Martha's Marvellous Munchies

I have surprisingly few photos for this month, probably because Graham was busy several weekends (two Saturdays volunteering and one weekend away).  When he's not around I a) don't take the boys anywhere interesting and b) forget to take any photos even if we do go somewhere.  We've been getting back into the school routine with Toby, and Theo has started one morning of preschool a week.  It doesn't seem like five minutes since I was showing him off there as a new baby! Toby    - is now mostly cycling to school, and insists on wearing a high-vis vest to do so (not a bad thing!) This is racing, with me as pit crew - wanted to transform his room into an arts and crafts den, like in the TV program Dengineers (kind of like Changing Rooms for kids).  He got a new bed when Theo moved out of his cot, so we'd already moved some stuff around. Not quite as tidy as it started out! - can do some pretty good tricks on the trampoline. - made ...

On a recent trip to the library, I picked up a book called A Place of Refuge , by Tobias Jones.  It turned out to be the story of Windsor Hill Wood , the community that he and his wife set up in Somerset - a house in an abandoned quarry, surrounded by woods, welcoming to all who came.  They cleared trees, planted vegetables, raised pigs, carved wood.  Their three children grew used to having different people around the dinner table every night.  And over the first five years of failure and success, they gradually learned how to make a working community with hurting, messed-up people. It was fascinating on several different levels, but I realised it resonated with me for one particular reason.  It reminded me of Yeldall Manor . For many of my growing-up years, my dad worked at a drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre.  At that time, staff were encouraged to "live in" with their families, in self-contained flats on site, and we did so for three years....

Sometimes it's fascinating to muse on how interconnected everything is.  Sometimes it's scary.  Sometimes a bit of both. I first found out about the South Korean shipping company Hanjin's bankruptcy through this story , about a British artist who is stuck on board one of the ships.  The focus was narrowed down to this single person, who was remarkable mostly because she wouldn't normally expect to be on a cargo ship at all.  And suddenly a business bankruptcy, which would normally be an obscure piece of news to her, is having a big impact on her life. The next story I read covered a captain and crew of a different Hanjin ship, moored off of Singapore.  Unlike the artist, they had every reason to be on board a cargo ship; they work there.  Except suddenly, they don't.  Now they're featuring on world news. Moving on from the people involved, the main concern for many companies is the cargo on board .  Shoppers in the USA probably don't spend ...

Really this post should be a Monthly Munch, but I feel like my last few posts have covered most of the things I'd usually put in my regular roundup.  So I thought I'd concentrate on the interesting part: the last three days of August. We set out on the Monday morning and drove west, to the area where England meets Wales and all the road signs suddenly become bilingual.  A couple of hours later, we arrived at the lush green beauty of Ty Mawr Country Park, just outside of Wrexham/Wrecsam (yes, many of the places have two names, or at least two spellings, too).  What a view to eat lunch by! That bridge arching across the valley is the Cefn viaduct, a close relative of the bridge we had really come to see.  The viaduct carries a train line across the River Dee; it's actually taller and a lot more visible than its cousin along the valley, the Pontcysyllte aqueduct.  The canal-carrying aqueduct is the famous one, but it hides itself well.  I thought we migh...