The Seasons

Where to start...  We have had family and friends here now on and off for the last month, which mostly has been wonderful, yet tiring.  The hardest person to deal with is the Man who just likes his home quiet and simple, with a houseful of guests and many kids this made him grumpy!!!!!  However, when the house is back to normal he says he misses the company and bussle!!! Can't win really.  We have just said to goodbye to the Aussies and will see them again in two weeks, the time went to fast for me but one really joyful things was watching two little girls make a deep and happy bond, two 5 year olds who couldn't be more different in their personalities just clicked it was magical.Also seeing cousins slip into each others lives so easily as if they see them all the time.

Today has been about planning the autumn, we made a Christmas box of films, stories and music and set aside to gradually fill over the next few months.  The kids made cake, spent hours making knights and footballers out of tin foil and card, we watched the Waltons (fab), and I pottered around plotting autumn harvesting, thinking of woolly socks and mittens, still blistering hot here though.  

Back to work in the morning and something that we feel we need to make part of our lives is structure, not rigid rules but a gentle sequence throughout our week, as we are tired and unorganised at the moment.  So we really are going back to basics:  Bath nights, cleaning day/laundry and baking day, monday morning coffee to discuss our work, meals at 7pm bed at 8.30 for the kids etc etc

Hope to upload photos soon but have to use another pc to do this - very annoying.  xx

Warm winter days

Just got back from a work trip to the UK and was distressed at how grey and gloomy it was. Loads of really agressive people in the towns screaming at kids in buggies, chain smoking teenagers with pregnant bumps in school uniform. I don't want to generalise about age or methods of bringing up kids but where is the love, the passion, the tranquillity, the harmony, the togetherness? I read a blog of a teenage Mum and she shows perfectly that you can be a loving mother whatever your age but why are there so many women in the UK who seem to treat their own health so badly. Queues outside Mc........, overloads of salt, dirty streets and shouting families. OK so I am not a realist and happily live in a little countryside bubble, but surely your average family must care about what they eat and how they behave or maybe there is simply no hope. Maybe I was having a negative week and all these people that I saw behaving in such outwardly awful ways are truly good inside and just need a break..... I am not so sure. I don't want to be judgemental but I really feel that some people have simply lost track on simple happiness and caring for each other.

Anyhow after the culture shock of real life in Devon and Somerset I am back to Tuscany and working hard but must make time to do some Christmassy things. Cakes, cookies, tags, papers and make some gifts, thought I would have a bash at candles this year.