Using up leftover egg whites

Meringues. Before tonight I had never made meringues. When I confessed this to Leigh he gave me a look of mixed horror and disbelief. But it's true. They've always held a slight edge of terror for me - I always think of meringues as being very easy to foul up and rather delicate, and those who know me know that I'm certainly not known for my elegance and daintiness, especially in the kitchen. Clodhopper is nearer the mark!

Anyway these meringues are destined to be broken up for ice cream so if they're a disaster it doesn't matter. Here's a picture of them heading for the oven and I'll post another photo when they're out (yes they are pink).



I used Delia Smith's recipe from How to Cook Book 1. Interestingly she suggests starting to whisk the egg whites on a slow speed for a couple of minutes until foamy, then medium speed for another minute before finishing them off to stiff peak stage on fast speed. She doesn't quite explain why this works but does say that the key is knowing when to stop and that to start with all you can do is follow tried and tested guidelines. So I'm following her to the letter..well, not quite. She prefers a hand electric whisk as she can feel how the egg whites are going - and I used our free-standing Kitchen Aid. If it's a fail I shall know why!

Also, Delia suggests cooking the meringues for half an hour then leaving them to dry out in the oven until the oven is completely cold. Which is what's happening at the moment. I'm quite nervous!

Facilities for nursing mothers

Had an interesting excursion to Morrisons this afternoon. I forgot one key component for dinner that Leigh asked me to get (it wasn't on the list and isn't something I usually look for...if that's any defence!) and managed to buy reduced fat coleslaw instead of tasty full fat. I also needed to feed Leo while I was there (which I knew I would) and thought I'd do it while having a cup of tea in the cafe. All going well until I get to the checkout and realise that I spent the £5 I thought I had in my purse yesterday and all I had was coppers and silver left! Fortunately I managed to cobble enough together to save some embarrassment!

I've also discovered that although I can do the bulk of my shopping in any store, there are a few select items I have to go somewhere specific for. At Morrisons it's pickle, beetroot salad (both of which are just inferior in Asda!), a reasonably priced pomegranate juice, and Green Giant sweetcorn, no added salt or sugar (I also used to buy my Vileda sponges there but couldn't see any today. This is a disaster - I'm going to have to start eking out my supplies!). At Asda I get chorizo, own brand Shreddies (why do Morrisons no longer stock these??) and (hurray) liners for washable nappies - no more wasting money on postage ordering online.

Mainly though, I was disappointed about the facilities for nursing mothers and I'm going to send an email to Morrisons! I knew I'd have to feed Leo and had decided to do it in the cafe. I got a trolley first because there aren't usually many baby ones there, but as I couldn't see anyone else in the cafe with a trolley I thought I'd leave it in the lockers they provide. Except that the family trolleys don't fit into the lockers! I just left the trolley on its own which wasn't too bad as I hadn't done any shopping but I'd have been reluctant if it had been full. To be fair, I didn't check to see whether trolleys weren't actually allowed in the cafe, but as noone else had one I thought I should leave it behind. It may be that this isn't actually an issue as what else are parents going to do with babies who are too small for the highchairs?

The next hurdle was that the chairs are fixed to the tables in the cafe and there wasn't quite enough room to sit with Leo on my lap feeding! I had to execute a slightly odd half on, half off the seat manoeuvre so as not to squash the poor boy. Interesting. I did check out the baby change facilities afterwards to see if there was any provision for nursing mums in there but there wasn't. So my other question is that if a mum just wants to feed her baby and not buy anything from the cafe, do the store mind her just using the cafe for a seat? Not great Morrisons.

It's a bit better in Asda - at least they have a chair in the baby change room, but there's not really enough room for a trolley too! The last time I had to do an emergency feed stop, I'd finished shopping and had a full trolley. It was a tight fit getting me, 2 boys and the trolley in the change room - the only way I could manage it was to ram the chair provided right up in front of the toilet. Not the nicest way to feed your child. The chairs in the cafe are movable which is good.

All I really need is a space big enough to get me, the baby, a trolley and a chair in, preferably not having to sit right up against a toilet. There must be space somewhere in these huge stores.

Blancmange. Fail.

Not sure what happened, whether it was not quite enough time in the fridge (although it had more than the 6 hours suggested) or something went wrong at the milk boiling/whisking stage. There were more solid sections in it and it tasted great, but the texture is all wrong! I had a pig mould to use - there was the vaguest approximation of a pig's face when we first turned it out, but by the time I got the camera, this had happened...



Need to find out how to improve it and try again. It's certainly not going in my Flickr baking folder until it can hold its own shape!

Spinach and Ricotta Cannelloni

I have been wanting to try making cannelloni for ages and I bought all the ingredients this week. We've got guests for dinner tonight so as it makes more than the 2 of us would eat I thought it would be a good (foolhardy?) opportunity to try it out. Hmmm. Well, it looks yummy going in the oven, but was a lot more faffy than I imagined and had to be made in 3 sections - the tomato base, the cannelloni filling and then a mascarpone sauce for the top.

Here are my hints and tips -

1. How I ever thought I'd be able to make it this afternoon with two children about is beyond me. Took longer than I thought and there were times there my hands were covered in the filling mix. With Zachary at nursery and Leo asleep it was much more manageable!

2. If you are squeezing excess water out of spinach, wear an apron. Or at least don't wear a white t-shirt.

3. Filling cannelloni tubes. Hmmm. The recipe suggested using a piping bag (I couldn't find any of the nozzles) or using a food bag and snipping off one of the corners. First food bag - too much snipped off corner so filling just oozed around the outside of the tube rather than going in. Second bag - better size of hole for squeezing but it burst when I had about 2cm of filling in the first tube. So I gave up on the bags and just poked the stuff down the tubes with my fingers (yes, clean of course!). That worked quite well, but is v time consuming. So my advice is, get a piping bag sorted or chop the spinach FINELY, rather than ROUGHLY as the recipe suggests!

So hopefully I won't poison anyone and here is the finished product -



Looks a bit insipid, but I did bake it again before serving and it was delicious!

I also thought it would be a good opportunity to try out making blancmange for the first time. My friend made it for dinner the other week and it was delicious so, copy cat that I am I thought I would have a go. It's in the fridge chilling now and seems okay except that the milk took ages to come to the boil. This would have been fine if Leo wasn't crying throughout the whole process! I was trying to keep the whisking going as instructed, while shouting 'boil, damn you' to the pan, and soothe Leo with my foot. The soothing didn't work! Also, the recipe said to use 'vigourous' whisking so I got out the electric whisk. Tricky to manage if you're using a small pan which has cinnamon sticks and lemon peel in it as well as the milk! Lots and lots of splashing occurred.

Not quite sure how it will turn out but there's always ice cream as a back up if needed!!

Inappropriate boy

I'm waiting to see how long it will be before Zachary comes out with a little gem at nursery. Now he's copying a lot more speech, it's not going to be long! Two candidates arose this week. The first was during a game Zachary was playing with his dad which involved blowing a toy hat off each other's heads. Zachary wanted me to join in so we have "Mummy blow Daddy" repeated at a loud volume several times!

And last night he described the Snickers ice cream as 'knickers' ice cream. How long will it be before someone calls the social???!

