Lifestyle - Holiday Hijinks

Its half term and I am in that unenviable position of having had to entertain the madam for the last few days in the rather horrid weather. This has led to us spending more money than I would have liked because indoor things are (almost) never free!

We haven't even had chance to do a museum day which we always love... 

Monday we went to the cinema and finally got to see the Lego Movie. And it was as good as I had been led to believe. My only issue was the part that was in live action. I just felt like it slowed the whole movie and it was the only point where madam got fidgety. But it was awesome, on the whole. 

Tuesday was a fun trip to the job centre so I could sign on and then a trip into Hull to re-submit my Divorce petition as there had been an error on the first version. Despite my mum and I having checked, double checked and checked again. Bugger.

The error was mainly caused by a difficult to interpret marriage certificate, but the court sent me an example that I could follow and I'm hoping that this time it won't bounce straight back... 

Wednesday, nah, we didn't do anything much. We didn't even get dressed until 4pm! 

Yesterday we went swimming for the first time in ages. Madam therefore got to wear her new 'kini again and I had to run the "do I still fit in my swimsuit" gamut. The answer was "yes" and all systems were go! I stopped taking madam a while ago as I find it quite frustrating to not be able to swim and have to instead pay out for us to have a bath!

Mum came this time which helped no end and we tried to teach madam the basics of swimming. I can't afford the £45/term fees for lessons and she won't get them at school until year 3. So, we worked on teaching her to float. This merely requires her to stay still, which is a near impossibility for my wiggly girl! 

She pretty much got it, but her fear of putting her face in the water and other little things have made mum and I determined to bring her more often throughout the summer to build up her confidence. And maybe she might get to swim by the end of it too...

Today we went to the SeaLife Centre in Scarborough with my parents and brother (younger). We had a 40% off voucher but it was certainly not a cheap trip! Madam was given a pass book that she had to get stamped in various locations around the centre and also a Moshi Monster hunt form. This last was just for half term and we hadn't known about it, sadly. Madam is a Moshi Monster fan and was rather thrilled to meet Katsuma. 

We saw penguins and otters, jellyfish and seals, sharks, seahorses and turtles. It was really good fun. My mum even forked out for a rather silly photo of us all. This was mainly because it had all of us  in (barring big bro and girlf) which is an unusual occurrence. 

After we'd seen everything we headed to the beach for a picnic and madam had a quick paddle in the sea. We had a mooch along North Bay and then caught the little train back to the SeaLife Centre and the car. 

Madam slept all the way home whilst wearing her new pirate hat and hook. It was a good day :-) 

So, what's your week been like? I am actually going to need aftersun later! 

Love, Pearl. 

Lifestyle - A Day at the Museums

In the last week of the Easter holidays I met up with my good friend Tabatha Tweedie her two gorgeous kids for a trip to the Hands on History centre in Hull. We were glad we'd arranged to go as they're closing it down which is going to be a real loss. Hull is meant to be city of culture soon, not sure closing museums really goes with that image!

But, moving on. We met at 10am in time for it opening and lept through the door as soon as they opened it. The ground floor is all about childhood and had a Victorian school set up as well as the chance to dress up in some costumes. Madam decided she would like to be a chimney sweep... 

The kids took it in turn being teacher and then we went to check out the raised area which had lots of books and a puppet theatre. Madam and little tweedie played with the puppets and the animal shaped cushions whilst baba tweedie made a myriad of escape attempts and threw blocks through the gaps in the railings. 

We then went down into the cellar which was set up as a scullery and had lots of laundry items as well as a two seated loo that amused the girls immensely. Baba tweedie chose to climb up and down the stairs with his mummy whilst I supervised the giggling in the cellar!

The girls ran off to look in the shop and when we caught up with them we were bemused to see a lot of Egyptian items. At which point one of the staff pointed out the lift and we discovered there was an upstairs gallery as well! 

We found a room filled with Egyptian artifacts as well as a side room with a sarcophagus and mummy in. Madam was a bit creeped out by the mummy and dashed off into the final display area. This was all about life in Hull through the years. 

