Zoë Lynch

The strangest things make me nostalgic and return to my childhood, so strong is the imprint of an object, sound or fragrance. In this case it is not just the aroma of Seville oranges as I juice, de-membrane, slice, and boil to make marmalade, it is the pan itself.

I always smile when  I get this old work horse out, it must be at least 80 years old. It reminds me so clearly of the day my Father set fire to the kitchen when we lived in Anna Valley, in itself not funny, but hits my irony funny bone every time as he constantly admonished me ‘ Will you be careful!’ at the time.

Before that momentous event however, it had belonged to my paternal Grandma, Mabel Green as she was, although in the photo below I think she may have still been Mabel Mitchell.  She was an accomplished pianist, and taught others to play for a living.  She was a frugal women,  born in times of austerity in the First World War, lived through the depression of the 1930s, and then raised four children during World War II, my father included.  I know she bottled and preserved a lot, my Grandfather ran two allotments, and nothing, but nothing ever went to waste!

My paternal Grandmother

The pan reminds me of days, and sometimes weeks in the school holidays from boarding school, sitting in the kitchen with her, helping her prepare various preserves to go in the pan. Sometimes followed by a treat, like making coconut pyramids for tea; perfectly formed cones created in a special Tala mould just for the job, and then topped with half a glace cherry.  Sometimes I might earn one for walking Shandy the dog, or for helping my Aunty Jill, who still lived at home and was just 12 years my senior cut out book covers she hoarded from the Library at Loughborough Uni, to make this vast collage all over her bedroom walls.

Sometimes we would load up my Aunt’s Mini, taking a picnic of home made preserves and bread sandwiches, a slab of cake or maybe something more dainty, and Shandy the dog. We would head for Charnwood Forest and roam for miles, marvelling at bizarre fossils in rocky outcrops, or scrambling up trees or rolling in huge piles of leaves, ending up smelling musty and mushroomy, and of the earth.

These memories are very precious and make me smile and long for simpler times.

Enough of that – here is the recipe if you would like to make your own marmalade.

Seville Orange Marmalade

3lbs Seville Oranges, washed.

Juice of 2 lemons.

6 pints of water

6lbs of sugar.

Method

Halve  oranges and squeeze out all the juice and pips. Tie the pips, and any bits of membrane or pith that come away in a muslin square. Tie the muslin to make a secure bag.

Slice the orange peel according  to your preferences for chunky, medium or fine rinded marmalade and place in a preserving pan along with the water and the orange juice. Add the muslin bag.

Bring to the boil and then simmer gently for 2 hours until the peel is soft and the liquid in the pan has reduced by about half.

Remove the muslin bag.

Add the sugar and heat gently until all the sugar has dissolved. Then bring to a rapid boil and cook for about 15 minutes.

Test for the  a  set and once the setting point has been reached, take the pa off the heat and remove any scum from the surface of the marmlade.

Leave to stand for at least 15 minutes, as this will help the peel to distribute evenly throughout the preserve.

Then stir gently to distribute the peel and pot and cover in hot sterile jars. Makes about 10lbs.

Cyclamen coum and Pansies that I potted up flowering in the garden today, its bright and cold and feels like Spring

Yes, yes, I know –  week late with my greetings! Nothing new there then, I feel like I am playing catch up most the time at the moment.

Pain makes everything difficult, I feel like I am wading through treacle half the time. If its not the pain slowing me down, its the prescription drugs that leave you disconnected and soporific making it hard to think straight.

I day dream for hours when I have taken pain meds, unable to concentrate on the TV, or reading, or anything that takes much concentration.  Before I know where I am days, and then weeks have gone by.

Anyway, like most of you, I have made some, errr not what I would call resolutions perhaps, that would doom me to failure from the outset. Good intentions is what  I prefer to call them, little goals I set myself that are within the realms of achievable. This year is no different. Usually it involves me learning something new, something that will be useful to me.

This year it will be no different. I have really been enjoying making jewellery, and have sold a piece much to my own amazement, and had a couple of enquiries for commissions too, so hopefully in time they will come to fruition too.  In the meantime I have been concentrating my efforts of making things that may appeal to buyers as a Valentine gift for a loved one.

