mamaUK

Renovations

 

 

 

 

(Autumn days)

Renovations have started on our little cottage!

Our old staircase has been taken down and we have had a bespoke staircase built, fitted and 'reversed' in the original spot so they now run upstairs in the opposite direction. We had to put a building notice into our local council before it was started and had plans drawn up.

The old original lime plaster has also been taken off our stairwell and several walls in the living room where it was crumbling away so these walls are back to brick at the moment! After doing lots of research about old victorian buildings, we think we will have lime putty put back on the walls so they can 'breathe' properly as the cottage is about one hundred and forty three years old.

In other news, we're visiting the Waldorf Winter Fair tomorrow and we are so excited thinking about all the crafting, visiting the Gnome Garden and seeing all the prettiness!

Summer / 03

 

 

 

 

Looking back at these photos makes me wistful for the summertime even though it's November now, the sparkle of the sea in the sunlight, the colours glowing bright. It seems like it was only moments ago.

How quickly the seasons change. We're deep into Autumn now.

We woke up this morning to a shimmering frost glinting from the rooftops against the blue sky.

Shortly Winter will be here.

 

Summer / 02

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summer / 01

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summertime activities - Nature Play Kit

 

 

Hello summer!

I'm making sure we have everything collected together for our Nature Play Kit ready for the summer break.

Sun bleached days, swifts calling in the sky, freedom.

Let the summertime fun begin!

 

Simplify your morning - freeze your child's packed lunch.

I'm always working towards a more simple way of living, making things as simple and as easy as possible. I suffer from fatigue, here's why. I need things to be simple.

My morning routine was anything from that. I'd wake up, fix breakfast for Miss K and Little L and then set about the task of packed lunches. This is the bit that would always get me down, slicing homemade bread, crumbs flying all over the work surface from the electric knife, grating cheese, figuring out separate fillings for both the girls and then moving on to chopping fruit or veg, picking out their pudding, filling their Klean Kanteens and then cleaning up afterwards on top of washing the breakfast dishes.

Since Little L started school in September, I've been preparing packed lunches five days a week for both the girls, which made the chore twice as long. It left very little time for us all to get ready for our day and would usually end up with me rushing, which was stressful within itself. Then I would rush and hurry the children which is not a nice way for anyone to start the day.

The chopping board, the cheese grater and extra knives would all need to be washed. It all adds up to extra work and extra time, every single day. I would prefer to spend that extra time braiding Little L's hair the way she likes with her sat on my lap.

I needed to make one small change which would make a big change to our mornings. It was a simple and easy change. I needed to cut out preparing packing lunches from our morning routine altogether.

I now make a big batch of homemade granary rolls. I make them the size I know each one will eat (large rolls for Miss K and tiny ones for Little L. I split, butter, fill with grated cheese or grated cheese with marmite, put in little individual freezer food bags and pop straight into the freezer. The bread roll recipe makes enough for both children for six days of packed lunches. Now, I wake up in morning at 7 am, take a filled roll from the icebox for each child and place in lunch boxes with fruit, and a pudding. A daily job that was taking me at least twenty minutes has been reduced to about two minutes and with no mess to clean up afterwards.

One small step to streamlining my day towards a simpler way of living.

Children's books and the power of less.

Since we have moved, books have been scattered and piled throughout the children's shared bedroom and have been damaged from not being stored properly. We don't have room in our tiny cottage for a bookcase so as well as our wicker baskets we've been relying on a large, plastic crate to store children's picture story books.

I decided to reach for Simplicity Parenting. In Chapter Three, Kim John Payne states:

" Books are often the second major form of excess, given that books are viewed in the same light as toys. As parents, we want to promote reading (play), so we figure that the more books (toys) our children has access to, the more they will read (play)."

Too many toys can lead to a child becoming less deeply engaged in play as they skit from one toy to another. Fewer toys, and a child can become more deeply engaged in play as they are not distracted by something 'new' to pull them away.

The same could be said for books. The more books a child has access too, the less deeply they may read as they rush onto a 'new' one. Since we have moved, we have used the library weekly and between Miss K and Little L they are able have 24 books out on loan at any one time with their library cards. Combined with their books already at home, this was a lot of books!

I found that Miss K was jumping from one book to another midway through stories and would often sit with a pile of six or so on her lap at anyone time, dipping in and out, 'consuming' them. But was she enjoying them? Yes, on some level, I'm sure she was, but becoming deeply involved in the story and the characters I'm not so sure.

I decided to start her on a series of longer, more involved stories then what she had been reading and chose 'The Famous Five' and have been going to the library less often and only selecting a couple of titles at a time. She's now reading the books one by one and not jumping from story to story. She told me last night, 'I've not been able to take my eyes off this book!'

When the children come in from school this afternoon, I'm going to set Little L the task of dividing her picture books into at least two halves and then storing one half out of reach and leave the remaining half in the bedroom with the goal of being able to rotate books in and out while simplifying their environment.

 

Springtime blossom.

 

 

 

We headed to Kingston Lacy to admire the blossom and were blessed with sunshine.

We followed the paths amongst the purple haze of bluebells at Garston Wood.

Springtime blossoms, I'm not sure anything can be prettier.

 

Dreaming and planning

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gosh, how much do I love Spring time?

I knew it was going to be a warm day, so on Sunday we headed out to Mottisfont. It was such a simple pleasure to see the children running wild in the open space, arms outstretched, free.

So much is going on. Miss K and Little L are back at school after the Spring break. Miss K is doing so very well in school, it's amazing to see her blossom. I'm starting to see glimpses of the young woman she will become. Serious, funny, caring, studious. Not simply taking the lead from others, but having the courage to do what she thinks is right. Little L is still busy settling in and finding her own way away from her mama. It's tough being five. She feels like she's a 'big girl' now but still finds herself wanting to be that little girl again. This is how she was at four.

We're very,very slowly working on our little cottage, two cracked panes of original glass are being hacked out of the sash windows in the master bedroom and replaced this coming weekend. It's sad to see the panes go, with their little bubbles and marks. We still have all the rest of the original glass left in the other sashes though.

A joiner is coming to assess our stairway as we would like the current staircase removed, the position of the stairway to be moved by 180 degrees, and a new staircase built with understairs storage. As we're a family of four living in 540 sq ft, we need really good understairs storage. Our vacuum cleaner currently has no where to be stored. And we have no where to hang coats. That's one of the challenges of family life and small space living, working out where things go. So things are gradually happening and we're busy planning the order things need to be done:

• Staircases alterations.
• Woodburner installed.
  
• Carpet lifted and wooden floors stripped.
• Re-plastering in every single room.
• Decorate every single room.
• Fit new kitchen.

I wish everything was going to be super easy and super quick, but I know this really will take time. It's going to be a gradual project as we simply do not have the money to fix this little terraced cottage up all at once.

Maybe there's a beauty in the anticipation? That's what I try and tell myself anyway. There's fun in the dreaming and planning.

 

Easter

 

 

 

It's lovely having our first Spring holiday here.

I've planted primroses in an old vintage butler sink that was left behind in our courtyard and all the while I have been admiring how the Springtime light falls in our house at different times of the day.

We've been on Easter Egg trails here and the children made chocolate Easter nests when little friends visited on play dates. With four children huddled around the table, there was plenty of coversation about who would stir the Rice Crispies into the melted chocolate first and how many eggs would grace the top of the nests.