Fruity!

One of the reasons I like this time of year is that every day when I pop out into the garden, there's something to pick. We've been enjoying the first of our broad beans, but what the kids get really excited about is the fruit. Our garden's north facing, so it's a little behind other people's, but finally the strawberries are starting to ripen, and so are the redcurrants.With five hungry people in the house, the strawberries don't last very long once they're picked, but I'm freezing the redcurrants, and once I've got a good sized batch I'll be turning them into jam, or adding them to crumbles.

I hope you're able to enjoy all the summer fruit that's around at the moment. :-)

Felting And Space Exploration - Well, There's A Combination...

Last week, I turned over the page of our family calendar to find that at some point in the fairly recent past, I had allocated myself an afternoon at one of my favourite craft suppliers. I had a few other things to do, but I'd written it on the calendar, so it followed that the visit must take place. Of course.

Wingham Wool Work, in Wentworth (how alliterative) near Rotherham, is a fantastic place if you're at all interested in making anything from wool. They stock a huge range of materials and supplies for spinning and felting, as well as some of their own spun yarns for knitting and weaving, and some beautiful yarns made from such things as recycled sari silk. There's always something new and interesting to buy and experiment with. They also run workshops and textile groups, which I'd love to be able to attend but my current schedule prevents me.

Given that it's a bit like letting a child loose in a sweet shop, and I'm mindful that I could spend an awful lot of money there, I just take cash and restrict myself to a set amount. I also try to figure out what exactly I want to make, so I have an idea of what I want to buy. If I go without at least a loose plan in mind, I find myself completely floored by the choice of colours and fibres. Last week, I went looking for bright coloured wool to turn into felt for bunting. And here's the finished bunting, made from the felted wool:

It cost well under ten pounds to make, and it looks really eyecatching in the window.

I had a few scraps left over, so I made this very fetching corsage, too:

This was simply made from a (roughly) triangular piece, which I rolled up and needlefelted into shape at the back.

If you fancy visiting Wingham Wool Work, they're open on Sunday and Monday afternoons. You can order from them online, too. Visit their website for more details: www.winghamwoolwork.co.uk .

Exploring Space

I heard about a really interesting project on the radio yesterday: it's called Galaxy Zoo, and it's an opportunity to help scientists to study the billions of galaxies photographed by deep space telescopes. The project was started in 2007, with astronomers wanting to get people involved in working through the masses of data accumulated by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Over a million people have since signed up to help classify the different types of galaxies out there in the observable universe, and last night my nine year old and I registered to do it. It's very simple, fascinating and exciting to think that you're contributing to scientific research. Schools can get involved, too. Check out the website if you're interested: www.galaxyzoo.org .

The Great Not-Using-Any-Shampoo Experiment

I've had a lot of people asking me about this lately, so I thought I'd share my forays into the world of experimental hair washing with the wider world. Lucky you.

Since moving to Sheffield a decade ago, I'd struggled to make my curly hair look like anything other than a frizzy haystack on top of my head. I don't know what's in South Yorkshire water, but it doesn't like my hair. I spent a fortune on products which got rid of the frizz but left my hair all floppy and limp. I don't spend a whole lot of time in front of the mirror, but I like to go out looking at least halfway decent if at all possible. In the end, I resorted to having my hair cut into the shortest crop I could get away with. The thing about shampoo is that while it does clean hair, it also strips it of its natural moisture. Curly hair tends to be pretty dry anyway, so using shampoo really doesn't help. Adding products to counteract the drying effect is expensive, and I'm not too keen on loading my body up with synthetic substances either.

Last year, I read about going shampoo free and using bicarbonate of soda to wash my hair instead. And goodness me, I have my curls back! I've grown my hair a little longer, and it now holds its style rather than drooping. It doesn't smell (in case you were wondering), and I don't have to wash it every day.  People have commented on how good it looks, and then looked at me very oddly when I tell them what I'm using. My hairdresser thinks I'm crazy, but she's been impressed by how healthy my hair looks now. Two of my children have been quite happy to use bicarb as well - this is especially good for my youngest, who has very sensitive skin, and whose eczema flares up far less since we gave up the shampoo. I'm yet to persuade number two child and my (thin-on-top) husband of the benefits, but it's just a matter of time...

