Generally Gemma

University of Domesticity

There is a list in my head of things that I always thought that when I was a grown-up I would be able to do. Last year it suddenly hit me that at the age of 27 I am in all honesty a grown-up and that if I was going to learn to do these things I had better get a bit of a move on. They aren't big things like nuclear physics or molecular biology just little sort of domesticy things.

Knitting, cooking, baking, gardening, sewing, being able to take a decent picture, being able to keep a home that I wasn't ashamed of. All things that in my small person's head were things that a grown-up should be able to do. Who knows why as my beloved Mother struggles at times to turn her hand to some of those things! But in my head the list stuck. So to that end it might seem to some of my nearest and dearest that I have spent the last year, eighteen months taking up "hobbies", how I hate that word, and casting them aside quickly only to begin on something else!

Scrapping was the first, something that wasn't on the list but that appealed to me greatly once I discovered it! I've always loved looking at photos of when I was little and my parents were young and hearing the stories behind them. Then when my Father died it suddenly seemed that one day there might not be anyone to remember the stories. So, with the idea in mind that one day I too will hopefully have children with the same need I took up scrapping. The idea of endless albums of pictures with thoughtfully worded little stories next to them appealed to me. The idea of being able to document the big and small things in life for the future, well it seemed responsible somehow. So that was started and when I felt somewhat proficient at that I moved on to the next thing.

G was at University doing a PGCE, I was on a strict diet and we were on an extremely tight budget which meant that a degree of ability was needed in the kitchen. Something somewhat more tasty than marrow surprise! (Remember that one G and J?) So cookbooks were purchased containing healthy nutritious meals and I managed to feed my little family of two on a pittance for a year. Not always healthy meals though, that was where the baking came in! We also instituted the new tradition of mini Christmas. So that I could prove to myself that a Christmas dinner cooked by my own fair hands was a possibility! So now I can roast a chicken that is tasty and moist, roast potatoes, whip up healthy low fat muffins, delectable fattening cookies and I make a mean birthday chocolate cake if I do say so myself.

Then we moved out of the grotty small flat and into my, sorry our, beautiful maisonette with a garden! So this year we planted bulbs and plants all on our own. And we haven't killed them all off and most of the bulbs came up! I pruned shrubs at the right time to encourage growth, dug a border and all is good and cared for. So, that was another thing ticked off the list.

Knitting, was taken up just before Christmas scarves and hats were knitted for Christmas for various people and myself, I can turn a heel of a sock so I am feeling fairly confident that that is something I am capable of now too. Which just leaves sewing.

Now I can turn up a pair of trousers with the best of them, cobble together seams that have come undone, but is that really sewing? Nay I cry, I want to create, cut cloth and stitch from scratch. To which end I began a quilt, well a small one, more of a throw really. And I have stitched most of it by hand. At which point, I decided that this was a mugs game and what I really needed was a sewing machine! I am going to buy one at the weekend! This one in fact

                   
Nothing flash, nothing expensive, just in case I don't get on with it. But it should be enough for me to get a feel of it, for me to do a few things without getting frustrated with the machine as opposed to my lack of ability. Which I am sure I will do!

So once that is accomplished my little University course of domesticity will be over. So, what will be next? Do I attempt a masters in the art of pastry or sugar craft? Or will I embark on the long and ancient art of DIY?

Yummmmmmm

Yesterday I had planned to be in the garden. But because I had cleaned the windows it there for follows by the law of sod that it will pour of rain. So pour with rain it did. Not cold just rain, so off G and I traipsed to the library and supermarket in jumpers and no coats. Being hot is one thing the two of us don't cope very well with!

Then I home to bake. I have had a can of pumpkin sitting in the cupboard for a while now and yesterday was time to bake pumpkin bread ala Anna! I did change it a bit. Substituted crushed hazlenuts for walnuts and sprinkled some poppy and pumpkin seeds on the top. Still tasted divine though. Very moreish though, should have made more!

                  

A dear departed friend

Many years ago when we first bought the ancestral home in Spain we met this family. A family who became less like friends and more like part of our own family as the last twenty years went by. They were there for birthdays, Christmas, graduations and other happy times. They were there when my Daddy went in for his first big operation and they were there when he died and they helped us all pick up the pieces.

Today Richard, the father of their family died. So, Richard this is for you.

