Beetle

Here is a photo of a beetle I encountered on the tarmac yesterday. I just had to whip out the camera to capture that gorgeous, shiny, green armour.

I have just spoken to my Mum on the phone and she told me that a certain cousin of mine... hi Jane! reads my blog!! I am really happy to think of you all (family and friends and of course maybe people I don't know) out there reading my nonsense. So thank you! I am sorry in a way that I don't put photos of the kids or talk more about stuff we get up to but I am also happy with having a certain amount of anonymity. That being said, I find myself completely unable to even take the cover off my sewing machine at the moment so with the lack of "look what I made" posts I am resorting more and more to writing in green rather than purple!!! I really hope that the creative bug will catch up with me soon and I now imagine this bug in very real terms: with a shiny purple carapace (is that a word in English?) and hairy legs and slow, deliberate movement (not unlike my green friend above). A nice little chap. And he will be very welcome.

A small anecdote about my arty girl: today as soon as she came out of shool she said "look Mummy, I put this in my sock" and proceeded to remove from said sock a pencil sharpener. She then opened the reservoir and held it out for me to inspect: "Look Mummy it's so beautiful" she said, talking about the densely packed curls of pencil shavings of all colours!! And there we go. I love the fact that she sees these things.

Nature table

I got this book earlier on this year and it is full of nice thoughts, ideas and projects to do with children. The one I am enjoying implementing most with the kids right now is the nature table idea. We have set up a little spot by the front door. What I appreciate most about this project is that we now have an official space to put all those flowers, feathers, acorns, stones etc that make their way into our house on a daily basis and when that space is full, well we have to decide what stays and what goes. Finite space is a good thing compared to the usual and annual autumnal take-over of the flat (one year it was a hostile take-over... by maggots who had used that old trojan horse technique substituting acorns for horses). And today is the first day of autumn as was perfectly illustrated to us by the state of the woods today during our afternoon walk so now our nature table is quite a picture. But, ahem, autumnal failing light means that, for now, my picture of it is blurry - soz!

Oh and I felt like writing about the nature table because I saw this post from the other side of the planet where spring is just making its welcome entrance.

In other news... I have cast on for a sock and it has taken me two weeks to knit about ten rounds. So my creativity is going nowhere fast. Every other domain of my life is going so fast I am quite out of breath.

Ce livre m'a pas mal inspirée cette année et l'un de mes projets préférés est la "table de la nature". J'adore en avoir une à la maison: elle est jolie, elle est limitée dans l'espace (et ainsi le nombre de glands, marrons, feuilles etc qui peuvent être admis chez nous est limité - enfin!!) et elle a éveillé en nous l'envie d'observer, de documenter et d'apprécier ce qui se passe dans la nature au fur et au mesure des saisons.

Oh j'ai composé "une poésie de saison" mais je n'arrive pas à le prononcer... au secours

Mon marron est marron
Mon marron marron est marrant
Mon marron marron marrant est perdu
Mon rendez-vous m'a rendu mon marron marron marrant.

OK je suis la seule qui en rit (comme d'hab).

Green things II

Another green moment today that I just had to capture... (But actually not that green, since they are disposable tissues - oh the torturous passages of my mind).And here is one of my daughter's installations, as I like to think of them. Even as a two year old, she would swipe things from around the house and set them up in an array on the floor, on the bed wherever. I will have to go on a photographic hunt in my backup drive to be able to show you her previous work, but this is today's oeuvre. Limited to the stuff in the "dinette" box but nonetheless quite nice to look at I think.
I have just come back from a workout at the gym. I do a lot of thinking during my warm-up on the treadmill. I like thinking in an active way in an attempt to distract myself from my body telling myself to stop and go home. I like to push myself on my little warm-up. I think one of the books I shall buy myself with my birthday Amazon gift voucher is this one by Haruki Murakami. He is almost my favourite author and I am interested to read er...what he talks about when he talks about running! I think I might find it inspiring. But there are so many books I would like to read and I will probably do what I usually do... fill up my basket to the brim and then put them all back again because at the end of the day I know that I don't really NEED them.

J'aime vraiment la couleur vert. Et c'est facile de se trouver dans un moment tout à fait VERT lorsque l'on a un mur vert chez soi. Je n'aime pas le bleu à priori et chez moi l'on en trouve très peu, mais je me demande si je ne voudrais pas avoir un canapé turquoise. Bleu canard plutôt. Cela pourrait me changer les idées. Oh tenez, je vous montre le canapé en question de chez IKEA et vous allez voir que nous n'aurions même pas avoir besoin nécessairement de changer de couleur de mur - le plaid sur le canapé est de la même couleur que notre mur. Too much?

More figs!

A quick posting, two in the same day wow, and still about food... My mother-in-law got back from Montenegro yesterday and has just arrived at our house for lunch bearing gifts. She has brought us tomatoes, cucumbers, grapes and figs - all picked from the garden yesterday. And so just for the sake of it, here is the middle of the fig I am just about to eat... check out the difference between this juicy baby and that nasty (now) dry one below!

Ma belle mère est revenue du Monténégro hier et elle a ramené des figues fraiches. Je vais manger celle-ci dans... vingt secondes. Regardez la différence entre celle-ci - belle, juteuse, brillante - et la vieille sèche en bas.

Cupcakes

More food I'm afraid...
The day we got back from our holidays, I received "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World" in the post and I love it! The recipes are luxurious and easy and delicious and vegan and mmmmm! Believe it or not I have made cupcakes (cupcakes!) four times in the last two weeks (four times!). They were all so yummy and disappeared so fast that I didn't even have time to take photos. But not yesterday. Yesterday was my birthday and we invited some friends over to, ahem, dine with us and I prepared some little chocolate fairy cakes for dessert.
I filled them with blueberries, piped icing on them and sprinkled them with shavings of tea flavoured chocolate. One of our friend's birthday is today so the two of us had candles. Oh and B doesn't like icing so his was the minimalist one.
Oh and am I crazy or is this baking soda? Here in France you buy it at the chemists in a box like this because French people obviously use it for brushing their teeth but not for cooking.

Bonjour les amis! Bizarrement cela me paraît étrange de parler de petits gateaux végétaliens en français! Donc je vais juste vous dire qu'il est possible de faire des petits gâteaux mouelleux (?), délicieux et légers sans beurre, oeufs, lait... Et si vous voulez en savoir plus et vous comprenez l'anglais achetez ce livre magnifique.