Testing Testing

Wow well its been some time since I was last here. I decided after my Grandfather died and a few difficult months that I needed to cut back on things I was doing. That added to the changes that Blogger was making meant I closed down for a while. A long while.

Today I started searching online for some ways to celebrate Lammas on the move (we will be traveling for holiday come Lammas) and in the searches up popped my old blog site. It had completely entered the memory storage section of my brain. I signed back in and had a look around.

Now I might not have anything interesting nor frequent to add but I thought I'd try every now and then. Hence this is really a test post to see if I have managed to turn the settings back so it can be viewed in general again and also a big waving hello to those of you I disappeared without a by or leave. My apologies, I was in a bit of a dark place.

So please, if you can see this post and remember this old girl, do drop a comment in the box for me, just so I can see it's still working!

Ta, J.

Whats Samhain?

“So what do you do at Samhain, I mean it’s all just Hallowe’en isn’t it” asked a friend today. And you know what it took me a min to think about the answer. Because for us obviously it is about the turning of the wheel, the life continuing but with remembrance too. So I came up with the following. It’s a short answer, not as in depth as I might have given to someone who was interested in more than the passing and slightly “I don’t really care” comment that my friend had made.

Wonder what you think?:

What we do for celebrating our Samhain is rather similar to that of any new year, we eat and we drink.

But with the added part of including our ancestors and descendants. We will have a feast, mostly if possible made from food we have grown and home cooked. The table will be set for all attending, and an extra place for representing our ancestors who have passed. In this case this year will be for a few of my family in particular my grandfather who died in the summer. Then during the feast there will be speeches, recognising the wisdom of our ancestors, the comfort of our peers and the promise of our descendants. Finally everyone will write a memory, promise or wish onto some card which is then bound and given to the newest members of our family for them to have for guidance in the future, recognising that we cannot be who we are without the influence and love of those around us. That family and friends matter in this world. Often any new babies in the year will be Named, a ceremony for us where you take it in turn to name the ancestors from as far back as your line can remember welcoming in the newest additions by adding their name to the Tree of Life.

A celebration of old and new, reminding us of our place in the Circle whilst giving thanks for what we have.

By the way, Hello, Its been a while, this year has been one of ups and downs, but here is to many more ups in the new year to come.

Pardon?

For years now I have had problems hearing properly. It has been a gradual decline but about 6 months ago it got noticably worse. Off I troted to the doctors for a referral and this monday gone it finally arrived.

Sadly it seems I am loosing my hearing, it isn't glue ear or excess wax but Otosclerosis. For now I am getting hearing aids for both ears but that doesn't stop the problem, just helps amplify the noise around me.

I've been a bit shaken by it. Not too sure why as being a bit on the deaf side is something that I was expecting. I decided though that wallowing wasn't going to help me (after about 2 large bags of coconut mushrooms) and that I should look into the silver lining side of it all.

As such I have today signed up for BSL1 course. I did a refreshers course throughout June which was a social course but the BSL1 is an exam course so a bit more study required. After this I am going to try and get through the next course stages so that I can qualify as a translator. It will be something I can do for a limited time as I will eventually not be able to hear enough to do so, but after that I can go and work with people who have deaf issues and other problems that means they require help, if that makes sense? Feeling much more positive about it all with a goal in sight.

Other upsides; I get discounted rail tickets, better seats in theatres and the ability to turn the aids off when it all gets too much!

Lammas Lughnasadh crown

Happy Lammas to you all.

We are sat in the countryside, not 20 feet opposite a lovely large corn field which was harvested last night. The French it seems harvests at night all the time (we might too, it's just I've never seen it done then before) and the smell this morning is beautiful. The sun is shinning and the heat is high already (yeast out bubbling ready for the loaves in a moment).

So we asked if we could have a lttle of the corn, the farmer has left some in what appears to be no-man's land, amazing how far those seed throwers spread, and have started to make some dollies and a John Barleycorn crown for littleun.

All we did was plait 6 together for one side, six for the other and then with some course string tie them to form a round.

After that we weaved the remaining heads into the plaits and very quickly the crown formed. Littleun will wear it later when we have our meditation and give thanks. Later we are heading to a Dolmen, been there before and its lovely and peaceful, tucked away in a corn field we can connect with the earth so easily there.

Hope you all hve fantastic day, wherever you may be. BB

(ps sorry about the spacing on this post, blogger is being stubborn wth a mind of its own!)