It's a pretty straightforward thing to ditch the 'poo, but there are a few things to bear in mind. First, you may need to give your hair a bit of time to get used to the new regime. I had no problems to begin with (like I said, my hair's pretty dry), but others who go shampoo free report greasier hair initially as the scalp's natural oil production settles down - after all, you're not stripping your hair and scalp of everything any more. Secondly, you may need to experiment a bit with quantities of bicarb. I have an old 150ml moisturiser bottle, to which I add about a teaspoon and a half of bicarb. I then fill it up with water and give it a good shake. I use a few squirts of this each time I wash my hair. I have to shake it up each time I use it. Trial and error has taught me that for my hair, this is about the right amount of bicarb to water - I don't know why exactly, but when I add too much, my hair goes very frizzy and even more uncontrollable than usual. Thirdly, you may need to change how you use styling products. Because I've found that my hair doesn't need persuading to behave quite so much since dropping the shampoo, I've needed far less in the way of stuff to tame it. I'm looking into what I can use as an alternative to shop-bought sea salt spray at the moment, but for now a few squirts is all I need to finish things off when my hair's damp. I've read that some folks like to rinse with cider vinegar, which makes hair shiny, but I haven't so far.

That's about all there is to it, really. The only other thing you'll need is a well-rehearsed explanation when people ask you why your hair looks so great.

Apples

I went out into the garden today to take a peek at what's growing, and I was excited to find that all of a sudden, we have apples. Now, all I have to do is keep the footballs away from them.

In The Garden, And Being 'Economically Unproductive'

If I could, I'd live in a log cabin on the edge of a forest, with a large garden in which I could grow enough fruit and veg to be more or less self sufficient. Ah yes, it would be a veritable Alaska - The Last Frontier. I'd keep chickens and occasionally, I'd chop the head off one of 'em and that'd be dinner taken care of. My freezer would be full of foraged berries and salmon I'd caught from the nearby river, and my children would play happily in the dappled sunlight that pierced through to the forest floor...

I don't live in a log cabin. I live in a three bed detached box in the suburbs, with a pretty small suburban sized garden to match. It's about 10 metres by 10 metres, if you want an actual measurement. But while I'm unlikely to achieve self sufficiency, I have managed to squeeze a fair bit of food out of my little plot over past few years. I'm engaged in an ongoing war with the children, who want to keep the lawn for important business, such as cartwheeling, while I claim a bit more of it each year for growing crops. "Mum, you're trying to turn this garden into an allotment," complained my nearly-twelve-year-old the other day. Yup. This year's crops include potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, chillis, inca berries (no, I've never heard of them either, but my dad gave me a couple of plants), strawberries, raspberries, broad beans, blackcurrants, redcurrants, whitecurrants and onions. Sticking to a budget is important in this household, and although I have no idea how much money I've saved by growing food, a quick look in the supermarket at how much a punnet of less-than-fresh raspberries costs tells me it's probably a fair bit. 

I've learned a lot about growing food over the years - some of it the hard way. But if I may, here are a few bits of advice I can offer if you're thinking about growing food in a small space.

You can grow quite a bit in a small space. If you get creative, you can grow all sorts of things in all sorts of containers, from egg boxes to old wellies. I've grown carrots in tubs on the deck before, which worked pretty well. There are trailing varieties of tomato which you can grow in hanging baskets if wall space is all you have. You can grow things on window ledges and incorporate edible plants into existing flower borders. 

Get to know your garden. If you're blessed with a bit of garden space, make sure you take some time to get to know it before you decide what to plant. Which direction does it face? Do you have spots which never get any sun/shade? How sheltered is it? Knowing what will grow happily in your space will help you maximise productivity and save you from horticultural despair. I know. I've been frustrated and disappointed by my attempts to grow things which just aren't happy in my mostly shady, windy garden, but I've learned what will work and positioned them accordingly. Of course, it would have been a lot easier if I'd just taken my own advice in the first place.

Grow what you'll eat. It sounds obvious, but there's no point growing something your family won't eat, even if it does brilliantly in your garden. Last year, I tried growing cavolo nero (black kale) for the first time. I was really excited at how well it grew, but this excitement was tempered by the fact that I couldn't get the kids to touch the stuff.

Choose crops which earn their keep. Much as I'd love to grow asparagus, I know there's no point in this garden, because it needs a lot of room and the season is very short. Look for crops which are compact, but which will give you a good yield, and if you don't have a greenhouse, look for hardy varieties which are happy in a less than balmy climate.

Find older, wiser gardeners. Actually, you won't need to. They'll find you. It's amazing how, once an older gardening neighbour discovers what you're up to in your garden, you'll find them popping a head over the fence and proffering all kinds of advice. While you may not welcome this every time (especially in Yorkshire, where people tend to express their opinions pretty bluntly), it's worth listening to what they have to say. Sometimes, you may find you're offered more than just advice. People are often happy to share their spare seedlings with you, and last year, one of our lovely neighbours gave us a greenhouse. Nice one.

