First week of the holidays

It's been the first week of the school summer holidays here.  I've worked for the first fortnight for last couple of years helping to run a holiday club for 2-6 year olds so I've been enjoying the luxury of extra time at home.

I've spent rather too much time trying to corral Hedwig the escaping duck who had a lovely time squeezing out of the duck run to explore the garden. She then discovered the paddling pool...

Then she co-opted Sylvia onto her escape committee but we'd moved the pool...

I had a rotten cold for a couple of days which meant I haven't done as much as I'd have liked but did mean I got to read a book on my I've-been-lent-it-and-I-really-ought-to-read-it pile and start on my I-read-it-years-ago-and-I-need-to-reread-it-or-pass-it-on bookshelves.

A History of Britain in 21 Women starts with Boudicca/Boadicea and finishes with Nicola Sturgeon. It was easy to dip in and out of and covered many women I'd never heard of. I didn't like all the subjects chosen, or agree with what they stood for (Margaret Thatcher would be the obvious choice here) but they were all women who changed the course of British history or paved the way for other women to follow. I'm not sure you  need to be British to enjoy it and appreciate what women went through in order to be able to enjoy the privileges that men could presume.

I'm rereading Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome (what were his parents thinking?!) which is funnier than I remember in a dry, understated English sort of way. Perfect for a bit of summer reading anyway, not too taxing and easy to pick up and put down. It was written in 1889 and very of it's time but then there are passages like the page when they're deciding what to pack. George says 'You know we are on the wrong track altogether. We must not think of the things we could do with, but only of the things that we can't do without.' Jerome reflects that this is true of life too and that most people's lives become weighted down with '...fine clothes and big houses; with useless servants, and a host of swell friends that do not care twopence for them, and that they do not care three ha'pence for; with expensive entertainments that nobody enjoys, with formalities and fashions, with pretence and ostentation, and with- oh, heaviest, maddest lumber of all!- the dread of what will my neighbour think, with luxuries that only cloy...' Somethings never change.


Some friends have asked me to make them some beeswax wraps. I've made ones with plain beeswax a few times but thought I'd have a go at ones with pine resin and jojoba oil on them too. I'm not entirely sure about those posts you see on social media of a 'plastic-free/zero-waste survival kit' of  reusable mug, water bottle, bamboo cutlery etc as that seems to be trying to buy our way out of the crisis but if a compostable wrap is what it takes to help people realise there is life after cling film then let's do it. I think I'm happy with the balance of oils and wax but I'm cutting up an old duvet cover and I think the fabric is a bit heavy. I'm going to look for some thinner cotton.

My son (B) has been away with his girlfriend and daughter number 2 (C) is in Switzerland on a trip with the Guides so we went to London for the day with eldest daughter (T- I know, we should have called her Anna or something so we'd have children initialled A,B and C. An opportunity missed!) 

We went to Camden Lock which none of us had been to before and then walked along Regents Canal to Little Venice where it meets the Grand Union Canal. 

Venezualan street food, and very good it was too...

Paddington. I love that these old warehouses are still there despite all the development around them

We stopped off at a pub owned by the same team that owns our village pub where T works and finished up in Hyde Park by the Serpentine with, apparently, the rest of London. More green than we usually see on our London day trips.

I finished off the rhubarb gin I made earlier in the year, adding a little bit of vanilla sugar which was a big hit. So good that after inviting some neighbours round to admire the view from the bottom of our garden with a drink last night it's nearly all gone...

The rest of the time I've been trying to catch up with the garden and admiring the wildlife using it...