Echoes of a Dream

Still finding my feet

A real, real quickie today because we have friends from Gloucestershire due in about an hour and I still have lunch to finish off, potatoes to put on the hotpot for this evening and Amber will be calling me in a while to bake blind the pastry case for the Raspberry Bakewell Tart she's making .......... huge intake of breath.

Sorry I haven't been around for a while but I was at my parents last week and then the w/end just went in a blur. Did you hear that it snowed on Sunday? It wasn't anything like the amount you get over the pond but it was quite a few inches which is a record for us. The garden and woods looked glorious:

The boys had their youngest cousin Ravi staying and the three of them spent hours in the garden. There was sledging, rolling down the hill, snowball fights and because that ended in tears many hours later they didn't get the chance to make a snowman. Never mind - they had fun anyway.

Yesterday I had to meet my sister halfway between her place and mine to hand over Ravi as it were. One of the best things about moving here has been the fact that I'm just over an hour away from my sister and I've already seen her more times than I had in the last few years. It's lovely for the children too.

Last night I did the first bit of crafting I've done in ages. It's one of Betz White's cupcake pincushions from her new book and I made it as a gift for this friend that's coming today. She was so helpful at our leaving party that I wanted to say thank you. I'm really pleased with result and the fact that it only took minutes:

Whilst I was sewing Rohan came up to me and recounted a conversation that he'd had with Raj earlier in the day:

Raj - "Rohan, why doesn't Mum go on the computer as much as she used to?

Rohan - "Because the computer was next to the kitchen before and now it's upstairs in the bedroom I suppose".

Raj - " I'm glad because I like it when she's downstairs".

Sooo sweet. It did give me some food for thought though. I know I was obsessively crafting and blogging before and my excuse for doing it in the daytime was that the children were busy playing. But it did take me away from the family I guess. Here I have no sewing room, my things are still unpacked and the computer is in our bedroom and it seems too much effort to go and use it. So it's turning into more family time for me now and hopefully more time for myself too but in a different way from before. I've been saying that I want to take more exercise for ages so I think I'll find a yoga class, walk more and try and lose some weight. I won't disappear from my blog though and I think you'll understand that I'm still trying to find my feet in this new phase of my life. Must get back to the kitchen first though ............

Happy Easter

Well, I managed to find some of the things for the Easter table. Didn't manage to do any new eggs this year and I guess we'll be too busy this weekend with cousins but never mind we have plenty of eggs from last year. I picked the branches hurriedly from the woods and voila.

Sadly I did not find any of the knitted chicks, the hare, the bread hen or even Mother Earth that I usually have on the table and it's pissing me off because I seem to have looked in every box. Where the heck are they? I suppose there'll turn up somewhere, sometime. Annoying though because I love those little things.

Anyway, I managed to make this out of 'All Year Round' last night. It was a bit fiddly but worth it:

and that's about it I think with regards to Easter decorations.

So here we are on Good Friday which would not be the same without hot cross buns and that's about all I've done this morning. Thankfully, I can show them to you as they look quite presentable.

Hope they taste nice too!

Other than that I want to wish you all a Happy Easter. Hope yours is as good as ours is going to be - restful, relaxing, lots of family time and too much chocolate ........lots o'love.

Unprepared

Why, oh why is Easter so early this year (don't worry I do know the reason). We haven't had a moment to paint any eggs or to set up our easter table yet.

Usually we have at least a week off school before Good Friday to do these things. I thought that we might have managed a bit this week but with it being the end of term tomorrow there have been class plays to watch, Class 8 projects to look at and listen to - and the whole week will be gone in whirl.

We'll wake up on Friday morning and the cousins will arrive and it'll be Easter good and proper.

I had so many good intentions especially after going to a 'how to celebrate Easter' talk last Friday and the sight of this Easter Garden was very inspiring:

But alas I haven't even managed to go and find some moss yet. Sooooo, I think Easter will have to be a bit low key this year. We've still got plenty of eggs from last year and we'll decorate the seasonal table with what we've got and maybe make a much smaller Easter garden on a dinner plate. I need to save my energy and thoughts for feeding ten for four days I think.

Another thing that seems to have taken my time this week was trying to find my stuff for a mini market that was held at school this morning. It would have been far easier to have unpacked everything as I said I would than to have to ransack each box, tip contents out of baskets to find things. You can imagine the mess that I created to say nothing of the extra work. In the end I could only stay for forty minutes as Rohan's play was on after that but I did take fifty pounds which was nice. I also found a lot of brooches and silk squares that I forgot I had so for those who have asked for either or both here they are:

 

and

All of these brooches are £5 ($10) each. The silk squares are £6 ($12) each:

Please email me if you would like to buy anything or wish to have a closer look at the silks.

