a viking adventure

I had a slight misunderstanding about what yesterdays school thing was about. There is now a scale model Viking boat in the upper school playing field at madam's school (I only ever really go in the foundation stage area atm, so hadn't *really* noticed it).

 

So, yeah, we got to school and there were a few stalls around making balloon swords and other Viking accoutrements. As I have *no* cash until Tuesday I had to march madam past everything. She has a wooden Viking sword at home and if I'd thought we could have brought that with us.

 

Madam instead went straight for climbing over the boat which is big enough for a whole heap of kids to play out any number of fantasies. She commandeered the prow and made the most of her position to order the surrounding populous around. They mostly just ignored her.

 

 

 

She then met up with a chum of hers from her class and they went careening off into the wooded area at the back of the field and spent the majority of the hour or so we were there collecting conkers and jumping all over the tree stump seats and things that are along the nature trail. She did manage to come back in time to have her photo taken for the local paper (not just her, it was a group shot). I mainly sat on one of the benches and supervised her coat!

 

After I managed to persuade her to leave, which she only agreed to when she realised that we were pretty much the only people there, we headed home for a bit of a chill before dinner. We had decided to make a fruit crumble (plum and strawberry) for dessert. But I had this rush of blood to the head and decided that even though crumble is becoming a bit of a signature dish for me we should have something different.

 

I had already pretty much made the crumble topping when I decided this so had to improvise what I was going to turn it into. I went with shoving a splash of milk in and turning it into a sort of scone dough. I (of course) put too much milk in and ended up desperately adding flour to try and dry my dough out a bit! I made it into little flattened balls and put them all around the top of my fruit. You know, bit like a cobbler.

 

I have no idea if I even vaguely made the right thing, but what we ended up with tasted really great and was a change from the same old, same old. I shall make it again, but perhaps in a small deeper pan. That way the topping might join together better and the fruit won't all stick to the underneath!

 

We did go to the Harvest Festival this morning after all. And it was nice to see the display of food that had been brought in. Madam was particularly taken with the wheat sheaf they had right in the centre of the altar display. All the food collected today is going to the churches newly formed food bank. This is the same for madam's school service on Wednesday.

 

the main table with all the food was off to the side!

 

 

After the service we wandered along to the food festival, but it was so busy and loud that madam wasn't keen. There was a barbecue/grill going that was smoking wildly as well. We didn't stay long and we didn't find any free samples... Boo ;) 

 

We ended up going to mum and dad's a bit earlier than normal and madam has mainly been riding her bike and getting under peoples feet since then! We have taken her for a ride out to the supermarket in the hope of finding her some more school t-shirts as she's ruined some of them already. They had none in, annoyingly, then we took her to the park on the way home. She is now (finally) sitting quietly. I'm hoping she might be tired enough to go to bed to time this evening.     

pets mean prizes (or something like that)

Well, we've not managed to achieve very much today! In fact we've only just nicely gone out the house and got some fresh air. We have been glued to cartoons all morning! Was quite nice actually... Madam and I haven't had a nice chilled Saturday for an awfully long time.

 

We had a bit of a munchy lunch with lots of little bits and watched even more cartoons. I do love a cartoon marathon every now and again... We were watching the Pokémon movie and various others. Not really my favourite, but it keeps madam happy.

 

She also now has to let me pick next time! Hahaha! That'll be me watching something from my childhood then... But the question is do we go really old school and have Tom & Jerry or shall I vote for Bagpuss. Again.

 

Or I could go for a film like Mary Poppins or the Goonies. Madam had a pirate day at nursery on Tuesday and has mentioned One Eyed Willy several times since then. I'd like to point out that she claimed that other girls had a beard and moustache drawn on, but couldn't name any... Hmm...

 

We haven't even attempted our outing to Burton Bushes, we'll maybe see how it goes tomorrow. I really love the idea of taking madam up there. It is a bit of a hike, so the picnic option is definitely the best bribery to get her motivated. I did let madam cycle to my mum and dad's as I thought she'd get more fun out of that than walking...

 

I still haven't checked my bike. I'm going to guess I need to at least pump the tyres up as it's just been sitting in the back yard for the last year. I'm actually looking forward to getting it out again as I really enjoy cycling and find it's an easy way for me to do exercise as I don't notice that I'm doing it so much.

