narrating kayoz

The holidays are over; Let the work begin

Kate at Foxes Lane asked the other day are you addicted to crochet? Something else? What are you making? (Okay, I'm paraphrasing from memory, and maybe conflating a couple of posts, but she did ask something like that.) And I thought, hmm I seem to have dropped my crochet addiction very quickly once school holidays kicked in.

I was making a lovely rainbow blanket for my nephew for Christmas, but then my sister-in-law came to stay for a week before Christmas and I suddenly stopped work on it (too busy talking?), until the point when I realised there was no way I was getting it done in time, so I caved in and bought something. The blanket will be fine for his birthday (in October!).

Over the holidays I relaxed and wrote (here and here and of course right here), and started researching an article on transition towns. I built a chook dome with Liam. I went swimming with the kids, and sometimes the husband, I stayed up late talking to my sister, who came to stay at Christmas, and again for my grandfather's funeral last week. I even watched a movie (something I very rarely do) and cried my eyes out. We went blackberrying, we went out to visit my cousin on his property out Gundaroo way and met his llamas, we visited my grandfather in Forster (before he died), we went to the beach. Also we slept in a lot, even if it was only until 7:30. What I didn't do was one single stitch of crochet or knitting. I did help Liam cut out some fabric to sew himself some wizards robes, but he is sewing them (by hand, I don't have a working sewing machine), himself.

But school went back today, craft group (at the school) starts up again on Friday, and I'm feeling crafty again. I'm thinking I will come to school pickup a little early and bring my crochet with me. I'm also thinking it's about time I knitted some new dishcloths.

But in the mean time, I'm going to tackle my pigsty of a house. The holidays are over.  It's time to get organised!

Picking wild blackberries, eating blackberry pie

Yesterday we went blackberrying.

I was unavoidably reminded of Little Sal picking blueberries and hearing them go ku plink, ku plank, ku plunk in her pail, which never filled up because she kept eating them. Especially because everybody ate a lot, especially Eliane!

The kids had a great time. Liam said "Let's put blackberrying on the calendar for February 4 as soon as we get one for next year."

We happened to know that some other children from Mikaela's kindergarten were going out to the same patch this morning, so we tried to stick to berries kindergarteners couldn't reach (Mikaela was excepted from this rule for obvious reasons!), but there were gazillions more we simply couldn't get to. One of the kindergarten parents going out today suggested bringing some planks of wood to get deeper in, and I could see why.

We picked about 2 & 1/2 litres between us. Apparently there are lots of wild blackberries around Canberra, And I've lived here most of my life, but this is the first time I've ever been berry picking. It's scandalous!

We had pancakes with blackberries for dinner last night (those of us who hadn't so stuffed ourselves while we were picking that they couldn't eat another bite), a blackberry smoothy for morning tea today, and of course, blackberry pie for dessert tonight (with ice cream and, you guessed it, blackberries).

Mmm, Yum. I don't think I've ever had blackberry pie before. Australians aren't really the big pie eaters that Americans are. Normally I guess I'd just have the fresh berries on their own, or with cream and ice cream (for a dessert). Actually we did that too - after the pancakes! But we had over two litres of berries to use, and this pie used nearly 5 cups. I don't think we could have got through that many fresh. Not on top of the other litre we ate!

We could have frozen them of course, or made berry preserves for winter. Hmm, maybe we'll have to go blackberrying again next weekend!