Water ghosts

I love this picture, taken of a seal swimming up to the under-water viewing deck. I waited for ages posed with my camera to get a shot and the water was so murky, the over-cast weather didnt help. I waited for so long I was the only one left in front of these screens, thinking maybe I should give up and move on to find my mum when out of the gloomy water, like silvery streak of a phantom came this seal, lazily slicing through the water, nimbly turning and looking through the glass to see me then diving down to the floor and swimming under the glass floor...

It looked like a water ghost, dancing in the gloomy, dimly light water, eerie and elegantly sleek in its speed and movement. It almost has a wraith-like appearance no?

Something about the water makes this all seem so dream-like and drowsy, looking back on these shots has the same effect a cold, drizzly sunday morning has, where you want to snuggle and wrap yourself in the moment.

So haunting.

Birdie love.xxx

Under the sea

Living coast, Devon. Something so hypnotic about watching these animals and fishes under the water, I'm a water baby myself but this is somethng else...! Its so relaxing to watch as well.

Birdie love.
xxx

Birdtopia

Last week via a stroke of luck and family connections, I am now a proud owner of a bit of land in central Plymouth! I have an allotment which I have lovingly named "Birdtopia" because for me, it's my bit of paradise on this earth. And land and allotment space is so scarce these days, this is a nice suprise for me.
But I was however warned..."It is a huge piece of land! Not your usual allotment size Hannah, it's going to be a lot of hard work..."
...hard work never scares me! I thrive off it, me and hard work are old friends and even older enemies!


I was shown around the huge area and finally shown plot 147 which was to be my plot...oh yeah!

And this was what greeted me....a jungle and groundsheet jungle...! I might have underestimated the amount of hard work involved a little....
...yeah...
But a nice suprise was discovering I already had a crop of rhubarb growing at the end of the field and between me and three other people, we all walked away with huge armfuls of massssshhoooooosive stalks of bright red rhubarb stalks...yummy!

I mean, look at my hands (and before anyone says it, I know I got tiny, midget hands...i'm forever teased about it by a certain dude...and I say it aint the size that counts, its what you do with them! :P) 
So a few days later, after being handed the key (and one I mustn't lose else its £50 to replace...£50?! I'm gunna be getting quite a few spares cut here...!) I headed down to the allotments with a bucket, a trowel, packed lunch and some baby cabbages to plant.
And it clicked....Birdie here, was being a little well...bird-brained wasnt she?
She didnt click that she was going to need a little more than a trowel to turn over all that earth did she?!
Not to worry! Help came and delievered some tools and a much needed strimmer and the jungle/groundsheet cemetry was blitzed to look like this...

You almost didnt recognise it did you? And under all that grass and ground sheeting, I discovered that the plot was indeed if not double, certainly tripled it sized than originally thought!...ever get that feeling you bitten off more than you thought you can chew?!
 This was the result of around 4 hours work and resulted in me painfully gaining two huuuge blisters, one on my thumb...as I was painfully reminded this evening as I wrote this blog (lemon juice + cuts....OUCH!) and one smack bang in the middle of the palm of my hand!

 Look at the variety of wildlife I discovered in the short time I was there! It took me right back to my childhood where I use to spend hours outside, roaming where ever I was to look for critters and animals (and pretending I was a hunter/warrior/explorer/David Attenborough...but you didnt need to know that...). Under all that tarp, I found two slow worms...TWO! I havent seen them for years! And before anyone yells "snake"...slow worms are not snakes, they are actually legless lizards, if you see the face of one close up, you can see this...not a single snake like feature on their pretty little heads...oh, and they aren't slow in the slightest!

And that robin!...I loved that robin to the point he was nick-named Boy Wonder by me (yeah, the geek in me was aggressively active that day...!) reason being that he came right up to you to the point he was taking food from your hand and flitting off before darting back and hopping behind after you as you tilled the soil, pecking at the earth for any worms. I suspect he's got a nest nearby...or Batman... :)

Plus I had to take a picture of that ladybird! Such an unusual colour co-ordination! she's rocking the polka dot look that day!

To end a busy allotment day, I planted my cabbages as you can see in the thick earth that was almost like peat due to it saturating under all that tarp and ground sheet. I'm looking forward to seeing how these little babies do and how big they will become in a few weeks time!

 Look at that view! Dont you love Plymouth?! Taken on top of the mound on Mount Batten spit on a break after a few hours around the watersports centre. And if you look closely...you can just spot a little pirate boat coming into harbour. I am sure it's a replica built of the Golden Hind as sailed in by Sir Francis Drake...I'm pretty sure....

Pirates!!!! In Plymouth!!! Hold on to yer hats matey!
But seriously, that aint something you see every day is it?!

