Becoming Domestic

My son really disliked peas. The way to get him to finally after years of cajoling him try some and announce ‘Yum!’ was staightforward but long winded in the extreme. I had to sow peas, grow peas, stake the peas, have the children pick the peas, shell the peas and only then did he feel the urge to put one in his mouth.

Bit of a shame I didn’t plant acres of the things as this evening he asked ‘Where are the rest of the peas we picked?’ (I ate them with my dinner last night) cue lots of boo-hooing about how he didn’t know he liked peas and now he does he wants to eat more but they’ve all gone! I feel a trip to the greengrocer coming on.

What I don’t know is whether pea plants are like runner beans and keep on producing more pods the more one picks them (perhaps yes as that’s the theory with sweet pea flower crops) or once the harvest has been taken is that all there is from that plant (like potatoes). I recall that the packet of pea seeds instructed me to plant another row or two every few weeks so I would have a continuous crop which makes me think perhaps the latter is true.

Veg growing, it seems, is very much a lifelong process of learning.

[Update - I just found this which is helpful for those new to pea growing like me]

http://www.gardenaction.co.uk/fruit_veg_diary/fruit_veg_mini_project_april_1b_pea.asp#Harvest%20peas

Harvesting Peas
Garden peas are best when slightly immature - when fully mature they become hard and loose the sweet taste. Harvesting them early also encourages them to produce more. As a guide, peas are normally ready for harvest three weeks after flowering. Peas quickly loose their flavour after harvesting, so pick them just before they are required for cooking.

The peas at the bottom of the plant will tend to be ready first, so begin harvesting here, working up as time progresses. When the plant stops producing peas, cut the top of the plant off and leave the roots in the ground to compost for next year.

Last month my daughter and I decided to create a mini pond in our rented garden with the hope of finding some frogspawn to come and live in it.

We built the pond from an inexpensive ‘tub trug’ and placed loads of rocks in it and around it so the small creatures could get in and out of it without drowning (according to our bee keeping friend Janet - even bumble bees need a rock to stand on when they drink or they’d fall in and drown). We used rain water collected from the rain butt to fill it and the final touch were a couple of pond plants bought at the Malvern Gardening Show (a miniture pink water lily and a water iris).

We never did find any frogspawn as everyone we asked claimed that the local herons eat all the tadpoles but instead we have enjoyed watching loads of birds discover the drinking facility. It also brings a small bit of height and interest to our newly created triangular herb/cut flower border and the two of us girls really enjoyed creating something together.

Making the mini pond:

The mini pond in June:

Edie and I watched some ladybirds ‘cuddling’ last week and photographed them.

Later in the week when we found our newly flowering aquilegas were covered in aphids I suggested we go on a ladybird hunt as they are good at eating all the aphids.

We were both a little surprised to find one who did in fact start gobbling the aphids as predicted when we placed it on one of the affected plants.

Yesterday we watched yet another ladybird lay some eggs next to the back door and both kids have been looking at the cluster through a big magnifying glass to see if any of them have hatched yet.

I pointed out a few ladybird larvae wandering the pine needles of last years Christmas tree (growing happily in a pot) to Edie but I wasn’t convinced that I had my facts right as they look so unlikeadult ladybirds.

Having just read this ladybird factsheet I now know that young ladybirds are just as good at getting rid of unwanted greenfly and whitefly and so should be treated as welcome visitors in the garden.

Usually a mother ladybird would lay her eggs near to a plentiful food supply (ie. on a plant with loads of aphids on) rather than a scorching, barren, south facing brick wall.

The female we watched lay two batches and then as the last egg emerged she ate it! The children were a bit perplexed by this and kept asking me why she did it and I really didn’t have a good answer other than ‘Maybe she was very hungry and she knew it wasn’t a good egg to hatch..’

A lot of lucky kids have playhouses in the garden which are smashing but they do cost a fortune. This new structure in the garden for our kids to play in cost £40 for materials (willow ‘withy wood’, twine and weed-free membrane) plus a half-day of labour. It looks quite pretty already but it should grow leaves all over it soon and will be a lovely leafy hideaway in our garden which has no shade at all for the children on a hot sunny day.

My daughter spotted a book in the adults section of our tiny local library and asked me to borrow it. We looked at How Does Your Garden Grow?: Great Gardening for Green-Fingered Kids (Hamlyn Gardening) by Clare Matthews and Clive Nichols that evening and were really excited to see so many great but easy looking projects and ideas with step-by-step lovely photos. Things like painting a couple of old tyres and stacking them to form a pretty pot for a small tree or shrub which could also be used as a seat for a little one. I showed the ‘Build a willow dome’ project to Bealers who to my amazement said ‘Get the wood & I’ll have a go at building that’.

After dinner I searched the internet for local suppliers of willow cuttings and found that it is only sold during the winter period Nov-March due to its dormant season (it starts putting out roots and shoots in spring and needs to be planted before then). A local supplier, JPR Willow ‘Living Willow & Sculpture Supplies’ had sold out of most of the bundles of willow but were still selling bundles of 8ft rods for £30 and could deliver on Monday but as we were near them on Saturday we picked it up instead.

