The Coffee Lady

The best summer ever. But not for you...

2018-04-21T14:20:00.001-07:00

Sponsored post

Have you heard about the National Citizen Service (NCS)? If you have a 16 or 17 year old, you need to know about it. It's a government backed programme which brings together young people from different backgrounds for a unique, shared experience.

I know this, not because this is a sponsored post for which I was sent a brief (which it is, and which I was) but because Eldest joined NCS last year for three weeks during summer. There she is, in the picture at the top - she's the one with the massive scarf (my scarf! my scarf! the little thief).

It was her best summer, simply, ever. Three weeks - two of them residential - where she took part in outward bounds activities, learned to cook, to budget, did voluntary work....

Would you take a child with cerebral palsy wild camping? Let her abseil in an off-road wheelchair? I wouldn't - but NCS did. Returning from her wild camp, which took place in a hail storm, she felt like she could do anything. It was the most amazing experience imaginable.

NCS is open to 16 and 17 year-olds across England and Northern Ireland. The two to four week programme, which takes place in school holidays, includes outdoor team-building exercises, a residential for participants to learn ‘life skills’, a community-based social action project and an end of programme celebration event.

The activities - designed to develop strength of character and shove children out of their comfort zone - definitely worked. They built - from challenging physical activities, to personal development, to voluntary work in the community - and then allowed children who were really inspired to get involved further.

After applying to be on the regional youth board, Eldest went off for yet another residential, and yesterday - nearly a year after she signed up - she went to a full day's meeting to decide on her cohort's next project.

They've already set up a campaign about mental health, they launched a Facebook group, and they made a video, which you can see on Facebook here. That's Eldest, at the end! Those are her words! How proud am I?

How much, you say. How much is this going to cost me? Would you believe me if I told you it was FIFTY QUID? And they feed them! And even send them a T-shirt through the post!

That's right. They feed them, they clothe them, they inspire them, they take their grumpy, teenage selves away from you for three plus weeks, for fifty quid. Find me a better deal. And if fifty quid is a stretch, there are bursaries available.

(They've asked me to mention support for children with additional needs. I can personally attest to the fact that they support kids with special needs. Abseiling. In a wheelchair. I ask you.)

You might have holidays booked. Don't worry. You can choose from a range of dates. You won't find a better chance for your teenager to learn, to have fun, to build confidence, and to get involved in the world outside their smartphone. There will be children from different backgrounds, working together on NCS's goal of creating a more engaged society. This year more than 100,000 teens will join up, developing skills for their lives.

Be like Eldest. Sign up now. There are still places available for Year 11s to take part this summer. To sign up now, go to the NCS website. There are social media links below.

○Facebook: @NCS

○Twitter: @NCS

○Instagram: @NCSyes

Go! Go! Go!

And this is where you get with metaphors

2017-08-08T14:46:00.000-07:00

Last year, as part of a nightschool course, I found myself in the midst of an exercise where the participants had to say positive things about each other. I thought it an excruciating idea.

When it came to me, there was the usual - she's so funny, she's so warm, she's so whatever. (You already know I was not born for positivity). But one lady said something that has stayed with me ever since. My presence on the course, she said, my continued ability to fully take part whilst caring for a terminally ill mother and two children, made me 'the definition of having your sh*t together".

It wasn't a phrase - or a sentiment - I had ever connected with me. If there's one thing I'm good at, it's telling myself I'm not really doing very well at things. That I'm barely coping. The fact that someone thought I was not only coping, but doing it quite well, really surprised me.

Just weeks ago my husband - my partner of 25 years - left, after suddenly announcing he had been having a very long-term affair. Without warning, the children and I had our entire existence turned upside down. The pain and betrayal were heart-stopping.

So let's talk now about this picture of a chicken.

Once upon a time, I was working with the Crick Crack Club to promote a show by the storyteller Michael Harvey, the poster image for which was just this single, determined-looking chicken, staring straight at the camera. I loved everything about that show - the stories, the teller, the telling, and, of course, the chicken.

In my head, it became a symbol, and I remember talking to my husband about it. I was saying that all the metaphors about lovebirds, and those doves that people release in cheesy movie weddings, weren't the real deal. Real marriage was like that chicken - steely, unswerving, sometimes not entirely pretty - but the one bird you'd like to have in your corner in a fight. Marriage had your back. It gave you strength.

So why, when I was planning what image to take for a textile art workshop I had booked months ago, was I still thinking about that chicken? My marriage had not had my back. It turned out that I had not actually been in what I would consider a marriage for years. Why was the chicken still so important?

The words from the nightschool course came back to me, and they made me realise. For a long time now, as my husband concentrated on a new career, I have felt increasingly alone. I have run my household, I have gone to work, I have gone to college, I have nourished and nurtured my children. I have nursed my much-loved mother and kept vigil at her death earlier this year.

Marriage was never the chicken. I was the chicken. I was the effing chicken all along.

With thanks to Mandy Pattullo for a wonderful workshop, and for understanding that I had to abandon the pretext of the course - 'Stitched Memories' - because memories sometimes have to wait.

Thanks also to the Crick Crack Club, for the gloriousness of the chicken. All the shows they promote are exceptional - go look at what they have coming up.

Michael Harvey is currently touring a new show called Dreaming the Night Field. Details of tour dates are available at Adverse Camber.

The Struck Match

2017-04-03T03:33:00.000-07:00

I've been clearing my mother's house; those of you who follow me on Instagram might have seen my hashtag #thestruckmatch and marvelled at my ability to be entirely self-referential.

Grieving is an odd animal. When it began - which really, was before my mother died - I was convinced that I would lovingly document everything I gave to the charity shop/ shoved in the bin/ nicked and took to my house in a beautiful new blog.

Turns out I didn't. Turns out I got all practical and goal-orientated, which is not like me at all. So I share this post, the first and only post on what was to be my house clearing blog (and with hindsight what a mesmorising read that wouldn't have been).

I was an only child. An only child of a mother who liked to keep things, who liked the history of objects, who didn't like waste, who was brought up in the original Make Do and Mend era, when you had to, when it wasn't pretty. She threw few things away.