And a little taste of the Olympics for you, the Olympic torch running past my road at 8.30am on a sunday...I was expecting no one to be out watching this but how wrong was I?! The street and Lara bridge was full of hundreds of people, half I swear were in their nightwear stilI...and what ws great was the celebratory atmosphere in the air so early on a bright, sunny morning. Flags were thrown out the windows, people clapping and cheering...I think we Brits could do with celebrating a little more. We dont make time or effort to appreciate the silly, fun things in our culture and lives and I think its these things that gives us a boost and a smile.

 Plymouth, even though it isn't my place of birth, is however a place where I spent many of my childhood years growing up and spending holidays with my grandparents here. Alot of my family have been born and raised here and I say this marvellous city is in my blood to some extent. Its a mash-up of so many things that I havent encountered before in other cities. It brings the old and new, vintage with modern all together in one huge cooking pot. Plymouth has so many varied landscapes. I grew up in Plymstock mostly, where farmlands, moorlands and coastlands collide with each other. My family background originated from the old harbour and working dockyards, some of them long gone today. There isn't truely a city like Plymouth, It's so unique in such a way that I find it hard to explain.

I'm looking forward to swimming this year in the Tinside Lido, an art deco outdoor swimming pool right by the sea. I might even go down to Devil's point, a place that is wildly occupied by rip-tides and whirl pools but to the knowledgeable swimmer, is a pretty damn great place for a swim. I played here as a girl, shoving my brother off the walk way into the sea and freaking people out by running from the giant man-built rock pool where infants could swim, screaming "shark!" (its amazing how many people believed us and we nearly always had the whole pool to ourselves every time we went, watched by a group of scowling parents and pale-faced, scared children...we were lovely children really...!)

I'm already trying to look ahead to the summer days, working with how I feel day to day. What are your plans this summer?


Hope it brings you good times!


Birdie love to you all. xxx

The way to one's heart is via crafts and food

Hello chickies!
If you'res till reading this then good for you and thank you for sticking with it! 
If you recall from the last update, I showed a small preview of a gift I was currently making fo a friend who's birthday it was. My dear friend A was one of the first few people I made friends with when I moved to Plymouth here in the UK. She like myself, is deaf except she underwent a different life journey and experiences than myself and for the ride she had and all the things she endured that life had thrown at her, I truely admire her strength. She's one of a small handful of people who are strong and possess such a character and personality that is well loved and recieved by all. Even though I'm a little older than her, she truly suppasses me in the knowledge and wisdom she processes that she herself gained from life. She truely been through so much and deserves every inch of happiness that comes her way. I thought she would appreciate the below handmade gift, a large mama owl made up of original 70's fabric holding her little baby.
The mama owl is about the size of a large cushion and is hand stuffed by myself as well as both machine and hand stitched. all the fabrics used to make her is all salvaged and second hand which demonstrates an excellent example of up-cycling. Mama owl's wings are made to be able to hold her baby tight to her and the fabrics was taken from an old sample book that use to come in to the scrap store where I did voluntary work teaching adults and children various crafts. I loved that job and how I was left to be in charge of teaching to others the skills I have gained in life. Many disabled adults and children passed through my lessons loving every minute of it and I'm glad I got to make them smile!

The Teenie baby owl is made up from a small part of a fat quater. I deliberately chosen more muted, "nursery" colours to reflect the delicate, cuteness of the baby. I even hand-stitched the baby's tummy on and then with a needle, frayed the edges of the material for a little "fluffiness". I love, love, love how the eyes turned out so well, made up of two buttons sitting inside of one another.

 My friend loved it. Her birthday meal was a real nice, imtimate affair and we all had a brilliant time. She recieved beautiful gifts and I was thrilled to watch her open mine! It took her some attempts to believe I made her gift but she finally believed me! I recieve the above picture from her showing Mama and Baby at home on her sofa with another new family friend. What is so brilliant is the owl cushion on the right was the inspiration I've seen out and about in shops, going at prices around £25 which I love but wanted to make my own and a little better. The end result? Mama and Baby on the left, a hand made gift for a precious friend. 

I'm liking this end result and the great thing is I've now got a pattern on hand used for this project. I think I might vary the wings a bit for next time for an easier sewing result. I'm also thinking of making Mama's eyes different with a large fabric circle for the eye and then having the button for the pupil. Baby is pretty much bang on and wouldnt change a lot apart from adding a little applique heart on his chest in future for added love!


