Harry meets his family

Harry is here

Harry is here. Born 4 September. Very beautiful. Much loved. Used to noise.

I've been away ---><--- I'm back

I took a blog-break - not deliberately. Been busy with a few things. A few pics to tell where we've been:



> at the playground
> at the beach in funky leggings
> in red
> at Phillip Island
> working on sentences
> looking carefully at things
> riding scooters
> eating cakes at the Pirate Park
> being full of joy
> running and jumping (some of us)
> getting into red and green
> singing and dancing in Chinese
> sleeping peacefully
> waiting for the train
> taking the train (how we love the train)

Baking (for Michelle)

I talked to my lovely friend Michelle the other day. We've both been suffering a loss of 'blogging mojo' lately. Anyway Michelle's always been a great baker, one more reason why going to visit her is always a great pleasure. She'd been ovenless for a while but is now baking again - so I thought I would share my latest baking recipe with her:

Choc-chip muffins

220g sr flour

1/2 cup castor sugar

3/4 cup milk or buttermilk

1 egg

3/4 cup of vegetable oil

150g choc (or white) chips

brown sugar

Add the dry ingredients, add the wet ingredients, mix it all up. Spoon batter into 12-hole muffin tin (use patty pans to make it really simple). Sprinkle brown sugar on top of muffins. Bake for 20-25 mins @ 180. The oil gives them "a very tender crumb and crisp crust", according to Stephanie Alexander - whose lovely simple recipe this is (The Cooks Companion). You can adapt it and add different things (apple or savoury things - for savoury take out the sugar). These are good for school snacks and very popular "dakes" ('cakes' as Jamie says) in our house.

musc

Ella writes: it was my birthday. We were making masks. We used feathers and cudz.

garden

It's lovely how 'garden' is a noun and a verb. I've been watching Monty Don's series 'Around the world in 80 Garden's' and thoroughly enjoying it. He goes from country to country looking at lovely gardens and talking to gardeners, garden historians, garden-lovers and so on. All the gardeners look amazingly healthy and happy - it seems linked to the longevity of their gardening careers. Anyway I think I love it because I realise that I love gardens, love being in them and looking at them and smelling them and taking pictures - really love all that - but I'm not a very keen gardener. I get dejected by forever repotting and throwing away dead plants and stopping small people from ingesting potting mix. For this reason conventional gardening programs leave me cold - because I don't want to 'recreate the look' or find the exact plant for this or that soil. I don't want to hear about root-rot or pruning. I like the colour and feel of gardens, the patterns and textures. I love leaves and flowers. And I like to think about the links between the gardens people have and who they are.