Trees, cows, grass and aching legs

A couple of weekends ago L’s Mum came to visit and we had a pub lunch in the country and went for a little walk through some woods – as it happens, the same woods where L proposed over a year ago now! 😉

Other than that, I haven’t been for a walk in the countryside for … well, since our honeymoon, so about 10 months. I’ve always loved walking and I’ve always been a bit of a country girl. I am very content living in a city and wouldn’t want to live much further out then we do, but I need my dose of green hills and leafy woodlands from time to time – just to make sure I’m still really alive in here! 🙂

Although there are many reasons why I am very grateful we do not have a car of our own right now, sometimes the restriction on my freedom can become a little irksome … just sometimes! Mostly I am content to take my daily walks along concrete, beside a not-so-clean river and always with the guarantee of seeing many other people. I crave my daily walks and eat up at least 2 miles pretty fast these days . However …

… however, sometimes the country girl in me longs for pure air, green green grass, stoney paths, big leafy trees, the kind of silence that only comes from being surrounded by nature, the rush of joy at seeing so many living things around you, the more varied songs of birds, the fresh and invigorating feeling that comes from hiking in the country and that strange sort of comfort of knowing that you are almost alone in the midst of a sea of green grass, big trees and blue skys! Ahh! So restful!

How greedy am I to have three mammas?! Yeah, quite greedy I guess … but you aint getting an apology from me!! 😉 Two are kinda normal and obvious – Mother and Mother-in-Law. I have one more – S, a lovely retired lady who has been with me through massive changes over the last 4 plus years and has taken me into her life and she and her husband now view me as a honourery daughter. Honestly, I feel privileged, as they are one of the best couples I know and L and I hope that we will be very much like them by the time we get to their age. Being counted as her friend is an honour.

I meet up with S every two weeks and we work on our patchwork and quilting together, go out for coffee or go for a walk somewhere out of the city. Quite often we walk along the seafront at a local beach, but today, as she was sweet and indulged my craving for green surrounding, we went for a long walk/hike in the woods and hills not too too far away from us.

S and her husband M both love taking and editing photos, so I didn’t feel too guilty about my frequent stops to take yet another shot … !!

And she took a few shots of me too!! 🙂 Isn’t this just such an awesome tree?!? I’m sitting in the hollow roots of what must have at one time been a gigantic, stately tree! Massive!!

I loved how dramatic this leafless old tree looked against the background of patchwork fields and blue sky! There’s something quite majestic about it I think – still standing even with no leaves …

I am forced to ask myself this question: would I consider it a worthwhile expedition – from a photography point of view – if I didn’t get my all-time-favourite shot of the sun bursting through the leaves? Hmm … !! 😛

Another spectacular dead tree … I love the dramatic look of the bare, white branches against the big old living tree behind it … there’s something quite beautiful about it.

The afternoon has fulfilled my longing for green, for living things, for fresh air, for rolling hills and shady woods, for the only sounds being the crunching of our feet along the paths, the birds singing and the cows in the neighbouring field, for being close to nature, for feeling the breeze and knowing I’m alive, no matter what.

Which do you prefer – town or country? What is your favourite environment to go walking/hiking/running in?

Summer thoughts!

Yup, I do think it’ summer now! Ok, so I know that it’s not officially summer until … is it the 21st of June?! Never mind what the date is, for me, summer has started today! 🙂 The spring flowers have all gone, it’s fairly warm (for England guys, so I’m talking 13-20C/55-60F! 😛 ) most of the time and the cruncher for me – I’m done with studying until October!! Whoop whoop! 😀

That nicely explains my sporadic posting on here and why it’s been at least a week since I last wrote anything at all – I was working on my end-of-module-assesment: a big essay that has to be printed multiple times and sent with special signed forms to The Open University’s head office – aah!! For the previous four essays, I have submitted them online and my tutor ha marked them, but this final one is marked by external markers. Also, the marks I got on the previous essays counted a different percent each time, to make up a core for all of them, but this final essay count all by itself, so if I don’t pass this one, I have to do the whole module again … but it’s ok, ’cause that won’t be happening, I’ll be fine!! 😛 I got that in the post today and should get my module results by August, so now, no more school till my next module starts in October – definitely summer!!! 🙂

I’m going to be treating myself to some fun times … tomorrow afternoon I’m having coffee with a friend and we’re going to be working on our patchwork projects – I’m doing a quilt for L and I’s bed, which is based around autumn, our favourite season and S is working on a wonderfully fun and brightly coloured blanket for her grandson … on Friday I’ll be chilling out with my friend R … on Saturday some friends of ours are holding their first BBQ of the summer! … I’m going to get back into doing some baking, something I haven’t done in ages … some friends and I are going to watch ‘Wives and Daughters’, bit by bit, over the next couple of Thursday evenings (can’t wait!) … two lovely friends are getting married in August, which will be a wonderful celebration! … I’m going to have some friends over myself for some fun times …

