During my middle school years Cecilia was one of my best friends.  She lived near town and cycled everywhere and I was very jealous of that because we lived miles away and couldn’t.  In fact every time I visited her we used to both get on her bike and just roam… me siting way back on the saddle, she, perched up front… chatting all the way… it was fun.  Her parents had a strawberry farm and I remember endless afternoon sitting down on the earth doing homework whilst picking strawberries straight from the plants.  Hot from the sun, juice strawberries, paper stained red… the best I’ve ever tasted.  We drifted apart in later years… different friends… choices… boyfriends and the small detail I left the country… I wonder if it would have been different now that we have social media and emails and so on.

Anyway, this has absolutely nothing to do with yoga or a yoga bag, they’re just memories that popped up from somewhere!

I started practicing yoga at a local centre really near my house, I really have no excuse not to get there which is good because I am the queen of excuses and procrastination.  It’s a very low key class, just a handful of us and it’s perfect.  (If you’re local and interested you can get details here).  I feel really good after each session.

I had bought a mat months ago (pink, because it’s the only way I can be sure stuff doesn’t get taken by the boys) which was gathering dust in a corner… now I needed a bag to carry it, right? I mean… we always need bags for something… no?

For the pattern I went to my trusted Lotta book, and it was the right choice.  Out of the cupboard came a piece of black linen or linen mix, I can’t remember when I bought… and voila’ … we had a bag.

Well, we would have done it ‘that’ quickly if I’d had the time to sit down and just do it instead of stealing ten minutes here and there AND if I’d read the instructions correctly the first time… but nonetheless it’s a great pattern.

The bag has an asymmetric handle which at first looks a little weird and you might ask yourself why … BUT it makes perfect sense as it makes the bag really comfortable to carry when full.  Genius.

See?

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Question… I’m looking for a long top that won’t rise up to my chest during downward dog for example… soft, bamboo maybe? possible organic… and pretty… definitively pretty.  Any suggestions will be really appreciated.

Also… the eagle pose is tricky.

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Mr M and I don’t go out very often but this weekend was crazy busy and left us almost jet lagged!

We kicked off on Saturday night with a gala dinner at Gloucester Cathedral in aid of the National Star College.  A wonderful night with friends fundraising for a great charity, although between you and me eating in the cathedral felt a little wrong.

Also I wore a jumpsuit… I had always scoffed at them but they’re such a comfortable item to wear …( until nature calls… then it’s a little more complicated!)

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On Saturday one of Mr M’s oldest friend got married at Blaisdon Hall, a beautiful home in the Gloucestershire countryside.

We got dressed up again – and a massive thank you to my parents who fed the boys and kept things under control back at the fort.

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Check out the windows… aren’t they dreamy?

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The bride wore personalised Converse.

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Don’t ask me what that was…

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… but we did get flip-flops to rest our feet…

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On Sunday it was Mr M and I 18th wedding anniversary… and had a family pub in a glorious pub along the river Severn.

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And then on Sunday afternoon I took a long nap.

Oh yes.

How was your weekend?

 

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Last Monday I went to a friend to a gig closing the Cheltenham Jazz Festival… Caro Emerald… do you know her?

Oh my what a fun night!  Her music is so happy and really gets you going…

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… and I think it’s what I need on this greyish Friday morning with a super weekend ahead of me…

I dare you not to dance to this!

 

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For the past few weeks I’ve been taking pottery class.  I’ve always thought I might like it and you know … I totally love it.  It feels a bit like magic turning a shapeless lump of something into something that it useful and useable and potentially even pretty.  AND working in such a tactical medium is really good for the soul, it’s calming and slow and has it’s own rhythm that can’t be rushed;  you have to agree that when life is getting faster and more frenetic all the time, slowing down is a good medicine.

Also, it’s another skill to add to my post-apocalyptic arsenal… just in case.

My ‘teacher’, Claire, has a lovely bright studio at the back of her cottage, a gorgeous dog and all the patience in the world… she also makes the most gorgeous things!

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My first pot was constructed with the coil technique … I guess all those days passed playing playDo with the boys paid off… but it certainly harder than it looks.  At each step it looked more and more ‘real’…

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not perfect but… it’s a pot! a pot where no pot existed before…

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… a couple of ‘fires’ later and it looks really like a real pot.

 

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I’m so so happy about how it’s turned out…

I made it! with my own little hands (and they are small, no kidding here)… and the new cactus looks at home in it.

Sigh…

My next project is a set of salad/pasta bowls which I have great hopes for.  Fingers crossed.

