We've come to the end of the two week spring break, fairly unscathed and ready to tackle the last six or so weeks of the school year. There's been some dispute {naturally, it being Algeria}as to when school would finish this year, some saying the beginning of May {yikes!} and some saying the beginning of June. We have elections happening in Algeria in May which means schools will be used as polling stations .. though judging by what Joe Public is saying on the news there's not likely to be much of a turnout! And to mix things up just a little, some teachers called la Grève yesterday, which means some or all or possibly no schools will be out on strike at some point or possibly no point during the term... it's all very organised here you know... 

We also have preparations going on for April 16th which is Yowm-al-Ilm, or Day of Knowledge... unfortunately in dd13's case this means an accapella version of "We Are The World" sung to the rest of the school.... and a play she can't take part in because she's the only girl in her class who wears hijab and "it doesn't look right!"... this meant a kindly discussion on why some people aren't prepared to accept other people differences and be more amenable... I don't think she was convinced by anything I said... being the fragile 13yr old that she is, and I'm pretty sure it's going to continue to be a source of upset till it's over and done with but I guess these are the things that toughen us up and help us grow emotionally. 

As usual our house has been a busy happy mix of things over the holidays, and although we didn't get to go anywhere there were a few catch ups with friends... old and new, settling into a new spring routine... longer daytime hours with Fajr prayers coming in before 5am!! and a more relaxed non-menu planning month for me....

I had slipped back into menu planning over the last two and a bit months, as a way of getting back on track with my budget, and while it worked... for the most part... it has been a relief to let it go again. As a tool it does help me to regain my footing now and again, but I'm happier not having to do it long term if I'm honest. I think it goes too much against my free-flowing ways... it sounds a bit stupid to say my menu plan makes me feel trapped, but it does... I've been a much happier and more spontaneously creative bunny this first week of April.

Budget wise.. I'm thinking up ways of not spending any money.. which isn't easy but I am trying...

Potatoes continue to be a source of annoyance here... still far too overpriced for most people to be able to afford. I'm only buying a Kilo at a time and only feeding them to the dh... the rest of us are exploring carby alternatives and patiently waiting for the price to drop. I have been a good girl though and for the most part have stopped buying bread and have been making my own, and also baking the children school-break snack... which needs some forward planning... not my strong point ... and has meant a few midnight baking sessions but we're getting there. 

And finally... as if I haven't chewed your ears enough with my garbled witterings already.. the crafting is coming along nicely thank you... I very happily had my bag pinned  the other day and have since started a yoga mat bag for the 20yr old....and a doily... I'm thinking of turning them into a table runner type thing. And I'm feeling very kindly towards my sewing pile these days... I haven't actually finished any of it... but there are yummy half finished girly dresses lurking ...

And on that note, there is soup to blitz, pies to make and breakfast to bake... and a very scary laundry pile to tame.

:: TEN ::

I thank you for your patience, I have been waffling for days about nothing much in particular.. going off on tangents here and there... and at last you are to be rewarded with something to look at.

Let's face it I need to do something to relieve you from my incessant and incomprehensible nattering

This is the dress yoke I'm working on for dd8, it's almost finished... it just needs a couple of straps and a bit of a scalloped edge and we'll all done inshallah.

I love yellow... I mean I LOVE yellow.. it makes me so ridiculously happy it's not normal

My secret shame is the object you see below... it's been finished for the best part of a YEAR, and has been sat all sad and neglected in my work basket just waiting for the fabric skirt to be sewn onto it... I told you I'm terrible at finishing things.

During December and January we had no internet, electricity in only the downstairs of our house.. flooded bedrooms and were quite literally freezing... it quite clearly sent me doolally because this baby was the result of being shut in one room for two months with my seven children and dh....

It's not that I don't love doilies, but really.... sometimes there has to be a bit more to life

And if you were harbouring any illusions that as a mother of 7 I need to be organised and in control... here's the space I work in...

Pretty isn't it... Currently on this table.. apart from the PC are ...

• 13 pieces of material waiting to be made into dresses
• 1 dress already cut and half sewn for ME
• half a dress yoke with skirt pinned to it
• an almost finished piece of the same yoke with no skirt even remotely ready to be pinned to it
• a baking tray with half a cinnamon loaf sitting in it...
• several of my 2 year olds pyjama tops
• my pattern notebook
• a pile of a'level study books
• pincushion
• pencil case
• last weeks discarded menu plan
• 3 baguette
• purse
• 2 empty mugs
• mobile phone
• 2 pairs of circular needles
• and a vest that dd20 just finished knitting for someone
• oh and a teeny tiny milk jug normally used to keep pens and crochet hooks in

The table isn't actually that big and it needs some tactical use of the elbows to navigate it sometimes...

