the view from here

because these are the golden days...

  • Blog
  • about
  • instagram
  • contact

Rolling and stamping in the quiet days

December 23, 2015 by Suzie Williams in home

In these quiet few days before the Christmas madness begins, the boys and I have very few plans, and those we do have centre around pyjamas, Christmas movies and a bit of light rolling and stamping.

We'll be rolling copious mounds of spicy gingery dough to make super-thin pepparkaka, stamping flattened sheets of shortcrust pastry to make mince pies and kneading a new batch of minty icing to replenish our stash of peppermint creams (star-shaped this time).

But first on our list has been a bit of non-food rolling and stamping to make little present adornments for our loved ones.

There is definitely a theme for our crafting - if it isn't as simple as, we don't do it (no Martha Stewarts here) - and these air-dried clay snowflakes really are an absolute doodle. We already had the clay from Louis' mountain construction project earlier this term so we chose our cutter, rolled out the clay on a craft cutting board, stamped the shapes and eased a pointy thing through the clay to make a hole for the ribbon. Then the boys stamped letters onto each snowflake for the recipient and used the pointy thing again to create a dotty border on each snowflake.

And that was it. A quick photograph or two and 24 hours drying and hey presto, ridiculously fragile name labels for our presents! But who cares if they break, it's the thought that counts, right?

December 23, 2015 /Suzie Williams
Christmas, makes, bringing up boys
home
Comment

Pimped peppermint creams

December 20, 2015 by Suzie Williams in home

As well as gingerbread cookie kits for the kids, we gave our pals a little stash of pimped peppermint creams to take home from our party last weekend.

They're ridiculously easy to make, although having sampled eleventy-billion of them, I will say that getting the amount of peppermint right isn't easy (definitely over-douse rather than under) and having dipped and decorated them, don't plan to show anyone into your kitchen for a while because it will be a sticky, chocolatey bomb-site for at least a day. Think egg-white and icing sugar mix meets underfloor heating...

This was another recipe snaffled from Country Living although there are lots of variations out there. This one makes around 50 mints and I made them 24 hours before bagging them up, to allow them to dry properly.

The ingredients are simple: 2 medium egg whites + 450 sifted icing sugar + a few drops of peppermint essence + 100g melted plain chocolate. 

All you do is beat the egg whites until they're frothy then add just enough to the icing sugar to make a firm dough. Once it's the right consistency, you then add the peppermint essence to taste.

Once you're pepperminted up, you knead the dough on a surface dusted with more icing sugar, then roll it out to a 5mm thickness. I then used the top of a straight edged shot glass to stamp out my mints - they were around 3-4cm round.

The final job was to lightly press the prongs of a fork across half the mint to make an indented pattern, then dip the other half into the melted chocolate. As long as you dry them on baking parchment sprinkled with icing sugar they shouldn't stick. I popped mine in the fridge for a while but left them covered on the worktop overnight.

Apparently they keep in an airtight container for up to a month but well, really, who's going to let them hang around that long? 

December 20, 2015 /Suzie Williams
Christmas, parties, home-huddling, home, makes
home
Comment

A token swathe of washi tape

December 17, 2015 by Suzie Williams in home

I enjoy wrapping presents. Ever since my Dad showed me how to fold the perfect crisp corner and how to ensure an uninterrupted pattern on striped paper I have approached it with delight (although to be honest, I've never mastered that crisp corner).

I'm definitely not a flouncy ribbon and bow kind of wrapper. I favour the simpler brown paper, mini-bauble and string approach and I'm quite particular about my labels. They have to be tied on, not stuck and they must never, ever have mini-festive scenes on them.

Yes, I have a wrapping code which take quite seriously. And I admit, I judge others by the standard of their wrapping. Having said that, you won't see me adorning my loved ones' presents this year with the greenery and black & white photos that seem to be the bloggers' favourite this year. 

It's not because such Pinterest-worthy parcels don't look beautifully understated and elegant (they do), it's because quite simply, I'd be crying by breakfast time on Christmas Day having witnessed the absolute destruction of such wonderful creations by overexcited small people. Don't touch my art, man...

