Martha's Marvellous Munchies

The highlight of the month was definitely our three-day beach holiday .  We also managed to catch up with some friends in Bristol, way back at the beginning of the month, and enjoyed a day at Ashby and Willesley Vintage Festival - lots of steam engines, old tractors and vintage cars.  Graham has been out and about with the boys while I've been at work, and now we are heading full tilt towards the new school term. Toby In the driving seat of our holiday camper van Shark mouth! - has just got into proper Lego.  We've dug out a couple of boxes of Graham's old Lego and I have relived those childhood hours of pawing through endless pieces to find that one black four. He made a helicopter and then drew a picture of it. - enjoys watching children's craft and cooking programmes.  The funniest thing is that he commentates like a TV presenter when he makes something himself.  "And today you will need two milk bottle tops, four pipe cleaners and a c...

Rhossili Beach, day. We arrived early.  The sea had reached its high tide mark and had just begun its long slow slide towards the horizon.  The morning sun lit up a sweep of pale sand, stretching from headland to distant headland, bounded behind by grassy dunes.  Ahead, the calm blue water reflected the unclouded sky above it, as lines of white foam pushed unhurriedly towards the shore. Walking, the immensity warped distance.  Even brisk steps, barefoot on the packed sand, seemed to bring the grey rocks no closer.  Finally I reached the goal and stood triumphant on the seaweed-coated mound.  As I retraced the wavering line of my own footprints, the stick-figure silhouettes ahead resolved themselves into colourful people, and then into my family, absorbed in tunnels, hills and holes. And wave jumping.  And shell collecting.  And making new friends.  And so many ands that Theo fell asleep in my arms on the way back to t...

This is really good.  And happens to use a few things which are growing in my garden right now.  Win win.  The original Waitrose magazine recipe, from which this is adapted, called it a salad, but it's more substantial than that word might make you think.   Roasted Tomatoes and Courgettes with Feta 1 small onion, finely chopped 250g cherry tomatoes, halved 1 red pepper, in fairly large dice 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 1/2 tsp cumin seeds pinch of ground cinnamon 1 large garlic clove, crushed 1 lemon, zest and juice 200g courgettes, sliced into strips handful of basil leaves 50g feta cheese, crumbled Preheat the oven to 200°C.  On a large baking tray, scatter the onion on one side and put the tomatoes and peppers on top.  Drizzle over 1 tbsp of the oil and sprinkle with the cumin and cinnamon. On the other half of the tray, put the courgette slices.  Mix the other 1 tbsp oil, garlic and lemon zest and juice.  Spoon about hal...

I got this book out of the library in preparation for the summer holidays.  Of course, Toby being Toby, he instantly pounced on it and wanted to do every activity right that minute.  So we found a few that we had supplies for...  1) Milk planets!  Of all the bizarre things... but it was cheap and easy and actually worked pretty well.  The idea is simply that you swirl drops of food colouring in a jam-jar lid of milk to create a planet-like effect.  I think liquid food colouring would have worked better than gel, but we got some rather nice marbling. It also showed me how far Toby's concentration has come: a year ago he would have swished a few around and gone on to something else, but this time he spent a while on it and asked for more to do. 2) Gunge!  Cornflour (cornstarch) plus water equals shear thickening (ie it gets stiffer when you stir it) plus general gorgeous gloop.  An outside activity for sure. 3) Milkshakes!  F...

Somehow we seem to have got through another month!  This whole work thing sure makes the weeks fly by.  I've been enjoying it, but I feel like we're still adjusting to the new dynamic, trying to find the right balance.  At the moment it's been more like: leeeeaaan one way - leeeeaaaan the other way - ohhhhmygoodness will we all fall into the net - up! up! up! we're just about hanging on - maybe? maybe?  But we're still putting one foot in front of the other, and even managing to have a bit of fun along the way. Toby - finished preschool!  They gave them a grand send-off, with a day trip to the zoo, and a nice ceremony with lots of presents in a handmade personalised bag. Sports day beanbag race.  The aeroplane pose was his own idea. - took us on yet another trip to A&E, this time for a damaged toe.  He couldn't walk on it the whole day; we took him to the doctor, who wasn't sure and referred us to the hospital; the nice A&E nu...