 

Might need to get in touch with H and ask her which app it was she was using when she was doing her manic cycling... It could be good to have an idea of how far I actually cycle. Rather than the random guesswork I usually employ!

 

Whilst we're at the parents today I am doing the first lot of fish feeding. I have two different tanks that I'm in charge of. The tropical and the marine. It's the marine tank I'm most likely to upset. Although I have been given a number in case of emergencies...

 

It also feels very strange to be here and not have the cats wrapping themselves around your ankles. This is the first time they've been to the cattery in years. And although I appreciate that I haven't got to co-ordinate feeding them every day it's just very odd to have no furry purries in the house...

 

We've kept cats for years. I don't remember us not having them. The first one I remember is the one who had the biggest reputation. He was almost a local celebrity he was so distinctive and had such a personality.

 

I think the best thing he used to do is sit in the middle of the road (we lived on the approach to the local hospital at the time) and stare down the patient transports. They actually used to have to physically get out and move him out the way! But he was rather keen on his sunbathing spot...

 

He was called Orion and was the nicest cat in the world. Unless you wanted to brush him. We've also had (in sort of order) Peter, Zulu, Lulu (no, that wasn't deliberate), Bugsy, George, Molly and Tesco. There is also my brother's two cats Bubble and Banzai. Banzai lives with my parents as he was in a place that she couldn't get access to the outside. She's an inside/outside and back again kind of a cat.

 

Molly :)

 

 

George was sort of mine. He picked me at the rescue centre, and once we'd all met him he was too hard to resist. He was called Smoky when we got him. He was a grey tabby, the most ENORMOUS cat you'd ever met. He was incredibly bouncy and you couldn't touch him without him purring his head off. He was also very naughty and my mum renamed him George after the small boy Joyce Grenfell was always telling off. It suited him.

 

 

 

Sadly he was killed on the road only about 6 months after we got him. I was in Greece at the time and my dad had to phone me and tell me. I still miss his furry little face... Worse is that I don't think we have any photos of him :(

 

I really wish we were allowed to have a cat where we live. But realistically, we can't afford one. I don't have the money for a vet if the cat were ill. And I cannot justify letting an animal suffer for my own selfish gain.

 

But if I did get a cat, I'd really love one of these:

 

 

 

That's a British Blue Shorthair for those not in the know... Though I'm just as happy with a moggy from the local animal rescue. And usually moggies live much longer than pedigrees...

 

I guess I shall have to keep dreaming!

 

  

a jumbly jam of thoughts

Its Friday again. I am being forced to watch CBeebies with madam whilst the sun is out as I promised she could watch whilst I used the rents wifi... It seems a waste of a sunny day though. Mind you, it's rather hot atm and madam would whinge if I took her to the park. Maybe we could go a bit later once I've finished and we've got past 3pm...

I have a dilemma about guides whilst the rents are away. The most obvious being that I have to take madam with me and she's a major distraction. Also, no car... We've had to give up gymnastics whilst the rents are gone as we can't get there and back on foot. 

Well, we can. But madam would be so tired that she would probably never forgive me! She's good at walking as it's our usual method, but not that far! So Guides also slightly comes under that category. Although we can get a bus down to the middle of town and we'd just have to walk to the school. But I don't know if we could get home again. 

I'm going to work on the basis that my Guide leader won't mind throwing us out on the way past our house (which she does drive past anyway).

Oh. Hmm... I was meant to be doing some form of sponsored something over the half term... Ah. I might have completely forgotten about that... I was going to get madam to draw pictures and sell them on FB to raise funds :) I think it could have been quite fun. Oh well, never mind.

We can do it as an ongoing project I suppose. Taking commissions if anyone is interested ;) If you're really lucky she may even sign it for you...

So I've also been trying to decide what to do with madam over the weekend. We quite often go out with the rents somewhere further afield on a Sat afternoon. I might plan a picnic on the Westwood and hope for some nice weather. 

I really wanted to take madam to Burton Bushes to see the bluebells, but I think they'll probably all have gone over by now. We could still go and build a den or something though. I used to love doing that as a kid...

(see, she likes a good den...)

 

I'm more worried about what we'll do if the weather is pants. I guess we'll just do things at home and try and deal with the cabin fever. And we have messy church on Sunday, so that at least will be fun. (We got pizza and cake last time, awesomes!)