They had lots of examples of really random things including a room set up as an 80s living room, complete with textured wallpaper and ruched blinds! Tabatha and I loved seeing the needlework, costumes and old sewing items. I also found a doll dressed in the 1930s uniform of Newland High School for Girls, which my grandmother would have worn. Cool. 

After rounding up the girls who had found a clocking on machine to play with we left through the shop again and said goodbye to the Tweedies. Madam and I went to McDonalds for lunch (which she thinks is the best thing ever!) and then headed for the Maritime Museum. 

This is one of our favourite museums to visit and madam chose to save her favourite part for last. This meant I got to go to the upstairs gallery which was having a Beryl Cook exhibition. I love Beryl's art and was really glad to see so many paintings to look at. Madam even found a display she could play with. 

I did manage to avoid having to explain the Karma Sutra paintings that were tucked in a corner area, thankfully! Madam then went to find her favourite sign before we headed downstairs to the whaling gallery. 

Whilst in the whaling area we discovered they were having a hands on display so we got to handle a piece of baleen (whale's teeth), a harpoon and looked at a whale vertebrae that had been used as a butchers block. I took madam to look at the scrimshaw cabinet as we always notice something new in there. She was most fascinated with the Narwhal tusks this time. 

After having run several times around the museum we declared it time for an ice cream and then rang my mum to pick us up. Parents are great, aren't they? :-) 

I love how many free museums there are to look around in Hull. We'll go again in May half term and look at some of the others. Do you have a favourite museum? 

Love, Pearl.

Lifestyle - My Week on Instagram #4

My week looked a bit like this...

1. Madam the teacher
2. I only ate one blue sweet!
3. Time for ice cream
4. "Mum, the cat wee'd on the floor!"
5. Madam the chimney sweep
6. Sweets from the Easter bunny :-) 
7. Beryl Cook exhibition

Somehow I have managed to jumble the order oof the photos up, but I figured it didn't particularly matter! It is still the Easter holidays here, hence all the silly ones of madam. She's back at school on Tuesday, so hopefully, normal service will resume...

What have you been up to this week? 

Love, Pearl.

Lifestyle - An Easter Bunny Trap

Happy Easter! Hope you're all having a lovely day and haven't eaten too much chocolate. Madam and I did have some choc for breakfast, but mostly we've been good! 

I decided, as madam was so excited about the Easter bunny coming, we should make a big deal about it. After all, she put whisky and biscuits out for Santa... I'd seen a recipe on Pinterest that I thought it might be fun to do. It's called Bunny Bait and is basically melted chocolate with extra bits added in and then set.

For this we used a 100g bar of milk choc and melted it down. I then poured it into one of the little disposable traybake tins I have. We sprinkled chopped up mini eggs and gummy bunnies (no, didn't think that one through, madam was aghast!) as well as a crushed biscuit over the surface. Pressed it down slightly so it would definitely stick and put it in the fridge to cool. 

We took it out and put some in a glass for the bunny and ate the rest as an after dinner treat. It was yum! After madam was in bed and somewhere around supper time I put madam's present next to the glass and took most of the bait to chomp on whilst I read my book.

As I went to bed I laid a trail of mini eggs down the stairs for her to find in the morning. I don't care if it was completely over the top, this morning was so worth it! 

The best part was that she was so excited about the trail and the bait being gone she didn't even notice her present at first. I had to send her back to look for it. And then again to pick up the mini eggs so she could eat them! She was really happy with her gift, which was good.

We then had bacon and pancakes for breakfast and headed to church where madam learned about the Easter story and ate more chocolate. Life is good when you're 5.5! 

So how about you? Did you have fun this Easter? And if you don't celebrate it, then I hope you enjoyed the beautiful Spring day that's out there :-)

Love, Pearl. 

     

Lifestyle - Birthday Fun

If you hadn't noticed, it was my birthday this week. Friday the 11th, specifically. I had a genuinely lovely day and I got to spend time with some of my favourite people. Always a good day when that happens.

First up, friend H came up to stay for a couple of nights on the Thursday which meant we got to spend a decent amount of time whilst madam was at school actually doing big girl things. Though mainly we did a lot of eating...