Sometime back in the early 2000s I went out for dinner with my friend D in London. She was in a similar position, except that she had just lost her grandmother, and her mother was making no attempt to get rid of anything from that previous generation. We were both, we realised, going to inherit years and years of accumulated clutter, and have to deal with it alone, with no siblings to say, yes, get rid, for heaven's sake. Just us. With the houses full of junk, and the grief, and the guilt.

We made a pact. (We had been drinking). When the time came, we would call on each other to release us from our plight, and we would give the poor, bereaved, be-cluttered person permission to put a match to the whole lot.

I texted her the other day and told her to ready the matches.

There's an irony here, though, for as I made a start on looking in cupboards and drawers, I found that my mother had been hoarding scented candles. She didn't like them. But if people gave them, as a present, she wouldn't give them away. What if you needed them? So she stowed them in the cupboard under the telephone, or in a drawer full of thread and old spectacles (again! old spectacles! why?).

A house smells different when it's empty. It smells still, and unfamiliar, and discomforting. Or maybe that's just me, noting how it doesn't really smell like it did when my mother was truly living - not surviving - but living in it. I thought I would light the scented candles during the times I was here - I like them, even if my mother didn't.

So I started the process by looking for matches. "Where are the matches, mother?" I asked the empty house, and I found them, damp and unused (because she had nothing to light) in a drawer.

And I struck one.

So now I am actually trying to sell you something

2016-11-26T12:49:00.000-08:00

A few years ago, the lovely Driftwood and I met up with our families at a National Trust place and did a whole load of activities that were designed for slightly less sarcastic people with slightly younger children.

One of the activities was making flying kites out of bits of plastic and string. This obviously led us to spend the afternoon wandering around the landscaped gardens dreaming up a business that sold kites made out of Liberty fabric that didn't fly at all. Because what kind of self-respecting craft business would actually make an item that had a practical use?

However. I was at a point in my career - go on, let's at least call it that - where I wasn't sure what direction I could go in. I thought I could take a bit of control for myself. Perhaps a little craft business, where I tinkered around making lovely things with lovely fabric, would be just the thing?

And so it was that I bought some books in order to learn to make kites that actually flew.

I learned about dihedral joints and eddy kites, and buying string that was measured in lbs, and the Beaufort wind force scale. I spent hours in the garden with a hacksaw, balancing poles. Making kites, it turned out, is more about physics than fabric. I had loads of fun, lots of trial and error and scribbled notes, and eventually came up with two kite designs, a small 'pocket' kite and a larger, fold-away model, and I made a few little kite brooches and did a couple of craft fairs and set up an Etsy shop and told no-one about it.

Megan recently used this quote by James Baldwin on her gorgeous blog, the scent of water.

...this collision between one's image of oneself and what one actually is, is always painful, and there are two things you can do about it; you can confront the collision head-on and try and become what you really are, or you can retreat and try to remain what you thought you were, which is a fantasy, in which you will certainly perish

Which is a bit dramatic - I'm not on the verge of perishing by selling a few kites - but true. Over time, the job I took three years ago because I needed a job and the hours were right has gradually turned into a home, into the only job I could possibly be doing. It's lovely. But it doesn't solve the problem of this suitcase full of kites.

So. Come and buy. The link is in the sidebar. I've listed the kites one last time before I shut up shop. The kites fly, and they're pretty, and I adored making them and I learned a lot - about taking control, and about going where the wind takes you.

Getting hyggy with it

2016-11-17T09:00:00.000-08:00

(I know. You don't say higgy. Leave it.)

A new routine has taken shape at home. Most evenings, my mother comes over to eat; after dinner we wrap her in a quilt and try to work out what to watch on TV which she won't dislike. She dozes.

Eldest could be homeworking (not) or messaging friends and watching YouTube videos. Mr Coffee could be working on his laptop, or playing Minecraft with Littlest, who would be playing Minecraft without him if he was working. I may be knitting a row or two of my ill-fated sock (unravelled 4 times already).

I've started to light candles, because these evenings deserve a reverence. They're normal. Normal is good, normal could end at any time.

The other night I went to a friend's house for a bonfire party and we all stood around watching the fireworks whilst drinking cheap whisky out of jamjars. At one point I thought - and I held onto it, in that moment - "I am so happy just now. I am SO HAPPY."

I like this quote from this article about hygge:

It feels incredible to share these drama-free moments with those you care about. If you realize that it is only for a dinner or a lunch or a limited period of time, it makes it much easier to really try and enjoy that moment."

"A limited period of time". That's the fella. That's where we are right now.

Winter is coming

2016-09-25T09:23:00.000-07:00

“Summer is the time for squabbles. In winter, we must protect one another, keep each other warm, share our strengths.”

George R R Martin, A Song of Fire And Ice

We were a bit late to the Game of Thones party, Mr Coffee and I. It was only a few weeks ago we finally got around to watching Season 2. (DO NOT TELL ME WHO IS DEAD ALREADY.) And by the time we did, it was so long ago since we'd watched Season 1 that I'd forgotten who everyone was, so I got hold of the first book, and came across the quote above.

Anyone who has watched more than a couple of episodes of Game of Thrones will know that all that 'winter is coming' stuff is not just about it getting a bit colder. It's about a family's life changing, and the realisation that complaints about kids throwing up in tents and not having enough time to do the garden are just summer squabbles. Winter is coming, and we must keep each other warm.

I made a quilt. It only took me two years.

It's a rainbow quilt, hand pieced and machine quilted, made up of bits of Liberty that I collected during my summer squabbles. I wasn't choosy. If it was even slightly related to the colour next to it, it went in. And even if it didn't.

It has an extra warm batting from the local fabric shop, which is suitable for the coming colder months. Because in Winter we must protect one another, keep each other warm, share our strengths.

My children's strengths lie mainly in recrimination and anger. This enforced familial protection is not one they buy into very easily. I just had a screaming row with Eldest whilst I was actually writing my blog post, which culminated in me holding her close, really hard, whilst she struggled with her anger, her frustration, and both our desires to punch each other in the face.

