stories and lentils

I can't believe that an entire half term has passed since I last sat down to write. The return of the school routine has been exhausting for Little L and left us all mourning the freedoms of summer. These two weeks of holidays from school have given us the chance to pause and just practise being once again. I've been so very grateful for the moments I can pass just watching Little L free to draw for hours on end or act out her imaginary scenarios with her collections of toys and silk scarves and stones. Little I is jubilant in having her sister around day after day but her celebration is all too often an energetic destruction of  Little L's precious make-believe landscapes.   Lac Montbel     The first signs of autumn came with the tractors hauling trailers heavy with wood through the village. Piles of logs outside front doors, hastily being taken into houses to be stacked in sheds and hallways to feed the fires throughout the winter. When we open t...

Just before the end of the summer holidays we decided to go away in the van and explore the coast in Aude for the first time. It's an area of salty lagoons surrounded by arid hills covered in vines, set behind sandy strips of beach and beyond, the Mediterranean.  Somewhere on the journey there, through endless forests and gorges and hills the van became jerkier and we became quieter and quieter. We tried to pretend everything was fine. Stopped. Wandered around a beautiful town, swam in a river, ate ice cream, wilted a little under the heat. Then we carried on toward the coast but unsurprisingly the van hadn't got better and by the time we arrived at the sea there was no denying that things felt disastrous. We arrived where we had planned to spend the night and stopped short at a height restriction barrier, a feature we were to become familiar with. Eventually we limped along a quiet track and found somewhere to camp for the night. The next morning we woke up n...

I'm writing this to the sound of thunder crashes, in the dark of the attic. The gods of the sky groaning and rumbling, threatening downpours. Little I is next to me, asleep on the mattress, tiny beads of sweat on her nose. It's been almost two months since I last wrote and summer is passing by so fast. Midsummer's day finished with a terrific storm, sending a river down our road and the children insane with glee and without inhibition. We went to the van with a plan to drive and watch the storm but instead played jazz loudly with the girls dancing off adrenaline from the crashes of thunder. I had imagined a midsummer meal with candles, an evening walk and wild flower wreath weaving but this turned out to be much better. Then the girls and I returned to the UK for a couple of weeks. The girls met their newest cousin for the first time and were reunited with Little M, their long time cousin and fellow ragamuffin: Lots of joy and cuddles and some arguments and te...