I also found this bag hidden away (not sure if I have shown it to you before):

t'other side - it's a gorgeous deep purple colour:

Can't decide whether to sell it or keep it (I have far too many handbags). It's £60 ($120) if anyone is interested (it's fully lined with a lilac cotton fabric and has a flat base).

Now, I must brave the cold and go and find some branches to hang those eggs off (and find the eggs and chicks and nests and yellow cloth and hare of course).

Two years - can you believe it.

I was going to sit down this morning and whitter on about all sorts of random things when I noticed on Typepad that I've been blogging for two years now. Yes, two years. I started on March 5th 2006 and I can't believe that I'm still going.

In that time I've turned into a hoarder magnifique, tried lots of new crafts, improved my knitting, discovered Japanese craft books and started and loved plant dyeing. It's been an amazing two years in which I've gained masses of self confidence in my crafting so much so that I started selling on Etsy and Ebay. The blog also gave me something that I did for myself where I wasn't Amber's Mum or Tom's wife I was ME. But more than that it's given me lots of new friends all over the world and the most amazing holiday ever to America last year (where we stayed with complete strangers, now friends that I knew through my blog).

I love being a stay-at-home Mum but I do find it very lonely. Maybe it's my upbringing but for me the nuclear family sucks. I was brought up in an extended family environment and there were always other adults and children around. I'm at my best when surrounded by family, when my house is full and I prefer going on holiday with my sister and her children. The more the merrier. So blogging has in some ways filled that hole in my life. It's given me a community that I grew up in but don't have anymore.

I have 'met' some amazing women online who've become dear friends. I've also loved the interaction, the sharing, the advice giving, the support and friendship that goes on in blogs. It's made me realise that even though we've all had such different upbringings we're essentially the same underneath. We all want to be good mums/wives/daughters/citizens whilst struggling for some sort of creative life for ourselves.

So I want to thank all of you who have ever left me a comment. Thank you for reading my ramblings and admiring the stuff I make. Thank you for encouraging and supporting me. Thank you for all the advice you've ever given. Thank you for sympathising when I've needed it. But most of all Thank You for just being there and dropping by. In my turn I hope I've given something back to you - maybe a bit of encouragement to try something new, a laugh or just another view point ......................

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I've noticed in these two years that people change their banners with alarming frequency. I've had the William Morris picture at the top of my blog for the whole duration. I wonder if it's time to have a change myself - a makeover as it were. Trouble is, the picture seems to go so well with the name Echoes of A Dream. Maybe it's new home, new life, new banner time.

Coming up for air.

Well, here we are six days later. We've just managed to resurface and as I look around me I can't believe that this is now home. It feels as if we've just stepped into someone else's life and it's - strange.

The move went very, very well. We had a great company that did all the packing and all we had to do last Monday was to clean the house (and boy was it dirty once we'd moved the furniture out). Arrived here last Tuesday and the removals had dumped most of our stuff by tea time and then we spent the next few days unpacking. We both realised that although we're only in our mid forties we're certainly not as sprightly as we were were seven years ago because we were knackered. By Thursday morning the children's rooms were done and they were packed off to school so we could get on with the rest.

School was good even though Rohan burst into tears as soon as he walked though the door. "I don't like it. It's too big. I don't like the house either because it's not countryside" he wailed. Poor lad. The house is lovely (the landlady had given it a thorough clean by the way) but he's right we're not surrounded by fields and it's on the blind bend of a busy-ish road. But we're only renting I told him and after Tom took him into the woods at the bottom of the garden and showed him where the fields were he was fine.

I guess you'll want to see what the house is like. It's been extended quite a lot over the years so has a lot of rooms downstairs that lead into each other. At one end there is a large sitting room:

that leads back to the front door through this room:

that leads to this room:

that leads to the conservatory:

that leads to the (tiny) kitchen:

There are three loos and two tiny bathrooms and four bedrooms upstairs. Then at the other side of the sitting room there is a separate granny flat/annexe with a bedroom, sitting room/kitchen and bathroom. You have to go out of the main house and along to the front door to get in. At the moment all my craft stuff is there in boxes:

The house is lovely and sunny and has a sloping garden with a wood at the end:

We have been told that the wood is out of bounds but when you're used to roaming the countryside and you have that staring at you all day it's hard to keep away from it really.

As I said I haven't unpacked any of my craft stuff yet and I don't know whether I should. I don't want to work in the annexe as it's a bit dark (and cut off) and the two downstairs rooms are too small for a table and all my stuff. I was thinking about that last night and I wondered if not crafting would stop me blogging too. If I don't make anything what would I write about - how many more 'moving house' stories can you take?

