Musings in May

I feel as though every time I come to write on here I am in the midst of another emotional shift, perhaps that is when I do my best writing. There’s a good chance you’d disagree with that, but still you humour me and I am grateful to you. I’ve just dropped the children off at their new school for a taster day. Freshly pressed uniforms, shiny shoes, I forgot to brush their teeth but the excitement this morning was palpable and I was bound to forget something.

They went from a noisy buzz of anticipation, chatting about the birds we saw along the way and spotting lambs in the field above school to a very sudden hush. We stood outside the gates, perched on the stone wall that lines the river running adjacent to the old school house all feeling, and probably looking, a little bit wobbly. We shuffled in our shoes, clamped hands tightly, smiled and said polite good mornings with feigned confidence. First impressions matter on the school run, although here it feels less pressured. One Mummy approaches, ‘You must be the new mummy. I’m Stella. My daughter is in year 3 too and she was positively vibrating with excitement when she saw your little girl this morning. Welcome.’ Stella you don’t know how many butterflies you settled with that single considerate, warm and kindly sentence. I immediately felt better, and I don’t doubt the children did too as I loosened the grip on their tiny little purple fingers.

Inca went and sat in her classroom next to Hope, Stella’s little girl as it happens, so I feel she’s in good hands. Atlas went to visit the newly hatched chicks in his classroom and sat down to write some numbers. One little boy asked if he’d like to sit next to him and another blonde mop haired little munchkin asked if he wanted to sit on the green table with him today. Everyone was welcoming, everyone was calm and everyone was kind.

I’ve plotted out an area down by the stream that I want to re-wild and give to nature. We’ve been enjoying the latest David Attenborough series about British gardens, the children are livid that he might threaten retirement in this his one hundredth year. What will we do with our Sunday evenings now David? Anyhow, I’ve sectioned off an area for the future bee hive, mown a narrow path through our meadow grass, sown cow parsley, wild fennels seeds and some good pollinators and sourced a few apple trees to line the path down to the stream and pond. When we get ducks they will live down there too, over the bridge in their own little patch of worms and ‘midgets’.

The chickens are in the red shed with me today, tapping at my clogs and my skirt. I’ll throw a handful of mash out for them in a minute and they’ll run behind me like rapid little raptors as if though it’s their first meal in a month. It’s not. I feed them Jacobs crackers, no less, as a treat every time I step out of the caravan. Porridge is a little more adventurous with her palette, she’ll lap up the leftover muesli and milk I sprinkle out on the lawn, dive into the ‘squishy’ raspberries Inca launches from the back door…Marmalade less so. She’s a mash girl.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May

The wind has truly blown away many a cobweb for us at the start of this the month of May. We ended April with a trip to Hertfordshire, a fly by visit and surprise garden tea for my sister’s 40th birthday. It was wonderful to see her clock Atlas sat nonchalantly at her dinner table as she returned home from work, hands clasped to her mouth and tears of both joy and shock pooling in her wide eyes. We ate, we sipped sparkly drinks, we played cricket on the lawn and enjoyed a majestic aerial display from the resident red kites soaring above us. So heavenly. I drove us home through the night, elated and secure in the knowledge that our children are surrounded by love, care and home environments that will nourish each and every part of them.

May day slipped by uneventfully for us, I was working at an art fayre in Sennen celebrating Beltane which consumed me. I won’t go into it too much but I almost drove away upon arrival, lots of real artists, talking like real artists and there I stood peddling candles and hand creams, feeling quite fraudulent and out of place. Nonetheless, I stuck it out, got through it and after a few ciders in the garden felt all the better for doing so.

Inca has a sleepover at school today, it’s her first time sleeping away from us. She has stayed with her Grandma and Grandpa before but never away from family. I am more nervous than her. She has practised packing away her star print sleeping bag every morning and evening this week, a ritual she is doing, I know, to set a comfort in the unknown. She is a gentle girl but unquestionably strong and as she strides into another new scenario, she does so with the bravery I could only have wished for at the humble age of seven. I hope for her as she grows not to make me proud but to be proud of herself in situations I have never found myself in, to set her own path and take pride in the steps she makes. On a similar note, we’ve got a big decision to make as a family, I’ll be in a place to share more on that soon.