One day’s hard graft in the garden by Bealers but with 6 of his nearest/dearest keeping him company in the warm April sunshine on Sunday we are now the proud owners of a new playhouse that will hopefully root and grow.

With just a small touch of irony we have called it ‘Withywood House’ as it is made of ‘withy’ wood but also because the large sprawling south Bristol council estate Bealers grew up on is called Withywood (if you click on the link you’ll see just how green and leafy a place it isn’t). His mum and step-dad still live there and they were here for the weekend while he built it.

Step 1: Draw a circle with a stick and a bit of string cut to the length of the radius. Apparently the rods should be twice as long as the diameter of your hut. Ours were 8ft so thehut is approximately 4ft across.

Step 2: Dig out the turf within this circle and edge it with compost so the rods have something nice to grow into. We put the discarded turf pieces upside down on the compost pile hoping that they will rot down there instead of growing.

Step 3: Peg in a weed-free membrane.

Step 4: Make the doorway with two strong rods.

Step 5: Start poking the 6 structural rods through the membrane and into the ground so that enough of the length of them will root and has a good foundation for the dome.

Step 6: Start bending them into the middle and tying together with garden twine.

Step 7: Create a ’supporting wall’ for the top of the door.

Step 8: Start adding the ‘wall’ rods in an oversized basket-weaving fashion working them in at an angle and parallel to each other in one direction then back the other way with the rods going in the other direction.

Step 9: Tie with twine at each intersection (not photographed because we left Bealers to it while we went to a four year olds party). Apparently this step takes some time.

Blessed Bealers wondered if I had anything in particular I wanted to do to mark this Sunday’s Mothers’ Day.

After about 1 second of thought I realised I didn’t want cut flowers or to be wheeled out to a restaurant with the rest of the nation’s matriachs. Instead I’ve suggested that if the weather’s fine we all do some gardening together. The kids are going to make me a bin-lid pond and Bealers is going to remove one corner of the lawn so I can turn it into somewhere to plant flowers (mainly Dahlias as it happens). We’ll all continue to dig and weed the vegetable patch getting it ready to plant seedlings in a few weeks when the ground has warmed up (& when we’ve sowed some seeds).

This will bring me huge amounts of joy - having all four of us busy in the garden is one of my favourite things and improving what we have here will make the summer months even more lovely.

This time last year we were using some of my City bonus to book a Beale family holiday for some urgent winter-sun in Lanzarote, one of the Spanish Canary Islands.

We did have a wonderful time but it was tremendously expensive and if the weather had been poor we would have been hard pressed to find interesting things to do with the 3 year olds as the bulk of our time was (fortunately) spent by the pool or at the beach.

Like many families in the UK the beginning of the year involves some planning of time out and happily due to my husband’s hard work with his internet software business, Siftware, and general year-long thriftiness we are again in the lucky position to be able to take a little time out with the children and have a one week family holiday before summer.

This year however, since massively increasing our environmental awareness and our family’s impact on the earth’s environment, neither Bealers or myself were keen on flying anywhere.

We both love the UK and figured that we could probably save money and not be responsible for air fuel burning by having a UK based holiday instead. The only slight drawback with holidays in this country is that you have to enjoy being cold unless you are ok with taking your holidays exclusively in July/August or September.

As Bealers needed a very well earned break sooner rather than later we investigated Center Parcs holiday centres which looked very inviting for families with small children like us with their 400 or so acres of car-free woodland with self-contained, self-catering, log-cabin style accomodation all centered around a central ’sub-tropical swimming zone + village area’.

There seem to be hundreds of child friendly activities to get involved in if we want to (additional costs though) such as horse riding, owl watching, pizza making, belly dancing, football as well as outdoor water-based pursuits for Daddy (windsurfing, sailing). We’re presuming that the on-site restaurants will be poor as I’ve read a few reviews on Mumsnet and will bring some supplies with us rather than relying on the shop. Bealers will most probably enjoy having the time to cook and as he’s a far better cook than me I’m defintely looking forward to a break from dinner duty.

Everyone we know who has visited Center Parcs seems to have come away with positive things to say about their experience so we have booked a 1 week stay in the Lake District Center Parc, 2 bedroom house and are looking forward to a 7 days of car-free cycling, swimming and yes, the occasional 3 hours where the kids are both enjoying some kiddie club action (messy play, dressing up as super heros, that kind thing), and potentially some super-indulgent spa/treatment time for me. Gosh I now realise that we’re going to come home very rosy-cheeked indeed with all that exercise!

According to The Obsever’s ethical columnist Lucy Siegle who recently appeared on the BBC Radio 2 Chris Evan’s show with her tips for green holidaying: “Centre Parcs are very ecologically and ethically sound, and they do great and affordable family holidays, for short and longer breaks. They encourage constructive physical activities and no one drives on site – everyone cycles or walks. It’s relaxed and enjoyable.”

