Lowry cross stitch

I've just completed a cross stitch picture of a CS Lowry painting - Street Scene. I have really, really enjoyed this project and decided to try and take a photo each week to see how it was taking shape. I've uploaded everything to Flickr here, so I thought I'd just put the link here rather than set out all the piccies again. But here it is after week 1



Once the cross stitching was complete and the back stitch still left to do



And all complete and framed.

Uncle Becki

Have had a great weekend being visited by my sister, her husband and little girl. Zachary well has the hang of 'uncle Jamie,' and 'uncle Ralph,' but seemed a little confused with Becks. Often he called her 'uncle Becki,' and sometimes it even came out sounding more like 'auncle Becki!' Hilarious!

Pondering

Was lying in bed last night thinking about my last blog post - hmmmm I do seem to get excited about small things!!! I think all I need to say here is buses.

Ebay hooray!

I love selling random stuff on ebay. Had a great time last year selling off a load of my old Guide and Brownie camp badges - which went quickly and successfully. Obviously a big market for those. I also sold a spare waterproof cover we had for the shopping buggy - Leigh was dismissive and thought noone would be interested. From my memory it went for about £10 - brilliant.

Dug out a couple of maternity items I'd never worn yesterday - some pants and some tights. I put the tights on for 99p and nearly set a Buy It Now price of £2. So glad I didn't - they sold for £4.20!! The pants haven't sold (yet - relisted them after the first sale). Mind you I'm not surprised. I bought them, got them out of the pack, realised that they were almost as big as our double duvet cover and decided then and there I would manage with what I already had. Over the bump knickers are not pretty!

Only 4 ratings away from my blue star...

Lemon, almond and demerera sugar loaf cake

I wanted to try a lemon cake and found this on Nibblous. It is delicious! My only comment though would be that I assumed that the oven temperature given (160C) was for a regular oven so I reduced the temperature for my fan oven, The cake took about twice the time to cook! So I am now taking 160C as the fan temperature. Uses a 2lb loaf tin.

From Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries via Food Glorious Food.

Cake:
200g butter
200g demerara sugar
90g plain flour
90g ground almonds
half teaspoon baking powder
1 large lemon
4 large eggs

Topping:
1 lemon
2 tbsp demerara sugar
4 tbsp water

Syrup:
2 tbsp demerara sugar
the juice of 1 large lemon

Pre-heat oven to 160C. Line a loaf tin with greaseproof paper.

Make the topping: slice the lemon thinly and put into a saucepan with the 2 tbsp sugar and water. Bring to boil and simmer for around 5 minutes until most of water have evaporated and the lemons are lovely and sticky. Set aside.

Make the cake: cream butter with sugar until light and fluffy. Mix flour with almonds, baking powder and zest of the lemon. Set aside.

Beat eggs lightly and add to creamed butter and sugar. It will curdle a little but fear not - it comes good in the end! Gently fold in the flour and almonds by hand with a large metal spoon.

Scrape cake mixture into the prepared tin and lay the lemon slices on top, overlapping. Bake for approx 45 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.

Whilst cake is baking, prepare the syrup: stir sugar into lemon juice and stir until partially dissolved. Spike top of warm cake and spoon over lemon and sugar.

Leave to cool in tin and then wrap in foil.

Hols in Yorkshire

Just got back from a lovely week's holiday in Yorkshire. We stayed in a little cottage in a village called Ellingstring, which is about 4/5 miles outside Masham (home to the Theakston brewery), and we found it was perfectly placed to go out and about with the boys. The cottage was great - all mod cons but still cottagey and very cosy. Zachary had a great time bouncing on all the beds to test them out and Leo was in his element - lots of drawers on his level to open and explore. Thanks to Nanny, we've also recently become members of the National Trust and made good use of our membership!

On Sunday, we took a trip out to Harrogate where we discovered Bettys (where I could easily bankrupt us!), and the beautiful Valley Gardens. The gardens were lovely and there was a great play park there, not to mention wonderful Ripley ice cream in the tea shop. We also took a trip to Ripley itself (about 3 miles out of Harrogate), took a turn round the town and bought lots of sweets and expensive sausages.

On Monday we went to Fountains Abbey in the morning and discovered that we could walk round and through the ruins, which was ace. Zachary was fully wellied up and spent the entire time searching for muddy puddles. He found lots! In the afternoon I'd booked us into The Forbidden Corner, which is quite indescribable but really great. It was a bit difficult getting round with the pushchair, and even when we dumped that, carrying Leo was not easy. So we'll be going back in a few years' time when they can both walk round. It's a big kind of garden with lots of hidden doors and tunnels, and underground rooms and chambers, and all sorts of hidden goodies. Well worth a visit.

On Tuesday we went to York - just over an hour from where we were staying. Used the Park and Ride which worked really well. We visited the Jorvik centre, the Minster (but didn't go in - £8 each!!!), walked along the Shambles and found the Travelling Man (board game shop). Also bought some very expensive (but very delicious) fudge from The Fudge Kitchen.

Wednesday saw us attempting a visit to Masham in the morning which was quickly abandoned due to a poor market and very blowy weather! Went instead to the Wensleydale Creamery at Hawes where we could basically eat our own weight in cheese in the sampling room. Back to Fountains Abbey in the afternoon and we explored the water garden and deer park as well. Plenty of exercise for us both pushing the double pushchair!

On Thursday we went to Brimham Rocks in the morning, which was fab. The weather started out iffy but was glorious by lunchtime and the views from the rocks were amazing. There was also a very handy pushchair path which was appreciated! We stopped at a new ice cream parlour called G&T's on the way back to the cottage and then went to Harrogate again in the afternoon for more play park.

A very busy week, tiring but great. And we managed to watch the entire 4th series of the US Office in the evenings - hilarious! All the holiday pics are on Flickr, but here are some good ones

The cottage


On the swings in Valley Gardens


Icecream!


