Healing stitches

Moved to tackle my mending pile by Zero Waste week, I've been reminded of how good it feels to take something broken and make it whole again. Where once there were holes there is now wonky darning or patches, rips and tears have been tended to with healing stitches. This was the work our great grandmothers would have taken for granted but in this age of disposable fashion we are losing the skills we need to exist frugally.

These slippers belonged to Eli until his toes poked holes through the crochet, now with a little attention they are providing warmth and comfort for Monty whilst he is away from me at Kindergarten.


As a society we're being seduced by newness. We're constantly encouraged to spend and fill our lives with luxuries. If I can take care of our possessions and extend their life where possible I can free us a little from these temptations. We can't afford it and neither can our planet.

Tales from the kitchen

Last week was a busy one in the kitchen . I'm not really sure what inspired the flurry of activity but I was certainly a little driven by a lack of food in cupboards and fridge. The end of the month often means having to be a little more inventive with the staples; hence, for example, many flatbread/pittas were made out of sheer necessity. These lovely bready ovals are made with only flour, water and a little salt. Rolled out thinly and chucked onto our tava for a couple of minutes each side, they were super quick and easy. You don't need a tava though, a frying pan will do and making the dough is no more complicated than mixing up a few handfuls of flour with enough water to make a kneadable dough. We took some out with a pot of houmous for a simple packed lunch and had another batch rolled up with cheese, carrot, celery and mayo.

I've also been making tons of Soulemama's leftover oatmeal muffins of late and with the arrival of our one precious pot of bilberries they were enhanced further by splotchy blue goodness. These muffins have been a real hit with all of us. The kids obviously love them because they're muffins but I love them for being able to transform a load of unappealing leftover porridge into something considerably more appealing. I've made some with blackcurrants from next door's garden, I've made them with chocolate chips and now they've been bilberried. Again, they're nothing more than flour, butter, sugar, eggs, milk and some leftover porridge.





And so, onto possibly the most luxurious but even more simple bilberry syrup; just bilberries and maple syrup heated in a pan for a little while. I thought it would keep for a little bit and enable me to hold onto those precious berries for longer but it was just too delicious. We ate it with a few humble pancakes and dollops of natural yoghurt for breakfast. It was good. Really really good. Needless to say, there's none left.

I'd love to hear any kitchen tales you have to share...

Berried treasure

At this time of the year, in this part of the world, we are lucky enough to have our hillsides covered in bilberry bushes. It's not the easiest berry to pick but is arguably the most rewarding. This is maybe our fourth year of searching for these elusive little blue fruits, so I think we can call it a family tradition by now. There are photographs from the picking expedition of three years ago in which I am a couple of days away from giving birth to Monty, a huge and heavy presence in the undergrowth, walking and bending in an effort to get labour started.

In an effort to keep everyone happy I suggested the boys just ate what they found rather than having to put some in the pot. Instant gratification is really the only motivation for berry picking when you're three and five respectively. The two of them rolled and laughed together whilst picking, giving me a couple of hours reprieve from the almost constant bickering they're engaged in a lot of the time just now. It was great to see them at peace and enjoying each others company so much. They gorged themselves on berries and, when they tired of that, they climbed trees and made houses in the brush. All very wholesome and idyllic...

Bilberries, if you've never come across them before, are a lot like blueberries but smaller and tastier. They've got some lovely alternative names like windberry, whinberry and huckleberry, and the traditional way to eat them around these parts, so I'm told, is in a 'mucky mouth pie'. They're delicious in muffins and full of vitamin C so definitely worth the very fiddly and time-consuming process of getting enough to carry home. Finding them can be sometimes difficult - particularly if the deer have got to them first - but when you lift up a branch and discover a cluster of little blue orbs it really does feel like finding treasure.

Visiting nature's larder, rather than the local supermarket, is immensely satisfying. It can be an ethical minefield choosing and purchasing food for the family and if you're trying to make sure everyone's getting a good range of fruit and veggies it's pricey too. A punnet of blueberries is likely to have been flown halfway across the world and costs us a pretty penny at the end of its journey. Gathering one tub and two bellyfuls of bilberries from up the road costs us and the earth nothing and yet has given us more than just mucky mouths - it's given us a morning of outdoor fun and a little bit of family harmony, just when we needed it most.

Do you have bilberries near you? What do you make with them? What other wild foods do you and your family like to gather?