Love and the sea...

Home again. It has been a long, hard couple of days and this is one of the only downsides of going to our part of Brittany: leaving the house around 10.30, having to kill time until the night ferry from Roscoff (admittedly we have got this bit down to a child-friendly tee with a day trip to the local zoo followed, I'm ashamed to say, by dinner at the Buffalo Grill, a bizarre and very popular American country and western chain that is a curiosity of French culture), then a dreadful night's sleep in a cabin with two over-tired and yet over-excited children, wake up calls at around five in the morning then driving back to get home at the time most people are thinking about what to have for Sunday breakfast, and then having to kill another day without killing eachother. But it is worth it. That's how much I love it there.

On the drive home this morning it suddenly occurred to me that it was usually my time for a morning swim, well, usual for the last two weeks anyway. The thought of it nearly brought tears to my eyes. I will miss that so much. Imagine as a taster starting to walk down to the shore on a beach with only birds' footprints in the sand:-



Imagine then that off to the left the sun is shining and leaving blinding sparkles on a small stretch of the sea. A few weeks ago I was baffled about why for me putting beads on the right hand side of the sea in my pictures felt so wrong, and while I was away I realised that it is all based upon my first-thing-in-the-morning swim here and where the sun is at that point. Imagine too that the sea is usually calm and clear and you can see through the water around your feet and occasionally spot a shoal of tiny fish or a little crab scuttling. Imagine though that everything is a little bit fuzzy, just because you haven't bothered to put in your contact lenses yet. Imagine the cold around your legs, enough to make  you think of turning back, but not as bad as the ribbing you would get if you went back indoors still dry, or the shame of the thought of any strangers watching you give up. So imagine the final immersion, the gasp-inducing cold followed by a warm internal glow a couple of minutes later, all bleary-eyed sleepiness gone from your existence. A shower, a pain aux raisins and a coffee and all is good in the world.

Coming home today was also hard because I had to find about my two exhibitions. First the one in Nailsea: no sales but apparently some interest. So the Clevedon Art Club one was doubly tense and I felt a little emotional in my fatigue as I was driving there to pick up my pictures; should I give it all up if it hadn't gone well? I was wondering if any had sold but more pressingly had any of the four even been selected to be exhibited? What if nothing had even been on show? Well it turned out there was not a lot to be concerned about: all four had been in the show, and one had sold! And weirdly, aptly and tellingly the one of the beach where I was on holiday had sold:-



 

And that feels good. Odd that I had made it so many months before and yet had to wait until I was back on that beach for it to get sold. Great that I hadn't taken it with me to try and sell over there, which would never have been easy. And proof once again that love of something in a picture comes through and appeals to other people. Must do more sea pictures...

Thoughts from Loctudy

Life is good at the moment. We are eating the best food that I can think of, the weather is just perfect for messing about on the beach with a dip in the sea every few hours and we haven't had to think of organising outings yet other than for topping up our food levels. Just to give you a feel, this is the view from the house:-

 

Well that is at high tide; this is the view at low tide:-

 

We can see the Glenan islands on the horizon, and the sea is near enough when the tide is high for us to hear it in our beds. The dark rocks on the left are covered in two things: seaweed and further away mussels, hundreds and thousands of them, big and juicy and luscious. My six year old and I picked some yesterday and cooked them up. I was studiously ignoring the fact that nobody else was gathering them and also ignoring the old "R in the month" adage (it must be Arrrgust). At the back of my mind I had visions as I was cooking them in their garlic, butter and wine of having to get up in the night to a puke-covered child but all was good and they are some of the most delicious mussels we've ever eaten.

 

There is so much to be glad of here. It feels quite stupid to be writing about some supermarket-bought tomatoes but just look at these and then look me in the eye and tell me they don't excite you:-

 

I started off just using them in salads but then they came into their own with some dressing, a hint of garlic, some buffalo mozzarella (sorry it wasn't something French, some mild goat's cheese would have been great too) and some fresh basil torn up. And a crispy fresh baguette to mop up the juices.

 

Other things to be glad about:-

• Swimming in the sea. At all times of the day. With children or without. With slightly bemused (and melodramatic about the cold) husband or not. Most of all first thing in the morning when it feels like I'm the only person for miles, really bracing cold water to wake me up, some energetic swimming then floating flat on my back absolutely still listening to the womblike watery noises in my ears and looking up at a deep blue sky with the occasional wispy cloud.
• Langoustines. God they are good. To be able to go a mile down the road and buy them alive and fresh off the boats at 5.30 in the evening, then get home and cook them (2 minutes in a big pan of boiling water with a handful of salt, just cover with a lid really quickly so you don't have to see them waving for help) to eat with mayonnaise, a baguette and something cold and alcoholic from the fridge is just magnificent.
• French markets. So much amazing produce, so little time. So many things to see. So many things to eat. I wish I could show you more photos but the internet connection is not up to it. 
• Kouign Amann: the Breton speciality, a kind of cross between a cake, a doughy croissant and a toffee, who could imagine a better combination of butter, sugar and flour? I would be so fat if I lived here.
• Spending most of the day in nothing but a swimming costume. It's kind of liberating. There is definitely something quite good about getting halfway through cooking your ratatouille (with ingredients all bought at Le Guilvinec market) and realising you are still wearing your swimwear.

