A day off

Today was a day off from pretty much everything. Work, laundry, sewing, bread-baking, yoghurt-making, housework... After our weekly food shop, we upped and offed to Bruges for the day.

Bruges is sometimes called the Flemish Venice and it certainly smells like it! It's a beautiful old city on a sunny day like today, albeit a little full of tourists, and ideal for our kind of sightseeing which mostly involves wandering randomly through interesting streets, exploring churches and other sights we might stumble upon, and discovering cafes, bars, craft beers and artisanal chocolatiers.

We've been drinking a fair amount of craft beer recently, and an off-hand comment from my boyfriend revealed an interest in possibly having a go at brewing beer. This is really quite exciting for me - so many of the things I do as part of this drive for a make-your-own lifestyle are things that I do alone, but now here is something we could do together. 

We've been talking about beers we like and beers we'd like to make, and I've been talking him through the results of my research into how to brew (basically outlining the differences between kit brewing, malt extract brewing and grain brewing). We'll need to find a bit of equipment and do a bit of planning, but I think home-brewed beer is definitely in our future - and an opportunity to explore this new field together.

Of course, some things need doing, day off or no day off. The plants need watering, the sourdough starter needs feeding and the dishes need washing. But I'm definitely smiling today, after my day off.

Holidays!

Ah. Half term. No classes. Such would be bliss enough. But no! There is more. For I have returned for a few days to the house of my parents. Who have an OVEN, ladies and gentleman, an actual functioning oven which can be used for baking. They also have - wait for it! - baking ingredients in the cupboard. Decent quality ones. Which I haven't paid for.

So, naturally, the list of thing To Do has been thoroughly ignored in favour of baking ginger biscuits. I am usually more of a cake person, but these are truly lovely biscuits. I can't believe I've never had a go at ginger biscuits before. Add to this copious amounts of tea made in an actual tea pot, some hot ginger drink for my cold, a good book and no inconsiderable amount of time listening to the robins chattering to one another outside, and you have a definitively Good Day (TM). This is now being polished with a bowl of homemade soup, after which I shall go into London to meet my mother and wander around a museum, before meeting the rest of the family for a birthday dinner.

Would someone please tell me how today could get any better? Oh yeah, that's right. I've got tomorrow to look forward to, as well. I hope you are enjoying February as much as I am!

Do you see that grin?

That's the grin of a mad person, as my parents will readily tell you. I'm back home for a couple of days during the half-term holiday, and I've taken this opportunity to treat myself. Ignoring the bag of half-complete crochet projects, the piles of yarn waiting to be worked, the stacks of fabric and patterns, I embarked on a completely new craft - spinning.

Spinning is something I've been interested in for a while, if only for the historical world it seems to open up. For centuries, nay, millennia, spinning was a constant in the lives of women. While you're gossiping, you're spinning. Rocking the baby to sleep? Spinning. Hence the distaff sex (a distaff being a stick used to hold unspun, prepared wool). At university, I studied fairy tales, in which the symbolism of the wheel or spindle is more complex than might at first appear. I learned how to spin at a Viking history event in York, aimed at people approximately ten years younger than me, and I've been dying to have a proper go ever since. Thus the purchase of a spindle and some wool.

I've actually got a spinning wheel upstairs - it's very old, bought from a local charity shop by my mother for my 21st birthday (best present ever!) but before I work out how or even if it works, I wanted to learn the basics with a drop spindle. Which is very appropriately named, I find. But the great thing about spinning is if you make a mistake, it's relatively easy to fix it (although very hard to fix it neatly).

Now my yarn is thinner and more even, with fewer slubs, and I'm starting to plan all the fabulous things I can make with it. I really should finish my last blanket before I embark on a new one, shouldn't I? But craft isn't supposed to be sensible!

The rest of my trip has thus far consisted of crossing many things off my to-do-list (currently several years long) and enjoying the very welcome luxuries of: Georgette Heyer, bath-tubs, Haagen-Dazs ice cream and my own, fabulous bed. In various permutations and combinations.