Soapy Stevens

Hello again! It's been a while, and as usual I've been busy, and taking photos the while, always with the intention of writing a blog post - but not actually writing it! (When I was in college, I used to think about writing or phoning home, and then when I did, Mother would say she had been thinking about it too - and writing letters in her head but never sitting down to put them on paper and post them. Actually, we're both the same now, and it's 24 years later!)

At the start of the holidays we had The Girls for a sleepover and a climbing party, to celebrate Girl's 14th birthday.

Then it was the exhibition in Seaford with my usual last-minute flurries of preparation. We had nearly 600 visitors in all, and everyone sold something - hooray! It was utterly lovely to spend time just sitting, either in the gallery or on the beach, without the guilt that I should be "doing" something.

Since the exhibition finished I've caught up on some gardening, and even done a bit of dressmaking. Remember when I made a sort of sack? This time I've made a voluminous blouse. My reasoning being the Japanese models in my dress books are so slight and willowy, I need to scale up and cut out a 12 not a 10. And then my seam allowances are probably a bit off too, so I keep ending up with large, shapeless bags. Comfy, but definitely bags! Just as well I don't teach dressmaking...

In news of sourdough, I have well and truly got this nailed, I can tell you. Look at that:

And the "crumb" shot:

And how about hot cross buns from the excess starter?! Genius! Ok, they were ready at 10pm on Easter Sunday so a little more work may be needed on the timings, but they were utterly delicious for breakfast!

And today yesterday I finally got round to making a batch of seaweed soap, something I've been meaning to do since last August. The packets of dried seaweed from the French health food shop have been sitting there waiting patiently, but I admit I chucked away my hand collected and "home dried" (ie laid out on a bin bag in the sun until crispy) seaweeds from the beach. 

It was all a bit of a palaver, involving multitudinous implements, pans and items of protective clothing, but the smell lingering in the house now is amazing, and no! It's not what you think! I used sweet geranium, bergamot and patchouli essential oils (and a touch of green clay). I can't wait until the four weeks is up and I can try it! 

* Two Way Stretch, 1960, starring Peter Sellers, Bernard Cribbins et al

Life under canvas

'oscopies and trains under the sea and 500 mile drives completed, when we arrive at our most favourite summer retreat we spend most of the first week falling asleep at any and every opportunity

But when we have slept enough, we unzip our front door and greet the day

and just a short walk from our canvas home we find this

Actually, when we live under canvas everything is a short walk: toilets, taps, showers, washing up, rinsing vegetables, new elephants for the coolbox...

But if that wasn't enough exercise, there is an awful lot of this to run about on and chase whippets

and a lot of this to paddle in

and play the role of "embarrassing Mother" by sketching seaweed whilst standing knee deep in icy salty water

and some of us also swim in it,

while others only go as deep as the ankles

some of us probably have more inbuilt layers of insulation than others...

When we've warmed up again after our paddlings and swimmings (note to self: take sheepskin boots and/or mohair socks for the cold toes) we potter about on bicycles and find little lanes that we'd like to live down

or buy icecreams from the nice people in the office

and maybe do a bit of paint flinging and paper sticking

or some of us may stay in our cage crate all day, depressed because we were bitten when having a lovely chasing game on the beach and it is sore and we're not allowed to lick it and we cost our owners quite a few euros in out-of-hours vet's bills...

but never mind, we've discovered a new doggy chew

and at the end of the day

we go back to bed in our canvas sanctuary and sleep for hours and hours, all over again

and only wake up to walk to the loo in the dark, stargaze, and count the flashes on the different lighthouses and buoys.

We miss it.

I'm in heaven

or at least I soon will be.

We've finally made the decision to go here again this summer:

Deciding where to go wasn't really the hard part.  After all, this will be our seventh year going to the same place: the Girl doesn't remember spending summer holidays anywhere else.  Depressingly, the decision rested on whether Mr Gonecycling had had just a little too much time to go cycling this year and not enough time writing words in exchange for hard cash.

But in the end it was this weekend's weather that swung it for us.  Wrapped up in waterproofs for our whippet walks, with the drizzle dripping off the end of our noses, someone sooner or later pipes up "Camping, anybody?" and we know we just have to go again.  It doesn't always rain...and if we do get wet, someone will dry us off with big fluffy towels:

And so, despite having a mountain of preparation to do for the Art Trail, part of me is in heaven already.  I've dug out lists and notebooks from previous years, packed full of indispensable advice such as "red fruity teabags are good", "take a large ginger cake", "bottle of cold rosé from the bar 7€" and not forgetting gems such as "Best baguette from yellow bakery 1€, exploding bread 85¢".  I've even got the drawing I did of how we packed the car last year.

And most fun of all, I've started a chart of Eurotunnel crossings, arrival times and estimated driving times, taking into account the time spent queuing for every single blimmin' autoroute toll on the way home last year...

Bliss. 

End of the Earth

Hey ho.  Another year, another 500 photos of the same place - but this year with added whippet.