So for my boys it's brown paper printed with snowmen mixed in with the more child-friendly and definitely bog-standard red & white, with just a token swathe of washi tape just to preserve my sensibilities. 

Now, where did I put the sellotape?

December 17, 2015 /Suzie Williams
Christmas, presents, wrapping, pinterest
home
Comment
 Clearly this one isn't mine... Image from  Nasa's instagram feed , which you should definitely follow if you don't already.

Clearly this one isn't mine... Image from Nasa's instagram feed, which you should definitely follow if you don't already.

Minds blown. Career aspirations formed

December 15, 2015 by Suzie Williams in bringing up boys

The internet is a scary place and technology is bad for our children. Or is it?

It's certainly true that our childhoods were less complicated, simpler and less frenetic than those of the little people we're raising in 2015. But it's also true that technology is granting our children amazing and transformational opportunities that we could only have dreamt of as children in the (ahem) 70s and 80s. 

Watching direct live pictures from inside the Soyuz capsule as it rocketed off to the International Space Station at 11:03 GMT this morning carrying our newest hero, British astronaut Major Tim Peake was one such transformational moment. Seeing him give a wave and a thumbs up IN REAL TIME as he travelled to the edge of space and watching as the light outside the window beside him gave way to the darkness of space, was an incredible opportunity made possible only because we live in a world of technological advancement and global communications.

In the countdown to Major Tim's launch over the last few days, my sons (nearly 11 and 8) have had their minds officially blown. They have their future careers mapped out in front of them. They're going to be astronauts and scientists, obvs. But unlike countless kids throughout history who looked up at the skies and wildly proclaimed 'I'm going to be an astronaut when I grow up', this generation - our children - actually stand a chance of working out, while they're still young enough, how to do it.

And we have technology - and more precisely, the childhood evil twins of the internet and social media - to thank for that. 

Louis is painstakingly researching every aspect of Major Tim Peake's career to this point. He's using the internet to find out how old he is, what he studied at school, the science and flight experience he needed to be accepted on ESA's astronaut training programme and the physical tests he had to pass in order to become the first publicly-funded British astronaut on the ISS. He's looking at Nasa's Instagram feed and reeling in delight to see their recent call for applications from 'the next generation of explorers'. He's looking over my shoulder at Tim Peake's tweets and he's watching Commander Chris Hadfield's rendition of Space Oddity on board the ISS for the millionth time. He's reading Chris Hadfield's book, amassing facts and building plans. Yes, he's still daydreaming and wishing, but he's got a foundation, a kernel of an idea and who knows where it will lead?

Xavier wants to know how astronauts wee in space, what food they eat, what sort of science experiments Tim Peake will conduct aboard the space station and how that will help us in the future. He wants to know if I know any astronaut parents he could talk to (I don't) or failing that, if I know anyone who was in the Navy as if he can't fly to space for a living, he wants to take charge of helicopters that land onboard ships. He's drawing pictures and looking at the Planets app on my iPhone.

Yes they're still fanciful boyhood dreams but the difference with our generation of children is that they're thinking real, practical thoughts about grown-up jobs (albeit fantastic, incredible ones open to only the most elite candidates) at a time when, thanks to the internet and global communications, they can actually find out hard facts about how to turn those dreams into reality, early enough and easily enough to steer the choices they make in their learning and education as they grow up.

So tonight, after Xavier's school Nativity play, we'll rush home and gather round the TV to watch the Soyuz capsule dock with the ISS and hear Tim Peake's first words live from space. We'll check out the next visible pass of the International Space Station over our little patch of sky and we'll make a note to dash out then and wave at our man on the ISS.

Because it's good to have dreams and it's even better to make them happen. And if the internet, technology and social media can play a part in inspiring our children to make concrete plans that will help them turn their dreams into reality, then long live technology.

Safe trip Major Tim!

December 15, 2015 /Suzie Williams
bringing up boys, ISS, astronaut, dreams, careers, science
bringing up boys
Comment

Gingerbread cookie kits

December 14, 2015 by Suzie Williams in home

These were the EASIEST Christmas gifts to make and completely worthy of a blog post in their own right because, well, LOOK at them!