 

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I joined the National Trust.  For Christmas we gave my parents a membership and they’ve began to explore the local attractions, and since I can’t resist any place I haven’t been before AND I’m a firm believer in getting to know the place you live I intend to join them as much as I can.

We used to be taken on all sorts of ‘days out’ when we were younger and whilst the memories are not always exciting – my mum officially made the worst sandwiches in the world – nowadays I’ve come to appreciate the effort and the motive behind it all.  I love travelling, it’s my favourite activity in the whole world, and like I said I believe in getting to know your own country as much as possible.  Life with three sporty boys has made my original plan to do the same very difficult. Weekends are often taken over by matches of all descriptions and I travelled our county far and wide and discovering all sorts of rugby pitches, hockey pitches, cricket grounds… but not much in terms of architecture and history…

So anyway, I am now a National Trust member and intend to make full use of it.

First stop, on a scorching Sunday afternoon was Westbury Court Gardens.

The Gardens were firstly laid out between 1696 and 1715 and survived untouched for nearly 300 years.  It managed to escape the Capability Brown English landscape school which destroyed many such gardens but by the middle of the 1960s, when the National Trust took over, it was in a state of total neglect.  Well… not anymore, it’s glorious, and thanks to archive materials and old engraving it looks now pretty much how it might have looked in the 1720s.

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Even though it’s not far from the road, it has a splendid calm about it, no doubt thanks to the still water and the perfectly trim hedges…

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This is believed to be the oldest evergreen oak in the England, (next to it it’s my dad who LOVES a big tree)

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(mum and dad discussing trees)

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(mum dad reading tree tags – they didn’t miss one!)

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the perfect walled garden in the sun…

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There is a gorgeous picnic area in the shade and many a bench to sit and watch the birds go by… and tulips… lots and lots of tulips…

… and who doesn’t love tulips, right?

 

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It’s May and May on Instagram is #memadeMay… the hashtag of awkward selfies and and beautiful handmade clothes.  Combine this with soon-expiring stash-points from the Village Haberdashery and what do you get?

Yup, flamingo pyjamas pants.

And why not?

Years and years ago I owned the most comfortable pair of pjs bottoms ever… they were made of really thin cotton and after months of washing and wearing they completely wore out.  Fortunately for me I had the superb idea of dismantling them and using them as pattern for more pjs.  I basically cloned them.

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They have the perfect waist/bottom/leg ratio.

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Wide but not ridiculously wide at the bottom.

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… And once they are made out of out of flamingo fabric they actually surpass the original incarnation.

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#memadeMay.

Boom.

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… finally, FINALLY, some beautiful warm weather… I’m currently sitting drinking iced coffee with the window open and the dog snoozing beside me… a weekend of music and dinner out, early walks and a gorgeous drive through the countryside, and the wisteria’s smell is amazing…

Mr M and I went to see Beth Hart at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival.  She was amazing. So powerful and raw…

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Can you see how sunny it was? white trousers and sunglasses borrowed from Mr M because squinting in photos it’s not very attractive

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I’m wearing my favourite clogs too and I had almost forgotten I was on day two of a migraine marathon.  Urgh…

Case in point about squinting:

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this photo was taken this morning when Mr M and I took Lilli the ferocious beast for a stroll around the local park.  We just couldn’t stop saying how wonderful the weather was… yup, we’re great conversationalist…

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And then I had to drive to the country to pick up No 3 and his broken arm after a sleepover and my SatNav must have been on the wrong setting because it was taking me down the smallest country lanes…

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but it was so beautiful I actually really enjoyed singing my heart out with open windows and not a soul in sight.

No 3’s friend lives in the most gorgeous Cotswold village and whilst waiting for the boys to come back I took a little stroll and picked my dream cottage… maybe the one with the cute donkey in the yard?

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And then back home to have the first lunch al fresco on the terrace.

So lucky to live in such a wonderful area…  I really hope your day was as pretty as mine!

 

 

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It should be music Friday… but I woke up with a splitting migraine so let’s talk quietly about books instead.

My latest read was “The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

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I have non idea what made me buy this book, like many it collected dust under my bedside table for months, years maybe, but it was a really lovely surprise.  (Frankly the cover is ghastly)

This is a really well written book,  the atmosphere of Paris at the time and the characters are all beautifully brought to life and ‘real’, in all their flaws and virtues and complexities. A whole host of ‘famous people populates the Jazz age Paris – Gertrude Stein, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound… just to name a few – Hemingway himself is portrayed quite sympathetically and the author offers a more ‘down to earth’ side of his personality… and of course nowI’m king of itching to read and re-read some of his books, especially “The sun also rises” which talks about the event that take place in this novel.