                      

It may seem an unfitting tribute to some but for those of us who knew him and spent many hours on a terrace, ours or theirs, downing a San Miguel or two it is the right sort.

Richard, I hope that you have found Daddy up there and you spent this Sunday as you would have others, watching the Grand Prix, but this time with a birds eye view and nothing to block it. I'll miss you.

Spring cleaning

Today I have been doing an awful lot of this

            

and this

            
The house is as sparkling as a clean new pin, including may I add the windows. A job I truly hate doing. This is all in the hope that next weekend, bank holiday weekend, will be nice. Which will mean I can spend three days pottering in the garden and soaking in the sun. If it isn't nice I will be desperately annoyed as today was blissful out there.

Things are coming up in the garden that I had no idea where there. At some point previous tenants must have planted things that are now sprouting to the surface in the strangest of places. For instance, what on earth are these?

               

They are coming up in cracks on the patio. Pretty but are they a weed or are they just pretty?

G did spend some of the day helping to tidy, he did all of the kitchen which I am eternally grateful for, and then this extravaganza occurred

               

               

Stack of freshly squeezed juice. 

               

And because I wasn't home for Easter and before I eat it all, this was the bunny and his little friends arriving a little belatedly for Easter at the G and G household.

                

                

                

So here is hoping for good weather next weekend so more of this sort of thing can be done

                  

One last thing, Mother dearest, that is most certainly not how you spell magnificent! Just because G is as thick as two short planks is no reason what so ever for you to start!

Let's start at the very beginning

... a very good place to start.

Well, I had a fabulous Easter weekend, from beginning to end it was a joy to behold.

Friday we went to G's spiritual home Ninian Park, home of the Bluebirds, Cardiff City football club, to the uninitiated. Who did not totally disgrace themselves however, in the words of the fans, we was robbed, with a 1 - 0 defeat.

However, they actually played some of the best football I have seen them play for a longtime. There were some injuries, some dirty play, which is all to the good as far as I am concerned. It was a lovely sunny day but still rather cold so at half time, the tea thermos came out, beautifully modelled here by G's brother.

More football pics can be seen here

Then off we went to Cardiff Bay, a place that has seen some serious regeneration in the last few years. I didn't know the area in it's previous incarnation but this site gives a potted history of it, if you are interested. We normally go in the Summer, have lunch have a wander around, visit the exhibits there and it is amazing, you would never think that you were in Wales.

The Welsh are very proud of their history and heritage and this is something that strikes you about the bay as you meander your way around. Although it is a place with a modern cosmopolitan feel to it, they have tried to remind you of it's beginnings, from the Norwegian church that they kept to The Assembly at the Pierheads, to the Millennium Centre that is built using materials only from the surrounding area.

The reason we were in the Bay was to see the tour of Starlight Express at the Millennium Centre, a show I had always wanted to see but had given up hope of doing so since it ceased it run in London. A real treat for me, especially as musicals aren't really something that G's family do. (G's Mum is a huge opera fan and her sons are far more on her side of the fence than mine I think!)

It was incredible, the skating was amazing, the cast can do things on wheels that I struggle to do on two feet flat on the ground. Some of the music was quite witty, the country music train who sings of being U-N-C-O-U-P-L-E-D springs to mind. Some of the solo numbers dragged a bit but you can't expect wonderment from every tune I suppose.

Then it was home for more hot cross buns and bed.

 

The next day we went to St Fagans, somewhere else I have wanted to go since seeing a tv programme about the gardens there. There is an awful lot more than the gardens including what I like to call in my mind, the Welsh Dr Who village, but after more than three hours of traipsing round gardens and taking pictures both mine and the MIL's knees had begun to play up so it was home for yet more tea. (Tea is very important to me!)

There are more pictures here.

Easter Day was quiet with visiting G's Grandfather, the eating of too much chocolate and the joy of a train journey back to London. Which was not only on time for once, but actually  early by seven minutes! Miracles will never cease.

Easter Monday was a day of rest in the G and G household, I did some more piecing of my quilt whilst G sat and watched sport and more sport. I indulged in teenager movies to my eternal embarrassment.

And so the weekend was over and it was back to reality and work and school for G. It was truly a lovely weekend one though, busy yet relaxing at the same time, which I simply wouldn't have thought was possible!