More to come soon, but only if I can get our internet connection to behave better. Maybe there is a reason to go home.





Two exhibitions

So let me get my plugging over with first: ironically I will miss both as we will be in Brittany, but I have been delivering artworks to two places for exhibitions. So as well as having my deckchair design exhibited at Clevedon Pier until 20th August, there could be two more to visit if you are in the area. The first starts on Saturday and runs until 24th August at Clevedon School; it's Clevedon Art Club's Open Exhibition. There is (unfortunately!) a selection process by three judges so it is possible that nothing at all of mine might be on show, or at best four of my favourites could be out there and for sale. I'm hoping I'll hear from someone but otherwise I will have to wait until the day after it's finished to find out. Tense times, I will be gutted if nothing is selected. The other one is White Star Gallery's pop up gallery at the Tithe Barn in Nailsea on 24th August from 10 until 4; I will have 5 bits and pieces all waiting for new owners. Exciting stuff all round but a bit odd to be missing it all; it is a bit like handing over your children to someone whose babysitting skills are untested and then finding out the children have had star parts in the nativity while you've been away, and you never even saw a photo of it.

Busy times meanwhile. School holidays meander on and we are getting into our stride. I feel just slightly less bad-tempered and as long as I get no ambition to achieve anything more substantial than a home-cooked meal, a quick shopping trip (made possible with bribery) or a journey to deliver some pictures for an exhibition, all is on an even keel. I think we are all learning how to live with eachother with no respite. I had a rare moment of peace this morning. After watching a few of the BBC's German season programmes (I am now weirdly nostalgic for Germany, yes, Rick Stein, I too ate very very well there when I spent a summer working in a hotel on the Baltic coast many moons ago, although I also ate one of the worst things I've ever eaten, Birn Bohn und Speck, a local speciality of green beans, pears and streaky bacon all boiled up together until it was khaki, and after watching the car programme I feel slightly fonder of my new German car than I was before, and probably foolishly I don't think a family holiday in Germany would be that bad an idea) I had downloaded some Kraftwerk and today I thought I would listen to something while clearing away the breakfast things. Who could have imagined that after a good hour of very loud sibling rivalry, "Computer Love" would suddenly induce utter silence and an intense spell of flicking through books? I just had to put it on again to see if it would continue, and it did. It was as if a cool fresh breeze had gone through the house. So I just had to open my big mouth: "Do you like this music?" And the answer? "No it's weird".

Bad parenting, and the perfect Baba Ghanoush

I really should be a better mother. Recently I have got so used to being on my own during the days that I am finding myself getting properly grouchy after 9 days of school holidays. Granted it has been a gruelling schedule and we haven't had much downtime as yet. I need to find my groove: need to mellow out, need to ignore the bickering, stop planning such elaborate meals (did I really want to joint a chicken and make it into a tagine this evening when it was actually the children's bath time and they were trying to put on a play?), get a bit more positive. And if in doubt maybe some earphones and an iPod could be good if I feel like I'm going to blow.

Looking good on the art front though. The deckchair exhibition at Clevedon Pier is fabulous, really beautiful, and by a bit of a fluke my deckchair is, to my eyes, in pride of place compared to all the others, between two windows: it had to be moved out of reach as within the first half hour it became clear that everyone felt the need to touch it. The felt has been reproduced so well that people really thought it was 3d. It actually looks better than the original. I have been to see it twice and have a feeling I will be drawn back there very soon. I also might be taking part in two more exhibitions coming up soon, although I will ironically be on holiday for both: one by Clevedon Art Club from August 10th to 24th, at Clevedon Community School, and one at the Tithe Barn in Nailsea, a one day pop up gallery on August 24th. I am quite relieved to have these to take some of my framed pieces to, not least because I was starting to think about whether I had the nerve to see if I could sell my Brittany beach picture to a nearby gallery while we are staying in France, but now I have somewhere far less scary to take it, and a place where I am possibly more likely to sell. Let's hope.