So there you are... 

I'm off now to make some Shepherds Pie for dinner, hang the laundry and clear some of the junk highly useful stuff to other, less cluttered parts of the house

:: SIX ::

I should have got here earlier to post pics of bread and biscotti...

At times though, life conspires against me... and it seems that 11-ish pm is the earliest I can get here these days...

Our evenings end late, after the younger children go to bed there is bread dough to throw about and whack in the oven.... and this evening I made up a couple of batches of vanilla biscotti before putting the wee man down to sleep..

I also started working on this today... the  work on the yarn basket yesterday paid off! Hopefully by the weekend dd8 should have a nifty little dress bodice to look forward to inshallah... 

It's menu planning day tomorrow... I slipped back into it quietly & made a few changes to the way I used to do things.... and, it seems to be working for the most part mashallah.

Taping my menu to the fridge helped keep me on the straight and narrow.. it was harder for me to back out and take easier but more expensive options once the children were aware of the plans I had in store for their bellies... but more about that tomorrow inshallah...

It's late, and I did today on three hours sleep and not enough coffee

I am working on bringing you pics, but with my camera out of action the only chance I get to snap at anything ( other than the children) is when the dh is home....

Try the bread and biscotti... they were both really easy to prep and bake, and have become firm favourites in our house... 

:: FIVE ..

Normally, during the winter I'm fired up with thoughts of crafting and spending long winter evenings with my yarn basket beside me. This winter just gone was no exception; but for one reason or another I just never got round to making anything.

Now, with spring on it's way inshallah, I have ideas growing... 

I've even almost been tempted to dust off the old sewing machine and finish off the dress I started for myself late last summer!  Good sense prevailed however and the old faithful stayed put and I went to work instead, tidying up my forlorn and neglected yarn bag.

Now here's the thing... I live in Algeria... and we're not spoilt for choice in the yarn department. We make do with whatever we can find that doesn't bring us out in a rash or cause friction burns while we're knitting  & crocheting it up... and whats more, by the time summer comes in ALL yarn will have been secreted away to the  back of the yarn shops and won't see the light of day till the wedding season is over... which is normally from the first blush of spring till the first frost of winter...

Never one to be put off by such trivialities, I've dusted off my very modest yarn stash.. discovered a few unfinished projects lurking in there, and made plans to stop by my local haberdashery store tomorrow to stock up on the necessaries to finish them inshallah....

See what a spot of spring sunshine can do to an uninspired crafter!!

On the home front, there's been alot of baking going on... 

One of my goals for march was to bake our morning bread instead of buying it. As a rule I do make bread daily during the summer, but during the winter our kitchen is just too cold.

This week I've found the perfect breakfast bread, and it's been a hit through the whole house mashallah...

I might even treat you to some photographic evidence tomorrow... 

:: ONE ::

I had already written this post and was about a sentence and a click away from posting. Then my bubba boy disconected me from the mains.... lovely boy with some seriously male traits way too early


I'll start this time with the WIPS... yarn will make me feel good

it's mostly utility makes at this time of year... apart from my shonky stitchery.

Do  you have something you're bad at but love doing anyway?
I couldn't handsew a straight, even stitch to save my life, but it calms my jagged nerves. 

 

I don't mind that its not the tidiest stiching in the world. It's therapeutic. I need it!

 

The poncho is for DD7. An unheated schoolroom is a grim place to be, and as the children have to wear pink aprons over their everyday clothes for school, our personal compromise is to throw on a poncho.

I'm considering ripping this back and doing a partial restart. I have a pattern forming in my head... and you know what? I think a seven year old has the right to feel special in what they're wearing, and it's just too plain as it is. It's slightly too pink for my liking too but there's nothing I can do about that. 

 

The blanket belongs too DD13. He's a chelsea supporter and I'm a weak willed mother eager to please.

Works for him, doesn't always work for me.

And my happy blanket, which only grows as fast as scrap accmulation allows. I love scrap blankets. they remind me of my mother who always had one growing in her crochet bag. We had them draped over all our beds and furniture to hide the wear and tear long before the days when shabby became chic.

We had a gentle start to the day this morning. Chocolate, tea, the decision to read Jane Austen together and not alot else. I'm declaring December a "be good to ME" month. I'm going to nuture my needs this month, which means nourishing my mind, body and soul insha'allah. It's long overdue.
I'm going to be gentle on myself (and hopefully others) and do things that either uplift my soul, bring me closer to Allah, educate my mind, or nourish my body. It felt good to say those things to myself this morning and I think we need to give ourselves permission to honour our ourselves and our wellbeing.