Historic times

The new government has been formed and it's a formal coalition between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative party, something that many people thought would never happen. The Liberals have 5 seats on the Cabinet, including their leader Nick Clegg as Deputy Prime Minister and they appear to have made agreements on many of their policies (see here for some more). The biggie is political reform = the Conservatives promised a referendum for the country on this and I should think that will come along pretty sharpish! The other surprise was their agreement that there will not be another general election for 4/5 years, as again we speculated that there would be another within the year to consolidate the Conservative position, but perhaps they feel they don't need it now and that the coalition will stand strongly.

And that certainly was the feel of the press conference given by the 2 party leaders. It actually feels as though we could be heading for exciting times - perhaps this election is just what the country needed, with the views of 2 parties forming policy rather than just a single view. Ooo.

Well, hello 4.30am

So Leo has now been awake for 2 hours, been fed twice, nappy changed 4, yes 4 times (thankfully L took pity on me for the last one and did that for me. And this is on top of the change I did at half 10) (blame curry for dinner??), and still no sign of going back to sleep. But he's not been crying at least, although I don't know whether it makes it better or worse! He's just so darn cute about it, giggling and cooing at me and smiling in the dark. As a last ditch attempt I have now got up and am going to try to settle him back to sleep with some Marple. Just need to make sure he doesn't nap all day. I do need some sleep!

Smoked mackerel pate

Made smoked mackerel pate this evening - a friend's recipe and so easy. It's basically equal quantities of smoked mackerel and stilton whizzed in the food processor with a tablespoon or 2 of creme fraiche and a squeeze of lemon juice. I was slightly concerned at its grey hue, but not to fear, it tasted delicious. I bought some soda bread to have with it and it was great. Will definitely be keeping that recipe for the future.

Also planning to try spinach and ricotta cannelloni this week. I've never made cannelloni before (the dish, not the pasta. Leigh attempted pasta making once. It was not successful and I'm not brave enough to try it) and am planning it for the evening friends come over for dinner. Not sure that's a good idea. Also just thinking about that, one of our friends is on a diet and there's frankly a ridiculous amount of cheese in it - 4 different types all in all. Hmmm may need a rethink.

Finally on the food front, I've just finished Julie and Julia which was great, if a little scary. Hacking up a live lobster!!

Hung Parliament

So it's all excitement here. After 13 years of Labour government, the General Election yesterday sees an official hung parliament. Leigh managed to stay up til about half 2 last night watching results as they came in, and I picked it up for a couple of hours at half 5 when Leo got up (after Zachary was up, Lazy Town and CBeebies dominated any TV watching!).

The figures in 2005 were Labour 356, Conservatives 198, Lib Dem 62, and then the rest of the seats were taken with the smaller parties. Today the results are Labour 258, Conservative 306 and Lib Dem 57, smaller parties (including the first one ever for the Green Party) 27, with 1 constituency still to declare. However that constituency won't be decided for a while yet as one of the candidates died shortly before the election. So a massive swing in favour of the Conservatives although they didn't get the 326 needed for an overall majority. Lib Dems lost seats overall, despite the apparent public swing in their favour after the televised election debates. Just goes to show you can never really tell what the British public is thinking!

The result of all this (as everyone no doubt knows) is that Gordon Brown does not have to resign even though his party did not receive the most votes. He can stay as Prime Minister and will be trying to form a coalition government to enable him to influence the majority. David Cameron has also opened the negotiating table to the Lib Dems and it'll be exciting to see how things develop from here as this is a situation I haven't witnessed before. But it does show up the flaws in our electoral system, so surely something's got to be changed there???

Is it just me?

Is there some kind of law which says that the one spoon you'll drop during the washing up will always be the large one which is still covered in tomato pasta sauce and bits of onion?

Phone piccies

Thanks to the wonders of my husband's technological capabilities and a tiny, tiny SD card in my phone, I have just downloaded all the photos from my phone to my laptop without having to email them all to myself (which I did once and let me tell you, it was laborious and expensive!).

Here are a few of my favourites:
Leo yawning



Zachary trying a spider hat in IKEA



Ice cream and thermos tea at Calke Abbey

Zachary's first day

I awoke with an anxious knot in my stomach. Actually that sounds like I had a natural, gentle awakening from sleep. Ahem. I was dragged from sleep by the sound of Leo doing a massive poo and found I had an anxious knot in my stomach for the day ahead. Zachary's first proper session at nursery. After he got upset last Thursday I was convinced that he was going to refuse to even go in the gates of the nursery and was steeling myself for this eventuality.

As is also the way when I'm slightly nervous about something, I had spent a large proportion of yesterday evening going through my itinerary for the morning. Leigh went to London for work today and was due to be leaving the house as or before Zachary got up, so I was carefully planning my timings knowing that I'd have none of the usual couple of minutes grace I get when Leigh holds a baby for me or helps with coats and shoes. I watched Zachary carefully through breakfast but there were no outward signs of him suspecting anything unusual - Zachary pouring his apple juice into his milk and cereal, finishing it and declaring it 'nice' doesn't count!

My nerves were not helped by Leo pooing 3 times before Zachary got up, and then deciding he was hungry as I was finishing dressing the boys, and not being able to be settled before we went out. I should learn that you can't plan times with a baby (this is something I have to tell myself again and again) as I found myself feeding Leo at the time I had hoped to be leaving the house! But, deep breath, it's not like it's school or anything and I was already taking him later than the session actually started, so once Leo was fed, off we went.

Got in the nursery fine, got in the room, then Zachary started to cry as I said goodbye. But I was strong and left, and managed not to anxiously phone the nursery after 10 minutes to see how he was! I rang in at 12 and apparently he settled within about half an hour of me going and had been absolutely fine since. Relief. And he was happy to see me when I went to collect. Brilliant.

And this afternoon we watched TV, painted some Alphablocks which ended in purple and green streaks in hair, played with pegs (Zachary is now expert at operating them), and bounced on the bed.

Leo seems to have got through whatever was going on with his tummy and when I came downstairs after bedtime, he was asleep in bed and Zachary just happily chatting away in his room. Holby and CSI. Great.

Calke Abbey

Well, we made it. Up (that bit not a problem with Leo rising at half 5 and Zachary at 7 - oh the halsyon days of lie-ins), dressed, picnic made and out of the house by 10. Back to the house at 2 minutes past 10 to collect forgotten directions! Out again in newly started rain with Leo crying all the way there...

Calke Abbey was great and there was a craft show there as well which we went to in lieu of going round the gardens or house. Bonus. The day was a weird mix of lovely sunny spells interspersed with freezing rain and wind, including hailstones! So we ate cold ice cream, enjoyed hot cinnamon nuts and spent an hour picnicing in the car. It was great. Zachary got ice cream absolutely everywhere but we had lots of chance to practice our smug faces at the people who seemed to be sneering at our eating in the car, when it was pouring with rain and we were warm and happy.

Another bout of crying from Leo as we left, but by the time we got home, both boys were asleep and Leigh and I had a happy hour of doing relaxing when we got home before either of them woke up.

We decided to give weaning a go this evening and Leo had his first taste of baby rice! All seemed to be going well until bedtime - Leo is still up, having now pooed twice since dinner and vomited a bit too. Not settling at all... Was it the baby rice? Was it the defrosted milk? Going to leave things for another couple of weeks and use fresh milk next time just in case!