I'm thinking we might make another attempt at cheesecake... It worked so well last time and was particularly yummy... Just need to decide what to top it with this time. I do like the idea of lemon curd, but don't know if madam would be so keen. Do you think you could use that choccy philly? And orange juice instead of lemon... Mind you it might not be acidic enough without lemon/lime... 

If you missed the last cheesecake post (where were you?!) then you can find it here, along with the recipe. I recommend you try it at some point, especially if you have small kids. Or I suppose we could experiment with a different cake recipe. Madam is always most helpful when we're cake baking!

I also want to do some kitchen chemistry and try a new a new recipe... I seem to be in a bit of a rut at the moment with my cooking. Although I've also been considering this whole 5:2 diet that everyone has been banging on about. I've downloaded the book onto my Kindle but haven't had a chance to look at it yet.

I think I could just about manage to be good two days a week. After all it's fairly normal for me to be good sporadically. And I seriously need to do something about getting my eating under control. I need to look at the amount of exercise I do at the moment as well. 

So yeah, I walk everywhere, but I don't do anything else... I do have a bike, but I had sort of given up riding it as madam was too big to go in the seat on the back, but as she is now riding her own bike pretty confidently I could get it back out again.

That might be a good thing to do with madam at the weekend...

Pedals for Pounds 4 (and some other stuff)

Well, we had a good afternoon yesterday. I picked madam up from school, we had lunch and then headed to my parents so that we could chill and go into Hull later to cheer on H and her dad.

 

We ended up at the garden centre getting yet more stuff for my dad's marine tank. I am slightly worried that I'm going to be responsible for it for three weeks in the summer! I don't mind just bunging some food at them once a day (or so) but to actually be left in charge of a tank that will need topping up and has salt level checks and all sorts worries me!

 

Ah well, if I kill everything it will be fine, I'm sure! He added two hermit crabs to his collection yesterday. So now there are 5 snails, 2 shrimps, 2 hermit crabs and the wee crab that came in with the live rock. Excellent. Oh, and he's muttering about getting a sea urchin...

 

This is the tank that wasn't going to have anything in it for me to have to worry about. There are no fish yet, I'll give you, but that still seems a lot of creatures to me!

 

Anyway, back to H and the Pedals for Pounds 4 tour... So having obtained more livestock M&D decided just to drop us in Hull and then go home and play with the new crabs for a bit. So we got dropped off near my little bro's house (not that he would have been in) and headed up Whitefriargate to get flags to do manic waving with.

 

Poundland failed to produce the necessary flags, but we did manage purple pompoms (go team purple!) and got ourselves a drink each. We then headed for the Premier Inn rendezvous point and forced ourselves to get an ice lolly on the way! We did get there slightly early, but there were already a couple of bikers there, who had no clue how far team purple were behind them.

 

We settled down to make the kerbside our home for the ensuing wait. I think we waited about half an hour when we saw the (rather tired) faces of H&P coming round the bend! Madam went into manic pompom mode and I think our enthusiasm was appreciated!

 

We collected their bags from the storage area and then headed for the other side of town where H&P actually were staying. Madam was tired by this point and the walk was mostly taken up with her moaning about having to walk. Oh, the joys. We waited downstairs with a drink whilst they (understandably) showered and changed.

 

We had tea with them, though I was slightly disappointed they didn't both have two main courses! And then madam and I headed for the bus home. By the time we got back here it was 9pm and then we had to walk from the station to home! Madam moaned less than I thought she would, which was a relief.

 

She got straight into her nightie (mummy, big girls wear nighties to bed, not 'jamas) and I read her some more of the Wizard of Oz and she was asleep in mere moments. I went downstairs and after deciding at about 10.30 I really wasn't going to last much longer woke up at 2.30 when madam came downstairs to find me! Oops.

 

I really must stop falling asleep on the sofa. I've got a crick in my neck that just won't get better otherwise!

 

Today lovely H&P are cycling to Scarborough... Hopefully they're already there. But I'm sure they'll let me know when they arrive :)

 

Oh, madam took a couple of photos from the bus yesterday. Scenic, no?

 

  

A day full of events

Today is special for many reasons. It's the first day of May, it might not be blazing sunshine, but it is quite definitely Spring at last. Today is also my uncles birthday, he's 60 this year and my mum (his big sister) made me hunt down a copy of his favourite childhood book for him!