On the housekeeping front, well... it's day one of a new budget. I've already mentioned in another post that I used to menu plan a week or sometimes a month ahead but found it didn't really suit either the needs of my family or the frequent culinary curve balls my dh likes to throw my way. These days I tend to do a stock up of basic staples and work with whatever I have to hand or with whats leftover. 


I did a big veggie shop yesterday. I already have rice stored and some pulses leftover from a big batch buy I did the month before last. I stocked up on 2ltr of oil and a tray of 30 eggs and I have cheese dh brough back from the UK stored in the freezer. We're meat feee till Saturday, and I'll be using what I have to hand or leftover, menu planning daily (we're in Algeria, which means two cooked meals and an afternoon tea!).


I normally take time over breakfast to prepare my meal plan. Having a quiet think at the start of the day about what I want to make. It works for me like this in a way that advance menu planning never did.

I'll share my menu's and recipes from tomorrow insha'allah.

And my gift to myself today? I'm going to have some quiet time. A space in the day to reflect, and believe me...in a house this big and chaotic it will be no easy thing to achieve.

it took a while...

two days solid in fact. Negotiating my shonky connection to make a few changes around here was a true test of my sanity, but I did it and the place looks a bit brighter don't you think?

today, ALL of my schooly children have a full day of learning... well, I say learning which strictly speaking isn't what goes on in the Algerian school system but never mind. We've had two weeks of exams with some of the children only having school in the morning and some in the afternoon. I can't believe I home-schooled them all for so long without going completely and uttterly demented. They would have tested the patience of the most pious, and I'm not kidding you. Algerian children are wild. And my children are becoming seriously Algerian

I have nothing much planned today, beyond some mild menu planning....a tight-ish month lies ahead. Our shop has been closed for a month (most butchers close for at least that long after Eid) so I'm going right back to basics with my budget and cooking insha'allah.

I'm thinking of doing a post a day for December.... a budget and menu plan special.
It might keep me on track.. it could drive me madder, quicker!
Who knows?

Other than that, there's nothing much doing except some crochet catch up. DD7 needs to have the poncho I started sometime before the cold weather ends so I need to crack on with it insha'allah.

I have things to share later, so I might yet be back at the other end of this fine and sunny Algiers day....
yeah sunny!  We're almost dried out now mash'allah. Two rooms have stopped leaking and are now forming some decorative water bubbles that look like they want to burst.
Our store room is the one room that refuses to stop soaking up all available water and raining indoors. Which is a problem as fas as food storage goes, but there's nowt to be done if the room is insisting on being a sponge.

Me, I'm just getting on with it. Homesickness is behind me. Seven months of careful saving and a moderate amount of planning are ahead of me. There will be frustrations, and no doubt more bouts of longing for "home" but that's life, innit!

And as another day starts...

It was raining incessantly as I started writing this post this morning. DD11 had left for school, as she always does at 7:20, and both boys had left a little earlier. It's exam week here in Algeria and school for my boys has been happening at 7:30. They're home again for the day at about 10am, so the week has been... a challenge!

Only DD7 was left ready and waiting to leave, and though she normally walks to school on her own, this morning, with the rain pelting down, and the sky still pitch black, DD19 and I put on our outdoor stuff and braved the elements in order to keep her company, The result was a very happy to not be walking to school on her own 7 year old. So a good start to the day.

Unfortunately the downside was, that having taken lots of pics around the breakfast table this morning, I missed prime connection time for uploading, and I only just managed to upload this one. After half an hour!

It's now 11:10 and I should seriously start thinking about throwing some pasta in a pan to be honest and getting some other chores out of the way. I hung curtains in my sitting room yesterday to cosy the place up a little. One of the by-products of short lease renting is that it sometimes makes you less likely to bother to cosy up your living space, we are however a bit tired of feeling like we're living in temporary accomodation and we're just going ahead and cosying up the place for winter... well I guess as much as you can with an Algerian house. They don't naturally lend themselves to a homely feel, they can feel in fact, a bit sparse and cold so it's no easy task getting the comfort factor right. Added to that is the fact that by putting "our" kind of stamp on our living space we naturally make our house look more than a little odd and "unkempt" by Algerian standards. But the task is, to make this house our home for the next seven month insha'allah.