Fountains Abbey


Brimham Rocks

Economy Gastronomy

Leigh bought the Economy Gastronomy book recently and we've been trying out some of the recipes. Now, I confess that I haven't read the introduction to the book and just am just relying on what Leigh has told me and what I've picked up from the recipes as to the ethos behind it. The way I understand it is that the book shows how you can make a joint of meat, or other base meal (like the chickpea one we tried today) last for 2 or three dinner meals and save you some cash because you can make it go further. We try to be pretty good about making food go further than one meal, but it does tend to be fairly basic fare - so making our spag bol last 2 meals rather than just one.

However the recipes in this book are not particularly simple and use quite a few ingredients I wouldn't normally have in my store cupboard, so although the base mix/meat goes further, I still had to spend on the additional ingredients. We tried the poached chicken base last week - so from a whole poached chicken we made chicken and sweetcorn pies (6 small pies, each one enough for a main meal - yummy), coronation chicken (tasty but had no dried fruit in it, so not quite sweet enough for my taste, but easily resolved when made again), and got about 3 litres of chicken stock. Half of this went into the pies and I used the other half in a sweet potato risotto, which was very tasty. The book's suggested third meal is a hot and spicy soup with the stock, but we went a different way.

Today's foray was into the world of chickpeas. The third recipe is coming tomorrow, but so far they've been what Leigh calls 'weekend' recipes - that is, they are a bit fiddly and time consuming - ideal if you have a weekend afternoon free to spend in the kitchen. So not ideal for me to be making with the 2 boys running around, but I was able to make good use of Leo's nap times today and got the base and houmous made in the morning and the pie made well ahead of dinner time. I was concerned about getting the pie done because that itself (not counting making the base) was estimated by the book to take 35 minutes to make and 50 minutes to cook. Fortunately Zachary has been glued to the new series of Show Me Show Me this week so I was able to pop him in front of that while I cooked (bad mother that I am! Although I did ask if he wanted to help me, but the answer was no ... probably because there was no egg cracking involved!).

So here we have the chickpea base



Which made red pepper houmous - delicious



And Othello's Chickpea Filo Pie - ready for the oven



And out for the table



Hmmm. The writers of the book rave about this pie but we weren't too sure. It's okay but not fantastic - not sure if the problem is me not seasoning it enough (something I'm guilty of a lot) or whether it's going to be one just not to our taste. Essentially it's a filo pie, bottom layer being the chickpea base mixed with toasted coriander seeds and ricotta cheese, then pastry, then a layer of grated courgette with ricotta, pepper and lemon zest. Although the pie doesn't look too bad, I had a bit of a mare with the filo. It was the first time I've used it, and to say that I and my cooking aren't known for their delicacy and elegance would be an understatement! A lot of my cooking looks on the rustic side of agricultural, so trying to get to grips with really fine, cobweb-like pastry was fiddly!!! But I got there - maybe needed some more melted butter though as it tasted a bit floury when it came out.

Tomorrow, all hail the Anytime Spicy Chickpea Loaf. And then we need to decide on our next meat - ham??

Family pictures

Inspired by one particular You Tube video I saw of a lady who took a picture of herself every day for 2 years, and (believe it or not) the BBC1 drama Framed (in which, amongst other things a teenager took a photo of her baby brother every day) I thought I would try to take a photo of Leo every day for the first year of his life. Time goes so quickly, and as I see him every day, I don't often appreciate the changes he is going through at the time, until I look back over old pictures.

I talked about this with Leigh and decided that every day was probably a little unrealistic! So it became every week, and we thought it would be good to take a family shot to see how we all grow and change over the year. We've managed to keep it up pretty well (there's only been 2 or 3 weeks we've forgotten or time has got away from us), and we're now well into the second half of the year. The photos aren't especially close up of our faces, so for example you can't see Leo's teeth as they are arriving (he's onto number 3 now!) but I'm keeping a note with each piccie about what we've been up to in the week, and any key events as a reminder. The full set is here on Flickr, but here is the first photo :

12th December 2009 - a little early really, but a test for the new tripod!



1st January 2010



and here is the most recent - 4th September 2010

Yummy, yummy, yummy!

Zachary helped me make these - when we got to the icing stage, he was very excited about the prospect of putting sprinkles on (which is what we do with the basic fairy cakes I often make with him). I tried to explain that these cakes have a nut on the top and not pink/multi-coloured sprinkles, but he would not be persuaded! We got the sprinkles into a bowl (so that he didn't manage to use up the entirety of the packets I had!) to be used on a few of the cakes, then Zachary declared he needed a spoon, went and got one from his cupboard and immediately ate a full spoonful of sprinkles!! Cheeky monkey. I took the spoon off him, explained he shouldn't just eat them and he appeared to acknowledge this. He asked for the spoon back, which I foolishly gave to him, and when I turned back, caught him with it mid-way to his mouth, again full of sprinkles!!!! Managed to get a few on the cakes...

(Good Food magazine, October 2010)

1 tbsp instant coffee granules
1 tbsp boiling water
115g butter, softened
140g self-raising flour
140g caster sugar
2 tbsp milk
2 large eggs
25g walnuts, chopped
For the icing :
2 tsp instant coffee granules
2 tsp boiling water
100g butter, at room temperature
225g icing sugar
12 walnut halves, to decorate

1. Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4 and line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases. Put the coffee granules and water into a mixing bowl and stir until smooth. Add the butter, flour, sugar, milk and eggs. Mix with an electric whisk until smooth. Stir in the walnuts, then spoon into the cases.

2. Bake in the centre of the oven for 20-25 minutes (about 18 mins if going into a pre-heated fan oven) or until risen and golden brown. Transfer onto a wire rack until cold.

3. To make the icing, put the coffee granules and water into a bowl and stir until smooth. Add the butter, sift in the icing sugar and stir until smooth and free of streaks.

4. Spoon onto the cupcakes, then decorate each one with a walnut half.

Cream cheese icing quandry

I seem to have a problem with cream cheese icing. I cannot get it to stay nice and thick and spreadable. It seems that as soon as I add the icing sugar to the cream cheese, the whole thing just turns to water...well, very runny anyway and often far too runny to even put on the cake. Ends up as more of a dip really.

