Blackberry And Apple Crumble, Oh My! from Milkmoon Kitchen.

Six months ago we moved house. We left behind a little cottage that sat in a field by the sea, with a marshland spread out behind us, and a clear view to the mountains. A country setting, by all accounts. Our exciting, and thoroughly successful, I might add, move to a town setting, meant, I assumed, that we had left the country behind. But every day I have been reminded by the tenacity of Mother Nature. There simply is no getting away from it, is there? Thankfully!

We were very particular about where we ended up, in particular about staying by the sea, and with some compromise on other things, we now find ourselves surrounded by a neighbourhood of old gardens, dating from a time when people grew their food, and being self-sustaining was just the norm, (and not that long ago, either!)
In the summer it was flowers that did it. A walk around town was a joy from start to finish, a perfumed soliloquy on the glory of the pure, and yes tenacious, smorgasbord we have right here, beneath our feet, spilling over the walls as we pass, nodding to us, brushing our shoulder, whispering in our ears and causing us to forget what we were just saying or thinking, gently persuading us to pause and inspect, or smell, ooh and ahh, and oh, what a pleasure it all was!

And now autumn has arrived, and oh my, it's as though Mother Nature saved the best for last, and has just opened yet another cupboard, beckoning to us in our breathless wonder as we inhale the perfume that is now made into something else, a deep earthy something, born of pollen and spores and the abundance of flora that came together over the summer months, collided in the air, entangled with one another in the tango of love, danced the summer dance before drifting down to settle into the undisturbed sleep of winterness. A potent concoction of humus and decay that reassures the soul.
It's my favourite time of year.

And so, over the last month, a walk around the neighbourhood has been a delight of another, abundant kind. Everywhere you go there is fruit hanging over the walls, apples, pears, and the occasional plum tree. And the blackberries! They are my favourite, just pushing and poking their way through every crack and crevice, through every hedgerow, and the lovely thing is, for all the gorgeousness and pride of these local gardens, there's very few that don't have brambles somewhere amidst the bushes, and there they are allowed to be, undisturbed.
We even have a beautiful big, old walnut tree around the corner, out on the roadside, and not so long ago, before I realised what it was, there was fruit for the taking.
Next year.

So, yes, there is an inordinate amount of pleasure to be had in abundance from an unexpected source. And this apple crumble has been our go to dish when visiting friends, or having people over. The crumble is particularly yummy. It is gluten, sugar and dairy free, of course, though I guarantee just as palatable to omnivores of all persuasions.

Ingredients:

8 eating apples, (or 4 each pears and apples), peeled, cored and quartered,
120ml honey or maple syrup,
60g dried fruit, I used a mix of golden sultanas, cherries, and berries, or a handful of fresh blackberries,
170g fine oatflakes,
30g mixed toasted seeds and nuts,
2tbls unrefined sunflower oil, (I think I'll try coconut oil next time!)

Oven:  Gas 5, 190C, 375F

Method:

As we are using eating apples, due to the fact there is no refined sugar used in this recipe, there is no need to stew the apples first.

1) Roughly chop the apples and lay them out in an ovenproof dish.
2) Drizzle with about 30g of the honey/maple syrup.
3) Sprinkle with the dried fruit.
4) In a bowl, mix the oatflakes, nuts and seeds.
5) Add the oil and the rest of the honey/maple syrup, and mix until all the flakes are coated in the oil.
6) Sprinkle over the fruit.
7) Bake in a pre-heated oven for about 45 minutes, or until the topping is golden, and the fruit mixture is bubbling.

If you can manage to not eat every morsel of this when it comes out of the oven, it tastes even better the next morning, as a delicious, nutritious breakfast.
Enjoy it with yogurt of your choice; dairy, soya or my latest obsession, coconut!

Footnote: The other morning I looked out my bedroom window, down at the dozens of shiny red apples that bobbed against the grey sky, and wondered for the millionth time about how on earth we were going to reach them. The lower branches have been picked clean, but all the rest were far beyond our reach. Later in the day, as I sat in work, putting finishing touches to this post, I got a phone call from our eldest lad saying he was just home, and was I aware the apple tree was lying across the garden? The lovely old thing, our collective favourite thing about the whole package that is this house, top heavy with it's bumper crop, added to which was the weight of days of rain, simply keeled over. Just like that. We are all very sad.