The rest of my day will hopefully be about finishing up some blanket making, and some stitching that I've been working on. I don't like the stitching it has to be said. It's a practice piece that I can't wait to see the back of.
And there's a doily that needs to be finished, it's for a pillow case that needs some livening up. Oh and did I mention the dh just phoned to ask if I would cook chicken biriyani for 8 this evening... yup biriyani for 16 (that's including those of us at home) no problem!
I don't mind, dh will eat in the masjid with the brothers. It's almost a night off...but not quite.

And now, I'm off to do that pasta... tidy up a bit, think about making some samosas & pakora to go with that biriyani.....

That was some week!

But we got to the other side of it. Not completely unscathed, but a few battlescars add to the character in my opinion. We've been easy on ourselves over the past few days. Been to see a good friend, had a couple of walks out to the market and local shops, done plenty of tea drinking and soul searching. And a fair amount of gentle crafting to stop the brain from oozing out of the skull.

In short we have attempted nothing we had any chance of failing at this week. We all needed gentle passtimes to serve as a balm. & dh went away for a couple of days which meant even more lounging about being restful so all in all, I do feel alot better. Not 100%, not by a long shot. But better.

 

We've been discussing moving on from this rented accomodation to another. we have seven months left on our lease.  And it can be hellish finding decent rentals here. We don't want to stay in ths house for a third year if we can help it. My landlady and her daughters are wonderfully warm and genuinely caring people. But the house has been a bit of a disaster. Alot of Algerian houses are unfortunately. And I'm ready for pastures new to be honest. 

It might not be far, having said that... it could be. It might just even be a new house in the same-ish area. But a change is as good as a rest right?

In the meantime, well dh has phoned and said he's on his way home. Children have gone off to tutors and will be home at 11-ish. It's Friday, so I need to get a crack on with lunch, which on a Friday should be cous-cous but I like to go against the grain whenever I can so that's NOT what we'll be having here.

Friday lunchtime in Algieria is about equal to a Sunday afternoon dinner in the UK.  It's a day when alot of families make the effort to get together. Some people will eat early beofr going to Jumuah, but with my men leaving the house at 12.30-ish and my propensity to lose all track of time, that's  never likely to happen in my home. Instead I fall into the second camp, which means Lunch at 2.30pm, followed by a siesta.

One of my favourite meals (and I make the exception of serving meat on a Friday lunchtime) is a chicken djouez (stovetop casserole) and croquettes. 

I always serve my croquettes Algerian style, in my casserole. but these would be just as nice with a salad, or with a cut of meat and some veggies. Today I'll tell you how to do the croquettes, and then when my dh finally opens up shop again and we have access to chicken once more, we'll do the whole thing, djouez and all insha'allah.

Right, so take a quantity of nice floury potatoes, how ever much you think you'll be able to eat! You'll be mashing them once they're cooked so boil till nice and tender.

Mash them, or put them through a food mill while still warm.To the mashed potato you'll want to add some salt, and I use some stoned cut olives mixed into my mash. (My neighbour uses parsley and tuna which is also nice). Mix in the olives and then roll the mash into golf ball sized balls.

 Make an Indent with your  thumb and put a small nugget of cheese inside the hole before closing it up and re-rolling. The cheese we use is La Vache qui Rit ( basically laughing cow) because apart from President, Camembert and Edam it's what Algeria has. But you could go wild and use something else more to your tatse.

What you need now are dishes of flour, eggs and breadcrumbs. Just enough for the amount of croquettes you've made.

Dip each croquette into the flour, then the eggs and the breadcrumbs before shallow frying the croquettes untill crisp and golden. Ideally I would have loved to show you some finished, but they don't last long enough on the plate for me to click the capture button.

These keep well in the fridge, and would probably freeze well too.
They're easy on the purse too which is always a bonus in my book.

 

And now off to tackle the ever present chores and cooking. Athough, if I might get back later to show you some wips, if I can get hold of the dh's phone for long enought to take any decent pics.

Eid and beyond...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Food, dressmaking and cakes seem to have been at the forefront of everything we've done or thought about doing for the past month and a bit.

I don't usually enjoy sewing these days, most of my sewing is functional and not too inspiring, but I enjoyed making these masha'allah and the girls love wearing them too which always helps to boost the seamstresses ego.

We're concentrating now on getting the children ready for the start of a new school semester on Sunday. And praying that dh's long journey to the UK is a safe and fruitful one insha'allah. Our pace of life (and eating habits) change when he's not here and we consoled ourselves with his going away with some good old fashioned bangers and mash!

Tomorrow we're off on an early morning jaunt to the market to stock up on school supplies, and then home to bake for some guests we're hopefully having in the evening. We have days to fill.

xxx

When I lived in the UK I was fortunate enough to have a kitchen I could keep a table in, and I did for many years...until the size of my family outgrew it.

