When we moved to our new place earlier this year, there was a large orange tree with an abundance of green oranges a long way from ripening. I figured when they’d ripen Lily and I would set up a little stall on a curb-side and sell some oranges. A kind of exercise in commerce and retailing.

But as we waited…and waited for our oranges to get sweeter, it occurred to me that they’d never get sweet and that perhaps we had Seville oranges. After some google research, I discovered Seville oranges are ideal for making traditional marmalade. I’m not 100pc certain our tree produces Seville oranges but what the heck, I decided to put our oranges to good use anyway.

Let’s be clear at this point, I’ve never made marmalade before in my life. When I was a little girl, I used to help my mum make jam on the family farm up in the hills of Perth. So perhaps it was imprinted in me somehow. “In my bones” as they say. Lily and I picked some oranges that were ready to be pulled off the tree and earlier this week after intense research to find the recipe we liked the most, I got busy in the kitchen.

I’m happy to report that our first batch was a complete success. We’re now providing marmalade to friends and family and Lily is super excited about being able to be involved in turning something that grows on a tree into something yummy in a jar that puts a real smile on people’s faces. Of course now she wants us to make marmalade cake and marmalade muffins and marmalade cookies. Hmm, maybe.

Welcome to Lily & Mummy’s Escapades – a site where my 5-year-old daughter Lily and I will share with you our various projects and adventures, and no doubt some misadventures along the way.

We’ll try our hand at some “home-made” projects, and share our travel adventures, whether in our city of Perth, Western Australia, or overseas. We’ll get our hands dirty with some farming projects at “Grandpa Farmer’s place”. And we’ll do our best to make our community a better place by doing volunteer work and getting involved in our school community.

We’ll hopefully have some help along the way from some of Lily’s little friends and I’ll try to drag my friends into the occasional project, and maybe even my husband…who knows, crazier things have happened 😉

We’re not that different to many families all over the world and this blog is not to prove otherwise. But what I hope is that by having this blog site, it can be a platform for encouraging my daughter to be an active participant of our local community and the global community so that she can grow up feeling she belongs and that what we do has some meaning in the bigger scheme of things.

So let the journey begin!

Cheers,

Regina