 

In the end we (I) managed to find a first edition of Noddy and the Magic Rubber. Hopefully, it has now arrived safely at his house and is still in the almost pristine condition it was in when it left us.

Also my lovely friend H has set off on her Pedals for Pounds 4 tour of Yorkshire. She is cycling an impressive 80 miles today and madam and I are getting ready to go and wave and cheer when she arrives in Hull later today. My parents are also coming and have planned to have tea at lunchtime so that they can hang about and wait if poor H is a straggler! (such confidence in her skills)

I'm so proud of her for taking on this monumental task. If you think that someone cycling 240 miles in aid of charity is something you'd like to get behind then you can sponsor H (and her dad P) on her Just Giving page they're looking to raise a total of £2000. So go on, bung 'em a fiver, they deserve it!

 

And the number 80 is also significant to me today as I am up to my 80th post! I started this little blog as a bit of an experiment on the 31st January and I genuinely wasn't thinking that I would have the willpower to keep it going after the first novelties wore off. But here I am after 3 solid months of blogging almost every day.

 

I'm quite impressed with myself. Also, I'm over 3000 pageviews and last month I broke the 1000+ pageviews in a month mark! Thank you so much for reading. It's so nice to know that what I say amuses and/or entertains enough to keep you checking in. I don't think I'm going to be one of these people who get to blog for a living, or even part-time. But I hope that I can keep plugging away.

I hope that by trying to be honest with myself and admit to the things that frighten me, that hold me back, that inspire me, that make me smile I can carry on giving a voice to the people who haven't learned how to speak up yet. That I can inspire anyone to just go and ask. It isn't the end of the world.

 

You are not a failure.

 

You can get better.

 

I can get better.

 

It's just a marathon not a sprint. And sometimes you have to stop for a breather. But you'll get there, same as I will.

 

So thank you again for reading. Thank you for supporting me when I needed it most. Thank you for still being here even though I spout sentimental guff every now and again!

 

Love you all :)  

running away from it all

Went for a lovely long walk this morning with my friend Tabatha Tweedie ,who writes a really great blog about dressmaking, and her little ones. Madam insisted on taking her bike, which did cause slight endangerment on occasions, but was fairly successful.

We had a nice chat and I updated her on my fun with eviction activities and she updated me on her plans too :) Lovely. Sadly, we did not plan in cake this time, but I'm sure now the weather is cheering up we'll be able to meet up and do walking (and possibly cakings) again soon.

I didn't blog yesterday as I was in a bit of a stress mode and couldn't focus my brain to it.

Madam decided she was running away yesterday afternoon. Now with most 4yr olds this wouldn't get far. But mine is jolly independent and confident and did make a fairly good break for it. She had been playing in front of my parents house on the cul-de-sac with the little girl from across the street. They had been riding their bikes up and down and were having great fun. But the little girl had to go somewhere and madam wanted to go to.

She came inside to get her coat on and told me what she wanted to do. I told her that she couldn't invite herself to things and that she couldn't go. She told me she would just go back to riding outside the house, which I said was fine as long as she kept where I could see her and remembered to get to a pavement if she saw a car.

But she then headed straight off to the other end of the street and with me shouting for her to make sure she stopped at the end proceeded to turn up the next street. As I was in bare feet I went back in the house for my shoes and then headed after her. However, when I got up to the top of the next cul-de-sac she was nowhere to be seen. I headed down the street and to the next one over. No sign of her.

I headed back to the house for coat and phone and decided to try the local park before I rang the police. As I rounded the corner before crossing the road I saw her crossing a bit further down. Fortunately the road was remarkably empty for once and she crossed safely. I managed to catch up with her at the park and made her come home. She was of the opinion she should be allowed to play!

After we got home I was trembling with both anger and relief whereas madam curled herself up on my dad's chair and promptly fell asleep. She slept for a couple of hours and I calmed myself with a coffee (not sure that's very calming) and a bit of distraction from the TV.

I have kept the front door locked since as she keeps attempting to escape again. She's very independent, as I said.

My parents have just got back and I have had to apologise for the mess madam has made in her bedroom with my mums old nail varnish (which she also used to make blue highlights in her hair). I think we might actually have to cut her hair to get it out...

Which kind of helps me make the decision about whether I'm going to get her hair cut or not!