I no longer  boast a kitchen large enough for my table..but I do have a table now that the whole family can sit around.

And it sees alot of activity masha'allah.

I have a typical old Algerian kitchen that boasts no cupboards or workspace, so the table that lives at one end of my sitting room has become my work station and food prep area.

My 19 year old most often prepares afternoon treats for us all here, and it's wonderfully heartwarming to see her gather her younger brothers and sisters around her to let them help, it's also the place she's most likely to give them an impromptu science lesson.

It would seem that once homeschooling is in the system it's there for life!

It's where I sit to work out my monthly housekeeping, write up my monthly menu plans and generally find a way of budgeting the unbudgetable.

I'm never alone though masha'allah..I budget at one end... dd19 bakes at the other, and everyone else comes and goes and interrupts for one thing or another.

More often than not we clear a space somwehere in the middle for afternoon tea.

  

Some days of course there's no room for anything other than crafting... and then the whole space lies victim to whatever we're all working on. From sewing to crochet to knitting, sometimes our whole table looks like the debris from an explosion in a haberdashery store!

 

 and even though we may no longer be able to build the hub of our home around our kitchen, we've managed to create  space we can all gather around and enjoy each others company and share snippets of our day

Remember...

 those dress collars I told you about?

you know, the ones that are dirt cheap to make and yet seem to cost an arm and a leg to buy?

well, this is my first attempt..

 my dear friend sat by me almost every step of the way to stop me self harming with my crochet hook when things got a bit fraught.

And I'm happy enough with the result..

and even better than that, I'd say it counts as learning a traditional Algerian craft which means I can tick it off the demon list of to don'ts..

 This one has been claimed by dd11, and I've even been productive enough to cut a simple house dress to sew it on to....

these normally fall into a couple of categoies..ones worn for everyday and those worn by new brides, and the dress codes and female politics of Algeria make it  a scarey business if you get it wrong...

the heartwarming thing is that most  women here love it when you master something typically Algerian..

and are more than happy to teach the skills that more and more of the younger generation of Algerian women are less inclined to learn.

summer...

is arriving in dribs and drabs here in Algeria, we've had some gloriously hot days interspersed with rainy days that have seemed like they would never stop. Rain here is relentless, in the past week we have had our whole top floor flooded and had to all camp out in the salon dowstairs and wait for the sun to come back and dry us out. Things like that used to frustrate me, would have had me in tears and pledging to return home on the next boat out.  Now however, I just put down towels, close off the rooms and wait for a drier spell to sort it all out... almost everyone I know has the same problem so railing against it, now seems incredibly futile. It's now just a case of hunkering down while it lasts and then clearing away the debris when it's done with us.

Apart from rain, I've been crafting Algerian style... learning how to make crocheted collars for house dresses. They are very sought after here and cost about 1500 Algerian Dinars for a basic collar, so it's a good money making oppertunity, non-labour intensive, and enjoyable into the bargain.
Ladies here buy collars as seperate pieces and have a dress made around it, and because I sew my Algerian friends have been encouraging me for ages to sell what I make..
I however, have been resistant.... mostly due to laziness if  I'm honest but with a whole summer (children won't go back to school now till after Eid in September!) to play with I'm just going to dive right in and see what happens inshaallah.

DD19 and I have also been busy in my aunt-in-laws kitchen over the past week or so... learning how to make osban, a traditional Algerian dish of stomach stuffed with lungs, onions, rice, spices, intestines and a whole host of other wonderful ingredients. It sounds a bit yuck but tastes delicious... the downside is that it takes an awfully long time to clean out the guts, clean and cut the stomach..sew it up  and stuff it... the company however was glorious and we had a great time listening to my husbands aunty telling stories, in an attempt to distract us from the pain we were feeling from stabbing our fingers so often trying to get our sewing needles through slippery, stuffed douara.
My dh is a butcher, and we were making up osban for his shop, so it may very well become our regular pre-weekend chore.

Today, we're taking a walk out to get some yarn for a project that dd19 has been working on and wants to get finished,and then it's back home to get some cleaning and laundry done before the weekend. I had intended to have a slow restful weekend last week and somehow it just didn't happen, this weekend however I really need to set aside some time to plan my next month of housekeeping, possibly a menu plan and dd19 and I are busy planning a  new blog project, and it would be nice to be able to find the time to get some of that done. So apart from going for Salat-al-Jumuah with my aunty and dh's cousins tomorrow, I'm not planning anything more strenuous, lets just see if it works out that way this week...