I’m really hoping that spring will have started to have sprung in Cumbria when we go as forest life with daffodils out, birds tweeting and buds emerging will almost certainly make us feel just as great if not even better than our week in the Canary Islands and like a great wintery weight has been lifted.

Despite the fact that I truely hate being cold, the kids and I have discovered this winter that we really like visiting beaches when it’s super cold (but sunny) as they are always deserted and it feels so wonderful to have so much open space & light all around us.

Yesterday we visited deserted Weston-super-Mare beach while Bealers was doing some business in the town centre. We had such a great time chasing the waves, swinging seaweed around and generally shouting as loud as we could, drawing in the sand and playing underneath the pier (admitedly had to keep a beadie eye out for naughty piles of doggy dirt though).

Luckily I’d packed a huge bag of spare clothes for each child but actually wished I’d packed more as poor Edie’s wellies were full of seawater by the time we left and so she was in stocking’d feet for the rest of the day I also hadn’t anticipated them getting so wet that even their underwear needed changing on such a bitterly cold day. Next time I will take 3 sets of dry clothes for the kids and an extra pair for me too. I was also glad for the sugary cereal bars & fruit juices I’d brought with us as an energy boost was definitely needed after the adrenalin had dried up and the chills set in.

A few weeks ago we found ourselves on Swansea/Mumbles beach - again with very few people to share it with. Both kids are now lobbying hard for us to move to either Weston or Swansea so we can have some daily beach action! They think of both places as paradise on Earth.

We listened to the local radio station to hear the long list Worcestershire schools who were unable to open due to to overnight snow & the kids were thrilled when they finally heard the name of their pre-school.

The kiddies and their Daddy wolfed down some steamy porrdige and Horlicks before making an enormous snow woman with leeky pigtails. Bealers then left for his very picturesque walk to work.

As many readers will know I’m not one for splashing the cash these days and have therefore managed to put off the day when I took my kiddies to the local soft play centre ‘Having a Ball’ in Malvern for the 7 months since we relocated here from London. This was partly my daughter’s doing as she has taken the same 7 months to finally reach the last square on a 30 piece sticker chart (one sticker for each night that she managed to stay in her own bed instead of waking me up, sneaking into mine and requiring eviction during the wee hours - no fun in freezing winter, do the math I’ve had 30 good nights’ sleep in approx 200 days no wonder I look so ropey!). She was always promised (cajoled, begged, pleaded too) that the day she reached the final square would be the day we would visit the soft play place…

On the way to the centre the kids were telling me that they hoped it would be as good as the soft play centre in Leytonstone we used to go to as it had ball ponds, a slide and a bouncy bit. WELL little did we know that Having A Ball in Malvern was about 300 times the size in every dimension and that grown ups are allowed in and that they had a vast sea of tables and chairs for parents to sit at if they needed a break from sweaty soft play. A cafe, huge clean toilets with kiddie loos and kiddie wash basins. I was in heaven and have realised that it is actually very reasonabley priced as for £5 for both children I didn’t see them for about 2 hours apart from them waving from the dizzy heights of the warehouse ceiling and could take my trusty laptop next time and get a great chunk of work done.

They came out rosy cheeked, well exercised and delerious with joy especially as one of their classmates had turned up unexpectedly. We all loved it and can now see why friends of mine take their small twins each week for some kids play safely while parent read papers.

Our little ones celebrated their 4th birthday this weekend. On the big day itself we all had a great time and marvelled at how they have grown so much in four short years. They had a huge stash of cards and presents to open (thank you, thank you so much to all of you reading who sent them something it was really fab watching them open beautiful cards and great gifts), we had Grandma and Grandad Bob come up for the day from Bristol, had “very very very special treat fish n chips” for lunch and then attempted to feed the not very hungry ducks at at the nearby village pond (this is what the kids said they really wanted to do for a birthday treat lord love ‘em). Grandma bless her had brought along a cake so we did candle blowing (twice of course) and generally had a rip roaring time with a load of balloons all round the house.

Bealers mysteriously took Morris ‘Out, to do something nice for Eden’ halfway through the morning. When they came back Mo was carrying a big bunch of lovely tulips / daffodils for his sister and Bealers had bought a huge bouquet for me. Good Beale Boys (and especially lovely Bealers for bringing your boy up to know that us girls kinda like that sort of thing)!

On Sunday we had further celebrations with our first ever proper party which was held at our house. I had put quite a lot of thought into which games would be fun for seven children ranging from 2 years to four and had a scribbled list with potential timings to include musical cushions, musical bumps, pass the parcel and a nice quiet memory game with lots of small objects placed on a tray and covered with a pillow case. We only managed one round of pass the parcel as it soon became obvious the party posse was much keener on mild anarchy & mayhem based around the contents of our playroom. In the end I put the stereo in the playroom with ‘Pop Party 3‘ playing & left them all to it while all the mummies and daddies enjoyed grown up nibbles in the kitchen.

The kids did however enjoy the birthday tea and cake.