Saturday 3 September 2011

Creating a Tradition

Here's something I hadn't thought too much upon until quite recently - having children and becoming a 'Family' opens up the opportunities to create your own family traditions. Not just going by what we did in our own families growing up, but rather adding to these. Custom-made traditions throughout the year, made and designed specifically for our family unit, according to our own tastes and personalities.

Last weekend was a long weekend in the UK - a public holiday which always occurs on the last weekend in August. And during this long weekend we went blackberry picking. So we could have blackberry pie.
I didn't realise it at the time but we did exactly the same thing last year on this same national holiday.


And that's when it struck me - we are creating a tradition!

Blackberry picking is something we have discovered we love doing together as a family. We have also discovered we love blackberry pie {who doesn't?} so having an extra incentive to not eat all the blackberries straight away is always good.


We wandered through our local heath, discovering treasure-troves of blackberries along the way, breathing in the fresh air created by the thick, green foliage around us.


Oh and how very convenient that at the end of our walk through the heath there is a lovely country pub as our final destination. This makes blackberry picking all the more rewarding.


After a lengthy stop-over here it was back home for.... blackberry pie!


I'm excited about our new blackberry picking and pie-eating family tradition! Especially for all the time we remain living in London. When we move to Italy we'll need to rethink this. Maybe we can create a tradition of mozzarella/mascarpone/ricotta cheese making instead. Yeah I'd be happy with that.

What is a tradition you have started doing each year with your family? One that is custom-made by you and for you? I'd love to hear about them!


:::


Linking up with Paisley Jade for Things I'm Loving


9 comments:

  1. Oh yummy - the blackberries, the pie and the squishy smudged faces. How lovely. We have a few seasonal traditions but they are all out the window at the moment!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Fantastic!! Wow you're moving to Italy??

    ReplyDelete
  3. You are so right with the tradition thing. I heard Ian Grant say that kids join gangs as they are desperate for traditions and gangs offer them that.
    Loving your tradition!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Love this new tradition of yours xx! I love the photos and seeing Luca and Beni being so involved in it all.
    I can't think of any new traditions - our other ones are becoming obsolete now we are on our own. I daresay we will have to start new ones!
    Thinking about it though, maybe we do!
    Dad and I have developed a wee tradition of not reading your blogs until we are both sitting down together and then I have to read them out loud while he cuddles up next to me xx.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh, this reminds me of the things I LOVED about living in England! Blackberry picking and cute old pubs surrounded by flowers and the greenery of summer :) What fun traditions to start. I love that about having our own little family - thinking of what we keep and what we can start. Thanks for your wee note on my post. I often think of all of my friends and the people I know of who also live far off from family. It's much harder having kids now because I know how hard it is for my parents to say goodbye to them! But it reassures me to know a lot of us live like this...and who knows, one day it might be time to live in NZ for a while :) Hope you've been having a good day over there! x

    ReplyDelete
  6. I am so passionate about creating family traditions! Really is the glue that sticks a family together - we love visiting the Christmas lights as a family each year, birthday traditions and Christmas eve traditions etc. xoxo

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hopefully they'll be wild berries growing near you in Italy!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Just came across your blog via WW with Faith, Hope and a Whole Lotta Love. You have some really beautiful pictures on your blog. I love this series. The wood walk reminded me of a special time when I visited London.

    ReplyDelete

I love hearing from you! Please leave a comment X

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...