Happy Early Easter

                         

Happy Easter folks when it gets here. I am off to Wales this evening to spend the weekend with G's family, so I won't be around for the festivities. Enjoy be merry and I hope that the Bunny visits all who he is supposed to.

Guilty shopping

          

I have made some purchases recently from some various places. After seeing some of the beautiful tablecloths on Jane's blog I decided that I needed some for myself, so I took myself off to eBay to see what I could find.

I am amazed at the work that has gone into them, to think that people have spent that amount of time on something so useless in a way. When you think of how hard women had to work in some places it seems against the grain that I had the time to sit and make these amazing things that were purely so decorative. When you think of how little time we seem to have today with all our so called labour saving devices. Jane wrote a wonderful description of the crinoline ladies here on her blog.

               

         

The daffodil one I just fell in love with. As you may have noticed from previous blog posts I seem to have inherited my Mother's adoration for these gaudy yellow trumpets.

Then I went browsing peoples blogs and found not only do they make these creative things for themselves, but some of them actually sell them to other lucky people. So, of course the temptation proved too much.

So, I had this from Jackie. 

This from Anna, who kindly is putting the money to her Race for Life sponsorship.
(A cancer charity)

And finally this little addition called Peachy from Alicia. Who is so much more cute in person, and is simply exhausted from flying all the way to England from the States in just two days!

I love all my new things from these incredibly talented people. It is rather intimidating though, when I think of all the things I would love to make and do but aren't sure how to.

Can I also just say how beautifully packaged everything is. It makes such a difference, it is almost as though you are receiving a present. I had an especially horrid morning today which I don't want to go into and when Peachy arrived in her lovely little box it was as though the sun had come out on my rainy day.

Which leads me nicely on to the quilt progress, which is more of a little throw really that I am doing all by hand to prove to G that there actually would be a benefit to my owning a sewing machine. I have sewn all the strips together ready to press tonight and then it will all come to a standstill while I am away. However, I am going to take advantage of the lengthy train journey to Cardiff to try and make some head way on my sock. So I will be loading up my lovely pink Sony mp3 player thing with some music and G will at last have the peaceful journey he has always dreamt of.

Glad for my Garden

Well I haven't blogged for a while, shame on me, so I am going to do two posts this evening, as tomorrow I will be taking a little blogging holiday while we go to visit G's mother (MIL) for the long Easter weekend. So here we go.

Last weekend was family weekend at the Generally Gemma household. G went to his Mum's to watch the football and I went off to see my Granny for the day. It was lovely to see her, my Aunt came over too and we gossiped and chatted and talked gardens and then my Aunt gave me some cuttings from her garden that she had potted on. Thyme, rosemary and a tree thing that I can't remember the name of, how dreadful. I also stopped at the market and bought myself a geranium and some heather. Those two are inside at the moment, as we still seem to be getting occasional frost and I don't really want them to die.

             

             

             

I also took advantage of the gorgeous weather on Saturday to take some pictures of some more stuff that has come out in the garden.

             

             

I did take some other pictures and those and my previous pictures are all here.

Ssssshhhh

   

Just a little something.

A day and a daffodil short

Well, I had this lovely long post all typed out last night and then typepad went and ate it and refused to belch it back out again. It was the most tremendous bit of prose, I have written! (Yeah right!)

It was mostly about the housewifely day that I had had cleaning and cooking and knitting my sock!

                        

After frogging it back once and then being ill for a week it seems to be taking a little longer than it should otherwise. Still I am going great guns now. Now I have passed the heel it is all boring stocking stitch, but at least it is mindless and doesn't interfere with my extensive television viewing!

                         

So knitting folk, would this be my gusset? For a first sock and a novice knitter I am quite pleased with it really, the other side is a bit holey but, still, I am stupidly proud considering.

My best purchase of the weekend was this:

                            

A Dora the Explorer Easter egg! One of Mum's friends has a little boy who loves and adores Dora because she speaks English and Spanish just like he does! Sadly in Spain there isn't a lot of call for Dora things so occasionally I find specialness like this and buy them for him. He probably won't get it until the Summer, and packing will mean that he doesn't get the chocolate but it is actually all about the breakfast set. Bowl, spoon, egg cup and mug, all with Dora and Boots emblazoned across it! (Excuse the quality of the photo, plastic covering does not a good photo make.)

And because these days no post seems right without daffodils.

                              

                              

My little rays of sunshine!