To this end I have been busy checking out and following all the advise given to me on my previous post about this.  I think I shall build myself a website, and perhaps add the items to Folksy too.  Think I will also apply to NOTHS and see if they will accept me, although their terms and conditions seem very variable and they don’t tell you about their charges until after you have applied and been accepted.

So what learning am I going to do? Well, I have booked myself on a day long workshop to learn about how to use Silver Clay, and I have also booked myself on a part time 8 week course in Winchester, to learn more about the real gold and silver smithing craft, and learn to make literally everything from scratch, including chains and all my own findings.

Soldering small joints is one thing, and I have the ability to do that now, but annealing and hardening metals, and manipulating precious metals is tantamount to alchemy, and I need to learn this from an expert so that I can extend the range of what I am able to create.  I have designs whizzing around my head, but I lack the skills to make them. I am hoping by the end of the year to have resolved this.

I have also signed up to a couple of blogging challenges:

VP over at Vegplotting has come up with a cracking idea to get us all growing and eating healthy salads in her 52 week Salad Challenge so pop over and join in!

Secondly, I have also signed up to Annie, the Felt Fairy’s  A Make a Month 2012 which is a good motivator for me to experiment and try out new things to make, and improve of some of those I have already attempted.

Onwards and upwards as they say!

Wishing you all, dear reader, ‘A Very Happy, Healthy and Prosperous 2012.’ 

I made this last night, its made from 925 Sterling silver chain, beads, findings and wire. Lapis Lazuli beads, small freshwater pearl beads and tiny white quartz chips

Since I was about 12 years old and gave up my first paper round having been bitten by a dog 3 days running, I have always had a job, or a tangible role in life. I have worked on Watercress beds, picking and packing in the school holidays, as a groom, as a pigherd, mucking out arks and feeding them.

I worked in Woolies for years as a Saturday girl, on the Deli counter selling bacon, sausages and a variety of cut meats. I always went home smelling of Garlic Sausage! I worked on Ladies Wear later on, and vividly recall selling cotton knickers to Lesley Judd – I was still a Blue Peter watcher in those days, and she was a presenter, along with John Noakes and Peter Purvis. It was very difficult to watch Blue Peter after that, knowing she may have the very knickers on that I had wrapped and sold her!

I worked at The Copper Kettle on Saturdays. A proper old fashioned tea room  that sold amazing cream cakes and sandwiches, or poached eggs on toast, and substantial ‘luncheons’ usually a roast or other home-made fare.  I loved working there, there were so many regulars, always generous with their tips and curious about my navy blue ‘Alice in Wonderland’ Clarks children’s shoes, and red ankle socks I wore. I wore them to be different, I wore them because in those days Alice represented my ambition to escape the life I was living at home. It was my quiet rebellion. My attempt at non conformity.

School, college and the like saw me working in numerous jobs to supplement my income, pubs, restaurants,  anything that was legal, and paid on a regular basis.  Sometimes working more than one job. Nothing was beneath me.

Then I drifted into IT having become seriously disenchanted with the misogynistic attitude I had encountered in the Building trade, I had studied Building Construction Technology and Architecture, but when employed by a Diocesan Architects office, despite being qualified and able, was treated like the tea girl. I hadn’t studied for years to devote myself to the finer points of brewing a cup of PG Tips.

I began to look around – IT seemed to be the up and coming thing, Programming especially. It was a profession with a future as far as I could work out at that tender age; we are in the very early 1980s by now. Certainly the ‘Old Boys’ club atmosphere of so many professions wasn’t  obvious to me. It seemed a relatively level playing field for both genders too,  meritocracy, rather than misogyny.

So I opted for this, I worked at a computer operator at first, in the heady days of Tape desks and exchangable disks. In the days when computing power was still measured in the number of bytes used in memory and computers filled large rooms – but only had the capabilities of a small PC today.  I learned boolean algerbra, binary, octal and hexadecimal, and could read these as easily as I read English today. I spoke to the computer in a language it understood – Assembler, and then later Cobol and many others, from 4GLs to TP monitors, Data Dictionaries and everything inbetween.  I was a Geek of the first order.