I promise I didn't just make these for the photo opportunity (though following this post I do feel a bit smug at having done so!) I made them because we hosted a home-huddle* this weekend to kick off our festive season proper and to indulge in some speed drinking and scoffing with our friends before everyone departs for a week or so to their festive nests.

Because our party was sans kids this time around (they tend not to enjoy cocktails), I wanted to make sure they didn't feel left out, hence a take-home gift they could easily get stuck into as their parents suffer the after-effects of night of festive cheer.

Inspiration came in the form of the Country Living Christmas calendar freebie swiped from my Mum, with a slight adaptation to create not one but two layers of gingery brown sugary goodness in each jar because I thought they looked better that way. 

For the mix, I weighed out 500g plain flour and mixed it with 2 tsp baking powder, spooning half of this mixture into the jar. I then added 185g soft brown sugar on top in two layers, separated by the rest of the flour. Finally, I topped it with 2 tsp ground ginger and a teaspoon each of ground cinnamon and ground allspice. Enough to make 25-30 cookies when you add 100g butter, 115g golden syrup and one large egg apparently. Oh yes, I am OWNING this Christmas crafting thing...

The copper cookie cutters are from Steamer Trading and the baubles, gift labels, string and jars are all Ikea.

* I have declared 'home-huddling' to be a thing and bestow upon you all the licence to use it freely when describing a gathering together in your home of your most favourite people for hearty food, full-bodied booze, free-range children and laughter well into the night. It's an autumn/winter thing, for a gathering with those same friends in the spring or summer is something altogether different. Home-huddling is Hygge and candlelight and nineties playlists, it's coats and shoes in a muddy pile at the bottom of the stairs, it's red wine stains on chopping boards but most of all, it's that rosy-cheeked glow you get from spending time at home in the darkest months with the people who make you feel brightest.

And if you're so inclined, you can read more about another recent home-huddle here. 

December 14, 2015 /Suzie Williams
home-huddling, home, parties, Christmas, winter, baking
home
Comment
 Our Christmas books - a mix of dog-eared classics and new reads, but all well-loved

Our Christmas books - a mix of dog-eared classics and new reads, but all well-loved

A pile of Christmas books

December 11, 2015 by Suzie Williams in home

I added a couple of new titles to our pile of Christmas books this year. It's by no means an Advent collection (does anyone really unwrap a new story every day in December like they do in Instagram-world?) but it is a perfectly-formed small pile of favourites that are squirrelled away for eleven months of the year, ready to surprise and delight come the festive season.

I say surprise and delight (I do sometimes have to cajole the boys into listening) but I for one love a Christmas story. This year we'll (I'll) be reading:

  1. A Christmas Carol - Quentin Blake's new illustrated version is a delight
  2. The Night Before the Night Before Christmas - Mr Frumble and his Skipickledoo make a right hash of helping Santa
  3. Stick Man - because it's magical and like The Gruffalo's Child and The Gruffalo before it, we can't wait for the animated film this Christmas
  4. Mrs Christmas - behind every great man....
  5. The Night Before Christmas - another new one this year; beautiful wintery illustrations accompany a poetic masterpiece
  6. The Polar Express - our town's pop-up cinema is screening this next weekend with mince pies and popcorn for the kids; even though we have it on DVD and have watched it countless times, we can't wait
  7. The Goose is Getting Fat - because even though its Michael Morpurgo, it all turns out ok in the end
  8. Albert's Christmas - my mum read this book to us when we were kids. It's about a bear getting ready for Christmas and every illustration is etched into my mind; it's a lovely, gentle old-fashioned story
  9. Diggy Takes His Pick - my absolute favourite Christmas story from when my brother and I were kids. Diggy the Mole spends Christmas with the Lettice and Timothy Bun the rabbits but Mr Cunningleigh-Sly the Fox nicks the Christmas pudding. 
December 11, 2015 /Suzie Williams
Christmas, books, winter, home, bringing up boys
home
Comment
 Two beautifully irregular handmade mugs I bought a couple of years back in St Ives

Two beautifully irregular handmade mugs I bought a couple of years back in St Ives

I wanna throw a pot

December 09, 2015 by Suzie Williams in home

Anyone else been totally inspired by the Great Pottery Throw Down? I know, right?

