Saturday, November 5, 2011

Saturday 10/29: Good Conversation

I woke up at 8am this morning, without an alarm! Success! When I headed downstairs, I met Kim, who had returned late last night. We only talked briefly over a quick breakfast of teacakes and crumpets, before he had to hurry off to get some work done. I, however, enjoyed a few more crumpets with lemon curd—it’s amazing stuff. I pretty much feel the same way about it as clotted cream. They’re both incredible. This morning I helped Grace by packaging up the celery (that I’d previously processed) into bags to be frozen. And we drained the juice off some raspberries that had been soaking for a while to make a liqueur. I also got to taste Grace’s homemade chutney, which was spicy and yummy!

Grace was still working on sewing her knife pouches, so I worked on braiding bracelets (using embroidery floss). I made one for Elara and one for Miranda. I took a short break to walk with Elara to the post box. The tricky part was that Elara wanted to wear her rollerskates…so, it was much more exciting as I tried to keep her somewhat upright! We made it there and back again without any major injuries to either of us. ;)

Photo: Elara on rollerskates

In the afternoon, the girls had swimming lessons, so I headed over to Grace’s mother’s house. Since she is confined to a wheelchair, Karin (Grace’s mother), has to rely on caretakers and Grace to help her. But, it’s pretty convenient as she lives pretty much next door! Karin and I talked for about 2 hours straight about food (how people don’t know where it comes from), cooking (how no one seems to know how to cook anymore and how I should start free cooking classes when I return to Corvallis), farming (Karin and her husband bought a farm near Wales and spent a lot of their lives living off the land), and stay-at-home-moms (how they are really awesome, but often looked-down upon—and how I’d like to be one). It was a wonderful conversation and I really appreciated hearing her stories.

For dinner, Grace’s sister and family came over, along with her mother! We had a big meal of Indian food (yum!!!) with lemon and cherry tarts for dessert! Before dinner we watched a movie (“Scared Shrekless”) with the whole family. After dinner we just hung out at chatted until they headed home.

Once everyone left, Grace, Kim, and I had tea and watched the ending of the film, “Contact,” that was playing on TV. We talked for a while and then headed to bed around 10pm. Tonight we gain an hour, thanks to the time change (yes, we get it a week earlier than the US)!!

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