Learning From The Trees.

We had a lovely week off school, and even though for a lot of it the clouds sat low over the mountains, a mizzling rain pressing up against the windows, keeping us mostly indoors, we really didn't mind at all. We had lots of pyjama days, with plenty of baking and cooking going on, and just as cabin fever began to set in, the days began with blue skies and there was that little whisper of spring in the air.

There, in the stretch of light in the morning sky, or stirred into the tenacious sting of the winter wind, a hint of warmth that was not there before, just a momentary tenderness against our skin, and all of a sudden there is a new softness, a slackening off, in the physical tension of winter, and our bodies somehow fathom, in some deep place, that instinct of the trees to begin to let go of that green they have held onto during the dark months, to allow it to begin to unfurl.

Our hunt for a new home continues apace.
We have all been dreaming strange, house-related dreams. Uncomfortable, insecure kind of dreams that leave us unsettled. We have never undertaken anything like this before, as a family, and while it really is unsettling, I think it may be no bad thing. Sometimes we need to shake things up, to force ourselves out of our comfort zone, in order to unfurl and reach for the sky and warm air, in order to grow.

And so, we wait patiently for Something Wonderful to come our way, and I am grateful for the time of year, for that sense of the rising sap, and I know that, like the trees, if we trust our instincts, we will know just what to do when the time comes.

This Moment....

Inspired by SouleMama.

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

Through My Window, On An Afternoon Of Unexpected Idleness.

"The mountains simply exist, as I do. The mountains exist simply, as I do not."

~ Peter Matthiessen.

From all directions, the distant mountains bathe their crowns in milky pools,
and the sky draws down a slow veil,
the earlier rain,
like the lightest canopy
shook out in slow motion, reluctant to return down to us,
a curious drift that settles unhurriedly.

It takes the whole day.

A Thousand Heartbeats.

Look! Look up! The Swallows! Oh!

Yes, this is how our very lovely weekend finished up. And what a magical end to a curious and surprising few days.
A weekend that found us as though in a lovely dance back through time, a gentle trip that took us beyond the normal, everyday, expected places we find ourselves. That brought us into a beautiful, abandoned house I have passed countless times and never before entered, now (but briefly) filled with art and people who's paths I have not crossed in years. An evocative mix of faces, of familiar poses, standing together, talking, in rooms of art, as though time had stood still.

And then, in no time we were winding our way through the darkness, on a lonely road up and down mountains for more miles than I guessed it would be, to an olde pub in a wild place, and dear faces that time and distance have stolen from our everyday life.
And there, once again, as though we had found a little door to peek through time, we gathered around us those dear ones who meant so much, who were our Everyday, and yet who's lives now exist like kites on very long twine, somewhere in another world, in the mist and clouds between us. Still I hold tight, unable to let go. And oh! the sweetness of those short hours, sitting across from one another at last, with so much, and sometimes, too much, to say.

And then today, a day when summer came back to fetch her hat, and we took ourselves out into the garden and welcomed some visitors who hold the weekend's title of the Very Much Oldest Friends of the whole few days. People from my earliest years of childhood, some of whom I would walk past on the street for lack of knowing, yet are still connected, thanks to our Mothers.
For our Mothers first met one another all those decades ago when we were the babies and toddlers of the group, and they the new, young mothers.

They still meet up, to this day!

So, we gathered.
And honestly, it really was a strange and poignant gathering, for this time I felt as though I was somehow in my own future, as though I suddenly roused and found I was no longer one of the children, but a mother, and I sat with these strangers, who I knew, somewhere in my bones, I knew. And our children ran around us, dashing through the sunlight, like memories behind my eyes.

And there across the table I watched my mother and her life-long friends, these five girlish Grandames, as they talked and laughed as only old friends do, and I thought of my own old friends, and I marvelled at the extraordinary power of friendship, and how time is rendered powerless by it.

And then, this evening, not long after everyone parted company, as the quiet descended around the house, we heard it, the sound of quivering feathers and calls to rally, the clear, sharp cries of a thousand swallows.