So I have had a look on the internet to see if I can find any help. What I really need to know is why it is going wrong and if there is a simple solution I can employ when making it in the future.

The first few sites I looked at appeared promising from the subject heading, but was just a lot of people replying saying, "oh, I don't know why yours has gone wrong. Here's my recipe which works for me every time." Yeah, okay, but I don't really want to just be trying lots of slightly differing recipes just to work out one I can use. I think that if I know what's going wrong, I can just adapt the recipe I have. Also, some suggestions are to exclude any milk. Yep, not using any milk at the moment.

There is however a useful thread on Flickr - Cupcakes Take the Cake. Some suggestions are to add more icing sugar, but I feel like I'd have to add a shed more to even get the icing to a vaguely spreadable consistency, and it's already pretty sweet! There does however seem to be an agreement of opinion that overbeating causes some of the problems, and the post from Rebecca's Cakes suggests making a butter icing first, then adding the cream cheese last mixing only until combined. This sounds doable - although the quantities she suggests are huge!

Finally I had a look on Nigella's website at the thread there and that's just offering up recipes which work. One posting suggests Rachel Allen's recipe as a really good one - how on earth did she/he get it to work!

I'm going to try making the butter icing first, and then add the cheese. See how it goes!

Rachel Allen's carrot cake

Tried another carrot cake today - this is Rachel Allen's recipe from 'Bake.' The cake is gorgeous and really tasty, however it is supposed to be topped with cream cheese orange icing.

The more astute among you will note the lack of icing on this cake! I'm not sure why it happens but ever time I try to make cream cheese icing, the mixture loses all its integrity as soon as the icing sugar hits the bowl. It's happened the last few times and I don't know whether it's something I'm doing, or whether I just haven't found a good recipe yet. So we ended up with a cream cheese orange dip with our cake this evening!

The secret life of a cardboard box

By day - ridiculously oversized packaging



But by night - super duper ace computer!

Random questions

I'm having some trouble with one of the wheels on my double buggy. So as we bought it from Mothercare I am having a look at their website to submit a query about whether I can get a replacement. Went to the Contact Us section, and here are the FAQs. Spot the odd one out? I think the Mothercare site does provide all sorts of advice about general matters as well as what they sell, but it just seemed a little out of place with the rest of the questions!

frequently asked questions

Ask your question using the search box above or browse through the categories on the left.

* I have lost my set of instructions, how do I get another set?
* What time does your customer care team operate, and how can I get in contact?
* Where is my order?
* When is the best time to conceive?
* How do I make a complaint?
* Can I track my order online?
* How can I apply for a store card?
* How can I find information on my local store?
* What are the terms and conditions?
* Does my local store have a particular item in stock?

Aha - have just noticed this is only page 1 of many questions you could look at. So maybe there are more later on in the same vein!

You know you're a parent when...

You leave the house with googly eyes stuck to your shoe.

You return from a trip to the supermarket to only then discover a large yoghurty smear over your right boob which has been there the entire time. You then realise that what you thought were simpering looks at your beautiful baby were actually sympathetic looks at you!

You feel slightly affronted when Cbeebies changes its schedule and moves your son's favourite programme. How on earth are you going to get him to sit still now while you race around trying to get everything together to leave the house??!

You judge a hotel by the size of its bathroom - after all that's where you'll be spending most of your evenings waiting for the boys to go to sleep.

Your multi-tasking skills are second to none - changing nappies, playing games and holding conversation all at the same time!

You are not sure whether to be embarrassed or proud when your son announces at the breakfast table in a hotel that he's just done 2 trumps.

You find a banana stuck in the end of your vaccuum cleaner hose.

Holidays!

We've just returned from our first, what I call 'holiday' with the boys (okay, it was a holiday, everyone calls it a holiday, but I've just been listening to too much Miranda Hart!). We spent a few days in East Anglia - visiting our old favourite haunt in Southwold and spending time with my family in Lowestoft, Norwich and Stokesby. So a busy time anyway added with the fact that although a lovely holiday, it was by no means a break or a rest!!

So we started with a B&B in Southwold - Newlands. A bit more expensive than I was expecting to be honest, but then it is Southwold in the summer! The B&B was great though, very accommodating of the boys (it was surprisingly difficult to find a B&B that would take children) and they had an indoor swimming pool. We didn't use it in the end but it was handy to have somewhere I could take Leo when he woke up so that Leigh and Zachary could have a bit more of a lie in. Zachary loved being away - within 2 minutes of arriving he was bouncing on the bed, and Leo had managed to open a drawer! Spent the first afternoon discovering we had left all the nappies at home, buying some very expensive nappies in the town, wandering along Southwold prom, introducing Zachary to the sea (which he adored)



fish and chips for tea, and a session with the Expressive Photo Booth on the wonderful Southwold Pier...



from which we learn that Leo only has one expression - confused! Then back at the B&B discovered we had also left ALL the toiletries at home. Great.

The next day we headed up to the cannons at Southwold to try and repeat a photo opportunity from when we came with Zachary as a baby

(2008 - I'd forgotten how mardy Zachary looked that day!)


(2010)


and then headed over to Lowestoft for some paella and an afternoon on the beach with my dad and his wife - more sandcastles,



and a play with the sunglasses.



Again a lovely afternoon - doughnuts this time!

Next we headed to Norwich where we planned to stay 2 nights at a Holiday Inn and the final night with my sister and her family. Spent time with my mum and my sister and also managed to catch up with a couple of friends I haven't seen for more than a year, which was fab. Had a good wander round Norwich cathedral, a lovely lunch at Cafe Morello (highly recommended), and an afternoon at Melsop Farm Park where we met a burping sheep and where Zachary would have been happy just spending the whole time on the trampoline, without us forcing him to feed animals!