There's a lot in store for us, this Winter. It's GCSE year. And my mother - The Grandmother, my children's beloved refuge, who lives just down the street - has been diagnosed with inoperable cancer.

And it strikes me as bizarre, right now, the things I used to complain about. The state of the living room floor. How difficult it was to get to swimming lessons on time.

I honestly don't know how many people still read blogs now, and it's so long since I wrote on mine, I don't know who is still around. If you do, and you are, please no comments that will make me cry. If you like, you can tell me the most bizarre and unimportant thing that you complained about this week. Because Winter is coming, and it will be good to have something to look back on and laugh at our whinging summer selves.

Five things that are not on a Friday

2016-04-16T11:56:00.004-07:00

It really doesn't matter whether you understand the title. I do. And it's my blog, and I can do what I damn well please.

Oh, OKAY. It's from Tess's post, which made me laugh out loud this morning and remind me all about the tiny things and made me want to do my own. It's not Friday anymore. But it's my blog, and I can do etc etc etc.

I bought Alys Fowler's The Thrifty Garden from the charity shop for 50p, which was super-thrifty.
I harvested, parcooked and froze Red Russian Kale that I planted from seed in the garden last year, and if that doesn't make me super-flipping-human I don't know what does. The results are a golf-ball sized blob of frozen kale. I am like Barbara Good over here. (Including the drinking).
I started listening to The Archers. Eldest watches Emmerdale. Nothing is right about any of this.
I made four dresses. I can't photograph them. I've tried, really hard, but the pictures never seem right and I refuse to accept that this is because they represent what I actually look like. Nope. Not at all.
All kind of crap is happening right now. All kinds of potentially life-changing horrible crap. So I came back to the perky space, to the space where I can use kale and dresses and Barbara Good and not have to apologise for that.

Five things. It was a stretch.

Beginnings

2016-01-03T14:00:00.000-08:00

So on January 1 I started a diary, in which I recorded ground-breaking information about whether or not I had managed to do any yoga, and then on January 2 I thought What! on earth am I doing? Surely if anyone should know whether or not I have done any yoga, it should be The Entire Internet!

Just to clarify: I haven't done any yoga. Not that that was one of my New Year's Resolutions. Not that I had any. I mean. Well, apart from Dry January and trying to do More Useful Things and eat healthier and exercise and generally set myself up for failure.

Let's see what's actually possible instead.

In 2016 I resolve not to begin any huge paper-pieced quilt projects that will take a couple of years to complete. This is a part of the border of my Rainbow Nightmare Quilt, pieced whilst waiting for the Epiphany Carol Serice, and I look forward to the day that the nightmare ends. Hopefully in a quilt.

In 2016 I'll continue to relish my job as Mum's Taxi to a chorister. Littlest joined a church choir some time ago, and allowed me to discover an unexpected love of choral music. Once I week I sit in a pew near the front and marvel at this gorgeous sound. Cub Scouts was never this good.

And in 2016 I'll continue to learn. Last Autumn I took an eight-week evening taster course on counselling; and I've signed up for the next step, which starts in a couple of days. I have a new notebook all ready. I'm going back to school.

AND I missed my Ebay auction

2015-12-07T02:27:00.001-08:00

It's been raining here. It's been raining so much that we made the national Guardian. (This happens very rarely when you're in the North of England). It's been raining so much that the river overflowed, the power station flooded, the electricity went off and actual rescue boats started actually operating in the actual city centre.

Mr Coffee set off the night before last in his waterproof trousers to look at the river, which had gone slightly insane, and came back with blurry photos of an underwater skate park and some lights reflected in a road. In a road, that is, which was no longer a road, but a small waterway running past the fabric shop.

The power went off on Saturday night. Those frock dramas on the TV when they wander about by candlelight fail to convey quite how little light one candle gives off in a completely blackened house.

On Sunday morning we dug out the camping stove, assessed the 'what will go off first' situation, and came up with something based on prawns. Then began the race against time to get the floors clean of life-threatening Lego and small items with wheels which might be our undoing when darkness fell.

At 3.30pm, Littlest and I started ramming things into a paper bag rather than putting things in drawers - darkness was coming. We could see the sunset over the chimney pots.

Here is an extract from Littlest's Power Cut diary. (Actually this is all she wrote. It got too dark to see the paper.) And yes, that does say 'arguing' by candlelight. It's always best to start a physical scrap with your sister next to a row of naked flames.

Oblivion was upon us. We had to actually talk to one another, because due to the huge power outage there wasn't even a mobile signal. The newspapers reported students queuing up outside phoneboxes in town 'for the first time in their lives'.

This morning at 6am the house sprang to life. Littlest was rather sad, until she found her school was closed for the day. Eldest was rather sad because her school wasn't closed for the day. I was rather relieved because the chest freezer had somehow held its contents in an icy stasis despite a complete lack of cooling electricity.

There are families and businesses who will take months to get back to normal; we've been very lucky. I had booked the day off to get on top of Christmas shopping, but with Littlest at home there is little chance of that. I might be forced to sew myself a new top instead.

Yes. We've been lucky indeed.

Ceci n'est pas une blanket

2015-11-30T14:14:00.000-08:00

So I was up here googling for Advent meditations and it struck me that I really should tell you all about my blanket.

I had this blanket. It belonged to my great-grandmother, and it was warm, and heavy, and warm. Good grief it was warm. If we were really cold in bed or whilst camping, we could put it over the other covers and WOOMP. It was warm.

But also it was old, and a bit marked, and a bit scratchy. And down on the sofa we were a family of four fighting over one big quilt, whilst I laboriously paper-pieced another which we've been waiting for since a year last August. So I followed a tutorial for lap duvets on the Purl Bee, and wrapped the whole heavy warm thing up in some Liberty fabric I'd bought when I found it for a bargainous price even though I had no idea what I'd do with it.

Anyway I'm now snuggled up in bed under it and I have to tell you, I am sweltering. But I am sweltering under a lovely Liberty blanket, rather than a scratchy historical artefact, so in these terms it's a complete success.