I’m not spoiling anything in saying it hasn’t got a happy ending, but it didn’t leave me sad or mauling.

Anyway, it’s worth reading if you like biographies or Hemingway or simply well written prose.

Hadley and Ernest on their wedding day:

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2018   Mr Hanckock and the mermaid

2017 – Magari domain resto (Lorenzo Maroni)

2016 – Upstream (Mary Oliver)

2015 –

2014 – Annihilation (Jeff VanderMeer)

2013 – Careless people (Sarah Churchwell)

2012 – Wonder

2011 – The Paris Wife (Paula McLain)

2010 –

2009 – Let the great world spin (Colum McCann)

2008 – The White Tiger (Aravind Adiga)

2007 –Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Barbara Kingsolver)

2006

2005 – Never let me go (Kazuo Ishiguro)

2004

2003

2002 – Everything is illuminated (Jonathan Safran Foer)

2001 – American Gods (Nail Gainman)

2000 – Coram Boy (Jamila Gavin)

1999

1998

1997 – Paradise (Toni Morrison)

1996

1995

1994

1993

1992

1991- Regeneration (Pat Barker)

1990

1989 –The Joy luck club (Amy Tan)

1988

1987 – Norwegian Wood (Haruki Murakami)

1986

1985­

1984

1983

1982

1981 – The colour purple (Alice Walker)

1980

1979 – Sophie’s Choice (William Styron)

1978

1977

1976

1975

1974

1973

1972

1971

1970

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I was going to talk to you about the latest book I read, which I really enjoyed and left me wanting to read more… but instead I got roped into driving my parents and their guest to Bath for the day.

(Actually, I was going to write about it yesterday but ended up spending 3 1/2 hours in the accident and emergency department with No 3 whose career as a goalie was cut short by an unfortunate ball v wrist incident.  The ball won and the poor boy will be wearing a splint for 4 weeks to repair two broken bones in his forearm).

Anyway, as we were saying… today I took a trip to Bath… such a beautiful city… so elegant… even in the rain that soaked us at the beginning of the day…

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only to disappear and leave us with the most glorious blue sky…

I normally go for a shopping day and I must admit it was actually really nice to be a tourist for the day.  I think I spent most of the time looking up at the gorgeous buildings…

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Whilst the visitors checked out the Roman Baths (I’d already seen them four times… enough, right?) I popped into the abbey which I’d never seen before.  Very serene.

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Also, I finally saw Pulteney Bridge, no idea why I never had before… very strange… it’s right in the centre after all!

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I can’t help myself to imagine what it would feel like to live in all the amazing houses in the city… call me Jane Austen…

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and this square would be perfect for a daily ‘constitutional’…

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I still haven’t visited the American Museum or the Jane Austen museum… dad offered some resistance to both suggestions… I guess I need a girlie day out for those!

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I grew up on breakfasts of Nutella on bread (not toast… fresh) or biscuits dipped in milk, sometimes a big bowl of chocolate milk full of fresh bread from the bakery down the road – don’t scoff until you try it –  cereals came later when I was older but they were expensive and exotic in Italy when I was growing up.

Lately, I much prefer a savoury breakfast and today I went all out on one.  Don’t ask me what possessed me… I blame the 5 hours sleep thanks to a certain 12yr old boy who came home from a week long school trip with the biggest cough I’ve ever heard.    Instead of face planting, comatose, on a slice of multigrain sourdough with cashew nut butter I started cooking… really cooking… I mean chopping onions type cooking… with pots and pans and chopping boards…

Go me.

The book is one I’ve had since it came out and I can highly recommend it,  all the recipe I’ve tried have been welcomed by my fussy offsprings and I have more marked to try.

This morning on the spur of the moment I made myself this one:

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The only sunshine I was going to get incidentally… how flipping cold is it outside today? (obviously this only applies if you’re in the UK right now)

Like I said, the lack of sleep must have clouded my judgement, but I have to say there was something calming and therapeutic in spending time cooking and therefore beginning the morning slowly and intentionally.

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and turmeric is good for you, right?

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It was totally delicious.  A little kick from the chilli flakes, warm and soft, the lime jazzing it up just so.

Also the cool tomatoes were the perfect accompaniment, not fighting for flavour but adding the freshness necessary to get the day started.   Nothing wrong with a hot bowl of porridge sometimes but lately I crave ‘fresh’ and ‘zingy’  and ‘spicy’..

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What is your favourite breakfast?

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