So a great holiday all in all and the boys had a fantastic time, despite both of them being slightly under the weather at varying stages. Some of the Zachary highlights - the look of absolute amazement on his face when he saw the self-closing seat on the toilet working, his declaration that "I like trumps," and randomly in the middle of the night he turned over, said "clap" and then went straight back to sleep! At breakfast on the final morning at the Holiday Inn, Zachary looked at the TV showing Sky News Sunrise presented by Eammon Holmes and announced that Mr Holmes was in fact Shrek, and then proceeded to tell us very loudly that he'd just done a trump. When Leigh tried to gently tell him that we don't usually say that in public, the volume increased and Zachary repeated himself and carried on saying "trump, trump, trump, 2 trumps..." until we managed to distract him with Coco Pops. We could not stop laughing and I'm still having to make a real effort not to burst out now as I'm typing!

Naive, Naive, Naive

I have been passing the PixieFoto studio every time I visit Mothercare and pondering whether to arrange a shoot with the boys. They've got an offer on over the summer (which included up to 60% off an order of photos made on the day) so I took the plunge and we went there today. Leigh warned me I might end up spending lots there but I was confident I would be able to resist temptation and just come back with the complimentary photo. Oh how naive I was!!!

The shoot went brilliantly and both boys were absolutely adorable. Then came the viewing of the photos. Oh they were beautiful and it was so hard to just pick a few of them - in some weird way it felt like I was rejecting the boys if I didn't choose a picture!! Anyway I settled on a few and they totalled them up for me - £636. Yes, that's with the discount. So I picked myself up off the floor, realised that the prices I had been quoted over the phone must have been already reduced (!) and reset my expectations. I didn't manage to not buy any, but I was reasonably restrained and we do now have some good presents for grandparents at Christmas. That said, it still seemed pretty expensive..but the photos were so lovely!! I'm such a sucker!

Zachary was really good, although he got a bit bored when I was trying to select pictures and make an order. He'd picked up a balloon from the display outside and then started bashing the photographers with it! Fortunately they were really good about it (I guess they're used to children!) and it was a good job there was noone else waiting. But Zachary had a great time and one of the photographers took him under her wing and let him play with some of the props and toys they use. He loved it, and I had to laugh when to call the photographer over, I could hear Zachary just shouting 'lady, lady!' Nice.

Let's just call them Yogi and Boo Boo

We had a picnic out in the garden this lunchtime with free-ranging chickens. We thought it would be lovely. Leigh and I both had sandwiches, the boys have toast and crackers with some grapes, apple and pear puree for afters. Leo also had some tomato.

We sat ourselves pretty close to the blueberry bush so when the chickens came up behind us and started pinching blueberries we thought nothing of it. Then they began circling Leo who had a piece of toast in each fist. Correction. Did have a piece of toast in each fist!!! Bubbles was very interested in it and eventually managed to snatch a piece out of Leo's hand. Then as we were trying to fend off Dax, she ran across the picnic rugs, straight over Zachary's crackers and tipping over the pot of pear puree. Although that wasn't so bad as she then ate the spilt puree from the rug and cleaned it up. Next a piece of toast was half-inched from Zachary's plate and the birds chased each other across the lawn for it! There's something about toast which just sends them completely mental. Leigh had a small amount of a nut, celery and apple salad on his plate. Dax pinched the last peanut, ate it, then daintly wiped the mayonnaise from her beak onto the rug. All during this we were trying to keep both chickens away from Leo and his toast and breadstick...fail. The breadstick got snatched and then Dax had a go at Leo's toes!!! Picnics with the chickens? Never again!!! Well...never on the lawn again!

We're not expecting any blueberries this year..

The combination of free-ranging chickens and a blueberry bush in the garden is proving to be an interesting combination. First they began by just pecking off the unripe berries from the lower branches. Now some of the berries are ripening, so they're pecking off the ripe berries from the lower branches. Okay, so we're thinking that the higher ones are pretty safe. Wrong! Chickens can jump and flap quite effectively...

Ready -


Set -


Go!

Some milestones

Leo's hit a few milestones over the last few days. His first tooth is making an appearance - at least we can see the place where it will come through, although it doesn't seem to have actually cut yet. There are also strong indications that he's thinking about crawling - he got onto his hands and knees in the bathroom this evening and I don't think it'll be long until he works it out! Two on the move. Not sure how good that'll be!!!!

He had his first swimming lesson on Friday and that was ace. He really seemed to love being in the water and spent most of the lesson splashing around. He was also very calm when he had to lay on his back and I'm so pleased he's taken to it well. It's really important to me that even if the boys can't swim for a while yet, that they're confident in the water and understand simple water safety. Finally this evening Leo managed to vomit in Zachary's hair. That's never happened before. And hopefully never again!

My little magpie

So this morning in Zachary's bed I found him (obviously!), Leo's spare sleepsuit and muslin (which started out the night on Leo's cot), a tub of Vicks and a packet of baby wipes (which started out the night on the shelves). Hmmm...night time shenanigans.

Meet the girls!

Here are Bubbles and Dax - new arrivals today.




Bubbles is the black hen, she's a Miss Pepperpot. Dax is the ginger Gingernut Ranger and they're great. An Omlet chap brought them and the chicken coop this morning, set it all up, explained how to work and clean it and even clipped their wing feathers. It was great. They have to stay in the run for 5 days to acclimatise and get used to going into the house to roost at night, but then we can let them out to run in the garden. The wing clipping is only done on one side so that the chickens are unbalanced if they try to flap, so hopefully they won't be able to jump the fence!

We were warned that they may not lay for a couple of days and that the first few eggs might be quite small or the shell not formed properly, but a couple of hours after they arrived, look what Leigh found in the nesting box!



And it was a double yolker!



The first day has been really good.

Under the sofa

Decided to clear under the sofa this evening. We held a small competition - winner being the person who guessed closest to the number of items under it. I guessed 25, Leigh 18. There were 36 - more if we'd counted each individual raisin rather than all of them as one group! Other delights included a fluffy ball of playdough, about £2.50 in change (including a £2 coin so not that huge a number of coins!), playing cards, half a cabbage (plastic!), a crayon and hair clip. Good job done.

Experimenting with alcohol

So recently I've tried Amaretto with cherry Coke (lovely), toffee vodka with Coke (also yum), and today - Pimms with Lilt. Yep, ran out of lemonade. Think I'll stick to lemonade in the future.