In other sewing news, I also made a wintry scene out of see-through fabric and bits of white. This was entirely because a lady at church asked me to, and I was far too English to tell her that I didn't embroider and didn't have time, instead saying, "Ooh lovely, I'll have a play" as if I had all the time and embroideriness in the world.

And I enjoyed my play; I did. It didn't take as long as a quilt or even as long as a blanket. And it's Advent now, and I need to go find those meditations I came up here to look for, so I'll go, boiling hot under a blanket, contemplating my wintry scene.

A photo posted by The Coffee Lady (@ladyofthelattes) on Nov 30, 2015 at 9:11am PST

Holiday, interrupted

2015-08-27T14:25:00.003-07:00

We're not supposed to be here, but Eldest, Littlest and I are currently sitting on the sofa, binge-watching The Big Bang Theory, and occasionally yawning. It's a quarter to two in the afternoon, and we're still grazing on breakfast. We're meant to still be on holiday in Wales, but due to an unfortunate vomiting-in-the-tent incident the Lattes suddenly had nowhere to sleep, and we had to drive home at 2 in the morning.

Mr Coffee is back in Wales, gathering up the remains of our holiday. It was lovely - very low-key, with a little bit of campfire marshmallow-toasting, some surprise rock-scrambling, a bit of charity shopping action and a pasty-based picnic in the woods. Also quite a bit of cloud-watching, as the skies darkened and brightened in a completely random fashion; and driving through the most stunning views possible.

And castles. We like castles.

It's been an unplanned summer - I think The Big Bang Theory has been the strongest element. Juggling work and children over the holidays has left little time for adventure; or maybe I've just not made the time. It's easy to get caught up in busyness, in routine, in trying to stem the flow of stuff on the floor and cat poo on the lawn. There's a song we've been listening to, after seeing the singer Yvonne Lyon on holiday - Enjoy, not Endure. Click on the link and listen - it's been going round in my head for days and it has a lyric that I really need to carry with me a little more. (She also wrote The Coffee Song - how could she not be one of my favourite musicians?!)

I've done a bit of sewing recently - it's all very well to read sewing blogs, and discover how people with endless skill and seemingly endless time (and slightly less endless waistlines than mine!) run up perky dress after perky dress with smiling ease. After a bit of a sewing break, I've been trying to be more realistic. I realised that some of my fabric stash could be happily turned into a series of Heather Ross Summer Blouses, which are the things I reach for every summer day to throw on with jeans. I ran up three before the summer, and the simplicity of a summer 'uniform' made me incredibly happy.

A year or so ago, I developed a serious envy of Nancy's floral Japanese dress, and even went so far as to buy some vaguely similar Liberty print to make my own. But in my heart I knew I would never find the time for something so detailed. Then just before the holidays, when amazingly I had a rare (and I mean blue-moon, hen's teeth, sky-blue-pink-with-yellow-dots rare) child- and work-free day, I came across the Seamwork Mojave dress, which promised to be done and dusted within 2 hours. And so it was (with the addition of some back darts, to stop it looking like a nightie) that the pattern was made, and even some ric-rac was added, just to rip off Nancy even more.

I'd put it on again if I could, and take a better picture - but it's currently in Wales in our abandoned tent, ready to be rescued by my husband. I don't envy him the task of facing the horror of our tent in the full light of day, but I do wish I'd had a proper chance to say goodbye to our holiday view.

Chottering

2015-05-02T09:57:00.000-07:00

It's raining. Which is inconvenient, because I was going to potter in the garden, and instead I'm under a quilt watching My Little Pony with Littlest. Did I say 'inconvenient'? I meant 'a good excuse'.

I'm no good at pottering. What seems to consist to other people of cushion-plumping and deadheading beautiful flowers, turns out in my case to be picking up detritus from around the house, attempting to put it in its rightful place, or fighting with dandelions.

It's a chore, pottering. Chottering? Is that a word? I think it should be. Bringing together the two constants of my life - endlessly doing chores whilst simultaneously achieving nothing - I have decided it is a word.

I chotter in the garden. I chotter in front of the sewing machine. I chotter around the kitchen. I chotter. You chotter. He chotters. They chotter. (No - scratch that. They do not chotter. If they refers to my children, they spend their lives on YouTube watching gospel singing or adults opening Kinder Eggs.)

Here is my garden. I planted a flower and grew a chair.

Here I am growing salad. On the left there, in the biggest 'V', I'm growing mizuna from seed. I don't even know what mizuna is, but it seems that I'm growing quite a lot of it.

I've been following planting plans from a book called One Magic Square, because I only have four little squares for veg, and I'm not very good at tidy rows. Below is my pea, broccoli and spinach square, planted before I realised that the mesh wotnots I'd bought to keep the cats off wouldn't go over the peas.

Behold my plastic pods. Getting back to nature is so rewarding.

The Evil that is Easter

2015-04-07T14:37:00.000-07:00

They're tricksy things, holidays. They give you Ideas. There's the Easter break, for example, which always contains at least one day of unrepeatable weather, allowing you to get out into the garden or hang the laundry up or go for a (ten-minute) walk in the woods. This Easter I've taken a couple of days annual leave either side of Good Friday and Easter Monday, and they've been a big mistake.

Having extra hours turns you into a different person. New possibilities start to settle into the spaces that are usually filled with work and driving and making sure everything gets done on time. But it's false hope, of course. False hope that caused me to order a tonne of packets of seeds for my veg patch; false hope that spurred me on as I raked lumps of moss out of the lawn; false hope that's convincing me that I can eat a salad a day - complete with edible flowers - from my abundant garden which blesses me with constant colour and health.

Deep in my heart, I know the proper truth. It's going to tip it down all summer, the veg garden will either fail to germinate or will become covered in cat poo and little grey flies and weeds, and I won't have the time to get out in the garden because every day isn't a Bank Holiday, it's full of work and stuff and other stuff, and I honestly believe that it's actually cruel to give us a few days off at Easter just to give us a glimpse of what life could really be like.

