If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a hundred times recently.  You can’t live a life of self-sufficiency and write full time about it too – not unless you’ve got a staff to help you, which I haven’t.  It’s not the first time this year that I’ve blogged about this.  I’m not moaning.  Nor am I SuperWoman, so while my Freddy Buttons is in his infancy, I’ll just have to forego the hours I’d usually spend in the garden (it’s a bit like having a new baby in the house really).  Because of the fine weather recently though, I did make a point of heading off to the vegetable garden to do a bit of weeding at 6.30am for a few days – it didn’t last.  My over-enthusiasm meant that by Day 3 I could hardly walk!  But while the weeds are growing, so are the flowers and of course the food.  The herbs on the Welly Wall are jumping out of their boots, the strawberries have ripened, the rhubarb is only humongous and the birds are beginning to eye up the raspberries.  The lettuce is plentiful and the tomatoes are thriving.  The gooseberries and the redcurrants are still toe curlingly bitter, but they’re getting there.  Thankfully there’s no shortage of beekeepers here to look after all the hives and it’s looking like another bumper year for honey (yay!).  Add to this our own meat tucked up in the freezer, the few spuds and lots of eggs and I guess I’m not doing too badly?  And I’ve started experimenting in the kitchen again, so I’ll be sharing some of my recipes soon.

In my grown-up work I have been very busy with You Know Who – travelling to schools, doing readings, writing articles on children’s food and doing a bit of radio.  Shur tis all go, as they say.  The books have been really well received and, by the time the children return to school in the autumn, I hope that FreddyButtons.com will be something really special (watch this space).  In the meantime, I’ll try get a little bit of weeding done, but hey, life’s too short to worry about these things right?

Hope life is treating you all well.

Back soon

Fiona xx

Buy the full set of Freddy Buttons books (signed) for a special introductory offer of €25 over on www.freddybuttons.com