Bank holiday weekend

Am having a great weekend so far. Cake Break on Friday went well in that people actually turned up and ate cake! Many thanks to all who contributed and I am so grateful to my friends from playgroup who came along just before 2 as I was starting to lose hope a bit (although it was only an hour in!). Everyone else turned up in the last hour. Had a fairy cake decorating competition for the (ahem) children and here's a picture of the entries



I had intended that people might want to eat the fairy cakes afterwards, but as I forgot about them in the oven and they had about 10 minutes too long, they were more like biscuits than cake. More pictures of cake here, and some recipes here.

There was cake left over, but we were due to spend this afternoon with friends and they kindly (and most selflessly!) said we could bring any leftover cake to them and they would take it off our hands. Reluctantly of course!

Good day yesterday - shopping, visitation from Leigh's brother and lots of ice cream making. Then today went to church this morning with the boys to help at creche. On arrival found Leo had pooed through his outfit so he had to get naked and redressed - poor boy. At least that's what I would have said had he not been grinning throughout! This afternoon saw us at the house of friends, lovely dinner, skittles in the garden with Zachary afterwards, finishing up with some CBeebies and lots of leftover cake.

Tomorrow is bank holiday Monday. In a change to our usual modus operandi (get up late, stay in pj's for most of the morning, then declare 'oh crap, why didn't we organise anything? I can't be bothered to work out somewhere to go now but Zachary's driving me insane') we have actually made plans! Now watch the rain come pouring down...but it's okay, because not only do we have plans but we also have RAIN CONTINGENCY PLANS! Woohoo!

So, tired but happy, I'm about to pour myself an amaretto with cherry coke (suggestion made by my brother-in-law - tried it last night. Why have I never done it before? It's like alcoholic cherry bakewell!!!!) and hopefully find some time for cross stitch. New project started yesterday - exciting.

Cake!!!

I am holding a Cake Break in aid of the MS Society tomorrow - have just had a marathon afternoon baking and making dinner (homemade pizza). So there is a cherry bakewell sponge surprise (the surprise being that I bought damson jam by mistake instead of cherry...), date and coconut bars, mini carrot and courgette muffins (which Zachary mixed and broke the egg for) and apple streusel muffins. Yum!

It is mainly an excuse to make cakes (hee hee), although I have known people at work with MS so there is a vague connection and it's good to be able to support charities when you can. Hopefully photos will follow shortly.

I've made the apple muffins before and can't remember if I had the same issue with the recipe. It's an American book, but I assume that their tablespoon measure is the same size as ours? Anyway the recipe says to put 2 tablespoons of the batter in each case, then the cinnamon sugar layer, then a further 2 tablespoons to top up. I may be being over generous with my tablespoons, but I've got 3 muffins that didn't get a top layer of batter! Am going to try one of those soon to see how it is.

Also took Zachary for his second nursery settling in this morning. Oh man it was hard. He was happy to go in with us but as soon as we made moves to leave him he howled. Leigh had gone with Leo to the Parents Room, and I found I just had to leave Zachary otherwise it was just going to get worse - or at least no better. The staff there are happy to give him a cuddle if he needs it and apparently he quickly settled after we were gone. I felt awful though - it might sound ridiculous, but it felt almost as though I'd betrayed him! He gets so used to going off to play but still being able to see me at the other end of the room, I felt I'd broken his trust or something.

We stayed at the nursery for the rest of the hour (in a separate room) and later on saw his group going out into the garden - Zachary leading the charge! And he was absolutely fine when we went to collect him. So hopefully it will get easier as he starts to know the staff more and he certainly had a good time. It will be a test on Tuesday.

Brain is dead

It's quarter to 10 and I'm really tired. Trying to decide whether to stay up a bit longer to sort something out for His indoors' birthday or just give in and go to bed. On the plus side, Leo hasn't stirred yet tonight which is great. Last night he woke at half 7 and 10, but not then again til 4, and we have had recently a night where he fed at 7 as usual and then went til 2 without another feed. It's totally bizarre and inconsistent! It seems as though he's starting to get to the stage where he can go much longer, but then we seem to have a night where it's back to every 3 hours on the dot. Hey ho.

On the plus side we'll be starting to wean him in the next few weeks so hopefully that'll affect his sleep patterns for the better...although at some point we'll also be putting him to bed in the nursery with Zachary rather than in our room. We have 'officially' got space for them to have a room each, but I think it'll be good for them to share at least for a while. Am I setting this up for disaster? Hopefully they'll settle into it - my main fear is that I don't want to disrupt Zachary too much. He's a great sleeper at the moment and makes no fuss about going to bed. I just hope Leo isn't too much of a disturbance. Added to which we still haven't cracked the whole 'getting Leo to go to sleep without being fed to sleep!' If we try it, it usually ends up with about 5 minutes of happy Leo in cot playing, then instantly switching to hysterical screaming! Zachary's sleeping at his grandparents this weekend, it's time to have a controlled crying attempt. Not looking forward to it, but it's got to be done - hopefully Leo will surprise us both and settle himself. Yeah, right!

I think I might stay up a bit longer - busy day tomorrow. Zachary has his second settling in session at nursery (the one on Tuesday went really well, but I've been warned that children seem to be able to spot the difference when they first start 'for real' and we leave the building totally. That's next Tuesday), then I need to go to Home Bargains, do the supermarket shop, have a massive bake-a-thon for my Cake Break on Friday and then clean the bits of the house which are likely to see visitors on Friday. Hurrah.

Buggy Boarding

As Leo is up at 5 this morning I thought I would try to use my time wisely - and hope frantically that he'll get tired and drop off again in about an hour so I can go back to bed too!

Had a trial with the buggy board yesterday and pleasingly it was really successful. It remains to be seen if that can be repeated now the initial excitement over something new has gone, but Zachary seemed to get on really well with it. Basically a buggy board is a stand on wheels that clips to the back of another pushchair which one child stands on. We have borrowed one from a relative to trial with the boys and she was very enthusiastic about them.

We talked about them before Leo was born but decided that Zachary was probably still a little too young then to manage standing for a while on the board (and behaving!) so bought a double buggy anyway, which has been great. But he is now starting to want to walk more and can give a bit of trouble getting into the pushchair so I thought now might be the time to try something different.

And he seemed to like it. We got all the way into town and back again using the board which surprised me but is very good. It's a bit more awkward to push as Zachary stands between me and the pushchair so I lean a bit more, but it will certainly be great for little trips and hopefully the shopping centre. Rock on.

Ooo eck!

Okay, I think that it's time to start this up again - not least since one of my children has decided that getting up at 6am is an appropriate use of his time! The bad thing is I think my body has started to adjust to it, and I'm starting to plan the evening before what jobs I'll get done in that hour and a bit before the rest of the house is up (really exciting stuff like emptying the dishwasher!).

So, since June I have now had my second baby - wahey! What I thought was indigestion after a heavy Chinese takeaway turned out to be contractions and Leo James followed pretty quickly afterwards (well, in comparison to the marathon labour I had with Zachary). Leo is now nearly 6 months old so we're turning our attention to weaning again, which is pretty scary how quickly that has come around. Zachary is now 2 and is due to start nursery a couple of mornings a week from the beginning of May. It's going to leave us a bit strapped income-wise, but will hopefully be great for him, and give me more time with Leo and to get stuff done around the house...finally I should be able to make our 'new' bedroom curtains!