On the radio the other day, Chris Evans said we should treat each new day like a new little life. But when handed several luxurious days in which to do just that, I find that by far the most satisfying thing to do is to start planning and preparing for another, future life that seems even more luxurious, full of time and sun and edible flowers. An Easter holiday, a few Spring buds and fluffy clouds, and once again I'm a sucker for a happy Summer ending.

Remember who I am! Accept the things I cannot change!

2015-02-10T15:06:00.000-08:00

Time was, I sewed quilts and clothes and I read books. I polished the bathroom taps and I did the ironing and I dug holes in the garden and put plants in them and I read lots of books about myths. I went swimming and I made cats out of cardboard.

And every so long I would sit down and write a blog post about these things and take photos to go with it. And my life got collected up in a series of little episodes that occasionally I'd look back on and think how nice it was that it was still all there.

But then everything got too busy, too busy by far, and I'd contemplate changing my blog header to The Coffee Lady - Mother. Misery. Blue-Arsed Fly - but I'd never have time so it didn't get done.

These days, I shuttle back and forth to Eldest's school and my office and home and there is too much going on to even tell you but suffice to say it's tedious, it's busy, and not in a fun-busy way but in an another-day-of-tears-and-how-did-it-help-us way and it's nothing new and nothing exciting but all those issues I eluded to before were not helped in any way by chia seeds (which, by the way, turned out to give me incredible wind). And I'd kind of decided that I just didn't write a blog anymore and that wasn't something I even needed to berate myself about.

And then the other day I had to fill in a form and I couldn't remember even a vague date of when something happened a few years ago, and Mr Coffee said: "Did you write a blog post?" And of course I did, and I looked back and thought how nice it was that it was still all there.

So how about we forget that once I was a half-decent blogger who did things, and accept that now I'm someone with two snatched minutes and nothing to say, and let me fling bits of twaddle at the screen without any expectations? Because that's the only way I can see this thing progressing.

Matinee Idle

2014-12-11T07:11:00.000-08:00

I tell my children regularly that I only had babies so they would grow up into people I could take to watch films. One high point of my parenting journey was the first time I found myself in a cinema at 10.30am, drinking coffee, and watching my two little angels staring up at the huge glowing screen.

Time was we could just go to a Kids AM £1.75 screening and it would be the perfect morning. (These screenings are the film equivalent of The Works - films that are a few months old and you might have already seen, or very slight animated films you never see anywhere else.) We didn't do it a lot, but it was always the Right Thing, and everyone would be happy. They're getting a bit older, now - we have to choose films a bit carefully. Films that work for younger children, but have characters and jokes that appeal to all ages. The Lego Movie. A Monster in Paris (fantastic film).

I got the chance to review two films at home this week - the first, The Snow Queen 2, was pitched to me as a film that ''all Frozen fans would love!" I don't quite know how they worked this out. The thing with Frozen is the princesses and the singing and the love story. The Snow Queen 2 is about a troll and his grandma. Also, no singing. Sean Bean is in it - miserably briefly - and he doesn't even die.

The film had Kids AM written all over it, in my head. The Lattes enjoyed it - though I thought you laboured under a distinct disadvantage if you hadn't seen The Snow Queen 1. Still, if you had children younger than mine and you wanted a couple of hours in the dark on a tired morning, I think The Snow Queen 2, a cup of coffee and a bag of Minstrels would do it.

We liked The Nut Job much better (it's coming out on DVD about now) The colours were lovely! If I was a purple squirrel, I'm telling you, I'd find myself a mint green rat friend because they go so well together. Really! And it has Brendan Fraser and Liam Neeson in it, and they're definitely worth having around. The Lattes loved this, especially Littlest. A definite favourite for an afternoon of cuddling under quilts.

Truth is, we're just getting too old. All good things come to an end, they say, and one day very soon we won't find ourselves at the Kids AM films at all. Those Little Lattes are growing too Big. Littlest is nearly 10; Eldest is 14. Choosing a film and pleasing everyone is getting much, much harder.

A while ago I lurked on the periphery of the madness that is organised Parent Blogging. I realised I had left it far behind this week when I went to a blog event - the first in at least two years - and was presented with a goody bag which contained a sippy cup and a cuddly toy. Trolls and sippy cups - they're just like Sean Bean in a way. A really gorgeous memory, but in truth, they just don't look the same any more.

Santa's a flake. And he certainly didn't get me any headphones.

2014-12-03T14:51:00.001-08:00

I apologise right now - there will be no correspondence with Santa in the Coffee House this year. I've enjoyed his letters, but the bitter truth is he's not coming here any more and we all just have to LIVE WITH IT.

It's fine. I mean it's fine. Yes, it means it's all on me now, and yes, it means that the child who wrote letters to the fairies asking Santa to pass them on is now a girl in a denim jacket and sparkly nail varnish brandishing a long list of incredibly expensive and sexist Lego, and the child who once screamed in joy because Santa had brought fleece baby wipes for her doll is now a teenager who may or may not have a Christmas list but certainly can't take her earphones out of her ears for long enough to share it with me.

Did someone say earphones? I got sent some to review - Kinovo BTH220 Bluetooth headphones. And I went from someone who couldn't really see why I'd need anything other than the assorted shower of earphones left over from old phones which are scattered round the house to someone who constantly needs her new headphones because they are amazing.

I wear them when running. (I'm not going to write a running post, for the following reasons:

Like the middle-aged cliche that I am, I'm doing the Couch to 5k, and my new headphones are fantastic, connecting instantly to my phone without any faff, and crucially not shifting at all as I shuffle along. Running without using one hand to continually shove in my inferior little earbuds is a much lovelier experience, and no wires bounce up and down. And I can answer the phone - if I can still breathe, that is.

They fold up in a little bag! And they stay charged for hours. And they don't get all tangled up.