I guess I just need time to settle, to get to know the area without the pressures of crafting and blogging hanging over me. I must admit that not having the computer on for the whole of the last week was liberating. It was wonderful. It meant that I spent more time with the children (which is very important at the moment) and I even started another book. But I don't want to stop blogging though because I love it. I love the community it creates. I love the interaction and even more I love all the new friends I've found all over the world.

So I suppose I'll just take it easy over the coming weeks. Tom goes back to work tomorrow and it will stop feeling like we're on holiday. I will start a new routine, do some more unpacking and suddenly it will all fall into place ....................

It's moving day

Well, it's nearly 11pm and I'm surrounded by boxes ans I still haven't packed an overnight bag for any of us yet. The packers/removals people came on Friday and packed a whole load of stuff that we didn't need over the weekend and they're back in the morning to finish off and load up.

We should be out of here by tea time or as long as it takes to clean the house. I've enlisted the help of an older friend who I'm paying to help us speed up the process. Tomorrow night we're staying at my sister's before we drive over to the new (rented) house. And that is it. Today was the last normal day in the house and we're off to start our new lives. I've had a succession of visitors over the week saying goodbye and although it's really sad leaving good friends, a beautiful house and a great village I know it's time to move on. Time to start the next chapter in our lives as I keep telling the children.

I guess it'll take all week to unpack but I'm going to try and have the computer up and running by the weekend so I'll take my leave from you all for a few days whilst I help my family to settle and get the children ready for their new school on Thursday. Poor Rohan keeps asking me "what if I don't make any friends?"

Thanks for all your words of encouragement and support concerning our move and thanks too for allowing me to get personal on this here blog. The comments and emails that I got were greatly treasured and helped me a lot. It's funny but a friend pointed out an article in The Times at the weekend about a book written by a Sikh man about his traditional upbringing in the Midlands. The article is here and you can bet that I've pre-ordered it on Amazon. How timely. (Do take a look at his book as he's a brilliant writer.) Another book if anyone is interested in the history of Asians and West Indians in this country is Black British, White British by Dilip Hiro. I read it years ago and it really helped me to understand my parents and more importantly about the expectations that West Indians had when they came to this country and why they were so disappointed. A great book for race relations - I wish everyone would read it.

Anyway, I'm getting all preachy now - must have got second wind. Cross your fingers for a painless departure from here and the children not getting too upset ...............

I'll leave you with some random pics of the beautiful village that I'm leaving:

and my lovely kitchen:

and how will I survive without my Aga:

Gotta drag myself away now ladies ............................

The last goodbye

For once I'm really lost for words ladies. I cannot tell you what you a lovely weekend we've all had. On Saturday night we had a crazy time with our friend Abbi who'd come back from Uni to see us off. We played silly games, tricks and you should have seen us playing the chocolate game. Do you know that one? It's the one where you have a bar of chocolate on a tray and then you roll a dice. When you get a six you have to don a hat, a scarf and gloves and then cut up the chocolate with a knife and fork and then try to eat it. Meanwhile the others are still rolling the dice and soon as someone rolls a six they practically tear the hat etc off the other to have a go themselves. We decided that it was a bit hard for Raj with gloves so we missed that bit out which meant that the game went much quicker. It was such fun though and I haven't been so hysterical for ages. Gosh I do surprise myself with my childishness sometimes.

On Sunday I did start to worry that I was being far too laid back about our party but a friend assured me that that was fine. So we just had a nice relaxing normal sort of day.

Then the hour finally came and we went off to the hall which had been transformed by a couple of friends - the main one being Lucy who has such great ideas. She'd stood up branches in christmas tree stands and draped fairy lights over them and put bunting over the ceiling. Night lights everywhere and posters biding us farewell too. It was so lovely. Sadly I didn't take many photos but I'll show you the few I have:

People arrived pretty promptly and brought food with them. The children stood behind the bar and happily served soft drinks whilst the adults helped themselves to wine. It was great. I had friends from school, the village, old friends from London and an ex-boyfriend and his parents. Only person that wasn't there was my sister sadly.

Then the caller started and we were off. Boy some of those dances were tiring and one or too a tad complicated but everyone managed them. They did one specially for us named after the county we're going to live in and it was a hard one and we all laughed about it and said perhaps we should move. The children were fantastic - all of them. They danced and managed to hold their own - there must have been about 40 of them. The caller said we were the best group he's had in thirty years for all joining in. I do wish I'd managed to record a snippet of music to show you how lovely and folksy it was.