Oh and we need a new roof. A few tiles slipped over the winter and the chap who came to sort those out told us we had nail fatigue and basically the whole thing needs replacing. Great. Work due to start end of May.

Lots of other stuff has been going on - Z still swimming, and he's started a Rhythm Time class with my friend Vanessa, he's moved into a big bed, and we've been making the most of getting people over for dinner and board gaming. Also my sister and 2 of our friends up here have had babies as well and it's been great having more people to talk baby with.

Need to update all my profile details now - it's about half 8. Leo's been in bed since 7 and we haven't got past half 9 without a wakeup...let's see how long he goes tonight!

What's a 'convenient?'

Saw this on a (sadly closed) shop in Long Eaton the other day. Has given me the chance to finally use the cable which downloads photos from my phone to my computer (and hence apologies for the poor quality of the piccie!), and to reflect on these modern times in which it appears than noone is is need of a 'convenient' any longer....

Confession

I have a confession to make. I have done something which is wrong and dirty and my entire being resisted it. But I was weak and gave into peer pressure. I have bought a pair of Itsarap trousers from the Ideal World shopping channel. I am shamed.

Let me explain. I am finding that my pregnancy bump is coming along a lot quicker second time around and the maternity clothes have now made an appearance. However last time I was pregnant, I didn't really start getting a bump until October and then gave birth in March. It's June and I need bigger waisted trousers, but apart from one pair of combats, my trouser wear is jeans. (I do have two pairs of sweat pants, but they are for inside days only!).

The weather is too hot for jeans. Especially if you are doing a lot of walking around pushing a buggy. Sweaty gusset is all I'm saying. So I have been on the lookout for some maternity shorts. These do not appear to exist. I have been to Asda and Tesco, neither of which stock any maternity clothes, New Look, Dorothy Perkins and Next, none of which seem to have any shorts. Apparently pregnant women wish to wear denim mini skirts and black leggings with lovely gold zips in the summer, but not shorts.

So I've tried the internet, and my usual shopping places have also been disappointing. I'm looking for light material (ie NOT denim) in a crop trouser sort of length, but am finding very few pairs of these - everything is above the knee (my knees are not pleasant) or made of denim. Bah.

That's the background. Yesterday I found myself strangely drawn to the Itsarap trousers on Ideal World which we saw a bit of at tea time. They looked loose, flowing, easy to manage and apparently fit every size from 6/8 right up to the 20's. The thing which got me though was that they showed a clip of a pregnant woman wearing them proclaiming how light, and comfy and cool they are.

I resisted, I really did. The idea of buying from a shopping channel just seemed wrong somehow - I didn't want to just become one of their statistics! They're called Itsarap. The demonstrators were nearly all middle-aged women. Most of the patterns were hideous. But L persuaded away and I finally cracked today and bought a pair online. I will post a photo.

Forgive me.

This week

Has been generally good but with little pockets of nightmare thrown in to keep us on our toes! Monday saw Zachary refusing to go in the trolley seat at Asda...cue lots of crying and starting to scream. Nearly gave up and went home, but it was the main weekly shop so we had a drink in the cafe and when he had calmed down, tried again and thankfully managed to get round without further incident. Sadly this day also saw another failure of my pledge to not be a mum who opens food she's buying before reaching the checkout in order to give it to her child. Yes...well...that kind of thinking's all very well until you have a screaming toddler in the trolley and are starting to get stares from other shoppers. You will do anything to keep them quiet!!!

Had a weird swimming session again on Tuesday - up till the last couple of weeks, Z has been fine at swimming, no fussing, no crying (not much effort on the kicking either!!!) and generally very happy. Last week he cried through the first half and this week he refused to do anything involving being on his back. I think part of the problem was him spotting the toys as soon as we got in (they usually only come out towards the end of the lesson) and throwing a mard because I wouldn't let him have any. Ho hum.

Wednesday saw 3 bouts of vomiting before 9am. Lovely start to the day. He seemed absolutely fine after that for the rest of the day - no temperature or anything so we reckon it must have been something he ingested rather than a virus. Once it cleared his system he was fine. Oh yes apart from the screaming tantrum just before dinner.

Thursday Z wouldn't eat dinner. But still slept through the night so perhaps he just wasn't hungry.

Today has been lovely (apart from the 5.30am wake-up call) and tomorrow we're off to East Anglia to see my family so am looking forward to that. Hopefully a new week will see us right!

Interesting week

Okay so this week I've had a day which started well and ended up poo, a good day, and a day which started poo and ended up good.

Tuesday started well - had a good morning in town with Zachary who finally seems to be on the mend after 2 weeks of tummy upset and cold. Put him to bed for a snooze but...and here I think I made my fatal mistake...had to wake him up before he was ready so that we could have lunch in time for swimming. Lunch time was a complete disaster - we tried Zachary on sandwiches which he totally rejected and started throwing them around. We thought we'd be strong and not resort to cereal or toast (our fall-backs during illness) so we went swimming with basically no lunch. He cried through the first half of the lesson, then managed to cheer up a bit towards the end. Dinnertime was also a nightmare and he went to bed bawling. Oh dear.

Wednesday was much better though - went into town and got another puncture in my buggy wheel. Leigh'd already tried to fix it twice but I think the inner tube had just given up. Fortunately a kind man at the cycle shop changed the tyre for me and I was ready to go again. Then went to drop off an old game at the charity shop and managed to pick up a copy of Cluedo Super Challenge for 2 quid. Can't go wrong! Rest of the day was great and we went to see the live War of the Worlds in Nottingham in the evening - fantastic! (although Richard Burton's head was slightly disturbing!)

This morning started crap - Zachary was up at 10 to 6 (which sadly seems to be getting a bit of a habit since his last bug), which wasn't too bad until I realised that I'd lost Leigh's wallet last night. I'd been given it in the car to deal with the car park ticket and then it must have dropped off my lap into the road when I got out of the car at home. It wasn't in the car or on the road. Big shit.

Fortunately and quite amazingly our opposite neighbour turned up at about half eight with the wallet! Bizarrely, he'd found it under a tree in his garden - we think a fox must have picked it up (hence the teeth marks) and dropped it on its travels. Thank goodness for honest Long Eatoners. A bottle of homemade elderflower cordial will be making its way over there tomorrow.

The rest of the day has been great too - met a new friend for lunch who also has a 15 month old son, is due to have her second baby on 13th November (I'm due on the 16th) and moved to Long Eaton 6 months ago too. It turns out she runs toddler music classes which is fab because I've been looking for some. Hooray for new friends!

Babylon

The hanging baskets are coming along a treat. They've gone from this







to this...







Hurrah!

The Caple Capsule

We had a gas fire in our middle room taken out a few months ago in preparation for a piano to sit against that wall eventually, which left us with a lovely hole into the chimney breast. Until last week this was covered by an old piano (which unfortunately has now been consigned to the realms of "too expensive to be fixed, and even if we did wouldn't hold its tuning because it's just too old") and until today was graced with some stuck on cardboard



to prevent a certain little adventurer trying to see what's in the wall.

