hello, lovely lovely people.....so, being the archaic techno-dinosaur that I so obviously am - I have only just found all your wonderful comments. I have been trying to change my banner, and well, just about everything on this blog, when alongside my fiddling and meddling, I hit the comments button....ah, and there you were sweet friends. So thank you, thank you, for your solidarity and loveliness on what has been a slightly challenging day. Please bear with my utter incompetance, this blog will be the mama whitestuff of all things wonderful someday soon....believe it!! Big kisses to you all....

2009 - A Cake of Many Layers Part II

Now, where did I leave you? I think we were frolicking with badgers.....

Then came, FINALLY, some summer loveliness and sunshine, while we were in Norfolk for our annual jamboree with the Earlands - oh, SUN, I love yoooooooo.....

Autumn got kinda scary....as we caved in to the third teenager of our family - a party was followed by the obligatory "I want my room painted purple and black", as a treacherously weak "Ok sweetheart, that could be cool" slipped from my sad 41 year old lips.

Summers soft sweet smelling blooms came and went too quickly for me to linger over them for long, giving way to late Autumn woolleyness, with walks, toast and warm things...

2009 - a cake of many layers...part I

I realise with shame, that I am now contemplating another birthday for my mother, so it must be nearly a year that I have put pen to paper, finger to keyboard. After the big cake excitement (fiasco) came an joint exhibition at the Star Anise Cafe in Stroud - a very funky little place with pastries way too delicious to be good for you. Early summer kick started me into potion making mode, and salad sprouted in the garden alongside other wondrous things....

Midsummer was a bit of a bummer - the usual rainy deluge - and on top of all that sogginess, our fire-souls were further challenged when our beloved Big Green Gathering was cancelled. In true Mama Soule spirit I whipped up some colourful bunting from some sad offerings in my knicker drawer and we hot footed over to Thistledown, a fab local nature reserve, to hold our own Little Green Gathering. This was complete with guitars, late night marshmallowing, and badger spotting. Hurrah.....
.

What was I thinking??

I should have known better, really I should. And I also should have guessed that a sublime book on cakes from the library by Madam Muffin McPhee (or whatever her silly name was) was going to be trouble.
But no, in I leap - I can make a spectacular cake for my mother's 70th birthday tomorrow - how HARD can it be???? Ha.

Thank you to Annabel my guardian angel who responded to my wails at 2pm, as I was about to end my life with a kilo and a half of butter icing and a spatula.

So an unbelievable 8 hours later, and after a grillion hand made sugar flowers had nearly broken my spirit - it was finally done.

Hmmm. Don't look too closely. I may well be saved by the fact that it will be unveiled at her party after dark. Lighting can cover a multitude.
I guess this means I won't be asked to make Lesley and John's wedding cake this May........

Where did March go??

So this is my March diary.....

Much of my month has been spent literally running between jobs, as our Earth Pathways Diary 2010 kicks into action. A full and frantic time, spent placing artwork, writing, poetry, and photography into some sort of coherent and artistic order. Working with the most brilliant and brave of women. We go to print in May, so I am still right in the middle of this creative mania.

And the first wee buds of Spring....on my kitchen table, not needing to compete with the artwork.

Imbolc gently passes and gives way to that longed-for light, and air, and a feeling that a change is happening in the sleepy valley where I live.

A pilgrimmage to the Roccoco gardens in Painswick in the next valley to see the snowdrops bursting with shining whiteness......

and a retreat to our still blazing winter hearth, when those big winds whip back around, reminding me that frosts, snow and coldness can still happen in March.

and in the middle of deadlines, family birthdays and general chaos, the very best of escapes into the Forest....and away from the cabin fever of Stroud. Just one day, but long enough to breathe and remind myself that there is life beyond my little world that I have created for myself.

Melting, unfolding

Something I read: "What if there is no need to change, no need to try to transform yourself into someone who is more compassionate, more present, more loving or wise? How would this affect all the places in your life where you are endlessly trying to be better? What if the task is simply to unfold...."

During all that cold weather recently I watched this little piece of ice melting into a perfect heart on the skylight window in my kitchen. Unfolding, just being. And then again on Thursday evening, with some special women talking late into the night, uncurling that aching part of ourselves that is waiting, always yearning for a time to come when we will be happier, more whole, more us. But what if that time is now, that this is the most we will ever be? And that actually, we are enough? Maybe then I could truly breathe out, and be happy, in a gloriously imperfect, chaotic, me sort of way. It might well be the start of a very new and big adventure for us all.

Holding out for a hero

Half term week, and in celebration of my man, who has bravely trekked to the wilds of Norfolk to build the long awaited deck on our little caravan. In February. With no water, no heat, in a field next to a big North sea. What a hero.

Meanwhile I have been at home with the kids trying to work; failing. But in big appreciation of my central heating, hot showers, my computer, and lovely friends who keep me up till 3 in the morning with a sing-along Mama Mia and pudding. Men seem to come with a built in gene that enables them to do clever things like artic deck building; I'm sure I could pull something out the bag in the building department if really pushed. But the loveliness of home? Wild horses wouldn't drag me from it right now.