Sunday, October 2, 2011

weekend rituals

Our weekends are full of little rituals. Signals and reminders to us all that the weekend is here: it's time to slow down, to rest a little, to be together.

One of our weekend rituals is the weekly shop. I'm not a keen shopper, actually Andy most often does it because I dislike the whole affair so much. But every second week or so I make the trip into town with the kids on a Saturday morning to the big supermarket.

We have only relatively recently started shopping here and it is lovely. My favourite thing about it is the coffee selection. As a wedding present Andy and I got a lovely red cafetiere and one of our weekend rituals is getting a good coffee to fill it.


We (well I) choose a bean,


one for the kids chooses either a red or green bag and scoops the beans into it.

At the grinder we empty the beans into the top and twist the setting to coarse.


We press 'on' and listen to the coughy, grinding noise and smell the delicious fresh coffee.


We take the bag to the deli counter to be weighed.


The kids love doing this for us, making coffee. It feels like they are making a little offering to us.


I'd love to get my hands on a hand grinder for them. They're so very proud to do something nice for us.


It is certainly a good part of my weekend :-)

Another thing we do in town is to visit the children's charity shop. They raise money for an orphanage in India and only sell children's toys and books. We went in on Saturday, Rebe armed with her money box, and boy did she score!...


2 enormous boxes of hama beads and no less than 9 Famous Five books, both are her very best favourite things at the moment. She was delighted to be able to spend her pocket money that way :-)

Sunday's are less busy, we tend to not bother getting dressed til late morning (or lunch time)...


unless you count dressing up :-).


We also always try to get out for a while. Today, although it is pouring with rain and thick with fog, we went to the woods. Rebe's best friend is with us for the day so she came too.



The girls found this actual lizard in a hole:


Although when they prised it out of the hole with a twig it just turned out to be a very swanky slug. Oh the disappointment!


Joa is really enjoying being able to explore on his own. He's stable enough on his feet to get down and walk for stretches. It's so nice for him to be able to do his own thing; to eat which acorn he likes, to throw a stone, to pick up a stick he fancies, to chew some grass. You can see the pleasure in his face, and boy does it tire him out (he's asleep on my lap as I type this).





Good old wellies


Feeding the dragon is always a must on any walk through the woods. We found lots of cut off branches of holly (the dragon's favourite), this branch even with berries, which Benny tells me makes his flames even hotter :-)


So now to cook a nice dinner, another Sunday ritual and sharpen the pencils ready for school tomorrow.


What are your weekend rituals?

5 comments:

  1. Lovely post, I love coffee and have thought of getting a maker. Our weekends are very relaxed, sometimes we go out fo Lunch on saurdays and Sundays are for car booting :-)

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  2. Aww, lovely. We do the weekly shop on Friday afternoon as hubby does half days then golf on Friday before we all head out and then on weekend mornings I have a cup of tea and pastries for breakfast :)

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  3. I love coffee too, our local deli will grind it for us too and they also have gorgeous organic beans, yum! The Famous Five are super popular here too at the moment and we found five new books at the weekend. I am so pleased, as I read them over and over as a child! Your weekends look lovely, especially the wonderful walks. Hope you are having a good week. Liz x

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  4. lovely post, good coffee drinkers here too xx

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  5. Yes good coffee, yum. I actually drink Barley cup most of the time...I get terribly addicted otherwise, so I treat myself to a really good cup of coffee after lunch or dinner everyday. Yes Liz, huge Famous Five fan here, it's so funny to hear her language after she has been listening to the talking books: 'You jolly well will get out of my room Benny' lol ;-)

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