Those people who sew whilst listening to podcasts? I bet they all have these headphones. How many times have I sat down to sew with the intention of half-watching television or listening to the radio on the tablet, and then been presented with the terrible reality - as soon as you start the machine up, all you can hear is DRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. Sometimes, when the children are engaged in some worthy activity such as watching YouTube videos or playing with sexist Lego, I stick some grown-up TV on the laptop and listen whilst I'm cooking, not caring at all about any swearing or murder because I'm the only one who can hear it. The sound is very good, for all I know about sound quality. (I don't know anything about sound quality). And if a child falls over or chops off its fingers, I can still hear what's going on (Mr Coffee has some fancy noise-cancelling headphones, which means once he has them on his head he may as well be in New Zealand for all the good he is to us).

Anyway, it's quarter to eleven, I've had a brandy, so now is the traditional time for me to start looking at Christmas presents online and think of everything I need to get and have a little brandy-soaked weep. Tomorrow I have a day off, and though that would be a better day to look at the shopping, I've chosen that day to make a summer dress. Don't look at me.

Cancel the search party. Nothing to see here.

2014-11-20T08:08:00.002-08:00

Oh, I'm so sorry. Did you think I'd turned off the Internet for A MONTH? No-one is that strong.

Our week-long screen-fast went brilliantly, though. Eldest read half a book. (This is a record). I read a whole one (a record this year). Children drew with actual pencils. Littlest only threw herself on the floor and whined once.

I didn't achieve a great deal. I'd love to say I sewed an entire wardrobe and became proficient at the saxophone (or even the mandolin, which I actually am learning), but what I did do was tidy up a bit more and read a bit more and waste less time fiddling around.

After a while, Eldest found a lo-fi way to tune the rest of us out, with the discovery of an ancient Sony CD Walkman which she plugged herself into for much of the week. You can take away the smartphone, but you can't cure a teenager of being, well, teenaged. She was allowed one birthday visit to the library to check her Facebook messages, during which she took the opportunity to leave a small online cry for help, like a message in a bottle sent from a desert island - "My mum has turned off the Internet..."

Since then, we've been playing at being a little bit stricter. We turn the screens off at 6 during the week, except Fridays and Saturdays, which are a bit of a free-for all. Sundays is completely off limits. The kids think we're evil. We don't care. Steve Jobs was super-strict about screen time. We're not even close to that.

I'm not preaching. I don't suggest you do this. If anything, it adds another layer of stress - can Eldest get her online homework done before 6? How can we possibly keep up with Strictly Come Dancing? How can I quietly pay bills online in the house on a Sunday when there are tiny angry eyes watching around every corner? It hasn't cured the children's addiction to their favourite poisons - Facebook, the Emmerdale website, Minecraft, Littlest Pet Shop videos - just given a definite shut-off time. It's easier to say 'No' than 'Just another ten minutes'. It takes less thought.

And less thought is about where I am right now. Less thought all round. That's just what I need.

T minus 30 minutes

2014-10-24T12:40:00.000-07:00

In half an hour, I'm turning the Internet off for a week.

(Just in this house. Don't worry. I don't have power over the whole Internet. Though the Littlest Latte did ask.)

It's all the fault of this book - Susan Maushart's The Winter of our Disconnect - which I borrowed from the library. In it, a single mother of three teenagers turns off all the screens for six months, backed up by Henry David Thoreau and a shedload of academic studies. During the six months, one of her children bakes cakes, one becomes a fantastic saxophone player and the other one rings people up a lot.

I was entranced. And despite the fact that we don't even own a saxophone, I am confident that a screen-free half term will change my entire family for the REST OF THEIR LIVES, and that we will all become spiritually and emotionally balanced individuals, discovering the pleasures of intelligent conversation, literature, handicrafts and Deep Thought.

In a few moments I shall unplug the TV, the PC, and the little black box thing that connects us to the Internet. I shall make a little pile of switched-off mobile phones. I texted friends this week to tell them they would have to use the landline to call me.

I got a number of texts back, most using the word 'brave'. Feel free to leave a comment along the same lines. I won't see it for a week, mind. I'll be over here in Deep Thought, and not thinking about wanting to watch Netflix at all.

Zen and the art of coat-making

2014-10-09T09:41:00.000-07:00

I can't tell you how delighted I was the last time I posted - after months and months of silence - to find out that people were STILL HERE. The Internet, we're told, is an up-to-the-minute, fast-paced environment, which certainly doesn't wait around for half-assed bloggers to make good on promises they can't keep.

It seems we have all been misled, and the Internet is actually full of lovely, Zen-like people, quite happy to wave and smile whenever we briefly bob up on the horizon.

And in honour of all that, here's a picture of me holding a finished quilt in a Japanese garden.

Part English Paper Pieced, part machined, the quilt was a retirement gift - a very well-received one, thankfully - for a professional who has worked tirelessly (no kidding - I think the word was coined for her) with Eldest since she was very small. I'll miss her a great deal.

Tess took the picture. (In addition to helping me lay out and pin all the layers together, and coming up with a shortcut to binding the thing.) I finished it during our craft weekend with Emma, Monica and Ali last month.

For ages I've been envious of some of the Australian bloggers I read, nicking off to Sewjourn for the weekend, having a fine old time with lovely people, and coming back with umpteen finished skirts. I wanted to do the same; and having stayed so many times at the Scargill Movement with my family I knew they'd be more than welcoming to us. For two nights and two days I sewed and sewed and sewed - occasionally stopping to eat cake, or laugh, or chat, or admire progress, or squish lovely new balls of yarn, or drink coffee, or make a stiff hot toddy (Eldest kindly gave me her stinking cold to take away with me) - until the quilt was finished and I'd made rather a lot of headway into sewing a coat.

It was amazing. It really brought home to me what those sewing blogs mean when they say 'the pattern came together in a weekend'. They mean an actual, whole weekend. They don't mean 'the pattern came together in half an hour after breakfast on Saturday, a snatched hour on Saturday night after loading the dishwasher, and twenty minutes after church on Sunday when everyone else is watching YouTube'.

Given time and the headspace to think, you can attempt something new without getting so tired it becomes impossible. Your brain actually works. You can get a big giddy and obsessive - and you can even, whilst hugging a friend to say goodbye, find yourself ripping her jacket off her shoulders to see how the facing is sewn in.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about time - or my lack of it - and the experience of the craft weekend has made me more forgiving of myself. Ten o'clock on a school-night is no time to get out the sewing machine. Craft becomes another chore to be fitted in, rather than a space for enjoyment, which on this occasion it truly was.