Our garden looks at the moment to be the inspiration of Rudyard Kipling’s famous children’s tale. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see Mowgli, hop, skipping and jumping across the stream at this point. The bluebells have carpeted the more untouched areas, we’ve got cherry belle radishes blushing above the soil, the chickens are relishing in the many ‘midgets’, as Atlas calls them, flitting about on the breeze and as the occasional cloud slips from sight the sun has strength enough to leave the odd kiss upon noses and foreheads.

Finding Happiness

Easter Sunday was so lovely, the village set up an Easter egg hunt and the children sprinted from house to house collecting chocolate chicks and eggs. The bigger children threw their chocolate on the grass in front of the little ones to make sure they got some and the little ones grinned with delight at their shiny foil covered finds. We finished up at the farm where a local couple are growing apples, pressing and selling a range of apple juice and ciders amongst many other projects. I walked alongside the farm owner and another neighbour who is currently completing her studies to develop her work as a therapist. It felt so good to walk and talk with people who are similar to me, it’s not something I find very often and so it really hits the dopamine receptors when I do find people that are interested and interesting. To be honest, it may have hit a little harder after a difficult week. I had to do something really tough, I won’t go into it too deeply but it was a hard and very necessary thing to do to protect Inca. The evening of said challenging hurdle I sat on the loo whilst I brushed Inca’s teeth and took the four thousandth deep sigh of the day, Inca asked me what was wrong and I told her that I had to do something really tough today, she asked why and I told her I did it to protect her. {I chose not to let the playground drama bother her already busy little mind}. She looked straight into my eyes with such a knowing look and gave me the biggest cuddle. It was as if she knew exactly what I was talking about and as though she felt relief that I had done something about it. It has taken a good few days to feel better about all of that but time spent at home all together has only secured that we are making the right choices, our children are happy and safe and are learning the smarts of nature that we believe are so important. Atlas taught Inca to pick up the chickens yesterday, something she has been nervous about and I was so incredibly proud of her. She was, in true Inca fashion, quietly proud of herself.

To think there are so many children that find ‘happiness’ from simulated situations, playing computer games and earning non-existent trophies is a world so far from my comprehension of childhood. That so many children are being decorated at such a young age and so as a result are already worried about the way they look hurts my soul. I can’t fathom why people don’t understand that not that long before us the people who were driving their horse and cart to market didn’t have to pull over with a panic attack…because they were using their brains the way they are meant to be used and achieving in real life.

The twelve apostles of Holywood

As so many strange structures ~ dolmens, burial mounds and stone circles ~ have existed in our countryside for millennia without any real explanation. Folklore and stories however have inevitably grown around them. The Twelve Apostles stone circle near the village of Holywood, in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, can have no connection to Christianity ~ they were built around 4,500 years ago with an orientation towards the midwinter sunrise and some entirely pre-Christian purpose that we can only suppose. But the fact that there were once 12 looming stones seems to have swept all of that aside. In some stories these are considered to represent Jesus’ apostles, while in others ‘it is allowed that the apostles put them there’ ~ presumably when they were passing through Dumfries and had a few spare hours on their hands.

The circle now contains 11 stones, but there are records of 12 as recently as 1789, and of its disappearance by 1837. One story goes that when a farmer tried to move them he was immediately beset by a violent thunderstorm and lightning, and so quickly gave it up for fear of God’s wrath. Another tells of a ploughman who broke his plough against one of the stones. In the absence of the farmer he decided to remove the obstacle, and leave it in the nearby river. The farmer on his return was alarmed at the sacrilege of moving one of the apostles, but the quick-thinking ploughman assured him that it was only the traitor Judas that he had removed.

Dandelion Syrup

Ingredients

60 fully mature dandelion blossoms

1 litre of water

1 lemon, sliced or juice of 1 lemon

700g granulated sugar

Method

Rinse and dry the blossoms. Clip the yellow petals from the green base, trying to get as little of the green as possible as they add bitterness (a little is completely fine though).

In a large saucepan, over medium heat, bring the petals, water and lemon slices or lemon juice to a simmer and cook for one minute. Remove the pan from the stove, cover with a lid, and let steep for some hours or overnight in the refrigerator.