Life or something like it...

Keeps getting in my way,

So we'll blithely ignore the fact that I haven't been here since declaring I'd be back after a cuppa and chores, we can even pretend it has everything to do with my diligence in housekeeping and attention to domestic detail and nothing at all to do with the shonky nature of Algerian Internet if you like... would certainly make me feel a whole heap better! Especially as my sitting room at the moment has been well and truly ransacked by my mini-man who has developed an obsession with my yarn basket... picture if you will what you think an explosion in a yarn store might look like and then you might be somewhere close to what my sitting room looks like several times each day. It's too easy of course to remove it... he loves tipping out the contents, rolling around with it all and then giggling as we rush to pick it all up faster than he can lob it all over the show.
Anyhow.....
I promised you pics didn't I?
Documented evidence of things done....
There has been homemade pitta bread and falafel.... does that count?

Along with lovely cotton doilies, fresh thyme, and an attempt to use up all my bits of stray yarn by making a blanket.... yes I know it's spring here in North Africa, but the rate it takes me to finish a project these days I'll be lucky if it's ready by winter!

We're nearly at the end of the spring holiday, a two week break that was much needed and not nearly as well appreciated as it could have been, but we'll blame that on the children shall we?
Tomorrow the children will be packed off to school bright and early, and after catching up on chores and cooking I intend to get down to some serious sewing...the backlog of things to be done is horrible.
I'm a slacker pure and simple on the making clothes front... I stopped and started with two tunics and still have at least two others cut and ready to be put together insha'allah.
If I can keep my eyes open after a late night and an early start though it will be a miracle...

it has been a long couple of weeks without internet....
my connection is a bit unstable most of the time because we dont have a land line and rely on our incredibly shonky USB which has almost no connection speed and won't load pictures on ANYTHING...

we usually buy our internet on a month by month basis, which requires someone to go into town and renew the contract... and if you know North African men you will know that they travel at a speed all of their own..and waiting for most things becomes a test to even the most patient of people...
at the same time our satellite dish decided to die, so I have missed everything from facebook updates to crochet goodness, tsunami's and revoloutions... I have a whole lot of catching up to do it seems, which is of course why I haven't been able to peel my bottom off the sofa so far today....

the good part of the story is that I spent a whole lot more of my time with a hook in my hand and even managed to accomplish a couple of tunic tops for the 11 year old girl in my life, one of them just needs a bit of crochet embellishment  on it and it will be ready to be blogged about.

we're waiting for some more news on my mother, niece and great nephews coming over for a much longed for visit in April... it only takes two hours to get to Algiers by plane from the UK, which should make it easy..but the visa and ticket costs have been ridiculously high for them and we have to send a letter of invitation the the consulate in London for them to take along with their visa applications... if it's one thing we do well here it's high prices and red tape!

anyway...in the hope that they will indeed be here in a few weeks we're starting to get the house ready, spring cleaning, moving things around, anticipating days out and sharing the past two years of happenings with each other.

I've even got a do-able (in the time that I have) project in mind for my mother..who is having a hard time health wise lately. Something to cheer her up and put a smile on her face...

and there are photo's to share, but not yet...
dd19 has been dispatched on a a photographic mission so that I can show you the bits of flim-flam I've got my hook into at the moment...

so hopefully, after my cuppa, a few household chores to make me feel less like the slob I have become since the internet came back into my life, and poking about in the kitchen to make some dinner.. I will be back to show you goodies in the making.....

There was a whole different post meant for these photos, but at some point between writing it and hitting the publish tab my connection was lost and so were the words I had carefully chosen to share with you.

And in true Kate fashion there is absolutly no way I can hope to recreate the post that was meant to be...it just isn't living in my head anymore I'm afraid.

I'll share the pictures of bits of my home that went with it though insha'allah.

It's somebody else's house of course as we're only renting, but it definately feels like home masha'allah.

We took these on Thursday, which is our day for a big clean up and getting ready for the weekend. Hence the reason you see my trusty old broom propped up against the wall...

Cleaning is bad enough anywhere but here in Algeria the dust is relentless and the morning clean is a ritual that is the most commonplace part of everday life for women here.

And it's strenuous and monotonous work... alot of homes are old, tiny, overcrowded...and you can forget things like dishwashers and washing machines.

Most of the women I know wash laundry by hand or have an old fashioned twin tub, that requires almost as much manual labour as washing the clothes by hand.

This is the third house we've lived in since we came almost two years ago and to be honest I don't mind moving around or even the moderate uncertainty that comes with renting.

Having said that we're a least hoping to stay put for the next year insha'allah.

