Christmas Pudding

Christmas Pudding - evocative, sensory and luxurious; delicious, abundant and stirred with a wish. The subject of my favourite chapter in a book ever*, the beginning of Christmas, just a dessert but so much more.

This weekend we made our Christmas Puddings, a little late this year but hopefully not disasterously so. They take days of work but time is part of their luxury. From the soaking to the stirring to the steaming it takes its own time, there's no rushing a pudding.

Christmas is clearly a time for awe and wonder - and cooking is part of that for us. It's magical how some flour, sugar and butter can turn into so many different, delicious things. Throw in some spices and a handful of fruit and Christmas begins.

I'm going to try some new things this year - marshmallows from the Jamie Oliver mag, vanilla fudge from Life is Sweet (thanks Rose!) and gingerbread with 'stained glass' centres for our tree, my guess is they won't last 'til Christmas Day.

The kids love cooking but the wonder of making the pudding is extra special; as they stir and make their wish it's the first time in the year they think about Santa!!


*Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey

cup cakes

Nothing much to do with awe and wonder, but I'm really rather proud of these cupcakes I made for the Children in Need cake sale at school tomorrow.

I hope the children love them!

Diggers

It's always a treat in November when you have an unexpectedly sunny day. Today was one of those days: Sydney sky, sunny, not too cold. The perfect day to grab our micro scooters and race to Brockwell Park to feed the ducks. I love my micro scooter, I love how free it makes me feel and how quick it is to get places - even more I love the excuse my children give me to ride it!

We got waylaid on the way to the park by diggers. Any of you with boys will understand, you can't ever scoot past a digger.

They inspire awe (look at the size of that scoop!); they encourage wonder (I wonder what that bit's for?); there are questions that I can't answer (Who's driving? What's that man doing? What's that bit called?) and some I can (Why are they digging up the road? why are they wearing helmets?). We watched and chatted and watched some more.

It's lovely to scoot and it's nice to feed the ducks, but it's even lovelier to be side tracked on a sunny day by diggers. Such a luxury to forget the time and concentrate on what Rowdy is really interested in, his curiosity - awesome, wonderful.

London

One of the great things about living in London is that there is always something brilliant to do... even if it's doing not very much at all.

Often, on a rainy day - as we did this Tuesday - we'll hop on the bus, clamber up to the top deck, beg for the seats right at the front and see what sights we see. And we always see something awe inspiring. London is just like that, especially when you get to cross the bridges.

The Thames is a magnificent river, it's never the same no matter how many times you see it. It's steeped in history, saturated with myth and mystery and of course full of boats - sometimes really fast ones, which especially please Rowdy.

This particular Tuesday, cloaked in cloud of grey we marvelled at London's builders: the planners, architects, artists and engineers that created our beautiful city - from the elegance of the big wheel to the industrial beauty of the chinmeys at Battersea Power Station; from the curiosity of the statues of social science that grace Vauxhall bridge to Big Ben and its enormous bong, which we heard strike 10!

When you live here its easy to forget how beautiful London is, and what wonder mankind can create. The 80p bus ride on the No. 3, and the eyes and excitement of my children help me do just that.

Time Out

Being a working mum means never having quite enough time just to hang out with my kids. Every moment somehow needs to be filled, accounted for, drenched in quality.

Last week(half term), in a quest for simple hanging out time, I escaped. Packing the kids into the car straight after school we braved the M4, M5 and A30. A stop for sandwiches, hideous traffic in Bristol and eight hours of Radio 4 later we arrived in Porthcurno, Cornwall. It was silent and foggy, my phone wouldn't have signal for a week. Perfect!

Jo stayed til Monday, some friends visited for a couple days, the rest of the time was just the Frog, Rowdy and me.

There were so many magical moments and we had so much fun it would be impossible to write it all down. It was also so lazy and laid back that it would probably be very boring to read.

So, what was truly awesome: reconnecting with my children and thoroughly enjoying their company; feeling no pressure to do much other than just be together: to find shells on the beach, to laugh at things, to sing songs, to practise the three times table, to read stories all afternoon, to put on a wetsuit and swim in the sea for one last time before winter; all in all just hanging out - where the what is not important but the who is.

And one last awesome thing: the huge, huge smile on Rowdy's face when he appeared out of the water slide at Penzance Swimming Baths - one I won't forget!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porthcurno