It’s not going to be a particularly slow summer, as I’m going to be going to an intensive summer program from June to September and I’m thrilled that I’m going to be starting training to be on the Youth Offending Team Panel – a wonderful project that I could talk about for hours … but I won’t right now!! 😛 Also, L is in his final weeks of his PhD, so is working long hours to get his thesis ready for his hand-in date at the end of June, so that adds some interest to life … !! 🙂 I have some reading to do between now and October, as the module I will be starting is 60 credits, including 12 hours placement time a week and then I will be starting another 60 credit course in February, which is all research, so my load next winter/spring/summer is going to be quite intense … in preparation, I’m going to be doing (uh-huh, I really will do it …) lots of reading for the module which starts next February, as I already have the materials for that …

However, despite these busy things, I have decided that I’m going to have some fun this summer!! So it’s gonna happen baby! 😀

The fun has already started!! Although I didn’t think it was going to be fun when I was preparing to start …

In preparation for what I knew was going to be two weeks of essay-focused-exausted-can’t-do-the-normal-functioning-me, every mealtime I made massive portions (ok, so this isn’t actually so abnormal, as having learnt to cook on 6-or-more-healthy-appitite-scales, I have extreme difficulty getting the amounts right for just 1 or 2 …) and froze at least 4 or 5 portions in readiness for my essay-hibernation. It has been truly wonderful for the last 2 weeks, to be able to pull a box out of the freezer, bang it in the microwave for 10 minutes, and serve up a home cooked meal – ohhh the bliss! Some of them needed pasta or rice cooked to go with the frozen portions, but the last number of days before my deadline, I always re-heated the meals which already had the pasta or couscous in them!! 😛

ecause of this blissful help, I haven’t done much grocery shopping or cooking over the past number of weeks, but now my essay is handed in and L is craving fresh vegetables (that’s my boy! 😀 ) it was time to roll up my sleeves, start to tackle the inevitable mountain of washing-up that accumulates when L and I are both stressed out with our studies, and get to work cooking up some yumminess!! Never mind the number of veggies crammed into a portion of butternut couscous or spicy sausage pasta, not to mention the beans and pulses … there is nothing to compare to a mound of freshly cooked, steaming, crunchy, green brocoli goodness!! Don’t forget the meat-content on the plate as well of course!! 😛

I had 0.0% desrire to do some washing up. I had 0.0% desire to create even more washing up by cooking a meal from scratch. After all, there were still many portions of dinner in the freezer … but I set to work, did (some of) the washing up and got out my chopping board and my favourite knife – the really massive one that dessimates carrots and garlic in seconds! 🙂

Ahhh, I have missed my cooking! The almost-theraputic feeling of peeling the carrots (yes, even my Bolognese doesn’t escape my veggie-obsession!) … the delicious crunch of the onions being chopped … the sizzle of the mince being added to the pan … the tang of the chopped tomatoes … the yummy bubbling noises as the pan of herbie-goodness sits and bubbles on the hob … yes, absolutely – I am addicted to cooking!! 😛

I peeled, sliced, fried, stirred and simmered up some beef Bolognese, whisked up some white sauce, chopped and buttered up some garlic bread, steamed some brocoli, esembled an overly large lasagna and served my hubby up with his first freshly cooked meal in a couple of weeks!

*Sigh of contentment*

Some of the projects I am really excited about working on this summer are:

My Patchwork Quilt: I originally started this projecy before L and I got engaged, as it was going to be a single quilt for L for that next Christmas … but then we were planning our wedding, so I decided to make it double-sized and finish it in time for The Big Day … well, any of you who have ever planned their own wedding or helped a friend plan their’s knows that, along with trying to hold down a new job, organize moving a fiance who has lived in the same room for six years and pack up your own stuff and decorate a friend’s wedding cake … exactly, just not realistic! 😛 So I’m further along then when I started … but I want to make some real progress over the summer!

