This is coming a day late, following a Tuesday overtaken by a kid with a very painful ear infection. It’s a quick one, as everything is still fairly chaotic. Thanks for your understanding!
Hello dear readers, and happy July! Summer is undeniably upon us. Many of you probably have kids who started their summer break from school weeks ago, but my kids finish this Friday, and go back at the beginning of September. I have mixed feelings about the 8 weeks ahead: looking forward to the various vacations I am lucky to be taking (Brittany, Normandy, Avignon, and Edinburgh), and pretty nervous about the long days with antsy kids at home, especially during periods when it’s too hot to be outside. I know many of you are homeschoolers for whom this is your norm all the time and all I can say is: mad respect. Look, I obviously love my kids like crazy, but I find it much easier to enjoy their company when I don’t have to respond to “mummyyyyyyyyy, he won’t leave me alone!” and “mummyyyyyyy, she won’t let me use the crayons!”, 894819238872 times per day (that’s a conservative estimate).
I think the only way I’m going to get through it is to enforce a fair bit of structure, set clear expectations, and budget for a lot of take out. And wine.
petits plaisirs
Ok this is TOTALLY CHEATING because it’s basically the same as last month’s, but I have been take by delightful surprise by how well our little balcony garden is doing. There are about 70 tomatoes waiting to ripen, maybe 30 strawberries with lots more flowers getting ready to bear more fruit, we have a positive forest of basil, and the flowers are doing magnificently. The only bad news is that I suspect many of the tomatoes and strawberries are going to ripen while we’re on vacation, but I’ve told our kind plant-waterers to take whatever is ripe so it doesn’t go to waste.
I know it’s ridiculously cliché to say so, but it really is so satisfying to eat stuff you’ve grown, especially when you live in an apartment in an urban metropolis with no garden. Tomorrow I’m going to make pesto to use up a bunch of the basil before we go away
thoughts
I’m too tired and overwhelmed to have any thoughts worth sharing, so I’ll just go with a very simple one that’s been floating around a lot the past few weeks:
My oldest child is six, so still pretty little, but for various reasons I’ve felt very keenly aware of her growth - physical, emotional, intellectual, etc. - in the past few weeks. It hasn’t been particularly easy, and I’ve definitely been blindsided by the changing nature of the challenges involved in parenting kids as they leave the “little kid” stage, but I really want to stay focussed on gratitude for the privilege of watching my kids get older. It’s natural to feel pangs for the days of adorable squishy cheeks and less attitude, but really it is nothing but a gift to be able to see your kids get further and further from babyhood with each passing day. That’s not to say that it’s easy, or even particularly pleasant at times… But, it is a gift.
la vie en france
This isn’t so much “la vie en France” as “la vie as a Brit living overseas”, but there has been a complete shambles for Brits who opted for postal votes to vote in tomorrow’s election, and many thousands of people - including me - have not received their voting papers in time for their vote to be counted, despite having applications in before the deadline and such. Although it’s extremely unlikely to make any material difference in this election, that’s obviously not the point. I’m almost surprised by how frustrated I feel to have effectively been disenfranchised by a failure of bureaucracy and/or the postal service. Read about it here.
what’s cooking
We had a heatwave last week so I was looking for something I could make for dinner that wouldn’t heat up the kitchen but still felt like a satisfying meal. I settled on this delicious sauce/dressing over steamed broccoli, precooked prawns, and rice (made in the rice cooker, so no heat generated).
No-cook lime-chili-ginger sauce
For two adults: (adjust quantities according to preference)
2tbsp sesame or other vegetable oil
Rind and juice of 2 limes
1 tbsp fish sauce
A handful or two of coriander/cilantro
Finely chopped ginger, according to taste
Finely chopped fresh chilli, according to taste
A handful of peanuts
A few cloves of garlic, minced
Put everything in a food processor or blender, and mix to desired consistency - the first time I had it, it was blended to smooth, the second time there was more texture, and both were good. Peanuts can be omitted.
I’ve tried it on salmon and prawns, but I imagine it would be good over chicken, vegetables, or whatever. Truly so, so tasty.
things i thought were good
My mum told me about Clarkson’s Farm, a kind of reality/documentary series about the infamous Jeremy Clarkson’s decision to buy a very large farm in the English countryside, despite having absolutely no knowledge or experience with farming. He has a lot of money, which helps, but only somewhat. It’s funny and interesting, and also charts Clarkson’s changing political beliefs as he comes to understand the lives and work of a large group of people he previously had no contact with.
I really appreciated this piece about money by
. Considering the topic was clearly pretty important to Jesus, it seems rarely to get much attention in Catholic circles. This piece is completely rooted in Scripture and the teaching of the Church, as we can expect from Emily.This podcast series from NYT, Animal, is exactly the reprieve you need from the noise and chaos of most media. It’s pretty much what you’d expect - a series about different animals (e.g. puffins, manatees, wolves), and is such a gentle yet fascinating listen.
That’s about all I can muster today. Happy Wednesday!
Ok very excited about so many of these recommendations!! Definitely going to try that sauce - and check out that farming series + animal podcast series. Many prayers for good health soon!
I love Clarkson's Farm!!