CabbageLarsen

Market Madness

Well, I went a jumbling, and it was very poor - only two lacing toys for Felix and some puzzles for Jasper and Tobias, including this one from West Germany:

 

I love the style, I love their clothes, I wish I had a wardrobe like that!!!

So after the disappointing jumble sale I trundled off to Reading market to experience the madness it presents to me weekly, in the hope of securing some bargains and enough fruit and veg to feed my hungry boys for the week, for as little money as possible!

Whilst dodging trolleys, mad women, and ferral children (mine) I managed to procur my weekly veg in torrential rain, and pick up a couple of bargains too, for a pound each:

 

The knobbly sweet potato - some soup, maybe roasted veg; the plums - well Martin has promised me a plum crumble (double yum), and I have promised him a tarte tatin with plums instead - a tarte prune I suppose!

...and just in case you were wondering what I did with those all of those beetroots:

 

I love this Beetroot cake, usually made just in loaf tins, this time as welll as the loaf cakes I also made a batch of these cute fairy cakes, perfect for Jasper's packed lunch box, and well, for random nibbling too!

Post!

I got a parcel today...I never get parcels...I was so excited I ripped apart the packaging like a three year old, so frenzied it was almost embarrassing!

I am amazed by people's kindness and thoughtfullness...Aunt M had sent me a gorgeous rose print Kath Kidston apron and a lovely card and message...I feel rejuvenated after a fuzzy old week.

I have to go jumbling tomorrow (ages since I've been to a good jumble sale!), but after that I am going to do some baking just so I can wear it.

Thank you Aunt M. x

Today I have to...

• blog all of the past week...which, bear with me, will be all muddled up, just like my head at the moment,
• cook that huge pile of beetroot (50p from the market - bargain, bargain), but I don't think I can bear any more beetroot soup...any suggestions?!
• Dust...oh the dust...there is so much it is gathering, having parties in every corner, behind every door, oh!
• sew the tabs on the curtains,
• sew, sew, sew...more more more...
• oh, and please, to finish those green boots,
• and, if there is time, a good session of procrastination might be called for...!

Friday Morning

I wreaked revenge today...

...I unusually woke at 5am today, unable to sleep I worked on some etsy projects until 6.45, and then woke the boys up...ha! My turn!

It was lovely to watch them stir and stretch, a different side to them, sleepy...usually by the time I open my eyes they are full of enough energy to physically tip me out of bed!

It has been a restful morning - knitting in nightie and legwarmers - no better way to be (please excuse my maggot toes!).

I wish I could stay like this all day, but I am to take Jasper swimming later, and while he has a certain penchant for eclectic clothing, I fear picking him up from school in them may be pushing the boundaries too far...

...on that note, next week is his first school disco and he wants his hair like this:

 

I love his disregard

Tuesday

 

Five minutes to myself.

Coffee, the radio and a project. Lovely.

Mother's Day

...I am so lucky to have my boys, my little cabbage boys.

A little parcel of chocolates from Tobias.

A card from Jasper - a picture of our house and Dolly (the camper), Jasper and I are asleep in the house, Tobias and Dad are in the van and Felix is in the loft - I might point out this is not our usual sleeping arrangements!

 

Thrifty pamper hamper from Martin - complete with, cucumber eye therapy, olive oil and oats for face scrub and moisturiser, avacado face mask (plus recipe!) and aspirin face mask - oh wow, this must be the best present I have ever recieved.

Thank you M. x

And as if it couldn't get any better, my favorite dinner of the moment, mackeral and a beetroot, apple and cashew nut salad, oh yumm.

I had to go out in Dolly, briefly in the afternoon, and as I drove, slowly and quietly, I listened to Norah Jones, and these words just hung in the air:

"You know I love you baby,

More than the whole wide world,

I'm your woman,

You know you are my pearl,

Come with me, together, we can take the long way home"

...and I just wanted to turn around, drive home, bundle them into the back and drive off, beach, highlands, moors, away, away, away...how I miss them when we are apart.

The Sky...

The sky is pink like ham, Jasper observed at bedtime, and the two of them stood and watched, trying to see it getting darker, trying to see the colour change, and hoping to get a glimpse of the nights first bat...

 

The source of last nights lovely smells. Danish Kringle and two light wholemeal Artisan Loaves

I had a visitor in the night, not as you may guess, in the form of Marley's ghost, but (no surprise to those of you with children) in the form of a three year old demanding fresh water (I might add here at no point in the past have I ever tried to force feed my children stagnant water to lead to this strongly termed request!).

I sat there and watched him drink, with his crazy blonde hair, and thought, however tiring these nighttime wakings are now, one day I will look back with fondness at his cold-lipped kisses and the sound of his bare feet on the floorboards.

As he returned to bed and fell immediately to sleep I lay awake, and thought of them as babies, and I could hear my knitting needles demanding to be picked up...They, however, unlike my boys can wait until morning!

Sleep...

I have not crafted anything today, even with the boys; Jasper's homework sits by the window calling us to finish it, but the only thing we could hear after dinner and bath was the roar of of Miss Trunchbull from Roald Dahl's "Matilda".

So we snuggled down for a chapter and milk and an early night for my boys whose legs and eyes refused to function anymore...

My Knitting is silent, and my sewing machine still, I have pottered and sorted, stacked and baked and baked, and the house is full of the smells of bread and Kringle and cardamon; I am too tired to do anymore.

I can hear Felix's deep sleep sigh, and I think it's time I joined him...

Who needs Fisher Price?

 

Both of my older boys loved their treasure basket, and now it is Felix's turn.

Apart from gifts all of our toys are second hand or home made, but the favorite, by far, has been the treasure basket. It is one of the few toys that have seemed to grow with them.

It began when they were babies, with fir cones, egg cups, spoons, ribbons, material, and over the years has expanded to contain conkers, twigs, seed pods and pebbles.

Not only has the treasure basket  helped them develop their own sensory skills but has, in the long run, helped them to view those everyday objects in nature as something to be looked at, felt and, to my occasional horror, collected! A natural consequence of having boys (and a husband equally obsessed with wood and logs) is that we now have a stick pot in the garden for all  those sticks that are "too good" to be left at the park!