The photo of the moon was taken with my phone a few days ago. The kids and I were on our way home after picking up M. He loves the moon.
There are so many birds right now. It must have been a good winter for them. Just before, I opened the curtains in the bedroom and a huge magpie was taking a bath in the old bird bath outside the window. His friend was waiting his turn on the lawn (two for joy!). It was drizzling, so I suppose he got a shower too. The moment they noticed me, they flew off.

I finally planted my garlic the day before New Year’s Eve. I couldn’t find garlic for planting (the garden centre didn’t have them; the internet shop only had them by the kilo(!)) so I bought some for eating and now I’m crossing my fingers. I’d cleared the bed a couple of days before. Last year there were beans and peas (and salad and other slightly random crops) in that spot, and I’m hoping that they will have left some nitrogen in the ground for the garlic to thrive on. I have never been able to grow garlic successfully before, and I’m suspecting that my painful lack of weeding is to blame, as well as not very nutritious and clay-y soil. The time of planting is of course completely wrong. The sources say either in late October or early spring, and this is neither, but at the same time this winter has been very warm so far and if I’d planted them in October they would have grown too much by now. Crossing my fingers, again. M. helped me stick the garlic cloves in. I used a bamboo stick for marking the rows and for poking holes in the soil. I like planting garlic. It feels good to poke them into the ground. When we’d finished, M. brought me a packet of seeds he wanted to sow, and accidentally he’d picked spinach seeds. They like it when it’s chilly so we sowed them in the greenhouse. It’s going to be interesting to see when (and if) they germinate. Apart from that I haven’t done any gardening in ages. It’s been a very wet summer and a warm winter so most likely next year will be a slug fest. I might concrete over the entire thing and/or sell the house and move to a flat in the city. Of course I don’t mean it really but when I think about the slugs I want to. Ugh.
Instead of spending time in my own garden, I’ve been reading about someone else’s. Monty Don’s Ivington Diaries is not just inspiring but a very beautiful (and huge) book. Worth it for the leafing through alone.

I have always liked January. The bleakness and quietness after the holidays feels like a good place to start new things, to be quiet, to think. To read. I’m not sure which resolutions to pick this year. I never take them very seriously. The one I like the most is about alcohol, which I don’t have very often right now, but when I do, I want to choose locally produced (organic) beer. It’s tasty, local and the bottles can be recycled.
The more serious resoluion is about more output, less input. I have an ipad now and I have a tendency of falling thorugh the rabbit hole and being too absorbed in what other people write (and photograph). Inspiration is good (very good!) and there are many people in here that I love and appreciate, and I don’t want to lose that. But Twitter, for instance, is a time stealer. And the incessant pressing of update buttons is making me feel a bit like one of those test mice, learning how to press a lever with a paw so sugar water will come out. Gorging myself on the sugar. I’d like to do more stuff instead. And make some output for this place, too.
The photo below was taken when I was in the city, on my way to a meeting. My maternity leave has ended. It felt good to be out and about on my own again. Sticking my nose out of the hole. I hope we will manage to spend a lot of time outdoors this year. The kids need it but I think I need it even more. Maybe that will be my third resolution. Go for more walks.

On our dinner table tonight: pan-fried salmon, baked potatoes, and the broccoli pesto from Super Natural Every Day (snatched from a completely different recipe). We got turnips in our vegetable box, so I made the turnip chips from the same cookbook as well, since the oven was on anyway. The broccoli pesto is delicious, despite me opting out on the pine nuts. I’ve made several of the recipes in that book since buying it some time before summer – it’s inspirational and vegetable-oriented, which suits my way of thinking about cooking (if not my actual cooking, all the time). The author, Heidi Swanson, has a lovely blog, too.

On Monday in the city, I passed a antiques shop with a sign saying everything: 50 % off. The tiny shop was crammed full of glass and china, and on a little table, this dish was sitting along with several others in the same pattern. Now it sits on my windowsill. The more expensive cousins had to be left behind.
(It turns out that the pattern was designed in 1904 by a woman, Harriet Bing. It’s called Empire and was produced by Bing & Grøndahl, now known as Royal Copenhagen. In the 1900s, women did the decorating as well.)

Some time ago, there was a post on 3191 which had me slapping my forehead. Oiling the wooden spoons? Why hadn’t that even occurred to me? I really like using wooden spoons when I cook. They’re good to hold. In the past, they would eventually dry out and crack, and I would get a new one. Yet I never thought to actually treat them. Maybe I should have paid more attention in woodworking class (or not – I don’t think they ever told us anything in there apart from use more sandpaper). The spoon oil recipe in that post contains bee’s wax, which I really like the idea of, but I haven’t been able to find a shop that carries it. I was considering using olive oil instead, until the comments section of a post at Aesthetic Outburst made me realise that it is probably a very bad idea, since olive oil (and particularly extra virgin oil) goes rancid quickly. And rancid oil in my cooking would most likely get me off those spoons forever (I tasted rancid butter once and the primitive brain cannot let go of that experience). A commenter there (thank you!) suggested coconut oil instead, primarily because it does not go rancid. And I happened to have a jar of coconut oil in the cupboard. So the spoons finally got their treat. Also, sorry for the blatant inspiration for my own photo – it’s just that lining all your spoons up after you’ve done this is very hard to resist!

Looking at things in shops and two little children don’t go so well together. I didn’t buy many things while we were away, but this was one of them. It’s tiny, I think it might be too small for cookies, but very cute. Maybe I can buy some polymer clay and make Christmas ornaments instead?

M. and I were outside in the garden for a little while today, watering the chilli plants in the greenhouse (me), working the soil (him) climbing the apple tree (also him). I was surprised to discover that our raspberry canes still have ripe berries – a total of six, in the middle of October! We have two varieties, Autumn Bliss and Fallgold, which has yellow berries. I would like to plant more canes next year. I don’t think any more will ripen now, so it didn’t matter that M. picked a branch of the unripe ones.

Today autumn has finally caught up with us. It’s rainy and windy and the cold is creeping into the house. The kids are a bit tired after last week’s travelling and so am I, to be honest. It will be good to find a rhythm again.
On our way home from the Copenhagen airport, M. found a flower in the metro station. Back in house, someone found a vase for it.
(I don’t want this space to be invaded by instagram shots, but at the moment our big computer needs a bit of tlc before I can fire up photoshop again. So instagram it is, until it’s back up and running.)

We came back from a heatwave in Northern Italy to 12 degrees and crispy sunshine. The frost has melted the pumpkin and zucchini plants, the leaves are brown and slimy, abandoned mini pumpkins peeking out. A week of eating gelato every day and walking in the quiet streets of Asti (and the not-so-quiet streets of Turin and Milan). We met some lovely people, too, I’ll come back to that later. For now, we’re trying to find our everyday rhythm again. Two more days of single parenting ubtil K. comes home from touring. Time to to prepare the warm clothing, I think.