(and if you think he wouldn't try, here he is in the new BBQ



and in the wardrobe at Center Parcs...


)

A friend of ours has kindly agreed to both brick up the hole and then plaster over the top of it, and suggested (I suspect in jest!) that we put a time capsule in the hole before it's sealed forever. We both took to this idea and put together a little box of goodies. I think we got slightly carried away imagining that the box will lay dormant for hundreds of years (L considered explaining that we're wearing hats in the photos because it was a hot day, not because there's been some kind of ecological breakdown and they're needed all the time...) although more likely is that someone will want to expand a road through the town in a few years' time and the house will come down then!

Anyway, in the spirit of a time capsule, here's a piccie of the stuff we put in it :



So, we have (in no particular order)

- photos of the clan Caple
- postcards of some Royal Mail special issue stamps - a Harry Potter one and a Bejing to London handover for the Olympics one
- a Marple DVD
- a palm cross
- some currency
- front pages of a national (The Times) and local (Nottingham something...!) paper
- first and second class used stamps
- some dice
- example of origami
- example of cross stitch (our respective hobbies)
- a Eurovision heart from our party a couple of weeks ago
- favourite recipes - Christmas cake and elderflower cordial
- a Coca Cola can
- one of my old passports
- a flyer for the next Nottingham Symphony Orchestra concert

I think that's everything! And here is the box safely esconced in the wall, which has now been bricked up. There's no turning back!!!!!

The most helpful baby in the world??

Zachary has developed somewhat of a penchant for putting things into other things...okay, not very descriptive I know! Generally he likes putting stuff into bins (my toiletries mainly), the toilet (his bedtime toy...new t-shirt...), the bath (toilet roll...baby wipes...clothes)...you get the idea.

Here's a few notable highlights from the last week or so...

We had some friends over for a BBQ last weekend in the glorious weather and had a bit of a sit down inside in the afternoon as it was so hot. Zachary was pottering in the kitchen when it all went quiet. Upon further investigation I discovered he had been helpfully putting things into the kitchen bin for me - 1 pair of guest's shoes, L's crocs, my crocs, Z's own shoes, the dustpan and brush and in a fit of optimism, the large kitchen broom. I haven't laughed so hard for a long time!

On a similar vein I was washing up the other night, Z happily playing in the kitchen drawers when I suddenly spotted him dumping every coaster we own into the bin! He could get them in faster than I could get them out. Needless to say, the bin has now been turned to the wall, to hopefully prevent similar events in the future.

Finally, we spent a night at my sister's this weekend before going on for a few days at Center Parcs. Z usually has a good time exploring in new places. I spent most of the time at Center Parcs convinced I had put 2 packets of Kettle Chips into the packing, but only being able to find 1. I finally thought I'd just imagined the whole thing, when I received the following text from my sister on her arrival home after the break

"Just found a bag of Kettle Chips in the washing machine!"

Some finished garden - with apologies for the fact that I clearly couldn't be bothered to move my washing out of the way!

New trellis above the fence -



Completed patio -



Patio also showing the pergola -



And one of my lovely hanging baskets - I think there's a fuschia, some ivy and geranium in there -



Now we just need a barbecue!!! I can almost smell the onions and burgers!

More garden!

Despite the rain on Monday, work continues apace in the garden and we now have a completed pergola, a new trellis thingy over the fence on the left and a patio coming along nicely.

Here is how things were looking yesterday in the glorious sunshine



and today in the slightly less generous weather! Fortunately clever men knew it would rain today and a helpful shelter was constructed last night so that the patio could still be done in the dry.



I was hoping to take some photos of the various bits and pieces which have been done, but it was difficult to manouvre myself round the wet cement on the patio! Still, looking gret and hopefully one mre day will see it completed.

Garden

We're having some renovations done to the garden - it's very exciting, although would be a little more so if the rain hadn't started the very day the patio was due to start being laid!

There's a pergola -type construction which has gone up over the concreted area beyond the shed



and we're having patio slabs laid over the old concrete there. A new lawn is being laid at some point and L will be having a good rummage through the existing plants and shrubs to see what's to be kept and what lovely new plants we need. We've bought a new set of patio furniture already in preparation and I know L has his eye on a fancy BBQ. Hurrah - let's hope we actually get some sun this summer!



Z enjoying the sun last week - you would not believe the struggles we have trying to get him to keep a hat on!

Second time around

I'm pregnant again! I am very excited! We had always said we would start trying again once Z reached 1, but had more in mind it taking a while for me to fall, like it did last time. So we were taken a little by surprise by how quickly things happened this time but really pleased.

Baby is due November, and I've had a bit of nausea this time, but no sickness again so far. We haven't had an official dating scan yet - went for one last week, but I'd got my dates wrong and wasn't as far gone as I'd thought! So sometime November - which has unfortunately put paid to our holiday plans for October. My parents-in-law had booked and paid for all of us (including L's brother) to go to Cyprus for a week in October. Depending on when my official due date is, I could still be okay to fly, but I'd be right on the edge of the permitted time (up to 36 weeks) and I'd be huge by then, so possibly not able to enjoy it as much as at another time. So the holiday's on hold for the time being but with hopes of going sometime 2010 instead.

This does mean that Z won't quite be 2 when the new baby's here and we'll have 2 lots of nappies to deal with! Am hoping that because he'll be a bit younger, hopefully the whole jealousy thing may not be as much a problem and I think it will be good for them to be close in age. One friend did mention to me a possible downside to close ages though - the older child might start coming down to the level of the younger. Hopefully, that'll be something we can spot and deal with if it arises.

In the meantime, mucho happiness here.

Hmmm..maybe they weren't exaggerating

Zachary had his MMR jab 2 weeks ago today. We were warned that it would take about a week to affect him (for some reason the body does nothing with the vaccine for a week and then starts to deal with it) so we were all ready on Tuesday for a miserable little boy. Tuesday came and other than the start of what appeared to be a mild cold and the sightings of another tooth (6th one) there seemed to be no sign of the MMR. Foolishly I thought perhaps Zachary's one of the lucky few. How wrong was I.

Come Friday afternoon he is full fever mode and feeling like he's made of lava! But not too grumpy in himself. Saturday and Sunday however were not good at all. He started off okay both days but soon descended into the land of fever and tiredness. Poor little boy spent much of the weekend in just his nappy cuddling and sleeping on our laps. Mucho application of Calpol and Calprofen helped with the fever but very wakeful nights. Fortunately he didn't have a febrile convulsion or anything scary like that, which are also a possibility when young children get too hot, and seems to be surprisingly common. My friend's little boy had one and I can imagine how frightening it must have been.

Yesterday he seemed much better and was actually prepared to wander around away from the safety of Mummy's lap! But by evening he'd started to get a little warm again - this time we reckon it's the cold starting to hit him though rather than the return of the MMR. Really awful night last night (possibly partly due to being very blocked up) and he's been completely full of cold and feeling sorry for himself today.

So this evening in an attempt to actually get some decent sleep he's had a dose of Calpol, has menthol vapour rub stuff on his chest, and a drop of Olbas Oil on Mr Lion. Fingers crossed.

