751

She really is so very capable.

750

Campfire day at kinder today. I walk past the kinder on the way to collect Ella from school and always have a sneaky peak through the fence to see what the little one's up to. She's so much happier this year, I can't believe I ever questionned the second year of 3 year old, it was completely the right thing to do. A lovely group of children but most of all, a very happy and outgoing little girl.

749

We have a visitor this weekend. Biscuit is in the house.

748

I had a moment today. It feels like the grieving begins as soon as you find out a loved one is unwell. When you know that there is no chance of recovery, you feel the weight of that loss already weighing on your body and it slows you down. Spending time with them, even just speaking of them, is pleasure and pain together.

My parents drove my brother back to his home today, they said he was in quite some pain. It wasn't a long conversation, but it was enough to bring me to tears. Leila asked me what was wrong and I always answer honestly, so I said I was upset about Uncle Mike because he was feeling bad. That gorgeous babe rubbed my back and said "don't cry mum, I know it's hard, but try not to be too upset." She then made a picture of "a happy place" and said perhaps we could send it to Uncle Mike, to make him better. We'll send it tomorrow.

747

How big is your fruit bowl? Today after doing our weekly fruit shop I wondered if ours was bigger than most. There are only four of us and this doesn't include the watermelon, rockmelon and grapes that are chilling in the fridge!

746

Ella had a party yesterday and came back with this glittery gorgeousness. It made me think of a shimmering mermaid's tail.

745

A lovely weekend spent with my parents and my darling brother. Love this ready to blow shot. Happy Birthday Dad.

744

Oh and there was brioche too. I felt like some fancy raisin bread so decided this was the go. Reading the recipe I had to hand (Gordon Ramsays Desserts) I knew it had to be wrong - you can't combine 250g of flour, 240g of butter and 6 eggs and get anything resembling an enriched dough. I doubled the flour and it was perfect. How do you let them know their recipes are wrong - particularly when it's Mr Ramsay? OMG this brioche is delicious, I've eaten 3 slices only 10 mins out of the oven, with even MORE butter on top. Next time, more sultanas, but no time to worry about that now, I'm forgoing dinner for another slice, or two.



Of all the cooking that I love to do, baking is what I love most of all. If I had my time again... Really though, if I were to change tact at this point in life, I'm not a night person, which is required if you're a true restaurant chef, but a morning person. I'm used to getting up early now I've had children, I like my own company.... Could I really work from 1am until 9am though and then be a mum ..um, no!

743

When I'm a bit aimless, at a loss as to what to do, I bake. I've mentioned before that I don't like to eat chocolate cake, preferring very light fruity cakes, rather than fruit cake, and is often the case, am not even interested in eating the things we make, it's just the making I love. Anyway today, although gorgeous outside, we pottered all day long and the fruits of our labours were....

Quirky owl cupcakes.

and a corn dolly with rainbow dress.

Now the owl cupcakes were prompted by my first foray into Pininterest. I must confess that it looks like it should be really easy to navigate and I'm sure it's just me, but I've found it rather time consuming to use.... is it just me, or do you just need to get the hang of it?

742

I went to Park Orchards for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Leila and I went to Winterwood instead of shopping online. I thought it was miles away, which is why we hadn't been before, when in fact it's less than 10 minutes from our place. Of course we spent more than we intended, went to a gorgeous gift, clothing, homewares shop next door and then on to a cafe. I loved it and was bitterly disappointed to discover houses there are even more expensive than where we are now!

Today we returned and explored another relatively local park at 100 Acres Reserve. It was quite muddy and slippy - Ella went down 4 times (although without real injury!) - but I imagine quite gorgeous in warmer (not not snake warm) weather.

740

A very foggy frosty morning where we are. Awake as always before 7am I finally managed to remember the Farmers Market which is on monthly around the corner from us. We were very pleasantly surprised as it had a lot of lovely suppliers. We bought Green Eggs , Happy Fruit, unsprayed apples, last of the strawberries which are suprisingly sweet, leeks and a few other bits and pieces. Gosh you can just tear through money at markets without even noticing.

Came back and enjoyed some of the spoils with hot pancakes. Could the day begin any better?

739

I read Buddah of Suburbia last year and loved it, so I'm going back for another dose of Kureishi. I had to share the opening paragraph with you as it had me hooked from the get go.

Secrets are my currency: I deal in them for a living. The secrets of desire, of what people really want, and of what they fear the most. The secrets of why love is difficult, sex complicated, living painful and death so close and yet placed far away.

738

I stayed close to my little family this weekend. It was more important than ever that I held them close to me. Cliches are, unfortunately, often true. When you face the possibility of losing someone that you love you realise all the things you should have said, the things you should have done, how you should have shown you cared. We found out on Friday that one of my brothers has cancer. I've thought a lot in these few days about my life with him, my other brothers and my parents and then my own small family. The things you take for granted, the issues you think are huge day to day which are really nothing at all. I complain quite a bit, even if most of it is just to myself, where really I have so much to be happy about and the things that bother me, I just need to pull my finger out and get on with it. I feel a little shamed that I am so self indulgent, that it takes something like this to make me acknowledge it. This isn't about me though, it's about him, about our whole family. It's about making the most of your life, of living it, for there is only one and you need to make every day count.

737

The world looks different today.

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A love token from my babe.

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A frosty walk to school this morning. The girls and I all armed with our cameras we took longer than normal and arrived as the bell was ringing. A glorious, albeit frosty, blue skied day ahead.