that lined my Great Grandmother’s cabinets. Plates, cups, saucers, ornaments, bowls. Her fireplace was black and probably iron and it was a huge piece of the wall/chimney breast. It had a place for the kettle and little doors down each side for warming plates and placing the iron to heat. She still had the same iron. Solid and black and totally cordless… I’ll never complain about ironing again. Much.

She had her grey hair tied in a tight bun and would tell of tales of how *daring* she was as young girl, and how she had been one of the first in her town to wear a skirt at ankle length. And what consternation it had caused! What names she had earned by being so loose and reckless.

When she laughed, which wasn’t often for she seemed to laugh with dry ironic smiles, it was a quiet moving of the shoulders and nothing more. But her face - oh constantly smelling a bad smell, her mouth, when she was not amused, would draw into a tight line and purse together and then you knew you were in trouble.

I have the same mouth myself, unfortunately. You can’t fight a tidal wave…

When she died we each received some of those knick-knacks - I remember distinctly a ceramic Alsatian and Siamese cat, and occasionally, if I’m thrifting, I see something that takes me right back to my Great Grans - things that I *feel* rather than remember. A guilded plate edge, a mirror’s rim, something totally bizarre brought back as a present from far-flung lands by her Servicemen sons. And I’m four years old again..

Memories. They are a double edged sword. And even though I never really knew my Great Gran in any depth I still cannot go past a painted black front door with brass door handle without thinking of her.

And I wonder if my love of plates and teacups and china has any basis at all in those visits with her. And if so, isn’t it kind of nice that with all these years apart, and without really knowing her all that well, I have still some part of me touched by my Great Gran, a connection that has never been broken.

This is all over the blogosphere and it made me LOL. Hope you had a chuckle too.

xx

“It. was. on. SALE” (accompanied by ‘I’m talking to am imbecile’ look)
[He stares, worriedly, into the middle distance afraid to utter 'it would have been cheaper still had you left it there...']

And although his patience with my latest must haves is admirable, it is also slightly hollow since my DH actually lives perpetually in 1965 when a bus ride was 23p and slap up meal cost £2.36 and a ball of (expensive!) wool was £1. Yes. He actually thinks wool costs £1. I know; cute, isn’t it. Bless.

I don’t like to break the bad news to him since his ignorance works to my advantage.

Had he actually any idea what real commercial life is like right now he would be growing his own vegetables and severing the cord from the eBay-machine (also known as ‘computer’ in common parlance?) and prohibiting me from venturing into town with a wallet.

But for once I can tell him, guilt-free that he is right. Today I bought something for £1. It. was. on. sale… and I think I did rather well to leave John Lewis with only three balls of Debbie Bliss cotton rather than the six rather large baskets full that were on offer…. in fact, by buying only three balls rather than thirty I actually saved money, right? And with the saving I made surely I deserve a treat for being such an excellent housekeeper, no? Maybe a new book, some new shoes, fabric, or I know - yarn. Yes you are right, people. With all the savings I made I could afford some more yarn.

You know, you all make a lot of sense. I should speak to you guys more often…

I’m dreaming of winter hats for the babes in these shades. Planning ahead? Me?

If I told you I went cherry-picking with the babes in my neighbourhood last week you might be forgiven for immediately imagining I live somewhere like this

In reality? Uh, more like this:

Yeah, inner city life.

But within the constraints of circumstance we battle to find beauty and wholesome living nonetheless, and we are very fortunate to live on a street with cherry trees.

In spring the bloom is simply breath-taking - an avenue of confetti which, my eldest says, looks like tree icing, and my youngest says looks like ’snow trees’. One could almost forget about the grime, burned out cars and rats. Almost.

Picking our way over discarded fridges, garden waste and various metal objects, the babes and I harvested a crop of wild cherries right outside our back gate. The birds were perplexed for they had never seen such madness - never. And yes, we got a few strange looks from passing residents who quite clearly thought we were nuts.

We payed them no heed. The children picked and held the basket and proudly walked home to show their Dad the fruits of their hard work.

They tried a few and looked like they were sucking on lemons. Hm, yes a tad bitter and acidic, and as a nation we have become to used to the sweet tasteless “black gobstoppers” as Jane calls them, but these are just right for baking with.

And what else - Cherry Clafoutis, naturally.

A lesson in beauty where you find it and the early bird catches the worm, or in this case, fruit, much to the chagrin of the perplexed blackbirds…

I think they call it a blogdentity crisis. It all felt a bit icky for a while. Heavy, you know? Who was I blogging for? Why am I blogging at all. And everything in between. All I can say is whenever I sat down to blog everything rebelled. I can’t say I’m wholly ‘here’ right now either. It’s an odd phenomenon - blogging.

On the one hand you have reality, your reality, and on the other you have the persona, the edited version that you present to the world. I think most people understand that with a blog what you get is the shiny edited version (like polite society); the persona rather than the person. And that’s fine. I don’t mind doing warts and all posts but most of what you get here is the person I want to be, rather than the person I am most of the time. And I think I needed to do real life without blog for a while.

Sometimes you have to make sure there is a person behind the persona and with being pulled in so many directions at once it is good to hunker down with the important people in your life to pull it all together again once in a while. It’s good to return to base and have a little cooling off period about all sorts of things.

I have mostly been turned off blogging by corporate blogs - the Trademark shiny blogs who are less about person or persona and more about selling.

But I have also returned to blogging because of some truly beautiful and inspirational blogs that revived my spirit and made me smile with pleasure, page after page. Somehow they managed to present a persona and still keep it real. And it was all very reviving.

I’m not quite sure why I came to blogging, or why I stay with blogging. Partly I hope to keep a record of my life and my growth, and partly to make connections. Partly, I admit, I like the reality I portray on blog more than I like the reality I live, and sometimes the shiny edited version can stop me tearing my hair out - when I concentrate on the beauty and the good things to come out of a day rather than the negative (and all too real) me. Selective memory or survival technique? Perhaps both.

I admit I shout a lot at my children; I make them cry; I am waspish and curlish and I scream like a fishwife on a hissy fit. That is the everyday reality of Me.

But then there is the other stuff too. The person I aspire to be; the person I strive to be; the Mama I wake up everyday being before my children give me brain damage halfway down the stairs - the Mama I hope, even with the nagging and yapping, my children will remember me as trying very hard to be out of sheer love. It is that that I want to document and remember - and it is the aspirations towards beauty in all its guises that I want to capture.

So. With all these reality checks playing around in my mind I think I am ready to re-open this thing back up.

I’ll leave you with some snapshots of our time together this week. Coffee and picnics in the garden while everything around us reaches for the sun and comes full bloom, reaching it’s potential before our grateful eyes.

xx