For those who know me and know me well, would know I'm a massive food lover. I love food...something my body and weight can attest for but in my opinion, a true food lover is one who not only eats good food out and about but also strives to take elements of dishes and produce and recreates it at home. You need to cook food as well as to eat it to understand how a dish works and why it works on each and every level it is created. I love complex dishes and often I will try to order things of this nature when I'm out, but it's the simplier element that is the hardest to achieve. 
Food with many ingredients can hide many sins and errors and sometimes you're not sure if you're actually tasting the dish you're suppose to be tasting. Strip a dish back to its basics, you have nowhere to hide and you have a smaller margin for error. I think this is why many chefs shudder at simple dishes....any mistakes will be spotted!

There has always been one produce I've always wanted to get my hands on to try.
Samphire.
Samphire is a coastal plant with a long history. Samphire is also known as sea asparagus or sea pickle and has been used in history as part of making soap and even glass hence its olde name of glasswort. 
It is also long been eaten in England and research shows there's even reference to it been mentioned in King Lear.

 Half-way down Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade! (Act IV, Scene VI)

Samphire is found on cliffs and coastal regions near seas, esturies and rivers and is often eaten in salads or pickled. But where the magic happens is when it is simply sauteed or steamed and paired with fish. 

Samphire and I have a long history. As a child I dreamt of being cast away on distant islands and living off the land, foraging for food with a knowledge gained from books and national geographic magazines given to me from mainly my grandad. 

We humans have lost the skills and knowledge to live off the land and remain in time with the seasons. Should we even need to live hand to mouth like our forfathers had done in the past, I dont think we would fare well. Samphire was something chefs on television would talk with great enthusiasm, both they and survival experts would trek to world's end where cliffs met the white, wild foamy seas and glorify the plant that gave a unique taste of the sea to any dish.

I even had a fail quest in search for Samphire myself. One training exercise with the army in Cornwall, we were being taught basic survival skills by a harden bunch of royal marines on the cornish coast. We spent hours searching through all the plants growing around us, pulling them up and cooking them in various means and we thought we had Samphire until the Marines admitted they pulled up the wrong plant and they havent themselves come across Samphire in a long time!
...and we were about to consume a weed....yeah...some survival experts they were...!
 So Samphire remained ever elsuive until this week. My local Morrisons underwent a new facelift and I'm loving the new store layout and the fresh produce counter is out of this world! Fresh fruits and veg from the world over is laid out on ice beds, labelled with their names and how to cook them. You can see all these people picking up all these beauties, no longer scared now that they know what the produce is called and how it is eaten and I am now getting my hands on some great things I've always wanted to cook. I got an artichoke in the fridge I'm going to cook up soon with fresh hollandaise sauce which i dreamt of one day trying.

And i finally got my hand on Samphire! There it was, siting in its own little tray on an ice bed in the fresh herb section!

I simply sauteed it in butter and a little lemon juice and poured it over a freshly cooked piece of salmon. The end result?

Samphire tasted beautiful with the clean taste of salmon. It popped in your mouth with every bite, unleashing a deep tang of the sea, a saltiness that is intense yet developed with a nutty musky tang and had an almost roast chicken aftertaste. It really does lift the taste of the fish to another level and I recommend you give it a try!

Don't be scared of trying something that looks strange and wonderful on shop counters, buy something that scares you, take it home and experiment. Keep the flavours simple and see how you can adapt it to suit your tastes.  I'm finally glad I tracked down and tasted Samphire, the long fabled and elusive plant is now something I've ticked off my list and is something I would put onto my table and share with friends the next time they come over.

Its these small challenges and goals one needs in life that makes living with depression that much easier. Its that small sense of accomplishment that keeps me going to the next one and it's something I hope to share on this blog so I can see my progress.

One must try to live through life with their eyes open, taking in each moment and recognising a moment for what it is. I went for a walk one evening this weel, so angry and upset after a session at Karate. Although the session was a great one, I laughed and got a good lesson from it, I was so upset and so distraught for personal reasons that I just walked blindly until I stopped at a near-by spot and stared out across the water.  I had a long weekend go by, where I truely felt my world was ending. My parents looked after me, trying to make sure I ate and slept and watched their daughter shuffle around the house in a zombiefied state. My dad said I looked like how a war driven soldier would look after many nights on sentry watch like when he was a young marine, deep bruised, raw circles under my eyes from nights of no sleep and the eternal rollings of my mind. I explained to him how I hated sleeping and eventually it developed into a phobia, where I absolutely freak out at the idea of going to bed, striving to stay awake until my body just shut itself down out of complete exhaustion. This happened night after night for months until it was too much. The weekend was a dark one, really dark. I wont go into it too much, it's too personal and raw to share here. 

But here i was, standing at the water edge, mind and soul screaming internally in pain, I felt like my heart was ripped out for a long time and lost, emotions doing their own thing with no control and I just looked at the view for what it was. 

Sunset. The ending of one day and the begining of another. There is always another day to come, another day where things might just get better and damn, wasnt the view just beautiful?

 

Birdie love to you. xxx