It was a lovely weekend in very good company. I hope we do it again.

Hibernation

2014-09-15T08:04:00.002-07:00

Mudmaid in the Lost Gardens of Heligan

Where have I been? What can I tell you? I'd love to say I've been lying in a forest letting moss grow over me.

I haven't. I have no moss. If I did lie still for longer than a moment (I do try: flinging myself on the bed under the guise of putting away ironing, I often get as long as 17 seconds) it's unlikely I would be covered in greenery - more likely I'd be subsumed in bits of laundry, or toast crusts, or a plastic medal for an event no-one can remember attending, or a cardboard box inexplicably painted a lurid green that must Never Be Thrown Away. It's an educated guess, based on the contents of the floor around me.

It was my understanding that as children got older, they stopped being quite so all-consuming. It was toddlers, I thought, that didn't give you two minutes space to go to the loo. Once you had a teenager and a child in KS2 (or Juniors, as it still exists in my elderly head) you'd be able to sustain a meaningful thought process; you'd be able to get through a Saturday morning without feeling that your brain had been violently stirred with a spoon.

Not so. And having searched all summer for a blog post that suggested some kind of personal growth, I gave up. I made a collage. Personal growth; a sense of achievement; clarity on the meaning of life - these things may never come. I best stop waiting, and just start filling the space.

The alchemy is complete

2014-05-19T15:36:00.000-07:00

Last time I was here, I invited you to laugh at my profligate behaviour in a health food shop, and to mock my chia seeds.

I return to you a maturer woman; someone who has found their own path in life. And by the power of Aldi, I have conquered the Office Bomb recipe of Susan Jane White.

(I do think that to cook properly from the book, you would either have to live in a tent (not a yurt. Yurts cost money) or be on the Rich List to be able to afford to eat. But still, I find myself renewing the library book; find myself energised by her enthusiasm and her writing, and though I won't be boarding her Train of Extreme Health, I will be waving at it, like a poor Railway Child who can't honestly afford Chia Seeds, and couldn't buy them in the quaint Yorkshire village where she is forced to live. (I am from Yorkshire, originally. And I can confirm that Chia Seeds, and fresh vegetables, and Chai Lattes are all available in God's Own County.))

Okay. It's late. I've overdosed on good intentions and the use of brackets. Here is my cheap, unapologetic version of Office Bombs, which takes no time at all to make, and has completely replaced my mid-morning Creme Egg or bar of Milka or Galaxy or whatever massive cookie happens to fall into my hands in the petrol station. My children clamour for them and believe me, my children clamour for NOTHING that can't be bought in Home Bargains.

(The original recipe makes 30 balls, but I'm sure Susan is grown-up enough to own a proper food processor. I own an Aldi mini-chopper, so I only make 16.)

Susan Jane White's Office Bombs, only altered a leetle bit

1 cup Aldi milled seeds; the Goji Berries or the Raspberry ones. (About two quid a pack! For realz! I throw them in Eldest's food at every opportunity.)
Half a cup raisins, plus a small scattering of whatever other dried fruit you have around, to replace the 'raw cacao nibs' which I have never bothered sourcing.
Quarter of a cup tahini
Quarter of a cup ground almonds
Quarter of a cup honey (Mine comes from Aldi or Home Bargains or is on An Offer.)
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
Pinch of salt (not"pink Himalayan salt" though. Sorry.)
Some dessicated coconut, to coat

Throw everything bar the coconut in your mini-chopper, or food processor, if you are grown-up.

Whizz till it clumps into an unlikely. sticky brown mess.

Roll into balls and coat in dessicated coconut. You can freeze it! You can put it in the fridge! You can pack it in your children's lunchboxes, and NONE OF IT WILL COME BACK!! (My children are miraculously able to survive on a miniature Fromage Frais all day, if the only alternative is sandwiches and fruit.)

Ooh, Susan. You are awful. But I like you.

The bonbons of weird

2014-04-18T23:51:00.000-07:00

Things often get a little, shall we say, fraught in the Coffee House. Take a combination of much to do and too little time; a cantankerous teenager; and the increasingly complex honeycomb of frustration that is special needs parenting; and you have the perfect recipe for lost tempers and recriminations and screaming and hiding in the wardrobe.

What we need, I decided, in a fit of hopeless simplicity, is better-balanced blood sugar and some Omega 3s. Because all these problems can be solved by not buying Bounty Bars, right?! So I hung around the library until I found the most insane cookbook I could find. It turned out to be The Extra Virgin Cookbook, by Susan Jane White. And then I did two things, in the manner of throwing money at a problem:

I went to the health food shop, where I dropped £30 on chia seeds and barley malt extract and Siberian ginseng.
I drove to Aldi and bought a bottle of whisky.

Chia seeds are, it seems, priced in the manner of a semi precious jewel. Here they are, presented to you by my delightful Hand Model Number 2.

In order to make chia seed bonbons, you're going to need to mix together a quarter of a cup of tahini and nearly a quarter of a cup of maple syrup. On close inspection, my regular maple syrup turned out not to be really maple syrup at all, so I substituted agave nectar. (Agave nectar used to be a fancy health food, but now that you can buy it in Tesco it seems to have been excommunicated and is now not healthy at all. Apparently.)

Then you add half a cup of milled chia seeds (ours were not milled. We will not live to a grand old age), a quarter of a cup of ground almonds, and two tablespoons of cocoa powder. You then roll them into very tiny little balls, because they are so expensive, and you feel a need to eek them out.

Then roll them in dessicated coconut, as demonstrated by my delightful Hand Model Number 2.

They're nice. Let's just get that out there right now, because I can hear Emma sniggering already. The other day, when I outlined my desperation and its seedy solution, she just laughed at me. She did. She said 'chia seed buns?' over and over again, and did some comedy swearing. How vindicated am I, now that I have a fridge full of sweets that cost a squillion pounds each to make?