The area isn't the most beautiful it's true, but the children have put down roots and our neighbours have been so helpful and supportive that it's hard right now imagining moving away.

I don't even mind that the top of our house is completely open to the elements, in fact in summer it's lovely being able to look up and see the outside inside.

This is taken from the second floor where the bedrooms are, and directly above where you see the tarp, is where our sheep lives and where our laundry gets hung.

The rooftop terraces are so close together in our ziniqa that you can easily chat with neighbours from up there...

and there's been some tentative steps on the crafting front

I lost my mojo a bit over the winter, but there are loads of ideas germinating up there in my head..it's just a matter of finding the time to get some of them done.

I'm working on a couple of cardigans, a  baby one and one for the 19 year old in my life...she chose some lovely deep teal yarn that's a joy to work with.

Yarn is a bit hit and miss here, and there's certainly nothing close to the gorgeousness you can find in the UK, but it's cheap and you can find nice soft yarns at a fraction of what it would cost back home. You just have to be prepared to look hard.

Also we only seem to be able to purchase yarn in 25, 30 and 50g balls...which is a bit of a bummer..especially when you're working on a larger projects..but them's the breaks I guess.

and tomorrow...

well, we've been planning a trip to the opticians for glasses for dd19

and there will no doubt be the usual round of meals to fit in somewhere.

There are lesson plans to write out for Tuesday

and I need to phone my Mum, even though the poor old love can barely hear what I'm saying these days.

Other than that, nothing is set in stone.

We'll wait for the day and just roll with it insha'allah.

xxx

Thursday, in our house is prep day for the weekend,
thinking about what we want to do over our two days of relative calm...

some things have to be worked around,
Jumuah..the busiest day of our week..
getting the men ready for Salat, boys coming and going all day between tutoring, and masjid.
Our Friday, post Jumuah craft group for some of our masjid students

and this weekend with the baraka of a borrowed sewing machine to use I will insha'allah be sewing velcro to re-usable nappies and whipping up a couple of outfits for the young ladies in my life insha'allah.Velcro

I had planned on doing more, but I have a poorly baby on my hands who needs love and cuddles, so apart from the immovable parts of my weekend... I will insha'allah be doing nothing more energetic than snuggling with my mini man and finishing off those bits of crochet that are bothering me in the basket...

I feel like I want to do some hand quilting too, but I'm fighting that one a little

part of my pledge to self for 2011 is keeping it real...
so instead of coming here and ignoring the fact that I gave myself things to do over the weekend, we're going to study the anatomy of a to do list...or more correctly a "to don't" list

my menu plan for January got dumped and deserted half way through thanks to price hikes that made my carefully created and fuss free menu impossible to follow, and so I had the bare bones of an idea of what to cook for my crowd over the weekend... which covers the first four to do's on my list..only two of which were achieved..the garantita and pitta bread got made...the split pea soup and falafel didn't... thats not to say we didn't eat, we juat ate other things..and I can't even remember what!

I did sew velcro onto 3 nappies but my dear friend needed her sewing machine back for a bit so the rest of that job got frogged for a while...

I didn't remember to send the 6 year old to the tutor this weekend, so giant slap on the hand for me..I'm flaky you see, with the short term memory of a gnat and the long term memory of a flea so I can't really be held to account for forgetting can I?

I also didn't cut out any clothes to sew... the bag of material is sitting in the corner of the sitting room making it's presence felt, but what I did do was mend quite a few dresses that dd10 had been a bit too enthusiastic in and so she has a few more wardrobe options than she did, which makes me feel only semi flaky on the clothes making score...and I console myself with the fact that the fabric will still get used to make dresses but it will probably be closer to summer by then and it will be a whole new summer wardrobe...

Okay..stop laughing...I'm trying to give you honesty here!

I did catch up with emails..well, some of them at least...but better than nothing right?

The sardines are still in the freezer, but that's because dh brought home some lovely bbq liver and chicken...NOT my fault!

sticky lemon buns were meant to be made on Saturday morning, but.... I was due to visit a friend and got comandeered out of the house a couple of hours earlier than scheduled and had no time for yeast...which brings me neatly on to doughnuts which there was also no need for me to tackle cos my lovely friend made em instead..so I did HAVE doughnuts...I just didn't MAKE them

the maqroot are still soaking in smen in the kitchen..but that just makes for a moister maqroot in my book, and there's no point cleaning the cooker till I've fried the maqroot is there?

and the crochet...erm well... I didn't FINSH anything but I did START something else...starting is my strong point.

and there you have it... a to don't list deconstructed.