Cooking has been interesting recently even if a bit stressed when intermingled with requests to help with mask making and breaks to referee fights. I made a huge, really huge chocolate cake in the shape of a Moshi Monster for my now 6 year old's birthday party, so that it almost looks like I am a good parent to an untrained outsider:-



If you are interested, I got the recipe from Belleau Kitchen and a very fine chocolate cake recipe it is too, although a) it was as big as I could possibly make in my very biggest bowl (and that's BIG) and I had enough extra mix to make an extra loaf sized cake to put in the freezer, and b) it was so lovely and moist and soft that it was a pig to cover with a layer of butter icing before I put on the ready to roll icing. It's weird how you need to have a cake with a rather stale and dense consistency to make a really decent child's birthday cake. This one did have a bit of lumpiness about the surface of the finished article because I just couldn't get the buttercream layer entirely smooth. But it just about held together and was extra good for having a layer of vanilla butter icing and Bonne Maman Berries and Cherries jam in the middle for a hint of Black Forest.

I discovered the secret to a good Baba Ghanoush the other day. If you haven't had it, it's an amazing creamy, smoky aubergine dip from the Middle East. A bit hummus-like but more dreamy. And I think it wins a prize for being the dish with the most beautiful name ever, doesn't it sound lovely? Years ago I tried to follow a recipe for it by putting a whole aubergine in the oven but it was just plain sad. But the lightbulb moment came when we bought a new barbecue recently. For years we have put up with a pathetic excuse of a barbecue from Ikea. The results have been so poor that I have found myself wondering about the masculinity of my other half from time to time. But not any more: we have turned to the testosterone-fuelled world of the Weber and I do like a bit of testosterone. Weber are so manly they even have their own app full of recipes and hints and tips and although I despised myself for it I couldn't resist downloading it. And it was there, for the first time in years, that I saw a mention of the rather effeminate-sounding Baba Ghanoush. And it turns out that barbecuing is the secret. As you are barbecuing other things, or even afterwards, while you're eating more meat than any human needs, put a whole aubergine on the barbecue and let the skin blacken. Turn it several times so that it's shrivelled and blackened and soft on the inside. I actually forgot about our aubergine and retrieved it sheepishly the next morning. This is my adapted version:-

Baba Ghanoush

1 aubergine, barbecued (see above) and cooled
1 dessertspoonful tahini
A good squeeze of lemon
1/2 a clove of garlic, roughly chopped
Salt and pepper
A pinch of ground cumin
A pinch of smoked paprika

Peel the skin off the aubergine (you should be able to do this with your fingers but a knife might speed things up). Chop it up roughly and whizz up in a blender with all the other things. You can add some chopped parsley too if you have some. Chill it for a while to let the flavours mingle. Serve with some hot pitta breads and with some other mezze if you are feeling like making a meal of it. Wow.

My New Year's Eve

So following on from my last post, yes it's been really feeling like New Year's Eve for the last couple of days. School has now finished, academic year over and so is my year in my head. I know that there won't be much time in the next few weeks for contemplation so better get it over with now. Normally that New Year's Eve feeling is an unpleasant and maudlin "What have I achieved this year? " followed by a sad sigh and another glass of wine to dull the senses. Yesterday was a terribly emotional day with school finishing; youngest one's teacher leaving, and an overwhelmingly hot day and a tearful leavers' assembly; by the time I picked them up from school there seemed to be more people crying than not, which all in all added to my end of year gloom. But actually today I am thinking about that hideous question "What have I achieved this year?" And actually it's not too bad. This time last year here was the situation: I was crippled by gloom induced by a small girl who would express her displeasure or insecurity on a daily basis by pooing in her pants. I didn't even know the extent to which it had properly depressed me. Little did I know that almost exactly a year ago today she would decide to make that a problem of the past, just as her amazing teacher had predicted she would. I had done a little bit of embroidery on my few felted pictures but the idea of taking it to a different level and trying to sell any hadn't even occurred to me. So a year on and the gloom lifted; the seed of selling my art was sown in my head last August; in October the idea of doing North Somerset Arts Week was proposed to me; in November I felt strong enough to put myself forward as Chair of the school PTA; straightaway  thrown into the fire I had to organise the school Christmas Fair for December and raised over £2000 for the first time ever. The momentum grew and the preparation began for my Arts Week. I had no inkling that I'd end up volunteering to coordinate the Nailsea artists for Arts Week and of the lovely people I'd meet in the process. I sold 9 or 10 pieces in Arts Week and had leads to quite a few more jobs from it, as well as my first felting workshop (by the way the stick insects I acquired that night have come back to stay for the summer holidays and once again I am stressing about finding privet for them to eat). More PTA events, more money raised. A competition for a design for the fabric on a deckchair won. And today I had a little cherry on top of the cake. I had a call earlier this week asking if I'd like to go to a meeting about becoming a committee member for North Somerset Arts. I can't really remember mentioning to anyone that I'd be interested, but somehow they knew. And so now, over the course of a chat outside a cafe over a decaf cappuccino, I've been invited to become one of the committee, and got a lead about an exhibition in Clevedon I might be able to take part in, and there you have it. What a funny old year. What have you achieved this year?

