Mud & Mischief

We have discovered smoothies.

Yes I know, they’ve been around for a fair while, but I’m not the biggest fruit fan. I’d rather have my five a day in the form of broccoli, carrots, sweetcorn, courgettes, green beans, sweet potatoes, parsnips, swede, kale etc etc etc

However, in the new shopping centre in town is a smoothie bar called Barefruit Juice and they do the most divine mixes. I used to go to Starbucks and spend £3 on a coffee. Now I go to the smoothie bar and spend £3 on a Pinapplause. Pineapple, banana, strawberries, apple juice, yoghurt and ice. And, just by chance, I found I could add another fruit to it without upping the price so I get a spoon of blueberries thrown in now. The girls love it - it’s purple!

A while back though, I found the ancient 70’s blender bit for my Kenwood mixer. I thought, hmmm… and threw in the above mentioned fruit, an actimel thing and voila - home made smoothies. For half the price. RJ loves smoothies mixed in with his porridge.

I was going to blog about something else far more interesting than smoothies, but it kind of dribbled out of the back of my head when I was pulling faces at my son. I’m sure whatever it is will come back to me at some point today.

On a brighter note, James has decamped with the three girls, my old Disco and a trailer holding an even older and more battered Disco and is heading out in the wilds of Fen Bogget land with them. Which leaves just me and RJ to do whatever we like. I think we’ll do some laundry, mosey on over to a boot sale whilst that washes, come back, vacuum, read a book for a while, set some dinner going… ooh the excitement of it all. That’s if I can prise the spoon out of his hands without him throwing a wobbly. He does love his spoon.

Well, it’s been a bit quiet on here as of late. I don’t seem to be doing much apart from chasing myself around in circles. A friend of mine has a saying, when she’s so busy she can’t think straight, and it runs along the lines of she’s moving so fast she’s meeting herself coming back and no one told her that her ass was that big! Kind of epitomises how I feel.

However, I’ve got a couple of crafty projects lurking that need finishing off, so I’ll sort out photos when I get a chance - a cross stitch of Myf’s astrological sign, Cancer; a half finished stripey tank top for Piglet that I think is going to be too small so I’ll probably have to frog it into something else and a pair of socks for me in a lovely self pattering opal style yarn, except it’s the first pair of socks I’ve ever attempted and I’m still only a couple of inches down the leg. Ho hum. What I really want to do is get some nice dk cotton yarn and crochet myself a granny squares throw. Just like this one by Kath Kidston:

Except hopefully it won’t cost me £160!!! I’m thinking of doing it in sages and greens and stones with a palest pink or dusky rose highlight. We’ll see.

And my house objective this month is to clear the chaos that lurks next to James’ computer desk and try and persuade him that a piano would just go *perfectly* there. I can hope, can’t I?

Oh - and did I ever show you this picture of Tea as a bridesmaid in January? It’s just beautiful. If I’ve shared it before, then please indulge me.

I made sushi today. I am very proud of myself and they were very very yummy. And easy too! Fillings included tinned red salmon, smoked salmon and cucumber and pepper.

And a gratuitous Robin picture too.

Seeing as how he’s 6 months old today!

And for Bronwen, here are a few of the lottie, in it’s sad, soggy and sorry state.

The large clump of English marigolds on the left are hiding the potato quarter. I work on a four year rotation, so the spud patch is back left this year, onions and beets from left, sweetcorn beans and squash front right and brassicas supposedly back right.

Except, as you can see, there’s a healthy crop of old carpet back right, held down with a couple of pallets to stop the rain washing the Wilton wool down hill. The door fell off my shed too. Good job I don’t keep anything in it.

Got a good sunflower though!

This is my fabulous swiss chard, (merci Bronwen!) which the girls love cooked like spinach in a roux. How many 5 year olds go ‘yay, spinach!’ when you put it on the table? Dwarf beans in front and some sorry looking alliums behind. I had to pull up all my onions and dry them in the side room/alley/conservatory bit at home as they were starting to rot in the ground. Same with the shallots. You can just see the garlic and leeks behind the chard and I’m hoping I’m going to get some sort of crop from them. Keep your fingers crossed!

And the right hand side, showing the sweetcorn, beans and squash, hiding behind the rampant peas that the pigeons missed. I’ve got to take the air rifle up the lottie soon - our pigeons come ready stuffed with seasonal English vegetables.

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