Noisy night tonight – people on two sides of us are letting off fireworks. Kids are loving it; animals are not.
Done some experimental cookery today. Firstly made a vegan version of penguin biscuits by dipping bourbons in melted chocolate – very good though will not put such a thick layer of chocolate on them next time (who would have thought ‘less-is-more’ could ever apply to chocolate???) . The children decided to design some wrappers for them, Charlotte going with colourful penguins and Daniel has given us the Death Star and a Sun (he’s been reading up on various sci-fi languages like Clingon and Star Wars based ones so is on a Star Wars thing). Then we made our own seitan for the first time. Used a mixture of two recipes, one given me by Catriona and one from this book which I was sent for review. Was a very interesting process, explaining to the children about gluten and watching it cook. Charlotte commented how it looked like brains and what a shame we hadn’t made it for Halloween! Hopefully it will taste better than it looks at present.
Below: a yew avenue from today’s walk, the scary seitan sitting in it’s broth (actually tastes lovely and lemony) and the biccies.
The Artists Way: A Course in Discovering and Recovering Your Creative Self - an intensely powerful and synchronistic way of clearing blocks, old psychological patterns and dysfunctions of the past. Get doing your morning pages, they're amazing!
fabulous guide to foraging in Britain.
amazing Russian books these: spirituality; growing; living naturally; raising children with love and respect; quite magical. Release any preconceived ideas of how life should be (or books) and create your space of love!
A very well researched novel which, alongside Picoult's usual 'heading to a trial' plot, explores many facets of and perspectives on Asperger's Syndrome. The potential and common effects of AS on siblings is especially well documented here. As gripping and informative a book as 
a great storehouse of food growing knowledge from Dirty Nails :)
"Girls just wanna have... wanna have fun...", and we still are :)