Felted writing

I don't know what made me think of trying writing in felt. I have been trying to get one of the classes at school to each write a postcard for their teacher who's leaving school tomorrow for a new job, and then stick them all into a book. The book is now full, and I was wondering what to put on the cover, and then it came to me.

I knew that using cut out pre-felt (half-felted wool) would be possible for the fat letters, but using yarn for the joined-up "good" was a gamble as it could have shifted badly or wrinkled up in the shrinking process and end up illegible. Luckily it didn't. I am however pretty sure that my letter formation isn't up to the exacting school standards. I hope she'll forgive me. The book looks great though:-

But bear in mind that my contribution is nothing compared to what some of the children have done for the inside of the book: beautiful declarations of love, kind wishes and memories of lovely things she has done with them. It is fascinating how different every child's (or parent's?) idea of "Please ask your child to write or draw something special for Miss N" can be. Just one made my eyes water: one parent had written about how the teacher had "neautered" their son. I can only hope that "nurtured" is what was intended as I've never heard of castration being part of a teacher's remit.

 

Not much on the recipe front this week: too hot for proper cooking and not much eating inspiration. I wish I was more comfortable in extreme heat. Actually this is an odd week all round; as my children go further into the education system I've found that my outlook towards the year has changed. Now for me September is when the year begins and when I have new resolve for new projects and a better way of life. Similarly now has become a rather maudlin and unsettled time, in a way that I used to feel about New Year's Eve: "What have you done all year?", "Another year older", "What's it all about?". Yes we all need the summer holidays and I am looking forward to two weeks in Brittany more than I've looked forward to anything for a long time, but I will miss the hubbub at school, the people I see there that I won't necessarily see outside school, and the routine it brings. Time on my own during term time gives me a space to dream and have hope. I really must sort out my life. 





Gazpacho and a tiny beach

A productive day so far: another small picture finished and dispatched to my brother along with the four other ones from my last post, dinner sorted out, a repaired PA system delivered back to school after an unknown person fiddled with the back of it and broke an aerial and a socket (allegedly during the PTA summer fair), four loads of washing put away and a coffee in the sun with friends (although one has just alerted me to the fact that we walked out of the pub garden and completely forgot to pay for the coffee; I do hope the wanted posters aren't up around the village yet. Must remember to put it right on the way back to school).

First the picture: the last of my little tiny ones. This time I have done some high-density beading in just one small area; it must be relief at reverting to my usual beading on the left-hand side:-

 



I am really looking forward to dinner; it is the best ever meal for really hot days - cooling and refreshing, yet gutsy and satisfying. I mentioned before that I have been doing the 5:2 diet (5 days of eating what I like and 2 of fasting with just 500 calories a day, every week) quite successfully for a while and although I normally hate calorie-counting, today is a fast day and you might be pleased to hear that this only has 164 calories in a serving:-

 

Gazpacho (wish I could pronounce it properly; it grieves me that my children come home from school uttering strange Hispanic words when it is practically the only western European language I haven't learned. Mental note to self: Must Find Someone to Help Me Learn Spanish)

Serves 2

 

6 medium tomatoes (or 270g), peeled and de-seeded

1/3 cucumber, roughly chopped

1/3 pepper, roughly chopped - it should be a green one but I only had red today

1/4 red onion, roughly chopped

A very small clove of garlic, roughly chopped

1 1/2 slices stale bread, broken up

2 1/2 tablespoons vinegar - it should be sherry vinegar but I only had white wine vinegar

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

Salt & pepper

1/2 teaspoon sugar

250mls water

 

Not much to the method: put it all in a pot and blend until it's soup. Check for seasoning: it might need more salt. If it tastes a bit boring, you might need a tad more vinegar, red onion and/or garlic. Chill it thoroughly for a couple of hours as there's nothing worse than one that's room temperature. But make sure you cover it with several layers of cling film so your fridge doesn't end up stinking of raw garlic and onion (as indeed your breath might after you've eaten it). I really despise recipes that suggest country-hopping for ingredients as it offends the purist in me, but here goes: on non-fast days I love this with either some cool mozzarella gently broken on top, or grilled halloumi on the side, and a drizzle more of olive oil on top, and some rosemary focaccia to go with it. It's also probably worth mentioning that once I had an enterprising salad in a French restaurant, comprising lettuce and the usual salad ingredients, succulent big prawns and a scoop of gazpacho sorbet in the middle, so I suppose you could freeze it in an ice-cream maker. Yum.