C-Day!

The chickens arrive tomorrow! It's all very exciting and a little bit scary too. Leigh's been talking about getting chickens for a couple of years now and finally the time seems right. We're getting 2 and an Omlet enclosure which should hopefully keep the local foxes out.

We have friends who have chickens and they seem to get on really well with them, and we went to a demonstration of the Omlet coops last year so we have some idea what we're letting ourselves in for.

The most tricky thing so far has been deciding on names for them! Leigh wanted Dax and Kira to start with but that was a bit too Trekky. Although I can hardly talk when my suggestion was Jane and Hercule. Leigh reminded me that they're both girls so I suggested Tuppence (as in Beresford - Partners in Crime) and Jane. Jane didn't seem all that popular however - Zachary's suggestion was Bubbles, though as Leigh was washing up at the time, it may not be that reliable!

So for a while it was going to be Bubbles and Tuppence...until a friend pointed out that 'tuppence' is Derbyshire slang for lady bits. Um. Bessie and Bunter were considered but Leigh pointed out that if we pick a pair of names and one dies, that won't be great. We have now determined on a pair of names...but you'll have to wait until they're here!

A glut of strawberries

Went fruit picking this morning and it was great! We tried to find some PYO last year but failed miserably - this year however, Leigh's excellent searching turned up Scaddow's farm, which is just outside Ticknall on the A514. Not too far from us.

So off we trotted and found strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrants and gooseberries aplenty (well, there will be more raspberries in a couple of weeks). Leigh was anxious that we got plenty of strawberries, so despite Zachary eating them almost faster than we could pick them, we managed a full punnet. Discovered Leo also likes strawberries and raspberries. Well, what he enjoys is squashing the fruit in his fist until it is almost just juice and then jamming the whole thing in his mouth. Funny and very messy! Both he and I tried to look nonchalant as we passed the paying area - Leo with a juice covered face, and me with a juice covered shoulder where he'd rested.

We ended up buying 2 kilos of strawberries. Far more than were actually needed. So this afternoon and evening, Leigh has made 2 lots of strawberry icecream, one lot of strawberry frozen yoghurt lollies and a double quantity of mixed fruit jam. It all smells fabulous, and there's still a huge pot of very ripe strawberries in the fridge. Good job we have guests tomorrow!

Yet more roof

Well, it's still going! Roofer reckons another day's work and he should be done our side - bar the chimney which affects boths rooves. Next door is having 4 skylights put in so roofer has been focussing on finishing us so that the scaffolding at the back can come down.

There still seems to be some edging to do and finishing off bits, but it's looking good!

Bad mother and clumsy wife

It really has been a spectacular day for me. Started off by dropping the last jar of homemade marmalade on the kitchen floor at breakfast, smashing said jar and sending shards of glass skittering across the room. In which neither Zachary nor I had anything on our feet! Classy.

While I was getting dressed, Zachary had got hold of my makeup bag which I do let him look through. He had a play with the eyeshadow - for some reason (and I'm not going to disabuse him of this just yet!) he applies it to his nose and chin. I neglected to clean it off and he had a shiny sparkly nose for the rest of the day! We had a pretty good morning with music then some baking and I took the boys to the Westfield Centre in the afternoon for some shopping and play.

By the time I got to the car park, both of them had fallen asleep, and being pretty tired myself, I rested my head back...and dropped off. Only to be woken by a very concerned parking attendant who wanted to make sure we were all right! Very embarrassing!!! When we got home, I needed to cook up some mince and wanted to clean up the kitchen as well. Zachary was happily playing with his playdough, and Leo was playing with...well, a tea bag. Leigh had a new glass tea mug delivered today and there were some individually foil-wrapped sample tea bags included. Leo got hold of one in the front room and I thought 'it'll be okay for him to carrying on chewing it...it's keeping him happy.' Hmmmmm. Turned around first time from washing up, spotted that one tea bag packet had come open and threw it away. Turned around second time to see Leo with tea bag string in one hand, soggy empty tea bag in the other and absolutely plastered in tea leaves (raspberry and rosehip tea, which his mouth smelt of for the rest of the evening!), his mouth, his hands, his clothes and all over the floor! Whooops.

So vacuumed up the mess and gave Leo a rice cake. Much better. Zachary carried on vacuuming for me and doing a good job (he kept turning it off, sighing and saying 'bit hot' before turning it back on again. What a martyr!). Then he came over for a banana - I off-handedly said that he should wait until after dinner, but the banana bunch mysteriously vanished and when I looked round, he was trying to stuff one up the vacuum cleaner hose!! Disaster safely averted, I returned to the washing up and promptly broke the handle off Leigh's new mug. Yes, the lovely glass one which arrived today.

I really should not be let out of the house.

More roofing!

Here's an update photo of the roof - this is the section at the back of the house as seen from the loft window, and the work area. The front of the house now seems to be done, but I think there's a section still needing tiling. It looks a bit awkward to get to, but as we're into week 3 now I'm hoping it doesn't take too much longer. I'm tending to keep out of the garden in the day in case of falling debris and am missing it!

Also had Emma and Rachel over today with Edward and Isabelle and took some more piccies. Here they are with Leo at Rachel's party in March...



and here they are today.



What a lovely bunch of babies. Although something tells me there may be trouble brewing when they all get together!

Feeding children, cleaning bottoms and housework

This seems to have pretty much been my day today. Well, actually that's a bit of a fib to get some sympathy (!) but the first part of the afternoon went like this. After lunch (feeding children), went straight out to ASDA. Fed both children snacks round ASDA to stop them interfering with each other in the trolley (Zachary just can't get far enough away to stop Leo stealing things from him!). Zachary filled his nappy in the car on the way home. Got home, unpacked shopping. Changed Leo's nappy and gave him some milk in the hope he would go to sleep. No joy - for reasons which will become clear later. Changed Zachary's nappy. While doing this, Leo filled his nappy (aha - probably the reason for not dropping off...maybe). When I returned from putting Leo's nappy into the nappy bucket, Zachary was standing by the kitchen bin filling his again. Changed his nappy again, applied cream for his eczema to hands and arms, hung out the washing.