I got around to chatting with most folk and only got tearful twice. A lot of people went around nine and the hardcore were still there at ten thirty. And all too soon there were a handful of us left tidying up which only took and hour as friends had been washing up/clearing up all evening.

Came home stayed up till one with Abbi reminiscing. It's funny we've known this girl since fourteen and she's now nearly twenty one and she's been on holiday with us, in and out of our house, stayed the night, been so comfortable with us that she's even shared her moods and strops with us and I guess I underestimated how much we mean to her. I guess it's cos she's so English and doesn't readily show her feelings. But I was touched that she came all the way back from Uni and she gave us the loveliest card where she must have written at least a hundred things that she'd done with us over the years. So it was sad saying goodbye - sad for her because we won't be here when she comes back for her hols. But she's promised to come and stay at Easter.

So what happens after a great evening? You wake up in the morning and think what a crazy thing to do. To get all your close friends together and have a party just to show yourself what you're going to miss. Might have been easier just to slope off!

Seriously though, wobbles over, I'm OK now. I will miss all my friends but I do have to hold on to why we're going. Did I say this before - that I'm finding moving a lot harder this time around because the children are older and I have to hold them and deal with their emotions too. Every other day Rohan tells me he's not leaving and that he loves it here. Then there's the fact that we haven't sold our house yet ..........

Oh well, I'll just keep thinking those positive thoughts. Meanwhile I'm off to Mum and Dad's for a couple of days.

PS There's some interesting stuff about Ceilidhs here.

Yet another obsession of mine

Can you believe that I've got a rotten, stinking cold? I never get ill. The children get the odd cold and I never catch it off them but this time ..... I'm sneezing like mad and my nose is sore and runny and my head weighs a ton.

It started yesterday morning and I spent most of the evening on the sofa in front of the fire trying to get into The Time Traveller's Wife (which I am finding a bit hard going ladies?!). It's times like this that you wish you had a telly. So instead I decided to do some timely darning on one of my favourite jumpers.

It all looked pretty awful but I managed to save this:

with this:

and then there was a big hole on the back:

which I had to do a bit of knitting for:

In the bad light I went for the most similar colour but this morning I see that it's actually more pink than red! Never mind. I just need to find some black now to sort out that animal shape.

I guess this is my opportunity to confess my addiction to Amano hand knits. If you don't know already the company import knitwear from Bolivia and it's big, loud and colourful. I bought my first jumper about ten years ago and I remember being alarmed at the cost (nearly ninety quid if I remember rightly). At that sort of price I've tended to wear them all the time to get my money's worth I guess and then I discovered the Amano shop near Camden Market which often had a sale and the addiction started. Over the years I've had about ...... oh my gosh - about ten of them (not all priced that highly I hasten to add). A few I've worn through and a couple I sold on eBay. These days I have six (I hope Tom's not reading this as he's been heard to say many times "how many jumpers does a woman need?").

My all time fave is this one. I just love the combination of green and blue (I have to confess that it's my second one in this colorway - the first one fell apart):

Probably joint fave is the red one (I used to have it in cream many years ago):

next up is this one - love the oranges and greens. This one always attracts a few comments when I wear it:

Then I like this cotton one which looks great with jeans:

My next fave is this one which is not Amano actually but Pachamama. I just had to include it though cos it's so nice and eye catching although I do feel a bit disloyal having it:

I just love the detail:

I think someone gave me this blue one:

and I bought the red version of the green one but I don't wear it much and maybe I should put it up on eBay:

Looking at the Amano website last night I noticed that my collection is their earlier stuff which tended to be more chunky. The newer stuff is more floaty and feminine. Maybe I should get rid of the last two and buy two of the newer ones, though Tom is right "how many Amano jumpers does a woman need?".

I think a little paring down of jumpers is in order don't you?

Well, I'm off for a lie down and to wallow a bit before I have to pull myself together for end of term and goodbyes tomorrow, Raj's birthday party on Saturday and the Ceilidh on Sunday. Ooh, I'm coming over all faint ..........

Stuff - baskets of it everywhere

As you can imagine I'm trying to spend some time each day sorting through things AND trying to throw stuff away. You cannot believe how much stuff I have. Today I started wondering when exactly I became a hoarder. I clearly remember leaving home at eighteen to go to College with one suitcase full of stuff. After that I had a bit more stuff when I moved into my first house share but a few years later I managed to go to Japan with not much more than a suitcase.