Using a fine mesh strainer with a cheesecloth, strain the liquid over a medium-sized saucepan and squeeze the petals in the cheesecloth to remove any excess liquid. Discard the petals. Return the saucepan to the stove, stir in the sugar, and bring to a gentle simmer over medium-low heat. Let simmer for 1 ½ hours, or until the liquid is reduced by half and thickened to your likening. Carefully pour the syrup into sterilized glass jars. Keep in the refrigerator for a few months.

March is here and so are the hens

It was my birthday last week and I was gifted a chicken house with two beautiful Colombian black tail hens, Porridge and Marmalade. After phoning the children in sick off school we spent the morning building the chicken house. Atlas coloured in the instructions for us and Inca passed us the number 3 bolts whilst she {with hot pink cheeks} hunted around for the number 5 screws we would need next that she may or may not have misplaced amongst the grass cuttings in her excitement. I can’t blame her. I was like a child myself, ‘Our first pet’ I kept saying, ‘I can’t wait to go and get them’, ‘We can make Atlas’s birthday cake with our own eggs.’

After a picnic lunch, thank you March, we hopped in the truck and drove over the Bodmin moors along the start of the River Fowey to the most beautifully remote farm. Once we had ushered the cattle out of the way, we trundled up the path to the farmhouse with the farmer’s son to pick up our girls. His mother, who supplies the chickens had popped out and so he briefly talked us through the do’s and dont’s. We sheepishly produced a small KP nuts box that we had hurriedly retrieved from the petrol station on the way when we realised we hadn’t got anywhere for them to sit. He quite rightly affirmed it might be on the smaller side, ‘they’ll be alright in the back of yer truck, might be a few presents when you open her back up’.

We popped Porridge in the box and wedged her between the children on the back seat with her head stuck out of the top pecking at Inca’s little fingers, much to the amusement of Atlas who counted every time she opened her mouth and told us how hungry she must be because she’s opened her mouth 36 times already. He’s a natural chicken breeder our boy.

Marmalade sat on my lap for the journey home, she tucked her head under my arm and quickly fell asleep whilst I held her tightly and tickled the back of her neck.

Spring is Stirring

We had sun yesterday, I think perhaps it did rain at one point. I’m almost certain I heard a few smatterings on the caravan roof as I was spreading the mackerel pate on the children’s school lunchbox rolls. But, it was fleeting, and as the day settled into its rhythm the sun steadied in its strength and like a shy child growing more confident by the minute at a busy garden BBQ, it was, by mid afternoon, bursting with joy and energy.

There is a clumsy bunch of daffodils growing in the bank opposite our front door and we’ve relished in noting their progress as we leave for school each morning. This morning a petal was coyly blushing a shade of butter yellow and we think by tomorrow it may well reveal itself to us. From my studio I can see a bold strip of saffron dashing across the landscape of green, brown and grey. The daffodil pickers came early but seemingly have left the majority of the field for us to enjoy. Inca and I snuck up there after school one evening and stuffed a bunch of stolen daffs in my pocket to give to Grandma. She was both exhilarated and terrified when I hopped into the field and began plucking away…'Mummy are you sure we won’t get told off.’ I wasn’t entirely certain the parchment skinned farmer’s wife wouldn’t holler at us from a hidden viewpoint, but it was worth the risk and thrill of plotting with Inca how we would hide them up our sleeves if we saw anyone along the lane back home.

Early lambs are finding their feet, windows are flung open and the sunlight lingers a little longer on certain patches of the garden, it’s almost within touching distance which is both comforting and commoving.

We’ve been eating a great deal of eggs lately which is getting me all giddy about the idea of having our own hens. I took the children to Heligan over the half term. We stopped and took in the sights at the chicken field, chose our favourites, chatted to them, rudely {I suppose} commented on their plumage and decided which ones we’d be happy to have running about our garden.

In the studio today I’m painting Easter eggs, the rain is dripping from each crossbar of the window frames, I have just seen a woodpecker land on the pile of wood we’ve prepared for our next bonfire and whilst the sky is a watercolour practice paper of smudgy greys, the lush green grass in the meadow outside the red shed and trill of birdsong is encouraging to say the least.

February Story

Well it’s still raining. Despite our best efforts at digging land drains for two solid weeks the ground in the garden is still completely sodden, Inca reminds us every morning over our muesli and berries in the caravan that it has rained here in Cornwall everyday in 2026. It’s no wonder really that we’re still trudging everywhere in our pyjamas and welly boots.