But then played with Playdough, and did other non-titular stuff. Now both boys in bed and I have wine and Maltesers to hand, the prospect of 2 (yes count them, 2) garden fete thingys tomorrow and a BBQ with friends on Sunday. Brilliant!

Plum Tomato and Mustard Seed tart

(picture taken just after it came out of the oven - lots of steam in the photo!)

Leigh went to the BBC Good Food show last week and came back with a recipe card from the British Tomato Growers' Association - this recipe is from the card. Despite the fact that I completely forgot to put in the basil and the recipe doesn't actually give a measurement for baking powder (consequently I was slightly surprised when reading through instruction 3 and had to read it several times before realising it wasn't just my eyes!) [I used about half a tsp] it came out really well and tasted great. Especially the crust - the recipe suggests you can replace the crust with ready made puff pastry for a speedier option...but I say don't! The crust is yummy!

Ingredients :
300g British plum tomatoes
30g butter
10g soft light brown sugar
a good squeeze of lemon juice
1 tsp black mustard seeds (didn't have any in the cupboard so I used normal mustard seeds)
a handful of fresh basil leaves

for the crust :
100f self-raising flour
pinch of dry mustard powder
pinch of cayenne pepper
1 tsp black mustard seeds
15g freshly grated Parmesan cheese
2 tbspn olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2-3 tbspn for mixing

1. Grease an 18cm/7" flan tin (I used a pie dish) with some of the butter. Put the rest of the butter into a bowl and mix with the sugar, lemon juice, mustard seeds and season with salt and ground black pepper. Spread this mixture over the base of the tin.

2. Cut the tomatoes in half horizontally. Arrange them cut side down on top of the butter to completely cover the base of the tin. Shred the basil leaves and scatter them on top of the tomatoes.

3. Set the oven to 220C/200C fan/425F/gas 7. Sift the flour, baking powder, mustard and cayenne pepper into a mixing bowl. Season with salt and pepper and stir in the mustard seeds, Parmesan and oil. Mix together with a knife and then rub in with fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Bind to a soft but firm dough with the milk.

4. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead gently until smooth. Roll to a circle about 5mm/ 1/4" thick to fit the top of the tin. Lay it on top of the tomatoes and press down lightly, tucking the edge in around the tomatoes.

5. Bake for 5 minutes until the crust is crisp and golden. Loosed the edge with a knife then turn the tart upside down onto a serving plate. Decorate with basil leaves and serve straight away (mine sat on the oven for over an hour before we ate. It was still great, but I should think the pastry is slightly crisper if you eat straightaway).

Apricot and almond bakewell

I've been wanting to try this recipe out for a while, but was slightly disappointed when I read the recipe again, to see that it uses pre-made pastry. So I cobbled together a sweet shortcrust pastry from one of Delia Smith's recipes in How to Cook Book 1. Unfortunately I failed to weigh the pastry once I'd made it so don't know if I made 400g or not! Also, interestingly, Delia recommends using butter at room temperature for making pastry, whereas I had always believed that it should be chilled. Room temperature butter makes the pastry much softer, and easier to work and roll and still tasted great. The other problem I had was that I don't think my tin was big enough - I think it needed to be deeper as I had an overflow problem (all the bits hacked off before the photo taken!) and still had filling left over! But it worked in the end, just need to invest in a bigger tin...

Roofing

The roofing work is still progressing and the builder's told us he hopes to be finished by the weekend - hurrah. Then we can organise getting one wall of our bedroom replastered (there's a large damp, mouldy patch from when we had the slipped tiles, which has caused the plaster to crack...and the last occupants put up the curtain rails very badly, so we have an excuse to get all their holes filled in properly!), and finally decorating the bugger. Must get on with curtains...

The builder's asked us to pay half the bill in cash, which is a not inconsiderable amount - certainly more than the £10 I used to withdraw at a time for spending! Went to the bank to sort this out today - when I gave the amount I needed, the cashier looked slightly uneasy and asked why I needed it. Was suddenly seized by the urge to tell her I was leaving my husband and needed the cash to run away with just to see what her reaction would be. Sadly I'm too sensible for such things in reality!

The christening of Isabelle Pinhorn

Lovely christening of our friends' little girl today. The service all went very well, everyone looked brilliant and the lunch was great. Zachary is really starting to get to know our friends well, and be comfortable playing with them without us which is great to see. He had a lot of fun playing the hand game, and 'extreme' row, row, row your boat!

Zachary and Leo were pretty much penned in in the middle of a pew with us and both of them were really well behaved and managed the entire hour and a bit of service without a meltdown. Zachary was hilarious and had me in stitches by the end of the service - some of the ways he found to amuse himself - taking out my hairclips, standing on my lap shouting at some friends sitting a few rows back from us, doing his Sportacus moves on Leigh's lap (yes, in the pew!), bundling onto my lap for a group hug with me and Leo while shouting 'Daddy join in,' and finally during the last hymn while I was carrying him, pointing forcefully to the front of the church and shouting 'stop!' Funny.

Roof work begins in earnest

Today the roof looks quite different. A lot of banging around up there has resulted in us now being slateless! Or at least slateless as far as I can see. So things are moving on and we'll see what happens tomorrow - it's quite exciting really. And in my own sad little way, I rescued a slate from the skip for us to keep. No idea as yet what on earth I'm going to do with it, but it's a piece of history of the house.

Photos taken at lunchtime :

Productive morning

You quite quickly forget how much housework you can get done when there are no children around! A job which can take a good twenty minutes to complete when Zachary is in a helpful mood, can be done in a couple of minutes on my own. So, Zachary at nursery this morning, Leigh out at Good Food Show, Leo is in bed asleep, housework is done (well...some of it! Some I am leaving til tomorrow), cake in the oven and I have time to blog at 11 in the morning!!! It's a crazy, crazy world.

