Monday will see me making the trip to West Sussex with the two little people for the first time. While Hero has spent lots of time at her grandma’s, this is Mirth’s maiden voyage; I am viewing it with an equal mix of enthusiasm and nervousness, given that Mirth is not a big fan of car travel. It will be nice to be somewhere different for a little while – away from all the things that need doing here, I shall simply not think about mould or dust or chaos! – but I am a feeling a bit shifty about the impending nights… Mirth is very, very far from sleeping through the night at the moment, and I’m finding the sleep deprivation predictably challenging. She has two teeth, mind you, as of about three weeks ago, and appears to be doing her damnedest to provide numbers three and four forthwith; this, combined with the rumoured six-month growth-spurt means that she has been a pretty unhappy little plum in the dark of the night. Hopefully, this too shall pass; hopefully, it’ll pass a bit bloody faster than it did last time…! She is clearly keen to catch her sister up – sitting on her own reasonably happily, reaching for things all the time, muttering ‘Mama’ to herself as of about a week ago, and working on ‘Dadda’ too.

Anyway. A bright sunny day in Devon; cold, but gloriously fresh, with clouds stretched thin across a cerulean sky. Quercus, Hero and I are packing up the house. So far, we have books shoved into boxes, and most of the sort of detritus of normal life is following suit. Our living room and what’s now known as the room between (our old dining room) will be out of action for probably two months, I should think; we’ll be restricted to the kitchen, the bathroom and the bedrooms, but at least we’re lucky enough to have a large kitchen with space to beetle about like a mad thing (Hero), to kick and explore (Mirth), and to eat, take care of, read, knit and just be (Quercus and me, given time). So, two weeks away initially, so that Quercus can demolish ceilings and strip ancient wallpaper (vinyl) and plaster from the cob, and then we will regroup to form the next plan. Hopefully, I won’t be away for the entire duration of the work, but posting here will be even more sporadic than it has been of late, I fear.

I haven’t managed to get to grips with my waffle iron Chrimbly present yet, either, and I fear now that it may be some time before I do. It sits by the stove, awaiting another try; the first time, I think I hadn’t got it quite hot enough, but I have high hopes that next time I’ll crack it. Just need the winter to stay around long enough for us to get back from Sussex and be able to use the room where the stove is again… It’s in the sitting room, and that will probably be out of action for a loooong time as lighting it with lime plaster going off would not result in good things. Of course the sod of this is that the whole house will be noticeably colder; we have a heater in the kitchen but nothing in the bedrooms, so I view this proposition with a less than enthusiastic sentiment. Did I whinge on about central heating? I think not. The plan is that we are going to fit wood-fired central heating, run off a back boiler on the stove, with a thing called an accumulator tank, which should mean that it’s not just a question of stove lit = warm, stove not lit = cold. Now that I type this, it seems oddly familiar. Clearly I am losing my mind in one way or another; either I’ve written about this earlier or I simply think that I have. Ahem.

In the meantime, here are some things of wintry warmth, while the winter weather persists. First, I finished Hero’s cardigan, a rather splendid hue of purple in a pleasingly quick super-chunky wool. Then I discovered rice pudding. Oh, rice pudding. Where have you been all my life? Anyway, here is the recipe I have come to.

Spiced Rice Pudden

Wossinit?
About a mug of pudding rice
Somewhere between a pint and a pint and a half of goats’ milk (obviously ordinary, soya or rice would work just as well)
Cinnamon
Dark brown sugar
Coconut cream (I used a sachet of the Patak’s variety, but have also tried a half-carton too)
Cardamom pods
Lemon zest
Ground allspice

Then…
Sling it all in a nice thick-bottomed pan, and cook it as gently as your impatience will permit, poking it suspiciously until inspiration strikes, at which point sling in some dried fruit of some variety (we’ve had cranberries, mixed dried fruit and apricots so far) and continue to poke. Pop a lid on, checking back from time to time to ensure no calamity has occurred, and as soon as everything looks nicely squishous, scoff it down with a cup of cocoa.

Right. Off I go, to continue packing up the rooms next under attack. It feels oddly nostalgia-inducing, this process; we have lived in this house for six years with things pretty much as they were when we moved in (at least in the case of these last two rooms), and while I will not be sorry to bid the mould and the horrible, horrible carpet goodbye, I can’t help but think of the time when we first moved here: so much has happened since then that our selves as we were then seem almost to be another incarnation. Hmm. Must not get sidetracked, particularly in self-indulgent melancholia, so wish me luck (and spiders).