When Tom and I moved into our first flat back in 1989 we didn't have much more than clothes, books and a bit of furniture. Even when we moved out of London in 1998 and had two children there still wasn't that much stuff. I think I started on this orgy of collecting when I started crafting in a big way and that must have been about seven years ago when I moved here. In my last house I had a bit of knitting wool and some needles and thread. Then I came here and got into felting, doll making, sewing, knitting, plant dyeing and with that came accumulating raw materials for each hobby. Maybe that's why I have so much stuff because I do so many things.

I have baskets groaning with felted jumpers:

baskets full of fabric:

thick knitting wool:

sock wool:

doll making materials:

shelves full of craft books:

plant dyed blanket and silks:

and this is only some of the stuff in my workroom. I haven't shown you the under stairs cupboard yet OR the shed in the garage.

You know what - all this stuff makes me feel sick sometimes. I feel so tied down by it. I feel as if every basket has tentacles that wrap around me and I just can't seem to get them off. And I can't bear to throw any of it away because I might need it. Since I've been teaching handwork at school and crafting at home I've just collected and collected stuff that I might want to use. These days I can't seem to go past a charity shop without coming back with a bit of fabric, a couple of books, wool or blankets. I've noticed that I love having a piece of nice fabric or that pink felted jumper. I just like having it and owning it and sometimes I can't bear to cut into it.

It's an addiction isn't it. It has to be. I make excuses that I need stuff for my work but somewhere in my mind it must make me feel better having it. Of course it does initially and then I feel sick looking at it all crammed everywhere. I'm finding this hoarding thing fascinating at the moment and it's akin to my other fascination with comfort eating which I can bore you with another day.

I'm seriously debating chucking it all away but I can't. If I do that what will I have left. What will define me. Who will I be without all my stuff. But STOP - it isn't just nameless good-for-nothing stuff is it. It's raw materials that enable me to craft which is what I do. It's my job as well as mum, wife, daughter etc. Dare I say it I'm an artist and the stuff is my tools and materials. IT IS DEFINITELY NOT JUNK OR STUFF.

I guess I just need to change my relationship with it that's all. Mind you I can pare it down a lot too (that's the job for this morning then, going through the room again).

So what's your view on collecting or hoarding stuff? Do you have baskets full? Do you find it oppressive or do you know when to stop? Do you buy things because they're beautiful and then can't bear to use them? I'd love to hear.

I don't really think I'm a crazy hoarder but I do recognise that I have those tendencies. I collect children's books too and I'm sure I do that because we didn't have any books in the house when I was growing up despite the fact that I loved reading).

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PS Just listed some lovely fabric here for you to add to your stash - ha ha.

Not another post about moving!

I'm sure I must be a complete bore by now harping on and on about the move but quite honestly there isn't that much else to tell you.

Our visit to the school was a success - despite the dismal/crap/awful weather on Thursday, Raj crying about moving, Amber deciding that she didn't want to do waldorf anymore and the house we might end up renting being smelly and having the pokiest of kitchens. And then this morning I finally cracked and burst into tears.

After a lot of heated discusions we've decided that they all have to go the same school because there is no way that we can find an alternative for Amber from this distance (we don't even know where we'll be living eventually). We're probably going to take the smelly house - it was lived in by an old person and has that smell of age and decay about it. I think we just need to clean it and I'm going to go around with a smudge stick and purify it (as I do every time we move). We've also decided to go a week later as I think to leave two days after Raj's party and our Ceilidh would be a bit much. I also need to go and see the parentals in half term whilst I'm still this close to them. The end of Feb feels more manageable and I kind of want to stay in my nice warm kitchen with the Aga as long as possible to tell the truth.

After the flood of tears I feel much better (blame it on the move, the PMT (period started this morning), the stress around Amber's schooling). Thankfully we've made the above decisions and now we can just get on with it.

I'm glad to say that the area we'll be renting in is very nice. The school is lovely and such a contrast to ours which has no facilities whatsoever. The teachers seem very dedicated and the parents that we met really lovely.

I've had another bit of clear out and I've listed some craft books on Ebay if anyone is interested. They are here, here, here, here and here. Other than that I have these two books is anyone wants them:

and

and also these three skeins of thick sock wool that I'll never get around to using:

Three people are welcome to a skein each. It's Briggs and Little Heritage 2 ply and I can point you to a free pattern for this wool which knits up like this:

I think they'll make great boot socks.

This morning I have my penultimate dollmaking lesson at school. I have to be honest and say that I will not miss these lessons. Doll making with ten children is bloody hard work even if I do have an older girl helping me. I seem to be running ragged trying to help everyone but when I look at the dolls and the happy faces of the twelve year olds it does seem kind of worth it.

Apologies for not re-reading this post to check that it makes any sense ..................