Weather is fab today - can hear the builders on the roof, and am hoping to get out to see some friends this afternoon. Rock and roll.

Leo - sock monster

I was playing on the floor with the boys yesterday. Leo had already removed one of his own socks, when he launched himself at one of Zachary's. Zachary, not happy with this, removed his own sock and hid it behind his back. Leo launches himself at the other foot, which still has a sock on it. So Zachary again removes sock and hides it! Leo launches himself at my sock. There is no stopping him! Mind you, Zachary got his own back later on when he woke Leo up in bed with a very loud rendition of 'Old Donald.' We heard Leo cry over the monitor and then Zachary announced 'Leo crying' very loudly!

On the whole though, the boys are sharing well in the bedroom. We moved Leo in last weekend so they've had nearly a week together. We've had to change the bedtime routine a bit - before moving rooms, Leo had not yet mastered the art of putting himself to sleep at night (ably abetted by us of course, as we've been happily rocking him to sleep for 6 months!). So we combined Leo going into Zachary's room with an attempt at some controlled crying to try and get him to learn to go to sleep on his own. Maybe not the wisest thing to try! But it isn't going too badly - Zachary now comes downstairs for his bedtime story/ies while Leo goes to sleep upstairs and then Z joins him about 20 minutes later. We had about 25 minutes crying the first couple of nights, then a couple of night of about 5 minutes and tonight no crying at all. Which is brilliant. Leo was very tired today though so whether tonight's feat will be repeated is anyone's guess, but I'm happy that it's happened once at least! We found with Zachary (although he was a couple of months older) that the controlled crying worked pretty quickly with him which was surprising. You think you're going to have horrendous nights like the first one for weeks, but then it sorts itself out and they get the hang of the new routine. Fingers crossed for tomorrow.

My 2 boys

My sister sent me a lovely picture they took of Leo on his christening day and I have a brilliant double frame just waiting for a pair of portrait-orientated pictures. Most of the ones I take are landscape so this is great. I looked out a picture of Zachary from his christening to go the other side...

Leo



Zachary



Yes, they are different babies!

Give them a couple of years...

I'm starting to get a feel for what it's going to be like in a couple of years' time when Leo is mobile and talking. Thick as thieves with his brother. Up to no good! Yesterday at dinner, Leo started blowing raspberries - not a lot you can do about that as he's only 6 months old. So Zachary starts to copy him and there's a good 15 minutes or so where Leo blows raspberry, Zachary shouts 'again!' and then blows raspberries himself. Sadly Leigh and I are not fit to be parents. We just sat there in stitches watching the pair of them!

I think Leigh's dad got it just about right when he said Leo was going to be Zachary's henchman. He absolutely adores his brother and I'm going to have to keep a close eye!

Had a fairly quiet day today - Leigh's off work for the week and we did try to plan in some outings. Today was intended to be Rufford Country Park, but the weather;s been a bit meh all day and we didn't really fancy walking around in the nearly rain. So instead we went to IKEA this morning and mooched around the house in the afternoon. IKEA was fun - for some reason they've chosen to display some of their sofas in pairs - one on the floor, and one raised on a pedestal directly behind it. To Zachary, this arrangement just looks like stairs! And he climbed them!

Also, work on the roof has finally started - yay! Unfortunately it looks as though one of our chimney stacks is completely beyond repair so that's going and the other was being repointed as we arrived home from IKEA. We now have scaffolding at the back of the house and here it is along with a couple of 'before' shots Leigh took earlier today - the picture of the chimney is the one in question. The rather more worrying thing is that the roofer has told us he's seen some cracks in our flat roof over the kitchen and that the roofy bit of the dormer window for the loft is also not good. Well, that will be a job for next year...

Es Santan Markisa

Leigh chose my first recipe randomly from the Puding book. This translates as 'coconut passion fruit ice' which sounds good for the summer. Using Google translate however, the recipe comes out as :

Indonesian :
Coconut passion fruit ice

Material
4 fruit - ripe passion fruit
1 liter - coconut milk from a half point kelpa
250 grams - sugar
100 ml - water
2 tablespoons of the tomb - lime juice
1 fruit - coconut, fruit dredger
mandarin oranges for garnish
digepuk ice cubes

Method:
1. Halve the passion fruit. Take adging fruit, set aside
2. Cook until boiling coconut milk (coconut milk should not be broken jaja). Remove, let cool
3. Cook sugar and water until boiling. Lift then filter. Tam even lime juice. Set aside
4. How to serve: to prepare three or four glasses of fruit-food. Each glass is filled with: sugar aroma of lime, passion fruit, tangerine ice, coconut and coconut milk cooked. Garnished with passion fruit and mandarin oranges. Serve.

Okay, so some of it seems clear and some I can work out, but some of it clearly hasn't translated properly - it's the sort of thing for which you need someone who can speak the language and put things into context. Am still tempted to have a try...although as Leigh pointed out 1 litre of coconut milk is a lot to waste if it all goes hideously wrong! Will have to think on it...

Puding

My brother-in-law brought me a recipe book back from holiday. It's all desserts as he knows I like making cakes...but...it's from Indonesia, in Indonesian - hence the title 'Puding!' This is going to be exciting. I especially like the picture of the one on the front that looks like a grass jelly. Puding Tape Ketan Hitam Saus Kopyor and some kind of translation software here I come!

It felt a bit like the fox, chicken and grain riddle

I took the boys to Attenborough Nature Reserve this afternoon to feed the ducks. After nearly being mauled by some slightly over-agressive geese we had a drink in the cafe. They've got a little balcony area there which Zachary took his drink out to and sat having a little picnic looking out over the water at the ducks. It really was very sweet.