One interesting thing though - we took his temperature on Saturday to see what was happening and it came out as 39.5C. The directions on the home thermometer said that medical attention should be sought if temp rose above 39C, but we were pretty sure it was all down to the jab and didn't really want to go to the hospital (being Saturday and no GP). Not wanting to just leave it either, I rang NHS Direct and found it a pretty good service.

I went through a kind of call-handler first who I think is there to assess the urgency of the situation ("has he had a fit? is he fitting now? is he choking? etc although if I had been answering yes to any of those we'd have either been in the car by then or waiting for an ambulance!) and then we had a call back from a nurse within an hour. She was very helpful, although you realise just how difficult it is to assess very young children and that you're looking for physical cues and hints as they can't articulate exactly how they feel (for example I had to assess whether I though Z had a headache). She confirmed what we thought, that it was probably just the jab, but also said the fever could last for 3 days so not to go to the doctor until the 4th unless he also starting vomiting, drinking less, or had any other 'unwell' symptoms. She also said that the fever could reach 41C (!) but as long as the calpol etc was still working to reduce temperature after a dose then no cause for alarm. Interestingly she also said Z could have Calpol and Calprofen more or less simultaneously which we hadn't realised. A good experience with them.

Icing sugar is fantastic cover

I thought I'd do a bit of updating this evening as I am sans ironing and realised I left things dangling with my last post! Here is the final cake...



The cake turned out great...the marzipan not so much. The layer cooked inside the cake was fine, but when I came to try and roll out the rest the next day for decoration, a) I couldn't roll it out without it crumbling to pieces and b) it tasted pretty awful and greasy so I think I worked it too much trying to get it into a rollable state. I did persevere and make the apostles for the top of the cake but they mostly headed into the bin and I have discovered that icing sugar hides a lot of sins!

So, keep the cake recipe, ditch the marzipan one. There's another version in the same cookbook which uses an egg white rather than egg yolk in it which I'll try next - and is probably preferable for reasons I'll come on to....

A potentially small disaster

I decided to make a proper Easter Simnel cake this year - and not just to indulge my love of marzipan! I was going to use the "Easter cake" receipe from the BBC Good Food magazine, although on closer inspection that turned out to be simply some kind of hazelnut cake without the hazelnuts.

So I turned to Rachel Allen and her mother-in-law's Simnel cake. Big heavy old thing this looks to be - similar quantities of stuff to my usual Christmas cake so should be lovely and fruity. Also had a go at the almond paste recipe included in the cake details - hmmmm, looking a bit hard and crumbly at the moment, but I still need to knead it a bit (ran out of icing sugar for that today) so hopefully it'll come together a bit more ready for rolling. I kind of just pressed a layer into the middle of the cake batter for today, but will need to do the top layer and 13 apostles properly tomorrow!

The small disaster? Receipe called for 6 eggs in the cake - after putting it in the oven I discovered I'd only actually used 5. Not sure what effect this will have - cake is cooling in the tin til tomorrow and then we shall see!!! With any luck I might remember to take a picture...

My Little Pony...

As you've never seen them before...here.

Shame I can't work out how to get a picture in my blog...probably illegal though!

Yummy, yummy!

Lemon curd cupcakes! Brilliant - although the real test will be what they're like tomorrow. My buns usually end up either rock hard (if only!) or stodgy from being slightly undercooked on the second day...we shall see!!

From Tesco Food magazine (Spring 2009)
Ingredients :
175g/6 0z very soft unsalted butter
250g/9 oz caster sugar
3 medium eggs at room temp, beaten
250g/9 oz SR flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
100ml/4fl oz milk
4 tbsp lemon curd

Icing :
75g/3 oz very soft unsalted butter
125g/4 oz icing sugar
3 tbsp lemon curd
2 tbsp lemon curd to decorate

Method :
1. Preheat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Put the butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, milk and lemo curd into a bowl. Beat with a wooden spoon (or KitchenAid!) until thoroughly combined and smooth.

2. Put paper cases (muffin cases not bun cases as I used - got 20 out of the mixture!) into trays then spoon in the mixture until each case is evenly filled. Cook for 30 minutes or until well risen and springy to the touch (we have fan oven and even with the reduced temp, they were done in 25). Lift out and leave to cool on a wire rack.

3. Make the topping by beating the butter, icing sugar and lemon curd until soft and fluffy then put a swirl on top of each cake. Finish with a small blob of lemon curd.

UK Games Expo

L's been talking about the UK Games Expo which is in September. Had been slightly ambivalent to be honest but that was before I heard about The Living Dungeon. Apparently it's a cross between The Crystal Maze, Knightmare, Raven and The Adventure Game...OMG if he could have said anything to make me go - that was it!!!

Trouble is, I get really excited about this sort of thing, and then turn out to be really crap at all the challenges!!! Oh well...in a team with people I've never met before and probably never will again. Nothing to lose!

I can hear bells chiming in the distance

Just found out today that 2 of our friends have just got engaged - fantastic news and congratulations to you!!!! You know who you are!

Freshens!!!!!

L and I are having a gameathon. The original idea was to play through all the board games L has and rate them as 2-player games. This lasted all of 3 games when it became clear that any document purporting to summarise and rate all these games (over 100 now) would be long and dull - not only to read but to prepare!!! Also we'd have had to play 5 different versions of Monopoly - we got through, I don't know, around 6 dice rolls in Nintendo Monopoly before deciding there was absolutely no way we could face playing any more!

But we're carrying on with the majority of the games, just to play them through and make more use of the games we own rather than buying more (added to which L is on a self-imposed game buying prohibition for Lent). Things have been going well. Then we played Boggle.

1st round - I got more words than L but he beat me on the round with the most annoying 8-letter word in the world. Freshens. Annoying because I got 'freshen' as the time was running out and because 7-letter words get you 5 points, but 8-letter words get 11!! Who thought that was a good idea??!! Also, I got more words than L so, even though I lost the whole game by 1 point, I think I have the moral victory.

L is in the lead on the overall tally. Freshens will haunt me forever.

David Bailey he ain't

I have discovered that I can access the camera on my phone by simply pressing 'up' on the menu button rather than having to go through menus to find it. I found this when I saw that Zachary had been taking random photos of stuff and I wondered how he'd managed to navigate the phone! So, for your delictation, here are some of his efforts (with apologies for the blurriness) :

His foot -


A rather good self-portrait -


Foot again -


And finally the sofa -


(I think I have also now found and deleted all the videos he's made...)

Waiting..

So I'm waiting for a new washing machine to arrive. Our old machine has done us proud for the last 6 years or so only breaking down at Christmas (grrr...) but we decided not to renew the insurance in October and that when it broke again, that would be it. Goodbye Margherita.

Last week, she stopped mid-cycle still full of water. So it's byebye Ariston, hello Bosch! Should be arriving fairly soon.

Had a great Christmas and New Year - had a few bugs and coughs and colds leading up to the season but during the festive fortnight itself we all managed to remain fairly well. Started Playgroups again after new year and Zachary immediately picked up a cold! It's those other children!!

