stories and lentils

Spring finally came with a week of hot sunshine as if the sun wanted to couldn’t wait any longer. And now the cowslips have already passed and the violets too. Orchids are blooming in the meadows just beyond our house and the girls gather bunches of buttercups and forget-me-nots and beg for a twig of lilac to perfume the house with. The swallows have returned, working without pause to repair their nests and raise their broods.    We visited Spain, deciding on April, to avoid baking in the heat of the van later in the season. We spent time in the hills and on the coast. It was, as ever with holidays where we endeavor to spend no money, both fun and exhausting, void of nearly all comfort but full of new sights to wonder at. The first night we trailed up miles of small mountainside roads. We met an oncoming car and politely reversed, into a small storm drain, then passed thirty minutes trying to wedge branches in such a fashion that we might be able ...

We had snow for the second time this winter and once again the village was transformed. The winter of our imagination for a morning or so before the crisp white was trampled brown and slushy.     In February we visited England. We went back to the farm, now Grannie’s Farm, and visited my sister and family on their new farm and travelled north to Manchester to visit Grandma’s House and family there. Our visit coincided with freezing cold storms and unprecedented snowfall and finally our flight home was cancelled and so we got an extra four days on the farms. I can’t quite put into words Little L’s love of the farm. Her enthusiasm to see the animals and be outside in all weather but most of all to help; carry water, bed down, pass hay through the hurdles to sheep or goats. Little I definitely preferred tearing around the house being chased by her cousin or thrown high into the air by an uncle or bouncing on beds to risking freez...