After some 25 years of this I became bored, and disenchanted with this profession too.  I hated having it on my conscience that every time I designed and developed a new piece of software, I was effectively putting some poor sod out of work. Sometimes the software we wrote replaced entire departments of clerks. It made me uncomfortable.  Eventually I quit on the basis I would be a stay at home Mummy, albeit a bit late in the day, my kids had all but finished Primary School by the time I came to this position in my life.  I loved my kids, but needed something more, something to stimulate the grey matter, and I became very interested in the marriage of Art and Design with Horticulture. It tied up so many of my interests into one convenient package: Garden Design.

So again I took myself off to study – firstly spending a year at Merrist Wood on a Diploma, and then after I started a BSc in Garden Design at Sparsholt.

I got sick, and the World seemed to come to a grinding halt. Everything was subsumed by Cancer, it not only ate into my body, it seemed to eat into every part of my life too.  You cant imagine the changes this one simple six letter word has made on my life. It cost me friendships. It cost me my health, it cost me my confidence. And it made me unemployable. Who wants to employ someone who has had cancer and might get it again.  Not a very good prospect am I.

Anyway, I am now at a stage where I need to find something to do with my time. Something that not only interests me, and feels worthwhile, but also enables me to earn a little, to have a little independence and self respect again for helping myself, rather than looking for hand outs (I don’t claim any benefits, despite being entitled, and never would unless circumstances forced me to).

I have had a go at making lots of things, many of which I have shown you on the blog here.  I think the answer maybe in going  solo and trying my hand at one of these as a part time occupation.

So why I am rambling on, and what  is it I want from you. Honesty I suppose. Do you think what I made in the photo above is saleable. Would you buy it, would you give it as a gift or like to receive it as such.    What would you be willing to pay for such an item. Should I be doing it differently? Is it too old fashioned? I would really value an opinoin. And no Polly Anna’s please – I need to understand whether others think this would be a viable path for me to pursue before I commit to it, as the investment in materials is not inconsiderable for a person who doesn’t work, who doesn’t receive benefits and lives off her husbands kindness, and her own savings. I’d really appreciate the feed back. Thanks x

Yesterday evening I logged on to Facebook after dinner for a quick spin around the block and to play ‘Words’ with Maggie, Marcia and Sally, to be stopped in my tracks by a status update I can still hardly believe.

They say lightening never strikes twice. It has.  My friend Joanie’s beautiful daughter Sarah was a victim of a Stroke when she was just 18 years old just over 2 years ago.  Sarah has worked so hard at her recovery, and Joanie has worked tirelessly to help her and help Stroke patients in the wider community, setting up a drop in group for others who have been also affected by Stroke, and also recording Sarah’s progress through her rehabilitation and posting the videos on You Tube which has not only helped to encourage and inspire others, but also helped to inform and educate, not only the general public, but help professionals and medical students too.

Yesterday, Joanie , who is younger than me,  in her 40s,  slender, elegant, intelligent, compassionate and good all round egg and brilliant mother of two girls the same age as my kids,  suffered a Stroke too.

My first reaction was shock and disbelief,  later it was great sadness, today its a feeling of anger at the unfairness of it all.

Earlier this year they appeared together to help the Stroke Awareness campaign on BBC TV’s Breakfast Time program. I keep watching the video and wondering how Joanie is now. How is Sarah coping with it? Her other daughter is in Oz – she must be beside herself.

If nothing else, please take Stroke Awareness seriously, as my lovely friend and her beautiful daughter show, it can happen to anyone, at any time. Stay safe and well xxx

My bees – can you see the honey comb and propolis they have made on the frames?  

An extract from Last Night As I was Sleeping

“Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.”

Antonio Machado

Lately, I have been exploring a whole raft of new hobbies, from carriage driving to paper crafting, and several more esoteric pastimes such as dowsing in between.

Last year I attempted making my own Christmas cards, but failed dismally, I just couldn’t get the rubber stamps I had bought to work the way I wanted them too. I understood nothing of the technical aspects of the different inks types used, and by choosing the wrong sort to begin with in my abject ignorance, the project was doomed to failure from the outset!

