Blackberry picking

I love picking blackberries. Get my dish and off I go to find a blackberry bush. This year they are the juiciest for a good few years. It's so satisfying picking free fruit and then making them into crumbles, pies and jam. This year I'm having to freeze before use as we still have no kitchen.

I must admit it's also quite a sad time this year. I have always blackberried 'at home' on the farm. I knew where all the best blackberry bushes were but this year there is no 'home'. My mum's house was sold in February and I guess this annual blackberry hunt has had to change location. As a child I always knew when the blackberries were ripe as my Auntie Mary and family would turn up from Sheffield to pick them. One year she fell into a blackberry bush - I could show you which one. Even my Dad would sometimes grab a little pan after working on the farm and fill it to the brim with succulent berries. These were usually made into a pie or stewed with the late addition of golden syrup by my mum.

My mission is to go out every day and fill a container until they end. Of course I must stop on Oct 1st for by then the devil will have got the little black berries. Rural folklore or is it just plain sensible not to pick berries passed their best?

Hula hooping away

Can you hula hoop? I used to be able to do it. But alas now I cannot. My daughter is a genius at it. She can hula hoop for hours and amuse us walking around doing her hula hoop chicken walk.

My husband has tried and he can't. We've had all sorts of theories to justify why we can't do it. Our centre of gravity is different? The hula hoop isn't big enough? There's too much in the way when you are a grown woman (my excuse of course)! And when it's all too much we have sulkily taken our hula hoop home with us and been heard to mutter why would we want to hula hoop anyway? I fear we just can't hula hoop it.

We once saw an act which consisted of a woman just hula hooping. It was mesmerizing. She could hula hoop round every part of her body and with multi hula hoops. She definitely had skills.

Off to practice now.

Rapunzel Diaries 5: Hereford Cathedral Tower

What do most churches have? Answer: towers. They are a very good source for tower climbing especially in September when quite a few churches open up their towers for the Heritage Open Weekend. Cathedrals often have tours of their magnificent perpendicular lofty regions throughout the year. We've just been on holiday to Herefordshire and am happy to report that Hereford Cathedral had a tower tour on that I and my children couldn't resist. The other five members of our party did decline to climb up though - funny folks!

Hereford Cathedral used to have two towers but the western one collapsed in the 18th century but we were willing to risk a climb of the 218 steps up the existing one. With cathedral climbs you get to see the building from the inside and from different perspectives. We got to walk across the ceiling and see it from the inside and view the cathedral down from the Lantern gallery appreciating the mosaic floors and the scale of the church. It is truly amazing when you contemplate that this building dates from the 11th century. How did they do it?

The reward is superb views of the Brecon Beacons, Malvern Hills and Herefordshire but the fascinating aspect is looking down on Hereford itself and seeing the gardens and nooks and crannies you just don't know or imagine exist.

Anyway we knew we had to descend again when we shouted down to David and our friends (sorry we broke the cloistered silence with 'Oi we're up here, you lot') and were greeted with fingers pointing at watches and then mouths. How could they favour lunch over a tower adventure...those perpendicularly challenged heathens.

The Build:Week 12

We came back from holiday at the weekend to no kitchen and no bathroom. I kinda nearly cried but instead decided to laugh. It was just one of those things. Lots of work had been going on but we had no sinks, no hot water. After having two showers a day on holiday - well you've got to make hay while the sun shines and makes you sweaty and smelly  - it's been a bit of a comedown.

No fear the next day we had hot water, no sink downstairs and a sink with hot water upstairs. We even had the family party care of my brother and partner who catered magnificently sans kitchen.

The next day I set about painting the bathroom in readiness for... well.. a bathroom.  We are not people who spend days fretting over colour charts and deciding on hues and shades so I went to the paint shop and grabbed a tin of paint in soft steel which I thought would look good with the anthracite sink unit we have chosen. It does look great on the walls without anything in the room but whether it goes with the units we have no idea.