I also made some prune muffins, again from Susan Jane White, which went down very well. These had ingredients including carrots and linseeds and barley malt extract. (You know that advice that you're only supposed to eat food that you can describe, in order to avoid chemicals and E numbers and strange ingredients of fear? I cannot describe barley malt extract. We're coming full circle over here.)

Mr Coffee actually said: "Of all the muffins I've had that aren't chocolate, and have some weird things that you've put in like fruit (here he kind of flinched a little), these are the best."

I think you'll agree, that is the highest praise.

*Update - I'm very sorry to hear that Gwyneth Paltrow's marriage is over. I make lots of her recipes. I cry: "These are the recipes of a Film Star who is married to a Rock Star!!!" to my children, when they stare again in horror at anything with veg in. I like her. I shan't say sorry.

Get on with it, why don't you

2014-04-10T14:57:00.001-07:00

It's been a month. It's time to face facts. Inspiration is not going to strike. It's time to throw some words at a screen.

Or some pictures. Or some bricks. Whatever comes to hand.

Pretty fabric, you say? I can manage that. I've started a new project.

It's another paper pieced Liberty quilt - bigger pieces this time, because the Liberty star quilt was had way too many bits. It's based on a pattern for a picnic blanket which appears in the Hexa-Go-Go book, modified to do something vaguely rainbow-like across the three chevrons. I keep adding new colours, however, and lengthening the chevrons as I go along. It will be shaped like a giant's table runner by the time I finish it.

I realised back in February that when it comes to quilts, I'm a hand piecer. Free time is in short supply around here, and disappearing into a room for hours to sew bits of fabric together in straight lines isn't the most pressing of pursuits. (I said *pressing*! About quilting! It's like a quilting joke! (or not. It's not like a joke at all. Moving on.))

English paper piecing, as we've established before, can be done in front of the television with a glass of wine. Or two. Because no-one is looking that closely at the stitching.

So. What else? My children bought me lovely gifts for Mothers Day. Here is some fabric and bow trimming thingies for me to make pants.

I got a knicker-making kit for Christmas, and I'm all set now to never set foot in M&S again. I'm not blogging my smalls though, however much Emma says it's fine. IT'S NOT FINE. It's not fine to put your knickers on a blog. For heaven's sake - my teenage daughter subscribes to this ~~sh..~~ twaddle* by email.

(*I have to be careful. There were links with Rude Words on in a previous post, and Mr Coffee was quite finger-waggy about the whole thing.)

Good grief. I'm running out of steam already. Um. Here's a miniature mandolin, and yet another book about polygamy. Will that do for now? This twaddle is tiring.

A Year in Books - Mark for Everyone

2014-03-06T14:36:00.002-08:00

Years ago - before Mr Coffee and I were married - we were sitting in the home of some friends drinking rather a lot of beer. Someone said something sarcastic and pious; our host lit a cigarette, blew out smoke and said, wryly, "It's about this time of night that we like to talk to people about Jesus". It was a joke; of course it was a joke. The awful hilarity of the idea- that you'd suddenly find yourself trapped in a previously incredibly comfortable chair, surrounded by evangelists.

And so it is that I introduce my new book for March.

It's a blow-by-blow guide to Mark's Gospel, bought for us by my mother for two reasons: because she likes Tom Wright's work, and because Mark's Gospel is really, really short.

It's Lent. It's a good time to schedule in some Bible-bashing, to think on a more daily basis about why on earth I go to church and to concentrate a little harder than I can during a sermon whilst trying to placate bored children or ensure that no-one sets themselves alight on the votive candles.

And the shortness of the task is important - because I have other things on my Lentern to-do list. I'm giving nothing up; instead I'm trying to look out. I'm writing letters I'd been forgetting to write; practising my mandolin instead of slumping in front of the television; trying to get enough sleep instead of sneaking another half glass of wine and fiddling around on the Internet. In short, I'm trying to climb out of that hole so many of us often find ourselves in, where our attempts to relax start to turn into self-sabotage. But I'm being gentle with myself too - if I slip back into the hole a little, it isn't the end of the world.

Powering down

2014-02-26T06:57:00.001-08:00

There's a well-known parenting phrase that I've never used - though I've used worse, I'm positive - that goes, "Stop crying - or I'll give you something to cry about."

And so it was with half term. Mr Coffee was away on a residential course; the whole week kicked off with a piece of truly crappy news; and I lost all enthusiasm whatsoever for the endeavour of parenting. To illustrate this, I just looked on my phone for pictures of my week, and all I have come up with is a picture of a crate of Aldi whisky, taken as some kind of price comparison exercise. (I finally wound up with a bottle of Bushmills.)

I didn't cry. I kind of staggered on, fuelled by whisky and some tooth-loosening peppermint slice that Littlest and I created out of icing sugar, butter, dessicated coconut and evil. Mr Coffee finally came home, and whisked away the children so I could sew a skirt and breathe into a paper bag. The weekend rolled around, and there was rest, and by Tuesday all the INSET days were over and it all seemed to get getting back to normal.

All that needed to be done was to wake up the children and get everyone where they needed to be. So I pulled the duvet off of Eldest, and in her attempts to snatch it back she accidentally scratched me full in the eye.

Then I got to cry. I got to go to the doctor in dark glasses and get poked at and get sent home with drops and then I went back to bed where my entire body shut down and I slept for four-and-a-half hours. I call it sleep - it was more like powering down. I got an exciting puffy face. Mr Coffee had great fun imitating me pawing about blindly, and the children got to laugh at me without me even knowing what was going on.

Later that evening Mr Coffee came to bed to watch The Musketeers on the iPlayer. Since I was unable to see, he kindly agreed to audio describe the proceedings, which went something along these lines: "Ooh, there's some fighting. And some blowing up, and some wandering off. Now! That's Whatsherface! Oh, she's dead. Oh. Ooh yes. It's all kicking off."

Today I have only a slight headache and a slightly blurry eye. But I'm much improved. And I'm very much looking forward to watching my own TV now, though I shall miss Whatsherface, and her valuable contribution to the story.