Treats from Pakistan

My mum and dad recently spent a month in Pakistan catching up with family and old friends and enjoying a change from every day life.  Mum has lovely taste and loves shopping and came back with a stylish new wardrobe for herself.  She also made the effort to find or have made a  gift for everybody including my sisters, sis-in-law and all of our children (seven kids in total).

These are the matching outfits she bought for Little Lady and Darling, they are summer outfits, but I would get the girls to wear them in colder weather with tights and a warm top underneath if a nice occasion to wear them presents itself in colder weather.  I really like the pleating and the pretty coloured borders.

This little outfit was for Darling too and a bit better in the colder weather.  I was planning to put it on her on a Friday (which is our Sabbath).  The little bells on the front are a really nice detail for a little girl.

The boys got these shalwar kameez outfits.  Mum always goes for quality over style and last trip bought the boys white salwar kameezes before which were such good quality they were a pleasure to see the boys wear them.  These were the same - no bling or bright colours but really nice quality warm fabric, really solid thread embroidery and some nice details like the velvety collar and buttons on the grey suit and the design round the armholes on the beige.

She also came back with these bangles for the three girls and these black bracelets for Baby which are supposed to be to ward off evil eye.

I got these two outfits.  The black one looks fancy but is super comfortable.  Its quite fitted so doesn't suit for nursing, but I intend to wear it more in the summer.

The second outfit was the one that mum picked to have stitched.  It's in the Kashmiri wrap style "Anghrakha" and I like that there is no bling on it.  After the trend of the last few years for everything to be covered with diamanté, pearls and every other kids of itchy, shiny thing that catches on the rest of the suit and ruins it, the last two years or so have seen a move back to thread embroidery which this suit has.  It also has roses which is a motif I love on my clothes.

Other than clothing, she brought us back food including these roasted gram which tasted better than the ones you get in shops here:

These are the pine nuts (or chilgozay or nezay as we call them) which Shutterbug paid for and mum shared out to the rest of the family.  These are really expensive in Pakistan at the moment at about £25-£30 a kilo and most people can't afford them.  They seem like a lot of effort for a very small nut that you get and if you don't open it carefully you manage to obliterate half the nut inside.  I used to see my mum sitting and opening them and handing a handful to my dad to eat while they watched TV.  The other day I sat down to read with hubby only for him to pass me a shelled handful.

I knew they would come back with peanuts as they always do when they go in winter.  It is one of the winter harvests in my grandparents village and everyone seems to have at least one field devoted to them if not more.  So as mum explained, everyone who came to say good bye handed them a bag of peanuts to take back with them.

They are fresh and lightly roasted and I can't tell you how good they are.  We have been scoffing away.

I really enjoyed the gifts but most of all it's a real pleasure having them home and I can see the good their break has done them alhamdulillah.