A bathroom with joy of joys a shower, wonders of wonders a bath, a rather useful sink and a clean and dust free toilet is materialising before our eyes as I write. We can't wait.

About a photo with no photo

My brother bought me an Olympus Trip camera for my 18th birthday back in the year dot. Ever since photos have been hugely important to me as a means of recording my life.

An essential element of that photographic diary is the annual family photo. I have a record of what our family has looked like for the last 30 years. The original has my parents, my brothers and me - just the five of us. At full strength now we can be fifteen plus. Of course we have a party at the same time. We eat, we drink, we catch up, we play games, we have a photo taken.

The latest snapshot taken yesterday has my siblings, nieces, nephew, my children, partners. We gather in a group and the self timer is pressed on the camera and I run into position. Been doing that at the annual family party now for nearly three decades. It's rather wonderful and poignant to look back on the early photos and see what we all looked like (was I really that thin) as well as taking a long reflective sigh on seeing the loved ones no longer here. I think my Dad loved being at the centre of the photo, head of the clan. My Mum is still on it in spirit. She won't leave the old people's home because of bad knees and we can't quite organise ourselves to gather altogether at the home for the photo. Don't worry she has a steady stream of relatives from morning to evening on the day of the family photo.

One year we tried to be a little different and take a panoramic shot of the family all lined up youngest (left) to oldest (right). I don't think the family members on the right liked being ...well...on the right so we now just gather into a group, all mixed up.

I am now quite obsessed with group photos. At a party, at Sunday lunch, at a play over, on a camping trip I gather everyone together for my photo record. It's tradition.

I could publish the family photo here but we are quite shy so you'll have to settle for a blog post about a photo without a photo.

Yes I do, no I don't, yes I do

I do like camping. I do. I don't particularly like packing all the equipment together and squeezing it into the car but I do like camping. I don't particularly sleep very well when camping especially when someone plays music late into the night but I do like camping. It annoys me when everything gets untidy in the tent but I do like camping. I don't like it when it rains but I do like camping. I don't relish taking the tent down and squeezing everything back into the car and then drying everything out when I get home but I do like camping.



Camping near Austwick, Yorkshire Dales

There are so many things that I don't really like about camping that I never should go at all. But last weekend we went camping and it reminded me why it is worth the effort. We got to stay for two nights in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales quite cheaply; my children spent all their time playing in the stream in front of our encampment; I had a lovely giggle with my children, my brother, my niece, my cousin, my second cousin (is that what the daughter of my cousin is called?) and all their lovely partners. Even my husband who does not like camping at all had a little giggle and came for one night. I love to sit down in front of the tent, soaking in the view (not the rain this trip) and enjoying the adventure.

Evening vista
 

Yes I do like camping.....as long as it is for no longer than two nights and there is a shower block and it's a very very quiet campsite.....oh and the sun shines. I do I do I do......don't I!?

Escaltorgate

My eight year old got his shoe laces stuck at the bottom of the escalator (moving pavement not stairs) in our local supermarket last week. I should add before I go on that at no point was he in danger. I duly pressed the emergency stop. A very kind lady then went back into the supermarket to get help.

Two supermarket ladies came running at full speed. I think they must have heard 'child', 'escalator', 'stuck' and let their imaginations run wild as they did come running very quickly indeed. They were just lovely. After my son extracted his foot from the shoe, the escalator was reversed and the laces released. My son was quite shaken I think although he didn't let on. My son was a little embarrassed too although he didn't let on. Anyway he has spent the time since dining out on his escalator experience, bigging it all up for his audiences.

Lessons learnt
Lesson 1: the ladies at the supermarket are lovely and are very good at dealing with laces in escalator situations - I think I will write a letter to thank them.
Lesson 2: I used to spend quite a lot of time telling my son to retie his shoe laces before escaltorgate but strangely since then I have not had to.
Lesson 3: My son informs me that we cannot go back to the supermarket ever again unless we are in disguise.