Week 18 - a lot to celebrate

I've been thinking about my blog a lot lately. When I started it, I didn't mean for it to be a dedicated craft blog but that's the direction it took almost straight away. But since having a child, I don't get to craft half as much as I used to, projects take ages to finish and that leaves me with seemingly little to blog about.

I've wondered whether I should just drop the blogging, whether I should take it in a new direction and then I took a closer look at my life and I realised I make things all the time. Not always big, accomplished, crafty projects but I cook, I bake, I fix stuff, I start projects and finish bits of it on a regular basis. So instead of waiting for the end of a project and write extensively about it, I'm going to show you my little every day accomplishments on a (hopefully!) weekly basis. And when I do manage to finish a knit or a sew or a piece of jewellery, I'll write a separate, more detailed post.

If you spot anything in a weekly update and want me to give more details about it, then just leave me a comment or drop me a line and I'll happily oblige.

So we start with week 18... well, with the end of week 17 included. This week has been one of celebrations.

On Saturday 26th April, it was Koningsdag, the Dutch national celebration. In an attempt at bringing up a multilingual child, we have recently hooked up with a network of Dutch people living in Bristol. The Dutch can be quite patriotic and Koningsdag is a big deal to them so we all got together for a family celebration at the Bristol's Children Playhouse. Everyone brought traditional Dutch foods and dressed up in the traditional orange. Our food contribution included orange cake pops, boterkoek (a Dutch take on shortbread) and poffertjes (a sort of mini pancake served with melted butter and icing sugar). All in all, it was a lovely day, our daughter certainly had a fab time.

A very orange buffet

Orange cake pops

We live on the edge of a park with a lovely big pond in it. It's home to many ducks and a couple of swans. I'd observed that the female swan had retreated to her nest for what felt like weeks, a sure sign that cygnets were on the way. My daughter and I were delighted when we saw the cygnets had finally hatched earlier this week. They are so cute and fluffy, absolutely gorgeous!

With the nicer spring weather timidly settling in, Nimue has taken great pleasure in doing some gardening and looking after her naming tree.

This week was also the week of Beltane and we were in Glastonbury as usual to celebrate my favourite festival of all. Celebrating life, love, sensuality and fertility with like minded folks always leaves me happy for days afterwards. As usual, we jumped over the Beltane fire and danced the Maypole. Despite being up well past her bedtime, our daughter clapped along to the songs and was completely in awe of the Maypole dance. I wrapped her up in my Beltane shawl when we were outside and it suited her so well.

On the baking front, I've been making a batch of clotted cream rice pudding. It remains to this day Nimue's favourite pudding. It's pretty easy to make and freezes really well so I make it in batches on a regular basis. For some reason though, I am yet to make a batch where I don't let the milk boil over the pan, I always get distracted at the crucial moment.

So that was week 18! Have a lovely bank holiday weekend folks and until next time x