The lounge is almost done, I’ve started painting ~ another Edward Bulmer colour to work with our lime walls. We’ve gone for Hawtrey on the walls and Little Greene Silent White on the ceiling beams, it feels like sitting in a bowl of the most delicious sticky toffee pudding sauce and I am so delighted with how it looks. We just need to learn how to fit carpet in there and we can start getting out picture frames and lamps to make it a proper room.

The littles ones continue to be as resilient as always, Atlas proudly came over to the caravan last week at dawn all by himself, dragging his dressing gown through the mud, but still, an achievement for a four year old to walk by himself through the pitch black garden for his toast. It makes me very emotional when I see them just getting on in this way, so many children nowadays have such an unnecessarily high level of comfort in their lives that I worry how they will cope when life inevitably smacks them in the forehead. I’d like to think our children will tackle any problems coming their way with the same nonchalant strength they’ve tackled ice cold caravan showers and breakfasts in the dark. To say I’m proud of them is an understatement. We went to a birthday party recently where the children were asked to act out what they wanted to be when they’re older, I was shocked and terribly saddened when so many mimed ‘gaming’ or ‘youtube star’. That seven year old children have an ambition to sit on their bottoms and stare at a screen is a hard pill to swallow for me, what an awful dream to be working towards, as though their hopes and dreams of being an astronaut have already been dashed at such a young age. Thankfully Inca told the DJ she was going to be an artist and Atlas answered he was acting out ‘saving animals like David’. [Attenborough]

I often leave these parties in a state of despair, Atlas had a wonderfully wholesome party for his little friend the other day which restored my faith in humanity, but all too often I come home terrified that our children are growing up in a world where people don’t value the same things that we do. Heyho, we can only do our best to raise them gradually and do things our way. Luckily for us Inca can’t understand why on earth the girls in her class have jewellery in their ears and Atlas thinks ‘they look beautiful without them’. I visited my best friend from school last year and was discussing all this with her Pa in the kitchen over a glass of sparkling elderflower…just how terrifying it all is. As we watched our families lovingly share out the fish food and help each other sprinkle it upon the minnows in their pond, I shared with him how we are adamant to keep them little as they want to be for as long as possible and teach them that those outside influences are very much outside of our family and not traits we want to adopt. He answered that he thinks I’m swimming against the current and sadly he’s absolutely correct.

Looking out the window today, the sky is blue and although the clouds are beginning to gather in strength it remains, for now, clear, fresh and dry. I’m defiantly wearing a blouse and refusing to wear a coat on the school run at the moment, willing spring’s arrival any which way possible.

The Lay of Fraoch

Faoch, a handsome warrior with jet black hair, wished to marry the beautiful Findabair, who loved him too. They lived on the banks of Loch Awe in Scotland. The loch contained an island upon which stood a single rowan tree, with fruits that were said to restore youth and health, and to satisfy hunger for three days at a time. A dragon, coiled around its trunk, guarded these precious fruits. Unfortunately, Findabair’s mother, Maeve, also loved Fraoch, and her jealousy and unrequited love ate her up until she plotted a plan to destroy him. Pretending to be ill, she said he could have Findabair’s hand in marriage if he swam to the island and brought back a handful of its fruits to heal her.

Fraoch was afraid, but brave, and he loved Findabair very much, so he set off, swimming strongly through the cold water. When he reached the island he managed to tiptoe around the sleeping dragon, snatch a handful of fallen fruits, swim back and present them to Maeve.

Furious, Maeve plotted again. The next day she called him to her and said she was still ill, and that she must have the entire tree. Again Fraoch set off to the island, only this time he uprooted the whole precious tree, and set off swimming back to shore with it. Of course, this woke the dragon, and the weight of the tree in the water slowed Fraoch down, so that soon the dragon caught up with him and a great battle commenced. Fraoch killed the dragon, but in the process was mortally wounded himself.

Findabair sang a lament over his body, and died of a broken heart. The pair were buried together on the shore of och Awe, and the island {eilean in Gaelic} to this day is named Fraoch Eilean.