Zachary has now discovered how doors work which is great but also means we have finally had to child-proof all the kitchen cupboards we don't want him in - like the ones containing the bleach...plates and bowls... It came to a head last week when I was trying to cook with Zachary crawling round the kitchen. I was stopping him opening the cupboard I was stood by, had the bin in front of another couple, a chair in front of the sink cupboard and a random stepladder in front of another. Now all he can explore are the cupboard with the baking trays, the one with his plastic bowls and cups in and the cupboard containing a myriad of dried goods.

Last night Zachary's explorations included emptying the plastics cupboard, finding and then trying to kiss his reflection in the patio doors and fishing a potato out of the vegetable basket and trying to eat it!

I'm in the kitchen now..sadly I thought I'd sellotaped up the stuffing box well enough, but FAIL. Just seen Z pouring stuffing in a little pool around him and then swish it across the kitchen floor...

Washing machine just arrived - it's this one. Hurrah! We can be clean again.

Season's Greetings

more animals

On the move

Well, it's a week on, and Auntie Becky's tough love solution seems to be working for the nights. We've had a few nights in a row now where Zachary has just quietly laid down for sleep after his bedtime story without having to be fed or rocked to sleep - yay! He also seems to settle pretty quickly at night as well if he wakes up - although it's still hard to just leave him there if he seems really upset. Just need to get something similar working for his daytime naps now. Hopefully it's all part and parcel of him being more active in the day and tiring himself out more - certainly his appetite has increased dramatically over the last week or so, and we've had success with 'raw' melon, pear and banana (all soft enough for him to gum), plenty of corn based crisp snacks, and a welcome return to a few meals I used to prepare for him but which got a lukewarm response last time we tried them. He seems to be eating everything we put int front of him now!

And Zachary is now mastering the art of pulling himself up to standing on anything and everything in sight! The sofa, footstool, blanket box and fireguard are all fair game, as well as (we have now discovered) ...his cot (both in and out of sleeping bag - we're looking forward to nights of a crying baby standing rocking in his cot) and the bath. He can also get himself out of the Bumbo now and spent the time it took me to fill his bath this evening standing by the toilet banging on the lid. Great.

One positive though - because he likes standing, he's keeping relatively still in a good position for nappy attachment!

There's far too much going on!

We've had an exciting (well...that's one word for it!) week or so. Firstly, L came down with a stomach bug and basically hasn't eaten for a week. He seems to be all repaired now though, which is good - annoyingly though, he phoned the doctor last Wednesday for an appointment, and they had none free until today! What if it had been more of an emergency???

Also, we've had no central heating or hot water since last Thursday-ish. The water was playing up before then, but we didn't really notice because the only time we really use the hot tap intensively is in the evening when the heating is on anyway and there was some water heating going on. If there was no central heating on, hot water was non-existent. It appears the fan has packed up and some other bits need replacing to fix the hot water situation - parts needed to be ordered and so the work can't be done until tomorrow. So it's been a weird few days back to a world without central heating - electric heaters a go-go, and poor old Zachary has had to endure a couple of showers with me as there's no hot water for his bath. He is very slippery!

Z now also has his first tooth! It's very exciting and the tooth is poking well above his gum now and can be seen as well as felt (there was a bit of demurral last weekend when Annie suggested there was a tooth on the way because nothing could be felt!). This has however led to a couple of nights of screaming!!!

Nighttime sleeping also seemed to have gone downhill generally and Z was ending up in our bed quite a few nights because we could not put him down in his cot peacefully (lots of excuses - tummy bug, teething, another cold...) - unfortunately he no longer seems to sleep as well as he once did in our bed, and there were still frequent wakings, as well as on one occasion, Z being wide awake at 3 in the morning wanting to play with us, prod our faces etc etc. But, thanks to a visit from Auntie Becky (she of the tough love solution - and no children of her own yet!) at the weekend, we have hardened our resolve and instituted a new regime. Z went to bed on Saturday and immediately started crying. Usually, we would pick him up and rock him to sleep on a shoulder until he settles and then try to put him down in the cot - usually resulting in one of us spending a good half hour trying this until getting him down successfully.

This time, we left him for five minutes, and then went back to check. Still crying. Left it another five minutes, then ten minute intervals. He finally went to sleep an hour later and it was horrendous going up and not picking him up to comfort him...but...somehow it worked. He woke about an hour later - we dealt with it the same way and he was asleep again much quicker. Next waking was at half midnight, then not again until 7am. And then he went back to sleep for another hour after that!

It was the best night we've had for ages, not least because Zachary was in his cot all night, and I didn't spend two hours in the cold in his room with him asleep on my shoulder. Unbelievable. And he didn't seem to hate us on Sunday. Tried it again Sunday night, and again met with success.

It's really hard to do, because both of us just want to comfort him when he's crying, but seems to be working at the moment. L said he also got a sense one time he went up that Z was crying just to be picked up. We're giving it a week to see whether he gets used to the new arrangement and settles more quickly by the end of then.

I've also finally finished my first project on the new sewing machine - curtains for Z's room, and I'm really pleased with them. Haven't taken a picture yet, but will do shortly.

Mum's visiting tomorrow, Z has his first swimming lesson here (cold permitting) and hopefully the heating's being fixed, so it's looking pretty busy for this week too.

Finally, L has a time capsule thingy which reminds him of photos taken a year ago - this one came up for today...it all seems so long ago!

How much mess can one chocolate button make?

A surprisingly large amount I found today! It was kind of my fault really - I took Z to the Westfield Centre in Derby this afternoon (on the bus - aaargh) for some retail therapy and stopped for refreshment in a chocolate shop. The kind lady serving asked if Z could have a white chocolate button..I immediately thought 'no, think of the sugar!' but then decided that he may as well have a try of it.

Unfortunately I forgot what he tends to do with finger food at the moment, which is bang it on the table for a while to see if it makes an interesting sound, then mash it about a bit between his hands, before finally venturing to touch it to his lips, and occasionally something goes in.

So, imagine that with a large chocolate button and a little boy with very hot hands. Slippery, melty chocolate which got smeared all over the table, his trousers, his top, and consequently my clothes. It kept slipping from his grasp so more chocolate smeared whilst he grappled with his clothes trying to rescue the chocolate. Baby wipes were useless!!

The great wash

I remember a time not so long ago when Zachary's wash would be a very carefully executed routine - face, then ears and neck, hands, elbows and armpits and finally bottom. Then a hair wash (mainly because it helped us get rid of the cradle cap), and back onto the change mat for dressing.

Sadly, now that he can both roll and crawl, morning washes are much more the case of either me or L chasing a naked baby round the nursery, wafting a damp piece of cotton wool in his general bottom direction, hoping against hope that some contact is actually made. Thank goodness for evening baths!

Back up!

more animals

Dead Set

I've never been particularly good with horror films. I don't think of myself as particularly squeamish (I can watch CSI/Silent Witness etc with the best of them) but I've never really been into out and out horror. Many of my school friends grew up on a diet of Nightmare on Elm Street and Childs Play, but it really wasn't for me. It tends to unsettle me quite a bit. I think my imagination probably worked overtime a lot (Seven and Silence of the Lambs were nowhere near as bad as I thought they'd be), and certainly I get a morbid fascination with hearing about films like that but in general I can really only cope with horror if I can distance myself from it a bit - like if it's funny. And I mean both intentional funny like Shaun of the Dead, or so bad it's hilarious, like one fantastic film we watched called Frankenstein and Dracula (yes, it is that bad!).