As The Guardian reports, this quirky little reality maker show (the edgier, cooler younger art-school sister of the Bake Off) screened over six dark winter evenings culminating in last night's grand final and has sparked an upsurge in sales of pottery materials, a flood of bookings onto throwing courses and an upturn in sales of handmade ceramics.

I've loved it; not all of the forms and definitely not some of the finishes - I'm more of a minimalist, clean lines kind of a wannabe potter than an experimental glaze and floral kind - but the techniques, the ease with which those potters threw, cajoled and moulded their creations into life was almost mesmeric. I am hooked and I want to have a go NOW. Plus those aprons and artfully splattered dungarees. I'm sold.

Clearly, I'm going to be marvellous at pottery so in anticipation of my future success *ahem*, I've put together a collection of inspirational ceramics on Pinterest (where else?). 

And if you missed the show, you can catch it on iPlayer for a while longer. I suggest you make a pot of Earl Grey in a beautifully turned, non-leaky hand-thrown teapot and settle down under a lambswool blanket cradling an earthenware mug and e-n-j-o-y.

December 09, 2015 /Suzie Williams
makers, pottery
home
Comment
_DSC6485.jpg

Styling the perfect festive backdrop (I jest...)

December 07, 2015 by Suzie Williams in home

I spend an inordinate amount of time looking at beautifully-styled images on Pinterest and lifestyle and interiors blogs. It's like crack for the interiors addict and at this time of year, I start to feel the pressure.

The pressure to create the perfect festive backdrop for the perfect family Christmas. The pressure to dress everyone in matching pyjamas AT ALL TIMES and lovingly wrap perfect presents in recycled brown paper, artfully adorned with foraged greenery, handmade tags and black & white polaroids. The pressure to fill the build-up to Christmas with joyous festive crafting and making.

Of course this is all just styling. No-one really lives like that all the time and if they do, I don't suppose I'd have much in common with them. Because getting sorted for Christmas isn't like that in a family home. Yes there are those glorious fleeting moments when it all comes together briefly (also known as 'Instagram moments') but the rest of the time it's about forgotten Nativity lines, exploding gingerbread houses and preventing the cat from diving headfirst into the tree in search of baubles. Because the perfect festive backdrop will have sprinklings of gorgeousness in it, but most of the time it is messy and noisy and chaotic and real.

So rest assured that just out of shot of all of these pictures I'm sharing of our festive backdrop this year are nagging piles of unfinished work, guilty mountains of unfolded laundry and at least ten notes from school I've not replied to. 

And know that yes, I had plans to stylishly forage for the perfect greenery to perch atop the hazel branches that hang above our kitchen table (I know...) but did I? Did I hell. So rapidly dying offcuts from the Christmas tree dropping needles into the boys' breakfasts it is then.

But it looks pretty, right?

Fancy joining me in indulging in some truly fabulous pressure-inducing images of the perfect festive backdrop? My Christmas board on Pinterest is dedicated wholly to the fellow under-achieving mother at this time of year, because even if we're not perfect in real life, we can always pretend, right? :-)

December 07, 2015 /Suzie Williams
Christmas, home, interiors, winter, pinterest
home
2 Comments

Seven things I'll miss. And seven I won't.

November 11, 2015 by Suzie Williams in home

When we eventually move*, there are things I'll miss about this lovely old house and things I'll wave a cheery goodbye to with a secret sigh of relief. 