But then I needed to change Leo. After waiting about five minutes for a man to leave the disabled/baby change toilet (whom I noticed seemed to be neither disabled nor changing a baby - although granted I could be wrong about the first) we descended en masse. So I have Leo up on the changing table, Zachary is messing about in the sink and letting the tap run. I turn it off telling him it's a waste of water and stand with one hand on Leo and one hand keeping the tap turned off. After a small amount of screaming, Zachary moved away from the sink. I turn back to Leo, then see Zachary race (well...as much as he could in the toilet!) across the room dragging the toilet roll with him. As I clear this up, he goes back to the sink. Turn the tap off, he's back with the toilet roll. Clear up toilet roll, back to the sink...meanwhile what do I do with Leo? It really felt like one of those logic puzzles where everything would slot into place if I got the combination of actions right!!

Answer : should have taken the double buggy!

Leo's Christening

Leo's christening was yesterday and it was a great day. Yes, there was lots to get anxious about (guests arriving, buffet arriving, getting tables and chairs out, finding highchairs then working out how they get up, making sure Leo is fed, worrying about when he's going to nap, then have him fall asleep during the service and while being passed round various family members!), but everything went very smoothly and it was a very special day. The service was lovely, especially as there were so many children around - Zachary had a great time running from relative to relative and dancing with 2 of his girlfriends in the aisle during the hymns!

My mum and her husband were up in the area from Thursday, my dad and his wife from Saturday and also my sister and her family staying with us Saturday night. So it was busy and hectic but so good. And the advantage of having a large family - people to help clear tables and put things away afterwards. Leo's Godfathers (!) in particular were brilliant!

I am a Christian, so having Leo christened is an important step for me. Leigh isn't, but he is very supportive of my faith and was happy for him to be christened, for which I am very thankful. For me, it is a public welcoming of Leo into the life and love of the church, both spiritually and as part of the particular church family I have chosen to be a member of in Long Eaton at Trinity Methodist. My view is very much that Leo will have the freedom to make up his own mind as he gets older as to whether he wishes to become a Christian or not, but I feel it is important that as I have faith, he also has the opportunity to experience it for himself. I hope it will be a positive thing for him and I will certainly do my best to make sure it is, but eventually he will need to decide for himself.

I feel that the christening service is therefore a declaration of our love as parents for Leo, and of God's love for him, and an opportunity for us, and the people we have chosen as Godparents to make promises of support to him, rather than making promises for him.

I've finished - it's safe to look again!

New roof in the making!

We had a couple of slipped tiles on our roof over winter, which resulted in a nice damp patch and some mould in our bedroom, and a visit from a roofer who told us there was wide-spread nail fatigue. This apparently means that the only thing holding our slates on the roof...is the weight of the slates! As we've only been in the house a year and a half, it was clearly an issue when we bought it, but nothing was mentioned in the survey. Annoyingly, when we investigated further it turns out that even with a full survey, a detailed examination of the roof is not undertaken, because the surveyors will not go up long ladders. Your roof only gets looked at (well, more than a cursory glance and assessment from street level) if you ask for a specific investigation of it.

Having survived the rest of the winter without killing any passers-by during freak high winds, the roof repair work is finally commencing -yay! Scaffolding went up yesterday,



no activity today, so I expect the builders will be here Monday. Maybe! It's pricey, but not really something we can leave. The funniest thing is that when we told next door what's going on, he decided to have his roof done at the same time - not because he thought it really needed it doing now, but because he was worried about our works affecting his roof. When the roofer went up to survey, he found next door's roof was worse than ours!

All roofboxed up!

We have been talking about getting a roofbox for a while now. If we go away anywhere, now that we have two children, there is no real room for luggage. Especially if the space eating double buggy is in the boot! Leigh has a company car which he can't change for 3 years now so we looked into other options - ie a roofbox. Been to Halfords 3 times over the last week to try and buy one but there have been parts not in, or men not available to fit it. Yesterday afternoon was looking like a go.

Let me preface the next bit by saying 3 things - firstly, we have found that blackcurrant Fruit Shoots tend to go straight through Zachary. And not just straight through - within an hour of drinking one, his nappy will be completely full with imminent risk of leakage and wet trousers. A doctor friend of ours told us that blackcurrant irritates the bladder and this is why is causes children to wee, and that makes sense to us! Secondly, Leo's weaning is going well but til yesterday he hadn't pooed for about 4 days. I was getting slightly concerned as to quantity when he did finally go. Finally, the boys' behaviour overall during our time at Halfords was brilliant and Zachary was very very good. It could have been a lot more stressful.

So I turn up just after half 3 at Halfords and by 10 to 4 they've made a start on the box. I'm told it'll take half an hour to 40 minutes to complete. I know that Leigh's parents will be visiting this afternoon, but they usually don't arrive until between half 4 and 5 (nearer 5 often) so I'm not too worried and think I can get home in plenty of time.

Zachary and I go to McDonalds for drinks and manage about 20 minutes there - I decide to leave after Zachary keeps sidling up to other families to say hello and begins jumping on the chairs and shouting happily. As we get back to Halfords - it isn't looking good. Neither the box nor the bars are on the roof yet, hell the fixings aren't even on and the chap looks like he's having some difficulty with one of the bits on the car... So we go into the store and buy a gazebo for the garden. As I'm a the checkout, the checkout lady is sighing that she's running around like a headless chicken because there's noone else in the shop and she doesn't know where they are. A quick check out the door confirms, yes, they're all working on my roof box!!!

As it's now been about half an hour I think we'll get in the car to wait out the rest as I don't have the double buggy with me and this is the best way to keep Zachary safe and entertained (CD player). Leo gets restless in the car seat so I sit in the front with him, with Zachary in the passenger seat. This is fine, although there's still no sign of any roof box going on, and then Leo poos. Twice. I don't have the change bag with me.

So I spend the rest of the time we are there (it took over an hour in all), feeling increasingly hot in the car, trying to close off my nose to the stench rising from Leo's nappy, checking down it every few minutes to make sure that nothing's going to come squidging out the top and becoming concerned that Zachary's likely to wee through his nappy anytime. In the middle of all this I get a call from my parents-in-law, who have arrived at the house (early for them) to find us not there. Heck.

But it all works out fine - grandparents go away and come back later, both boys manage to get home and nappies are changed before disaster occurs and the roof box is finally fitted! Hurrah! Now we can go on holiday. Now we need to book a holiday!