My Scrapbook: I love taking photos (as you’ve probably realised by now! 😛 ) and when L and I started going out, I was doing a-photo-every-day-for-a-year project, which although, I had to let go over time, provided a good excuse for taking photos of L and I and what we did together … 🙂 I very much value photos and memories and love scrapbooking, so I started making a scrapbook of all the things that L and I did together and the fun photos we took of ourselves! It has been so much fun, but I have many, many photos still waiting to be transformed into pages! I am definitely looking forward to working on this lots over the summer! 🙂

Model Painting: Uh-huh, most of you are going to think me geeky and very sad, but I enjoy painting L’s Warhammer models, because I love painting, creating and crafty things, and L can’t see enough of the detail, so I do the majority of it – and really enjoy it! He has a lot of black-plastic or silver-metal models which he uses in his games with friends, but he would love to have painted … this was one of my birthday presents to him in March (don’t worry, I gave him some others that he didn’t have to wait for ages to actually get!!), to paint a lot more of his armies. Although I have not had the time or energy to do any painting in a long while, I am looking forward to getting stuck in to painting this summer! 😀

Some not-so-fun-but-still-want-to-get-done projects:

Sorting the Study: For the last couple of months, apart from being tied up with my degree and other unavoidable things, I have no known whether or not we would be moving in September, so every time I have thought about unpacking the last few boxes, throwing out as much paper as I can and properly organizing the study, I have had the thought in the back of my mind that it’s probably not worth it – I’ll just have to pack it all back into boxes again and move – yet again (the longest I have been living in one place over the last 3 years is 10 months!) – so I might as well leave it where it is, right? Now I know that we’re not going to have to move and I’m going to get to spend lots more time in my lovely home!! 😀 So … study/mess/boxes/disorganization – here I come!! I can’t wait! 🙂

Hanging Pictures and Photos: I go for lots of pictures, photos and quotes all over the walls – my room in my last shared-house was quite a mosaic! My hubby goes for a few well-chosen pictures and photos, with mainly clean, blank walls – L had six pictures/photos on the wall of his room, that was at least twice the size of mine! We have to come to a compromise in the middle … !! 😀 L is happy and I am happy with the number of pictures covering (not so much!) the walls of our living/dinning/kitchen room, the hall is decent, but needs a few wedding and family photos, but the study and bedroom boast just one picture between them!! Oh no! What will I do?!? Lol 😀 There is a pile of pictures and photos-in-frames on the floor in our bedroom and you better take note people – that pile is going to be getting smaller in the next couple of weeks!!! 😀

Getting to The Bottom of My Laundry Basket: ‘Nuff said! 😛

Cleaning the Corners of My Bedroom and Organizing the Bookshelves: You know the corners between you bedside-table and the wall? That space just behind the chair where you put your day-clothes-at-night and the-ones-that-haven’t-made-it-to-the-laundry-basket-yet? The little line of floorboards between your bedside and the bookcase? Yup, I want those dust-free! 🙂

The bookshelves … well, I guess this is a bit of my OCD-tendancies coming out, but I do love a well-organised and at-least-in-some-individual-way-logical book shelf!! Mine is neither of those things. At the time, my objective was to empty the pile of boxes that has books in them onto the shelves as quickly as possible … just as they came out … not worrying about subject … We decided that we wanted the top shelf of our biggest bookcase to be for out recipe books, but as they are substance/type/cuisine completely mixed up, that is as far as the order goes!! A Warhammer novel sits beside ‘A Case For Christ’, which is cheek-to-cheek with ‘Physicology of Behaviour’ (an old textbook of L’s), next to two copies of ‘Boundaries’ (we haven’t eliminated the doubles from our separate books yet!), followed by something like ‘Children Who Kill’ or ‘People Skills’ (both to do with my degree/career interests, just to avoid confusion!! 😛 ). So by the end of them summer, I want groups, categories, subject areas – you name the order, it’s going to be found on my bookshelves!! 😛

Kitchen Streamlining: I love my kitchen! I love having my very own kitchen, filled with my own pots and pans, hosting my own (ok, so it is included in our rented flat, but still!) fridge/freezer, with cupboards full of my own Tupperware and food stuffs! I love being the one who gets to decide what goes where and how my beautiful spice rack (a perfect, big, wooden, sanded, varnished spice rack which was hand-made by my youngest sister, T, especially for me, for a wedding present – it is one of my most treasured possessions!!) is organised!! However, it is a teeny-tiny kitchen area, with just one half-sized draw and limited cupboard and worktop space, so over the summer, I aim to re-organize my kitchen as needed, so that it is using every bit of space to the best possible advantage and maybe get some sort of kitchen organiser/extra storage space up, which doesn’t permanently mess up the walls … hmm ….

So here you go guys, you have lots to ask me about over the next months and if I don’t write about some of these projects and how they are going – tell me and bother me until I get some of them done!! 🙂

Meanwhile, I’m going to be enjoying my new-found sense of freedom, the sunshine, the warm weather, the fresh breezes and lots of lovely long walks – oh yes, and sleep! Lots and lots of sleep!!! 😀

What are your plans for the summer? Do you have any projects that you are looking forward to working on? Are you going to be able to get away on holiday/vacation with your family or friends?

I was going to include a bunch of photos that I’ve taken over the last couple of week, but sadly, my computer is playing up and won’t let me view or upload any photos – boooo!! 😦 Oh well, you’ll just have to put up with words! 😛 Next time …