Whilst I was in hospital having major gynea surgery in January 2010,  The lady in the bed next to mine and I became firm friends. Being of similar ages, and having undergone similiar problems with cancer we both felt a kindred spirit. A mutual understanding of life threatening illnesses, and how they affect your life.  Marcia, is the name of this lovely lady, and we still see one another for lunch on a regular basis, and our friendship has developed over the intervening 2 years.

Marcia is a talented crafter, and makes all sorts of amazing objects which you could never guess what the constituent parts had been, I seem to recall a beautifully decorated large glass bowl being the result of an intimate encounter with a decorated paper napkin! It was stunning however she achieved it.

Marcia is also rather good at paper crafting and making cards, so I recounted my story of failure to her with my risible attempt at card making last year. She smiled and promised to get me some help.

This help came in the form of attending a crafting demonstration on Thursday evening, run by Amanda Fowler with Marcia, where we were shown many techniques to create artful and attractive greetings cards from simple components like plain card, ink and the odd bit of ‘Bling’. (Bling apparently is a technical term used to denote all things sparkly, pretty and otherwise glitzy used as embellishment. You could tell I was a crafting virgin as I mistakenly called them ‘pretty bits’.)

We were then set free to make one of the cards Amanda had demonstrated, and the image above is what I made. Its constructed from 3 different coloured cards, two different coloured inks, used to stamp the flowery images, a bit of scissor work cutting things out and some glue.  I am rather pleased with my first successful attempt at making a card, and it will be winging its way to my sister as we speak.

I have to admit that until now, I had a certain preconception in my mind about papercrafting,  and crafting in general – it wasn’t all positive. So here for the record I am going to stand up and confess to enjoying papercraft very much and embrace my inner dweeb wholeheartedly.

It has been a difficult weekend for me. I have felt a huge void in my world open up. I know it has to happen, and my children need to fly, but when it becomes your reality it can be very difficult to accept.  Robyn moved out permanently earlier this year, and moved to Brixton, and her brother Tom, moved out this weekend, and now lives on the outskirts of Brixton too.

I am hugely proud of both my children and what they have achieved in their young lives so far, and that they are both now living independent lives in London, pursuing their dreams and goals.  Despite all the doom and gloom in the economy, both have jobs, my son whilst he continues to work towards his Masters degree, and my daughter as she supports herself and her dream of freelance journalism and being a writer. It isnt easy for them financially, but they understand nothing comes on a plate,  and if you want something in this life, you have to work for it. I am proud of who they are and what they have already achieved. I love them so very much too.

Being proud doesn’t make letting go any easier though, so I spent my time on Sunday sifting through our huge collection of unfiled photographs, grasping at memories and things we did when they were young. Many made me smile, birthdays, Christmases, days out to theme parks, castles and zoos. Things we did together as a family. My family. The family that I loved, and they loved me and it wasnt conditional and there was no fear. All my childhood I had searched for it, and yet it was my husband and my two children who brought me this much-needed sanctuary. A place I can belong, and just be accepted as or Mum (or Bun as they call me), and that’s enough for them.

The photo above shows my children and others from our village when I was a Rainbow Guide Pack Leader, and we got together with the local Beaver Scouts pack, to enter into the village carnival here. It seems a lifetime ago now. I made the costumes such as they were myself and a fun afternoon was had by all, and much money raised for local good causes. Days like these, the simple pleasures in life, stick in my mind the most.   I’ve seen the other children grown to adulthood too, and no doubt their Mum’s feel the same way as I do. It’s a universal thing that many of us go through. But, no one tells you how to cope with it, any more than they tell you just what a massive change having children will bring to your life.  I am not the most naturally maternal women on the planet, but my children after a slow start on my part have given me something I had craved for until then. Love.  The ability to give it freely, and receive it back, unconditionally. I want them to know how very grateful I am to them for that.

Now I think I need to work out my purpose in life again. I know I am still their Mum, and I know they will come home, but finally I have to accept it is time to set them free and I really don’t want to. I feel like I am loosing part of me.

One of life’s little griefs.