The things I'll miss:

  1. This house in the winter with its 3ft thick walls that mean it's warm and snug inside even when it's bitterly cold outside. It's like pulling on a favourite, comfortable jumper over your softest nightwear and spending the day in a cosy cocoon. 
  2. This house in the summer when we open the French doors in the morning and don't close them until late at night, feeling the warm sun gradually move round during the day.
  3. The view from our bedroom window of the fields that are home to roaming deer and rabbits in the summer, long-haired cattle and rolling mists in the autumn and snow-camoflagued sheep and the hoar frost in winter.
  4. The sound of the early morning train as it trundles across the river bridge at the end of the lane on its way to deliver its load of suited passengers to London for their 9am meetings.
  5. The hoot of our resident tawny owl at dusk in the summer and early autumn, it's magical and eerie all at once.
  6. The reassuring creak of our bottom stair heralding the arrival of a bedtime wandering child or, mug of tea in hand, marking the end of a long day.
  7. Pulling onto our backyard drive and looking at the house with its wobbly roofline, golden Cotswold stone and peeling paintwork which never fails to make my heart sing.

The things I won't miss:

  1. Having to describe where we live to anyone who wants to find us ever, then having to stand watch for them as they invariably get lost, try to call us, fail at the lack of mobile signal and pull over weeping quietly somewhere close by. This applies universally to friends, family, Ocado drivers, eBay buyers and delivery men. The perils of living in the country.
  2. The uneven floors. Marbles anyone? Nope, because all the marbles have rolled off into distant corners never to be retrieved (see Won't Miss item 5) 
  3. The uneven walls. Hanging a picture at a 30 degree vertical angle is not easy. Keeping it on the wall is even more difficult.
  4. The temperamental plumbing. Four bathrooms, two showers, no mains drainage. Enough said.
  5. The spooky corners where strange crawly things may or may not lie and into which old marbles roll to retire.
  6. The occasional inquisitive top-deck bus rider who (if they know where to look) can see directly into our top floor bathroom. Quite a shock on exiting the shower of a morning... for them too obviously.
  7. The kitchen sink which will simply not ever get clean, no matter how hard I scrub it. 

* I write that with a slight sense of foreboding and foolish superstition in case the very act of committing it to words will somehow plunge the whole, long drawn-out saga into peril. If you are reading this anywhere near a wood-based item, please find it in your heart to touch said wood and hope on our behalf that the move will finally happen as planned. I thank you. 

 The view of the back of our house. Pretty even through the gloom.

The view of the back of our house. Pretty even through the gloom.


November 11, 2015 /Suzie Williams
home, moving
home
Comment

November came in with a bang

November 09, 2015 by Suzie Williams in adventures

We shunned the local cricket club fireworks display this weekend and instead home-huddled* with a group of dear friends. Our lovely host bolted Catherine wheels onto his rambling shed and plunged slightly damp rockets into plant pots filled with sand whilst we squealed health and safety messages to our rabble of over-excited children, who were all pie-eyed and incredulous as multi-coloured incendiary devices stuttered and shot dangerously close to the overhanging trees.

It was a hark-back to the bonfire nights of my seventies childhood** and it was GLORIOUS.

Mulled wine and Prosecco were imbibed. Juicy fat sausages with caramelised onion sauce and potato wedges were devoured, poached pears and Florentines were oohed and aahed over and sparklers were waved. The kids played board games long into the night and we all rolled home happy and tired on a night so clear we could see the Milky Way.

November, you've been good so far...

* I hereby declare 'home-huddling' to be a thing and bestow upon you all the licence to use it freely when describing a gathering together in your home of your most favourite people for hearty food, full-bodied booze, free-range children and laughter well into the night. It's an autumn/winter thing, for a gathering with those same friends in the spring or summer is something altogether different with light bites and refreshing fizz. Home-huddling is Hygge and candlelight and nineties playlists, it's coats and shoes in a muddy pile at the bottom of the stairs, it's red wine stains on chopping boards but most of all, it's that rosy-cheeked glow you get from spending time at home in the darkest months with the people who make you feel brightest.

**One of my earliest and fondest childhood memories is of my Dad bolting Catherine wheels to wooden contraptions balanced precariously alongside our neighbour's hedge and being one part amazed, two parts petrified as sparks flew. Back in the days before public service announcements, when men's flares were nylon and a box of fireworks as big as a dining table were a fiver.  

November 09, 2015 /Suzie Williams
autumn, november, bonfire night, parties, bringing up boys, home-huddling
adventures
Comment
  • Newer
  • Older

Powered by Squarespace  |   Go to suziewilliams.co.uk