...living

Living. That is what I've been doing for the past three weeks as m'blog sits here, all deserted. Last weekend I spent time with Becca at her lovely, cosy house, crocheting and chatting and watching Narnia and eating her delicious cooking and her husband's delicious pickled onions, and making friends with her cats. I had the fortune to book my train to leave a few hours after D was arriving for some Becca time, so I got a bit of time with her too, and there was chat and cheese and homemade condiments. A long weekend, that weekend also granted me a day at home with Dave, in our flat. A greyish day where we listened to music and talked and read and I crocheted some more.

Crochet

A bargain teaset, my current pride and joy

The previous weekend was a home weekend - a Friday trip with Mhairi, her wee buns saying my name for the first time. A Friday evening and Saturday morning baking a huge cake for the other one's 50s inspired 30th birthday party that night, an occasion filled with joy and gin and cakepops and sweets. And the Sunday, a family lunch at our flat. Chatter and laughing, eating and spilling. Our wee nephew mesmerised by Dave's radio controlled helicopter, doing vast swirly drawing at our coffee table, and giving an emphatic 'NO!' to 'a shall we go home then'.  These little things make for good memories.

50s(ish) me

record player cake!

Beautiful after dinner mints from my SIL

In between, work. More days than normal, and an overnight - a little longer to do bath time, and play games, read stories. The thing about my work is that my job is not just a job. I'm part of a family, and I think I get as much from my being there as they do. It will be hard to leave, and I'm making the most of the time I have with the kids, the family. I find myself thinking as I do things like putting the wee one's coat on, washing their hair, singing with them - 'in two months, I won't do this ten times a week anymore' and it seems a bit unreal, impossible. Of course, this sort of relationship does not end when the job does, and for that I am grateful.

Flower-stars

RAIN! rain and more rain, not so bad with small people around.

And what I get for leaving the job I love is the life above. Home, family, friends, and weekends with time to just be. We've had three in a row in the last month where rather than just sleeping there, we have LIVED in our wee flat, our home - had family over, seen friends, gone out and come home without worrying about getting trains and buses. We've done  the mundane stuff too. Washing and shopping and cleaning. It is an insight into what we will have, and it's a promising one.

...learning (a week's happenings)

Crocheting

I want to start by saying thank you to everyone for the lovely supportive comments on my last post.  It's a bit easier doing these things knowing people are behind you! The emotional support I've gained as part of our wee community over the past few years was at first (and still) unexpected and is very much appreciated.

Scotland in the sunshine

Granny square! You can see my tension improving !

Perfect chai latte, at home

                 

Our sunny street

So, last weekend (in Paisley) included;  frothy hot drinks using the milk steam on our coffee machine, lots of salad and pasta with pesto, chatting to neighbours, glorious sunshine, Jeffrey Eugenides' excellent 'The Marriage Plot', M&S' hot cross loaf, a big sort out of all the stuff in our bedroom storage - six binbags out, two more for charity, Neil Young's 'Harvest',  juice and cakes with my SIL and the Wee Smasher in town, lots of heavy duty gardening, Dave sorting the shed and making a table top for a (hideous) coffee table base that lives in said shed so that we could eat outside, my sister teaching me to crochet - i can do double and treble stitch and make a granny square - in the sunshine eating cake, reading in our lovely bright front room, listening to the radio. In short, we went to Paisley and actually lived in the flat. Generally we sleep there and spend the rest of the time running around trying to see lots of people. It was nice to have a homely weekend there. It made us much more sure about the decision.

This weekend(in Dundee) so far;; cheap and delicious noodles from the new noodle bar in town, drinks with Dave's colleagues and chats about couch surfing, peppermint tea, 'A Homemade Life' by Molly Weizenberg, Dave recording, a bit of sorting and packing, a walk into town, a food revelation at lunch in the form of a feta, spinach, avocado and sun-dried tomato salad on walnut bread (I will be recreating that for sure!),  and by some miracle producing a loaf from my own sourdough starter*.

Satay noodles and ginger beer. I love the wee cartons!

I am really, really enjoying this!

It has been a good couple of weekends. Tomorrow I will be making patchwork curtains for my middle charge's Wendy house, This week is busy at work, an then we are Paisley bound for a certain blogger's birthday party, and again, we hope to live there, not just sleep there. Now we know we'll be living there in September, we don't feel we need to rush quite so much to see everyone!

Happy rest of the weekend (and Monday off of you have it) lovelies!

SOURDOUGH!!!

*I used Tara Austin Weaver's instructions for sourdough. She has put massive time, energy and detail into her three blog posts about the process of beginning and feeding a starter, and then baking with it. She also has several other recipes using the starter. I used the third bread recipe, and used a third of the amounts required in the recipe, which made a small loaf. I also used wholemeal flour instead of a mixture of white and rye, and am pleased with the result ( though I need to work on getting more of a rise). It had the lovely crust, and is somewhat dense, moist, slightly sour bread. I have had really bad luck in breadmaking, and it's only this year I've really felt confident doing it, so to have made a sourdough loaf seems a huge thing to me.