and as I have said before, I dont feel bad about non-achievments. Not alot of the time anyway. Life just happens that way. I write a list...some of it gets done...some of it gets shifted along..it all gets done eventually, just not always in the time frame or order I initially intended

right now though, two of my children have reappeared after only an hour of school because teachers didn't turn up for work, and it looks like they only have two hours of school this afternoon. So the day gets rearranged hastily to accomodate the unexpected... so I'm off to find something interesting to cook for lunch insha'allah... wish me well
xxx

Crochet...

is a must do craft in Algeria...

women everywhere will take out carefully put by packages of crochet that they've made and kept and show them off with a real sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.

in the past a woman would spend the months and weeks leading up to her wedding making all manner of crocheted household items to help decorate her home..these days though less young girls are learning to crochet, preferring to buy from older women and relying on their mothers also to prepare beautiful pieces of crochet for their new married lives..

this piece was made up for my very special aunt-in-law...she and her lovely husband have become my surrogate parents and I love being able to gift them with things that make them happy...

I have made the intention almost daily (since the last time I posted) to come here and share some thoughts...
I'm not sure what stops me more often, life or just my lack of motivation and inspiration...
It's not hard to put words down... I guess I'm just easily distracted...

and the distractions...well....right now it's mostly (but not ONLY)  this...
I could lose hours lusting over STUFF...and I'm not even a stuff person!!!

THESE... are calling out to me.... they NEED me dammit!! I just have to pray a little that my local market will have lemons..otherwise life might get slighlty ugly...not that I'm vengeful or anything but when a girl need her cake.....

I dare you not to feel even the slightest twinges of craftiness when you visit this lushness .. the list of things I long to make and in reality will NEVER have time for is getting to silly proportions.... but I can't resist... it's a lurve thing...

and if you're any place far away from the homely fug of toasting muffins, then get thee to thy kitchen and make some!! I'm a long way away from the land of the English Muffin now but oh how I love them!!

and no...I don't have a crafting fixation.... honestly....

We're moving towards the winter break from school, exams are finished and the children are anxiously waiting for their results...
The past couple few weeks has been filled with a mutant puking virus and exams, and the  first semester break is a welcome break form the usual routine...

we're looking forward to some quality family time... minus the sickness and hopefully insha'allah some time spent creating niceness on the yarn and fabric front... we might even let the children join in (if suddenly and inexplicably overcome with the compulsion to be nice) ..

enjoy the links...I'll be back at some stage if the crazy Algerian connection that wont stay connected for more than five minutes at a time will allow me to UPLOAD my photos with my own  bits of crochet that have taking shape over the past couple of days...

all in all,

the past week and a bit has been a pretty hard slog..and I have been more than happy to see the back of it all..

There is something relentless about sickness in a large family...

it just all seems to keep going round and round and....

well, you get the idea right?

so, I have welcomed December with open arms...

eager to start a fresh month, with new possibilties and put the  nasty old puke filled one behind us...

crafting has been happening...s.l.ow.l.y

what can I say?

the urge to craft dwells within us,

the ability however to find space in the day to achieve it is something else altogether!

Our lack of routine is seriously wreaking havoc on my craft life and it isn't making for a totally happy bunny!

I seem to be in a constant state of routine change these days,

something is slightly off kilter, and it becomes increasingly difficult to find the beat of your own rhythm when everyone else's  is so bloomin loud!

I battle on regardless though, trying to find a way to carve some time for myself while tending the needs of others, and the most routine changing decision I have made this week is to give up tutoring..

a decision that has taken me weeks to make,

but one that feels right.

Living in the commmunity I tutor has not been an altogether profitable experience in many ways.

It's just been far too convenient for people to drop in unannounced and univited for impromptu advice, lessons and requests to do any number of relatives homework..

So, apart from my once a week job in the masjid AND a few tutoring favours for friends I have decided to take no more new students and to let the ones I have go...

especially after my 10.30 saturday girls decided to take their chance in coming this morning at 9.30.

Of course it's because their mothers are busy with weekend cleaning and want them out of the way..if they dont come to me they wander the streets.

And on one hand I feel bad, but on the other hand I can't allow myself to be used as a baby sittig service at the expense of my own childrens weekend...

The school routine (especially exam time) is pretty outrageous and I just feel the need to spend some quality weekend time with my own children rather than other peoples...

Which means I'm looking forward to some proper weekends with some proper downtime insha'allah...

anyway... a walk into town this afternoon means I need to get cracking and sort myself out..

we're off to buy a couple of pattern(crochet)books

and see what (Algerian quality) yarn can possibly entice us..