The air was filled. 

A thousand tiny heartbeats, the rush of feathers, calling, calling to one another. 

Getting ready to fly.

The Finest Season.

There is a chilly~ness to the air these mornings, do you feel it? It's time to close the windows, take the door off the latch, usher the chill and the curious leaves out the door as we close it. After the school run I return to find cats snoozing in sunny corners,  and a stillness settles on the empty house, a stillness settles in me.

We have wandered into the outer skirts of Autumn, where the leaves still cling to the trees like bright banderole, little flags waving to us in their finest hour, and as we pass beneath them I am surprised to find somehow the routine of school has brought with it a familiar comfort.

One that includes being witness to that magic hour of dawn, of leaving the house before the sun has warmed the earth, the cool air like a whisper on my skin. One that includes condensed little parcels of productive time, so different from the carefree, whimsical summer-time, and considered meals that are a little more protracted in the making, providing a sense of sustenance and nourishment, and one that brings an actual bed~time for our brood of dearlings.

Scattered in amongst the sunlit days, we have had squally showers and a fetch of wild winds that howled for two days and a night causing many people to lose many things, including their nerve, their dignity, a small child on a bike (nearly), their gusto, and an imaginary toupee!

It was wild, but still we ventured out, and on one of the days we took to the hills after school, headed inland and up, wound our way through tree lined roads to a warm welcome in little house that nestles there, in amongst the green.

Will and Anita's woodshed. Preparing for winter.

And so, as small boys scattered, an echo of footsteps and excited voices, (emerging shortly to race into the garden as bears and knights and monsters), we mothers sat, hands wrapped around warm coffee cups, and talked up a storm, a long overdue catch~up kind of talk, the kind that covers many months and miles in a mere couple of hours.

The bounty of their garden.

We are submerging slowly now, into this, the finest of the seasons, it's bounty a cornucopia that swells around us by the day, urging us on towards the darkening of the year, the hedgerows and trees bowed down in sweet supplication, whispering to us, 'Jam! Jam! You need jam!'

And as I submerge, I soak it all up, as though storing in my bones for winter the finest of this season, the warmth and bounty and goodness, and I take it with me as I move through the cooling air and the first falling leaves, and all around me I hear murmurings of how you all love autumn best, and how you too are overcome by a growing desire to make and mend and settle in to the evenings that are drawing in around us.

Anita's handmade soap.

And although my plans for the end of the week were somewhat scuppered by my enthusiasm to do just about everything with my newfound long hours in the morning, and in doing so, I went and put my back out. So instead of getting any of the actual making that I had been planning, done, I have been killing time by playing with both Instagram (See the link in my sidebar on the right) and Pinterest, (Click the link to see!) with great enjoyment, I might add, but somehow just not quite so satisfying as bringing a vision in your head into 'real life'.

So here this showery Saturday finds me, in between hobbling around like a bent old Sean-bhean bhocht (poor old woman!), attempting to let go of my disappointment and just do what little I can. At least my favourite blue coat now has all it's buttons, and I may just finish my latest redwork.

And it is, after all, the weekend, and one, now, without any plans to do anything.

What are you doing this weekend? I hope it's something lovely!

The Silence Between The Notes.

"Wolfgang Mozart, one of the most brilliant, prolific composers of all time, said that music exists “not in the notes,” but rather, “in the silence between them.” Without the off-beats—the silent, restful moments—we would hear no sound."

Tonight my heart is full.

You know the way sometimes there is a slow accumulation of tiny things, small moments of awareness that drop into a pool in your unconscious over a period of time, until either the pool overflows and begins to seep into your conscious mind, or maybe they become a softly glowing thread that you gradually become aware of, there when you look up, like a beautiful bright web of light all around you?
For days now I have had a feeling as though I walk around trailing a string of bright balloons above me that I somehow cannot grasp, that still bob behind me every time I turn to try and see them.
I could not pin down what exactly it was that was settling inside me, what it was I wanted to write about.

Last night I sat in the growing dark, saw the sun sink behind the steadfast mountains, the scent of incense drifted in from another part of the house. Jay is meditating. A soothing silence settles around the house. A distinctive quiet that allows soft voices to surface out of the whirl that has been my week.

