Stop! Thief!

OK, 'fess up - who stole June? Because otherwise I can't form any sensible reason for not having written in *three weeks*. I think it's an inevitable part of this time of year - school and social activities seem to be speeding up rather than winding down and one day soon we're going to have overdone it all so much that we just collapse in a soggy little heap on the living room carpet. Which desperately needs cleaning. Oh well. I'll add that to the list then.

June is always busy for us; there have been two birthdays - mine and (moving swiftly on) Tall Small's. This year her birthday fell on a Friday which meant that by the time we had had the day itself, and her party on Sunday, it ended up being a birthweekend - which is as it should be when you're turning 7.

Seven? Those tiny time thieves have been at it again.

Still, it was a good excuse for bracelet making:


partybox creating:

(we watched Beverley Hills Chihuahua, and the (recyclable!) boxes were filled with iced flower biscuit lollies, headbands from Heather Ross' Weekend Sewing, and homemade matching hair bobbles - one button covering kit plus some cheapo Boots hair elastics.)

And, of course, cake scoffing:



I was really pleased with the way this turned out - it's Nigella's custard birthday cake with unadulterated Belgian chocolate on the top, and those lollies are inspired by Bakerella but made with this recipe. Glitter and coloured flame candles, naturally. Yuuuuuum.

Bzzzzzzzzz!

I saw something today which at first terrified and then delighted me - a swarm of bees outside my house. Imagine hundreds (thousands?)of buzzing honeybees, loud enough to make themselves heard through the double glazing, and landing all over the windows. Fortunately my neighbour is an ex-beekeeper so she explained to Tiny Small and myself what was happening and we watched as the bees started to cluster together ready to fly off to a new home. By the time we returned from collecting Tall Small from school, there were only a handful of sadly deserted bees bumbling around and we started to wonder whether we had imagined it all.


Sadly I didn't think to grab the camera, so instead here's a picture of a bag I was commissioned to make recently. It's a keepsake satchel, and apparently the little chap it was for liked it nearly as much as his mum did!

'Tis the season

Strawberry picking season, that is.


Yes, it's still a bit early but the sun and rain seem to have brought the crop on, on the South Coast at least. We smothered our pale skins in suncream yesterday and headed here along with hordes of other people, to gather more strawberries than we could eat. (And believe me, Tall Small and I can eat a LOT of strawberries.)


I remember picking strawberries when I was little - it's the first time the girls have been but they soon caught on, and were very selective about which fruits they put in their punnets. There's nothing like eating strawberries you've picked yourself, especially if they're still warm from the sun. On the allotment we've set up a little seating area right next to the strawberries and raspberries so we can do just that. Yum.


See what I mean about early season? A profusion of green berries, carrying the promise of a delicious summer harvest, but still we managed to collect more than enough for our tea.


Roll on summer - though now I'm thinking I need to net my own crop sharpish!!

Humble pie

For years I've protested that I cannot stand rhubarb. I've tried (and failed) to eradicate it from more than one vegetable plot I've had. I've listed it alongside offal as the two things I won't eat when invited to dinner.

But, I'm willing to admit I was wrong. Oh so wrong.

Gina nearly won me over with cherry and rhubarb jam last year (who can resist toast and jam?), but the thing that's really done it for me is this cake - not pretty, but delicious.

It's a Nigella Domestic Goddess creation (of course), containing polenta and scary amounts of sugar, and made with a gift of rhubarb that I couldn't bring myself to throw away. Perhaps that's why the rhubarb lost its weird tasting edge and became just a lovely tartness. Mmmmmm.

Lots of rain this week, which is lovely for weeds and rhubarb alike. And alchemilla is just made for raindrops ...

Explosion in a lilac factory

I have something of a love-hate relationship with our wisteria. It drops a frustratingly large volume of leaves on our little garden, it regularly breaks its restraining wires and it requires Mr DC to scale tall ladders for the twice yearly pruning.

But then, for 2 weeks every year it looks like this, and I am forced to forgive it all over again.

Can you smell it? One year a late frost destroyed all the flower buds - a very sad May indeed!

Busted!

6.30 pm

Messy kitchen.

Small child caught red handed on Mr DC's mobile phone.

On the Bloomsbury trail

Whenever we visit my parents, we drive past an enticing sign advertising 'An Artist's Home and Garden'. This is the markerpost for Charleston, home of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant and an absolute gem for anyone who enjoys unusual decor and exuberant gardens. We visited on Easter Sunday - terrifically busy but since Sundays are the only days you can take small people around without a guided tour, we had little option.


The house is quite startling - every available surface is painted or decorated, and the whole place is filled with colour and painting and fabric and sculpture. Hugely inspirational - but no photography allowed inside.



The gardens have borders overflowing with cottage garden-y plants, sculptures and lots of places to sit and play hide and seek, and a mean cup of tea served in the little cafe. This leads me nicely on to the Bloomsbury link we're lucky to have far closer to home: the Orchard in Grantchester, where many literary types allegedly took tea and lounged around in deckchairs.


We did the same last week, obviously pretending to have deep thoughts in the sunshine but in reality wondering whether we ought to skip supper after such a generous afternoon tea.


For fascinating literary details of the Bloomsbury group, I direct you to MrsM. All I can do is show you pictures of Vanessa Bell's flowers and reassure you that the enormous scones at the Orchard are definitely worth the extraordinary prices they command.

This post is for Alice, who would really enjoy a visit to Charleston.