Just Humans Being...

Is the view we never tire of... Really enjoying our 10 minutes or more of walking, it's good to just drop everything & escape! On our return - we made pizzas. For the dough, we use Shipton's Mill Flour, Dove's Farm Yeast, Cornish Sea Salt, Olive Oil & water - with a sprinkle of oregano & sesame seeds. The topping Suma Tomato Puree, mixed with Suma Vegan Pesto & more Olive Oil.  I can post the recipe if anyone is interested. We then add what whatever veg we fancy - last night was garlic, onions, mushrooms... And sliced green olives.  Hugo also had a sprinkle of organic cheddar on his! Enjoyed lots of discussion last night about the way we treat older people in this country, triggered by Karin's blog at:  Green and Generous  - check it out & join the conversation. And before I forget - we saw this in St Austell on Tuesday & it reminded me of  Just Gai's Blog Off to Eden today, last day of locals for £5 entry - got to get our annual pa...

Our first session at the home ed group this year, so was lovely to catch up with everyone! While we were in France, some of the kids had a go at making a stop-motion video, so we heard all about it today - here is their first attempt: The group has received some funding & the kids have decided to have a formal training session in animation, so next month they'll be attending a workshop. They've also done lots of research & were keen to show us some amazing stop-motion videos they have found inspiring. This is my favourite: I wonder how many days that woman spent on the bed! The Animation Workbench. Computer Zone. Sime is usually upstairs in the music room, but he was on drying up duty after lunch! The centre we use for the group is in the centre of Truro, which is the capital (very small) city of Cornwall. Most of the kids are able to come by train - which is great! All the volunteers have had to have police checks - which have finally all come through, so we...

Today, we decided to start the day with a juice. We've had our juicer for about 3 years & it does make the most incredible juices... Today's was Apple, Carrot & Beetroot - all organic. We added a teaspoon of ground Rose Hips... And it was delicious! We went along to a cleaning demo after breakfast - work does tend to get in the way at times, but we were very impressed:  Enjo  are an Austrian company, who have created cleaning cloths, etc that can be used with just water. We use  Bio D Products  or have done so up until now... After seeing the various cloths & gloves do the jobs effortlessly, we decided to make a few purchases & if they don't work for us - we'll get our money back, so watch this space! Then it was off to a local Gurkha restaurant for a meal with the kidlets... We haven't seen Sal for over 5 weeks, so it was lovely to catch up! As usual, we were non-stop chatting & somehow I got away with taking a photo of Hugo without him c...

The title actually comes from the fact that Sime & his band have been repeatedly playing this song for the last hour or so & it's now in my head & no doubt will be for the next few days! It may be Valentine's Day, but when there's a gig coming up - the band come first... But I don't mind, as we don't really celebrate commercial days anyway. Why should we follow the herd & spend huge amounts of money on cards & gifts? Isn't it much nicer for romance to be spontaneous? I think so. We've had 2 days off work, so that's been good & today - we have started following Andrew Weil's:    8 Weeks to Optimum Health,  to get us back on track after eating far too much dairy in France! Part of the programme is walking each day, the first week is supposed to be for 5 minutes, building up to 45  by the 8th week. We did more, but the weather was good today. This is the view, just a few minutes down our lane... It was funny, because normally ...

It's so lovely to be home... Being with our furry friends... Flea "high" on Catnip. Our big bear of a cat has missed his Daddy! Lupin is such a lovely boy! The sun came out to play yesterday... And made the sea look beautiful. Our quiz team (We called ourselves "The Winning Team") lost by one point... But we still enjoyed our evening... Especially the musical interlude with "The Mevagissey Quartet".  Their songs, mostly about growing up in Mevagissey had beautiful harmonies! Us - trying to be serious! I like my little camera phone - Sime found it in a hedge down the lane 3 years ago. We thought it was no good as it was full of moisture, but 1 year later - we discovered it had dried out. We tried a sim card from an old phone & hey presto - it worked!!!  Sime always has to spoil things... Looking forward to some nice things this week:  Having a gathering of kidlets & spending some time with our family - which is always nice!   Home ed...

We've been home for a couple of days now & started work again yesterday. The weather has remained awful - drizzle & grey skies, but amazingly, we've had lots of energy. Our customers have been glad to see us, which is nice & tomorrow we'll meet up with local friends for a family quiz night in the village cricket club. We're surprisingly getting back into the swing of things... Sime's band are here jamming in our back room - practising for their gig next Friday & as usual the house is vibrating!  The view from our first job yesterday! I'm really keen on starting some of the projects we'd vowed to do during the  No Impact Week  - preserving food, eating as locally as possible, using less energy, etc, etc. Haven't been able to buy yeast on our return for bread making, will have to look at making sour dough again, although previously - it's been a bit vinegary! We have yet another job on tomorrow & we're getting lots of enquiri...

More food today... Sime & Hugo were very excited at the thought of some British grub for breakfast! In reality it was pretty awful & after looking out of the hotel window - I wished we were back in France... Our whole journey home felt very drab & grey, lots of traffic on litter covered roads. Even Stonehenge looked dismal! Seeing the huge pigs further down the road - didn't lift us, just left us feeling sad. We stopped off for a plate of vegetables at a pub in Exeter & still we all seemed subdued... Now we're home & it's nice to be back, Sime's happy pottering around, Hugo's on his comp talking to his friends - while I'm supposed to be organising our work schedule for the next few days. But instead, I'm thinking about the next adventure... Kay :)