Slow-Small Media for the Weekend #7

(Above: Kitchen table vignette. The bowl was my grandmother’s.)

Happy Friday 13th…lucky for some…let’s decide to claim it as lucky for us, hey?

Winter is now truly here. We had our first frost this week. The fire is a fairly constant companion. I’ve had my first experiences of getting summer vegetables out of the freezer and feeling grateful that I preserved them: Luisa plums, cherry tomatoes, pesto.

& Next weekend is Matariki & winter solstice already! That seems so strange…I’m having a subterranean-feeling year where I’m struggling to keep track of time.

Here’s this week’s digest of things I’ve been digesting:

A poem about strangers becoming fast friends because of a fig tree

I love pretty much everything Ross Gay writes. This is one of my favourites, about communal joy and ripe figs.

An indulgent way to get some Vitamin C:

This year the mandarins on my mandarin tree are really small for some reason. It could be because it was a hot, dry autumn and I didn’t water it enough? Any thoughts?

Anyway, they are fine for juicing and for this recipe for boiled mandarin cake. This makes a bright yellow and moist cake and it is relatively healthy…made with almond meal, eggs and no butter. The longest step is boiling the mandarins…maybe put them on to boil at breakfast time and then make the cake for afternoon tea?

Something to watch:

A beautiful film (40 minutes) about a UK folk singer Sam Lee who is in deep relationship with the threatened nightingale bird. He spends each spring living in the forest and making music for/with these vulnerable birds.

It’s also about the old folk traditions of the UK. It’s is visually gorgeous, calming, the perfect weekend watch for rattled nerves.

What pottering is… and isn’t:

A little article about the gentle art of pottering:

“It’s important that pottering activities aren’t taxing, time-sensitive or goal-oriented. Pottering isn’t jobs. It isn’t chores. It involves tasks that are so low down the priority scale that they don’t merit a mention on any to-do list…

…Importantly – and this is good news for pottering’s greatest fans, prevaricators and procrastinators – pottering projects can be abandoned unfinished, to be re-continued in some as-yet unspecified future timeframe.”

-Judy Rumbold

I love it when I have the time to potter. Lately, I love any unscheduled time…calendar days without commitments…staying in on weekend nights…days where I don’t really need to know what time it is…

This week’s affordable art:

I love these murmuration prints from artist Lesley Ann’s series of paintings. (They are all beautiful…but in case anyone is shopping for me, I like number three the best, lol.)

(Photo borrowed from Lesley Ann’s Felt Shop.)

Monty Don being very opinionated about what to wear in the garden

This very old (2005) article I like to re-read every so often, just because of how certain Monty seems that he’s right.

I also like his particularities: trousers must be high-waisted, cashmere makes a good first winter layer (nice for some, Monty!), & jeans are ‘stupid’.

How charming and precise is this?: “If you are uncertain about the required cut, (for trousers) check out photographs of agricultural labourers in summer (ie, jacketless) circa 1880-1914.”

(Above: Of course I had to go and find such an image for you. Essex grain harvesters, early C20th.)

A song about foraging:

This week’s addition to the slow growing Slow Small Media playlist is a song about foraging…mushrooms to be precise…

I love this British duo, Small Plant. All of their songs are so sweet and gentle…but of course I had to choose the foraging song to share with you.

From the ‘Mushroom Walk‘ lyrics,

‘Slow Down…. and bring your awareness to the ground’.

Indeed!

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If you’re enjoying these weekend digests, please do share them with a friend.

I hope you have some time to go slow and forget clock-time this weekend. Wishing you zingy cakes, drowsy afternoon naps and soothing short films aplenty.

x Helen