And so, it begins to come together. As I sit, I become aware of my aching limbs, tired after the morning's challenging yoga class, and coupled as it is with words from one of my daily reads  (that I quoted at the beginning here) that has stayed with me all day, I understand.

I think what has found me is the beginnings of Mindfulness. An old and long-forgotten friend.

It definitely has to do with my now twice weekly yoga, (and whatever I can manage in between), and what this has brought me aside from the obvious physical.
A reaching out, for similar minds, for a plain on which to rest, to replenish myself, for people and places that fortify and sustain me in my daily rush, that refrain from negativity.
It is in what I seek out to read, whether books or blogs or online articles or what pages I choose to follow on facebook and in doing so choosing what is there each day on my wall.
It is in the books that Jay is reading, that lie on bedside table and on couches.
It is in the conversations we are having, the conversations I am having with others. That moment in an exchange with someone when a link is made and a spark happens and even if you don't know it immediately, that moment of warmth, of reassurance is there between you.

Yesterday evening I read this article that somehow crystallized it for me. I see now that, certainly not every time, but increasingly so, as I go through my day my awareness of each thing I do, the way each person interacts with me and I with them, whether my child, a friend or a stranger, is somehow slowed down, so I see each each exchange, each action with Presence Of Mind. And isn't that Mindfulness? And like muscle memory in yoga, there is a memory in my mind that this sits neatly and comfortably into. I have done this before. It's good to see you, my old friend.

I am not fully clear, fully aware, and may never achieve this, but the opening lines of the above linked article just about sums it up: "I can't tell you exactly when it occurred. My shift, I mean. My transition from being someone who does yoga to being someone who believes yoga, imbibes yoga, embodies yoga."

And this belief, for me, also applies to Mindfulness. I believe Mindfulness. I believe it to be something more positively powerful than we can imagine.

 "It’s now—as we interact with our children, as we smile at a stranger, as we choose to forgive—that our practice radiates and resonates."  


As we interact with our children. As we smile at a stranger. As we choose to forgive.

As we choose.

Wordless Wednesday: Cloud Gazing.

The Tides Of Summer Rolling In.

Like an old friend, Summer has arrived again. Arrived and shaken out her bag, and we clamour round to peer in expectation, revealing a sparkling array of gatherings, of friends and family and celebrations.

And so we have been busy!

Making the most of the warmer weather, we have been shindigging and sharing, gathering and convening in all manners, spending time with family and friends.

We celebrated the arrival of summer, and the arrival of My Only Sister and her Darling Cherub all the way from the US, with our Annual Summer Solstice Party, a gathering of particular meaning and importance to me. And to be honest, what I would write here about that night I could not better what I wrote last year about it.

What is it? What is it in us humans that drives us to come together and share food and swap news and smooth out the wrinkles of time that have accumulated between us since last we saw one another until there are none? 

For all my pre-party stress I would not give this up. Even if I find that I miss out on actually speaking to some who come, for sheer want of just sitting down for a spell! This Gathering Together, this reconnecting, or indeed forging new connections, is the beat of my heart, is what fuels my passage through this blessed life I have been bestowed with. It is the oxygen in my blood.

Photo by Líosa.

And as I said before , if ever I need an affirmation, if ever I need an injection of wonder, of heartening wonder at the circle of life, then this annual event is just that. 

To witness, by virtue of this One Day a year, the passage through life of all these children as they swarm around us momentarily, and then fly off into the distant sun, they're wings outstretched in joyful anticipation, this is what gives me wings too.

So, as the air grows milder in this temperate isle of ours, as we brave our mediocre summer, we will, in true stalwart Irish fashion, make the most of it and carry on as though we basked in hot sun, regardless. We will take ourselves off to visit friends, and call them to visit us.

We will break bread and touch our glasses together, salute the long days. Give thanks for the bounty of friendship, more than anything, and the means to celebrate it.

And in doing so, I like to think somewhere, deep in their bones, our children will find these threads are woven tight, and so will continue this weaving and pulling together of family and friends, of holding tight.

For in the end it is in the weaving together we find our cushion in life. That which in turn holds us.