Things change

Well it finally happened. After all our years as and up and down relationship it's come to an end. My grandfather died this month after a short illness. We thought it was his usual problems but it was in fact cancer.

I never knew where I stood with him; he wasn't one for showing much affection and had a rather Victorian outlook on our lives. There were days of fun as a child, I can remember him making us mermaid princess' out of large flat seaweed we found when playing on the beach. I can remember his attempts to prove that everyone has the ability paint and draw if only they tried hard enough (really I can't paint, mine always end up looking like painting by numbers) and my efforts sit on the fire mantel, initially because my littleun liked them but now with new view to them as in clearing the house I have found a new man. One I didn't know but rather wish I had.

He didn't keep much in the way of possessions, given his age when he died you would expect a lot more than there was. But some of the things he did keep were the postcards we sent, pictures and photographs and when you look back you see a possible new meaning to the expressions on the faces in them. And it made me think. Did he really not love us or was it more a case of he had absolutely no idea how to show that he did.

I remember lecture after lecture on how we were all meant to behave in life, how some of us had been dissapointments to him and on how hot air doesn't rise, cold air sinks! Oh and prisms. With sadness I remember far more of these than of the cheerful fun.

Re-reading a lot of the emails that he sent, the ones that reading at the time felt like he was being cantankerous , I read a different plea, one that said "come visit". And now I wonder if I had whether we would have enjoyed each others company that bit better. Don't get me wrong I did visit, and often, but it felt like a chore not like fun. Strange then that when we did talk it was interesting to hear what he had to say. If you wanted to know how to maintain and strip any form of armoury or if you wanted to know about Tobruk he could tell you, he was after all in the thick of it.

I told Littleun that he had completed his Circle and I expected confusion and tantrums. Littleun is probably the only one in this family who loved him unconditionally, he can remember happy things, playing with the birds that granddad used to keep, watching tom and jerry, both laughing hard. But he didn't do that. Litteun understood and it is the matter of fact way that he has asked questions about granddad that has helped me.

Will I miss him? Yes, but not in the way that one would normally miss a grandparent who has died and certainly not with regret, that is after all pointless. But for not knowing him properly. If there is one thing that has come out of all of this it's that I will make sure that I never do that with any grandchildren I might be lucky enough to have.

My grandfather: Man of photos, magic lanterns, poems and lectures. Who might just possibly, be right about hot air. Returned to the earth, 2011.

So its the Solstice

And although sunrise was technically 4.42am it has yet to appear here. One of the wettest and grayest solstices I have ever known. Even the wood for the fire is so damp I doubt it will light first go!

However dancing and music abound as Littleun has a new rhythm he wants to play for his drums and we have food on the go already.

I also have a new beginning today as I go for the first of my BSL course. I have started to accept that my hearing isn't getting better and at the rate the NHS works will be a very long time before they do anything to help so decided to take matters literally into my own hands and start a course to help refresh my sign language abilities.

Hope you all have a lovely day and that the Sun finally makes an appearance!

Litha Feasting: Lemon preserving and Lamb Recipes

If you are like us any Sabbat requires celebrating the good fortune of food around us. For this Sabbat we are lucky to have some lamb from the nearby salt marshes and I thought as we are celebrating the longest day of sunshine we would go for a Moroccan dish as this has some lovely ingredients such as apricots and lemons, reminiscent of the sun in shape and colour. In searching for recipes I found that the one I wanted to use needed preserved lemons. Now I know you can buy these, but half the fun of this path is learning together with Littleun so we decided to make ours (plus it’s a lot cheaper!).

For the lemons we have the following recipe and all I’d say is if you have any cuts do put on some food gloves first!

Ingredients
8-10 Meyer lemons*, scrubbed very clean
1/2 cup salt, more if needed
Extra fresh squeezed lemon juice, if needed
Sterilized quart canning jar

* You don't need to use Meyer lemons, regular lemons will do, it's just that the milder Meyer lemons work very well for preserving in this way.