November Story

Well, I am sat up in my bed. My actual bed in our actual house. That’s right folks, we are no longer sleeping in the bean can, we are official residents of Strongman’s Cottage. Our first night felt like Christmas Eve, the children had fidgety toes under their heavy new crinkly duvets. The children ran from their room, to our room, to their room, into the bathroom and then back into our room multiple times and it was glorious. I spent the day taking down the ‘awning’ a sort of entrance hall, if you like, to our caravan. It wasn’t quite Carole Bamford level entrance hall might I add, more a series of old carpet and yoga mats that had sunk, quite deeply, into the mud. I would regularly depart to the fridge at 6 am, located in the house, to get the bits to make lunchboxes and on my hasty return shout back to the caravan crew, ‘I’ve slipped in the swamp, someone grab the carrots!’ On one trip back to my parents beautiful home I was putting on my trainers to go for a run only to find not one but two M&S British chestnut mushrooms in my Hoka’s from a previous culinary slip in the swamp. We’ll laugh about this year one day.

Imagine me, if you will, ripped jeans at the crotch and both kneecaps wrestling with a maze of tent poles, duct tape and cable ties in force 8 gales, sliding in the swamp and carefully rescuing every three wheeled car and precious lost pen lid that I find for the children whilst doing so.

Anyway, I got the ‘awning’ down and then I burned it in a ceremonial bonfire which sadly was all a bit rushed because I had to simultaneously don a nice tartan wool skirt and rush to school to watch my daughters’ year 3 concert on e-safety. Yes, e-safety. Struggled to hide my lacklustre expressions during that one I assure you.

So, there you have it. Chapter one of actually living in our house. I managed to do proper plaits for Inca for school which she was delighted about and Atlas already prefers the caravan because ‘our house is too hot’, soooo really glad we spent the extra £300 on insulating render and a whole extra day making sure their room was cosy for the winter. All in all though we are thrilled to be on a solid mattress each, with running water and a wardrobe that doesn’t require a torch to find some knickers. Did I mention downstairs still resembles the blitz but when you go through the dust curtain and ascend the nail peppered stairs it’s like entering Narnia…minus the beavers.

October Story

Hedgehogs fatten themselves on squirming worms. Flowers reveal their skeletons. Birds carefully select ruby red berries, picking them from thorned bushes rather like taking down the decorations of a Christmas tree. Leaves begin to flash red, yellows and golds before being blown from their sudden slumber, performing an aerial dance before landing gently in a pile, ready to be crunched by little brown boots.

As the curtain is drawn on summer and Autumn arrives with a crisp yet warming kiss. Subscribe to the newsletter for a more in depth guide to the month ahead.

September school starters

Stiff leather creaks as new shoes house tiny toes taking small but equally gargantuan steps into school for the very first time.

A mother’s cheek is wet with both sadness and pride. A heady dance of emotions that flutter from tumultuous tummy’s to nervous picking fingertips. Their most precious creation leaves, without a glance back. Boldly going where their brothers and sisters have gone before them.

The school bell trills, a familiar sound, the mark of new books opening and simultaneously, chapters closing.

Welcome to Rudh Sten

So here it begins. I’m currently sat in bed which is also our sofa which is also our breakfast table and also my make shift ironing board. We are living in a caravan, yes a caravan. My two wonderfully resilient children and me in our little bean can. We do have an actual house, it’s just mostly mud walls and blown out render at this point, but we are knee deep in a full house renovation and well on our way to our little dream home. Last October we bought our house via an online auction, you’ll need nerves of steel if you choose to partake in such a venture. So, we are now the proud owners of a wonky, crumbly, slightly damp and more than slightly drafty Cornish cob cottage. Before getting started on the house we needed a space to store our belongings and a studio to work from. March saw us pouring concrete wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow, sawing splinter after splinter, hammering, measuring…re-measuring, sawing a bit more off, pushing it that way a bit, no…pushing it back the other way a bit and before long we had our ‘big red’ shed up, water tight and ready to store cushions, toy cars, mattresses, foiling equipment and the like. Amidst the ‘house work’ and keeping the children alive I’ve been working towards having a children’s book published which I’m now very excited to have published, printed and ready to be enjoyed by literature hungry little hearts and eyes.

Rudh Sten is a place for me to create home made, hand produced items designed to help people live a more balanced life, aiming to bring back the best bits of the past that are sadly now slipping away. In the long term I plan to have more to offer, but this is my starting place and I hope you’ll set sail on this voyage with me. Please sign up to my newsletter to receive monthly emails celebrating the best of British hedgerows, gardens and vegetable patches as well as new products to buy here at Rudh Sten.