Being 'Economically Unproductive'

In between this week's weeding and potting on, I've read quite a few bits and bobs from around the web about stay-at-home parents and how government policy reflects the prevailing view that looking after your own children isn't real work. I remember how I felt the first time I read that I was officially defined as 'economically unproductive'. That was more than ten years ago, and that realisation had a profound effect on me. All of a sudden, instead of feeling that I was doing something useful, enjoyable and valuable with my life in the raising of my children, I felt guilty, and under pressure to start planning my return to paid work as soon as I could. Even now, working as a (very) part time home tutor, I sometimes find myself thinking that I'm not doing enough. After all, I went to university, as was the expectation for my generation. I have a good degree. Surely I should have a good career now, too. In moments of clarity, when I'm not dogged by feelings of failure, I can see that I am very productive indeed. The thing is, being mostly at home doesn't just benefit my family. For a couple of years, I volunteered at my kids' primary school. I did all kinds of things, including planning specialist intervention sessions for a dyslexic child, and supporting children with special needs. Wondering about what that would be worth in economic terms, I calculated that in total, I volunteered about £3000 worth of teacher time to the school over those two years. That seems pretty productive to me.

It's a shame that successive governments don't see things that way. As far as those in power are concerned, productivity can be measured only in economic terms, which means that to them, I and those like me are of no importance. I used to just shrug and ignore reports of government announcements about helping 'hardworking families' by reducing childcare costs and so on - I accepted that we had made a choice to do things differently and provide the childcare ourselves, and that the bulk of family-related policy didn't apply to us. These days, those policies just make me feel despair. Despair that those who might have otherwise chosen to stay at home beyond a few months' maternity leave feel that they have no option but to return to work because being at home doesn't benefit them financially, or because it's seen as a retrograde step in a society where we're all encouraged to aspire to what is, in reality, a very narrowly defined idea of 'success'. I wonder if in future my generation will be seen as the last one which had any choice at all about who raised their kids; I'm pretty certain that if things continue as they are, it won't be even the remotest of options when my children are grown.

Hello, and welcome

First of all, I'd like to make it clear that I have nothing at all against mums doing paid work and having a career. This blog isn't about championing one type of motherhood over another. This blog is about life as a long-term stay-at-home mum (who does the odd bit of home tuition to make some extra money). If you google 'stay-at-home-mum' and 'extended career break' you find that almost everything about being a stay-at-home parent is written with with the express aim of getting you back to work, and that those whose voices apparently matter seem to define an extended career break as anything over about one year. Staying at home beyond the end of your maternity leave, as I have done, is a relatively rare thing, an unexpected thing - nobody gives you careers advice about that at school. I told my husband recently that I felt as though I was part of a subversive counter-culture. "Well, you are," he replied. I've long felt the pressure that those in my position feel: that to be considered successful and a good role model to my children I should be working outside the home, at least on a part time basis. I should be productive in a quantifiable way, and that means earning money. I've struggled with feelings of guilt and failure - was four years at university a waste of time and money? Am I failing myself and other women by not being in the workplace? Lately, though, I've stopped listening to those nagging inner voices, and decided to go fully counter-cultural. Yes, I will tell my children that they can choose to do anything they want to when they grow up, but they will know that staying at home with their kids is as valid as any career.


"Pah!" I hear some cry. "You have no idea how privileged you are to be able to stay at home! You affluent, middle class person with your lofty ideals!" Oh, I know I'm privileged to be able to do what I love. I know that many parents have no choice but to be out there, working as many hours as they can in a job they hate to make ends meet. But if you take that into account, it's a privilege for anyone to be doing a job that they love, isn't it? And as for affluent: it's true that my husband has a good job, but we've had to make a lot of sacrifices along the way for things to work financially. The vast majority of these sacrifices, however, are material - and are only really important to a materialistic society like ours here in the UK. If you discount all of this, there is very little that we lose out on, and a huge amount to be gained: time, mostly, and I'd rather have that.

Like I said, this blog is about being a long-term stay-at-home-mum. I want to share ideas, encouragement and things that I'm doing (I warn you now, I'm an insufferable makey/bakey/gardeny person). I want to generate discussion and get people thinking. I can't help it: I used to be a teacher. I'm not planning on getting all ranty too often, so I hope you'll come back and see what I'm up to.