1 Place 2 Tbsp of salt in the bottom of a sterilized jar.
2 One by one, prepare the lemons in the following way. Cut off any protruding stems from the lemons, and cut 1/4 inch off the tip of each lemon. Cut the lemons as if you were going to cut them in half lengthwise, starting from the tip, but do not cut all the way. Keep the lemon attached at the base. Make another cut in a similar manner, so now the lemon is quartered, but again, attached at the base.
3 Pry the lemons open and generously sprinkle salt all over the insides and outsides of the lemons.
4 Pack the lemons in the jar, squishing them down so that juice is extracted and the lemon juice rises to the top of the jar. Fill up the jar with lemons; make sure the top is covered with lemon juice. Add more fresh squeezed lemon juice if necessary. Top with a couple tablespoons of salt.
5 Seal the jar and let sit at room temperature for a couple days. Turn the jar upside down occasionally. Put in refrigerator and let sit, again turning upside down occasionally, for at least 3 weeks, until lemon rinds soften.
6 To use, remove a lemon from the jar and rinse thoroughly in water to remove salt. Discard seeds before using. Discard the pulp before using, if desired.
7 Store in refrigerator for up to 6 months.

Now that we have done this we can use them on Litha to add to our Tagine recipe:

Moroccan Lamb Tagine

Ingredients
1.5kg shoulder of lamb
1tsp coriander seeds
1tsp cumin seeds
olive oil
2 or 3 preserved lemons, chopped
2 onions
1 good handful dried apricots, chopped
1 good handful sultanas
Black olives
Fresh mint, roughly chopped to serve

Instructions

In a non-stick fry pan gently toast the coriander and cumin seeds until they become fragrant but don't allow to burn.
Tip the seeds into a pestle and mortar and crush with a pinch of salt.
Add the ground seeds to the lamb with a good drizzle of olive oil, black pepper, and the preserved lemons. Work all the flavours into the meat and leave to marinate.
Roughly chop the onions and put in the base of your tagine.
Then add the apricots and the sultanas followed by the lamb.
Next add some black olives, mix well to distribute the flavours and put the lid on.
Cook for about 3-4 hours at 160°C.
When cooked, sprinkle with the chopped mint and serve.

Oh I can’t wait!

Litha soon, some some crafts we are doing

Wanting to rearrange our altar with some new items this year we went on the search of things that Littleun and I could make and do together. One of our must haves is the smell of orange. Those big round juicy fruits which look so much like the burning Sun and smell of freshness and summer hope are important to us. We came across the stones below which we liked. It gives Littleun something he can make and he can craft with messages on the base, allowing him both his own special offerings and a chance to practice his runes or oghams. It’s an American recipe so uses cups but we just used English cups and added a little here and there to get the dough the right consistency.

Orange Fragrance Stones

1-1/2 cups flour

1/4 cup salt

1/4 tsp cornstarch

2/3 cup boiling water

1 tbls. Fragrance (orange in this case) oil

Colorant of your choice

Mix all dry ingredients. Heat water in a Pyrex cup in the microwave or on the stove. Add the f/o and the colour to the water. Stir water mixture into flour mixture. Mix as best you can and then knead the dough with your hands. At this point you just want it to look like pie or cookie dough. Roll it out about a quarter of an inch thick. Cut into shapes or use cookie cutters. Another option is to stamp the flat shapes. Let the dough stones dry. They get hard as rocks and will last for months.

We are looking forward to Litha, last year we spent it in France but this year it will be here in England on the beach with our friends.

Once again

Once again it’s been ages since my last post. Seems this is the way this year will be I’m afraid. In this case its darn ear infections keeping me distracted, so bad I am now referred to the ENT so maybe they can come up with an answer!

I didn’t get around to posting any photos from our Beltane celebrations. A lovely weekend as ever filled with fun and friends, plus the Fella came over for it and we had a lovely few days for His first Beltane.

Am also sorting out a summer fayre for Littleuns School, the first it’s had for years. A few of the staff and other mums are helping too which is great, lots of ideas and fun but trying to get it all pulled together is taking time. Still think my favourite idea at the moment is the scarecrow corner: each class is to make a scarecrow and the best wins. We have also been up at the school showing the reception year how to grow and care for runner beans and sunflowers. Was lovely to see the enthusiasm for it from them, lots of questions and they look after them every day too. Fingers crossed that the flowers develop into beans for them.

So as you can tell its busy here, not having much chance to sit at desk and write blog posts, but as my old school teachers used to say, will try harder…

Blessed Beltane Everyone

Littleun helped put together the altar this year

Well we lit the candles at Sunset and rose before Dawn to welcome in the Sunrise and what a beautiful one it was too. Last year was soaking wet, really really horrible so it was lovely this year to feel the warmth as we stepped out to join the others.

Met with friends old and new as the Morris sides danced in the dawn. Sadly not sure where the drummers were, maybe a pint too many at Sunset?! However we are off for some drumming this afternoon so no doubt will find out then.

Blessed Beltane to you all and hope you have as fantastic day as we are having.