So, Leigh recorded Charlie Brooker's Dead Set when it was on TV and finally two nights ago we ran out of other things to watch. Again, it wasn't as bad as I'd built it up to be (although we've only watched 1 episode so far) but I did have my coping mechanisms in place...L had stolen the laptop, so out came the cross stitch to hide behind! The lights had to be on and inane discussion ensued to take my mind off it...realising that of course zombies won't be able to work a wheelchair. Wondering what happens when zombies have zombified everyone and they run out of food - do they all die off? Not much of a plan for world domination. It then occurred to me that not everyone who got eaten was turned into a zombie - is it just random? Does the zombie parasite chose? Does it depend on how much they get eaten? So if not everyone gets turned, that leaves food for zombies?

L is no better than me really - his main concern was the speed at which the zombies move. Fast zombies - infinitely more scary than the slow doddery kind. A friend pointed this article out. That's my kind of distraction technique!!

'Lots' of fun

(with apologies for the poor punnage)

Since moving to Long Eaton we've been determined to try and go to a few auctions to see if we can pick up any bargains for the house - in particular looking for big mirrors, a bureau (you don't seem to be able to buy them new anymore) and any random crockery or glassware for the kitchen. And of course anything else which takes our fancy!

We finally got organised and found a local auction room which runs Victorian, Edwardian and General sales every fortnight and went along this week. There was a chance to view the items on Tuesday before the sale on Wednesday. With over 1100 lots, there was a huge amount to look through.

It was quite bizarre really and a strange mixture of items - pictures, furniture, crockery, glassware and much more...some period stuff and some modern (a huge TV and some nasty sofas for instance!). There was plenty we were interested in but knew it had to be pared down a bit and as the auctions are regular, there's a lot of stuff which will come round again. So unfortunately, the Gilbert gramophone and shield with swords and blunderbusses had to be dropped!!!

On the day, we were reasonably successful, although in the smaller items section found ourselves up against the clearly shop buyers - a couple of men bidding for all the Derby Crown pieces, one woman bidding against us for all the silver plated tea sets, and too many people bidding for the TG Green Cornish spice pots. Lovely, but too expensive in the end. Bidding was great - a bit of an adrenalin rush. I can see that going regularly might get a bit dangerous. It's all very well setting yourselves limits, but when the bidding's only going up by £2 at a time, it doesn't seem like much more until you realise you've just spent £20 over what you wanted to!! So what did we end up with?



Lovely blanket box. There were several up for sale, this one being the first which came up after we arrived and I bidded (bade?) successfully for it! £20. Nice.



Silver plated tea and coffee pots, sugar bowl, creamer and two other random silver plated items. Cost us £45 - a bit expensive really but we were determined to out bid the woman who beat us to the set we really wanted!!



£15 for masses of Moschendorf blue and white crockery. Leigh was umming and ahhing about whether to bid for it and was charmed into it by the auctioneer's patter of - oh look at that. You get lots of it - and we were the only bidders at £15. Not too bad.

Didn't manage to get a bureau (despite some great ones there) or mirrors. Shame. Means we'll just have to drag ourselves back there!

Bread attempt 5

Best yet! Hurrah - actually looks and tastes like a decent loaf so we'll wait and see how it is tomorrow. Right amount of dough in right tin, right amount of yeast, not too hot when rising and didn't leave it too long in the fan oven (although it does look quite dark in the picture and could probably do with still less time). Let's hope the next loaf goes as well....



Also, we're off to an auction tomorrow - Victorian, Edwardian and General sale in Derby. Never been to one before despite having watched far too much Bargain Hunt, Cash in the Attic etc etc and am quite excited about it. We went to the rooms today for a viewing of the lots and to try and decide what (if anything) we're going to bid for. We were hoping to pick up a mirror or nice armchair, but there weren't many that we liked - still, plenty of glassware and ceramics to keep us occupied tomorrow!

Impossible Pie

Saw this recipe in a church magazine over the weekend and thought I'd give it a go -

Impossible Pie
Ingredients :
4 eggs
¼ cup margarine
1 cup sugar
½ cup flour
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp baking powder
2 cups milk
1 cup coconut
1 tsp vanilla extract

Blend everything together. Pour into 10“ dish and bake for 1 hour at Gas 4/180C/350F. The pie will sort itself out into three layers - sponge at the bottom, custard in the middle and coconut on top.

I was unbelieving...here it is pre-oven - all liquidy and no substance



and here it is all done.



And yes it did work! Sugary, coconutty addictive layer on top, very eggy tasting set custard (like in an egg custard rather than what you would pour over apple crumble - not sure if it came out right or I overcooked it?) and weirdy sponge layer at the bottom. Impossible.

Scattergories

Played a game of Scattergories with my sister and brother-in-law this afternoon. Aside from the obvious willy and penis jokes (L's suggestion for a crime starting with 'P' - penis waving) I got a bit confused trying to think of footwear beginning with P as well.

I was thinking of those shoes, you know, the ones with really pointy toes - wrote down 'pinklewickers.' Looked at it, thought it didn't look right and tried 'picklewinkers.' No, still not right. Fortunately my brain kicked into gear just before the end of the round and I crossed the word out - winklepickers doesn't start with a P.

Bread - attempt 4

I've now had a go at the Hovis recipe on the back of the yeast packet and this turned out to be my best bread so far! Again it didn't appear to rise sufficiently before baking, but it was the lightest so far and was still soft (ish) today when I baked at the beginning of the week - usually my bread is like a rock on the second day.

I followed the recipe closely, even measuring out the yeast - I usually just dump a whole packet in, figuring that packets come in the right sizes. And what have I learnt...there's more than 1 1/2 tspns of yeast in a packet. Why?? Surely most people would be following a standard 2 lb loaf recipe, in which case why have more yeast than that in a packet and what do I do with the rest??? I think too much yeast could have been a cause of some of the problems I've been having with earlier loaves.

This recipe also uses only one rising (Delia had a rise and a prove) and came out fine, so again why would you go to the bother of having a second rising? Does it make for better bread in the end?

And finally it turned out that I was using 2 x 2lb tins when L had quite convinced me that they were only 1 lb tins. So in fact I've only effectively been using half the dough I should have been in each tin. That may solve the 'doesn't appear to rise above the top of the tin' problem. I was sure they were 2 lb tins...I must never let L convince me of anything again!

No pictures I'm afraid - too much eaten by the time I got my act together! Next time...

Ingredients :
500g / 1lb 2oz strong white flour
25g / 1oz butter
1 1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp dried yeast
300ml / 10 floz warm water
2tsp sugar (optional - to give added flavour and a thicker crust)

Mix together the flour, (sugar) and salt, rub in the butter then stir in the yeast.
Stir in the water and mix into a dough by hand.
Knead for 5 minutes in an electric mixer or turn out onto a floured surface and knead well for 10 minutes by hand
Shape the dough and place in a greased 2lb tin or on a baking tray. Cover with a clean damp tea towel and leave in a warm place until doubled in size (1 1/2 to 2 hours).
Uncover and bake in an oven preheated to 230C / 450F / Gas 8 for 30-35 minutes. The baked loaf should sound hollow when tapped underneath.
Turn out onto a wire rack to cool