Friday started well, I got brought a mug of hot chocolate in bed (madam had insisted this is what H should make for us all!) and then we had cake for breakfast. So much more exciting than toast! We dropped madam off at school and then headed into town for a coffee. 

I then had my nails done. I went for a bit of birthday glitter, so basically a different shade on each nail! It looks amazing! Both hands match, I didn't get that carried away. Poor H sat and read her book whilst this was happening and it took longer than I thought it would, oops!

Most sparkly nails ever!

After nails we had a bit of time before meeting L for lunch. Time for more coffee then. Obviously. Also H managed a sneaky phone charge whilst we were in the cafe. Good skills.

Lunch was amazing. We went to a place in Beverley called Rebels Smoke House which is an American style diner that specialises in slow cooked local pork. And oh, it was good! I have wanted to go since it opened last year and the girls were in total agreement once I sent them the menus over! 

Our main issue was how on earth we were going to narrow down what we were going to have. We each had at least three different things we really wanted to try. And then they gave us a specials menu! We ignored that in the end and made some strict choices with ourselves. L and I ended up with the Pulled Pork Sandwich and H had the Sliders (3 mini burgers). She had a side of skin on fries with hers and I had onion rings with mine. Oh, and H had some of the most amazing crackling too. She rather generously let us share it with her. 

Best sandwich I think I have ever eaten. I wish I could have had more! The people on the table next to us had something called a Waffle Tower burger which was just a ridiculously large plateful of food!

Pulled Pork Sandwich, Onion Rings, Mississpi Mud Pie and shake, L with both our shakes :)

After eating our mains we turned our attention to the desserts. Both L and I were determined to have a milkshake because they just sounded so tasty. I did manage to talk myself out of the booze infused one I had my eye on. I shall go back just to have one on it's own. It would do it more justice.

We both had the Peanut Butter and Salted Caramel shakes. I had Mississippi Mud Pie, L had Pecan Pie and H had a Brownie Heaven Sundae. 

Afterward we were incredibly full! But so happy. L and I got take-away cups for the last bit of our milkshakes and we went on our merry way. We hit The Works, Lakeland and Boyes before having to part ways so L could make it back to her car and we could collect madam. 

Having collected madam from school, seen another friend E for a quick chat and been to collect a few final things we headed in to Hull for our overnight stay at the Travelodge in the centre. Yeah, not awfully scenic, but near enough to most things in Hull that we could walk wherever we were going. 

The original plan had been dinner and then cinema, but H and I still being really quite full coupled with an early film time made it a no-no. We ended up deciding to have a later meal and just enjoy that and then go for a Kids Club cinema showing on the Saturday morning.

Friday nights tea was had at Nando's. Mainly because we knew madam would definitely eat something and I wanted somewhere that would do a good salad! I had a Mediterranean Salad with Halloumi and Avacado extra. It was delicious and so refreshing after all that meat earlier! Madam had veggie fingers and chips and H had half a chicken with rice and salad. 

Mediterranean Salad with Halloumi and Avacado

Mummy and madam do duck face!

We walked back to the hotel and tried to persuade madam that it was bedtime. It didn't go awfully well, but eventually tiredness overtook her and she fell asleep. As did H, which left me watching All About Steve (possibly the worst film ever? What where you thinking Sandra Bullock?!) whilst drinking the last of my cider. Sounds sad and lonely, but I couldn't have been happier! Such a peaceful end to the day, really.

We had booked breakfast in with our room so went downstairs and had a massive cooked feast before packing up to check out before heading to the cinema. Having made a slight (ok, quite big) balls up over booking tickets we ended up going to see Frozen again! 

And then madam insisted she needed a McDonalds for lunch. So we did that and then headed home to let the cats out. H had to head home and I rather hoped madam would want a nap. Wrong. 

I napped for a bit whilst she bounced around watching CBeebies. We voted for fishfingers for tea. And then we watched Britain's Got Talent until it was time to pick the parents up from the airport. The glamour. 

I had such a lovely couple of days and my friend V's dad popped round to drop me off some fab prezzies from her. The only bad thing has been madam managing to break the screen on my laptop! Not good. But as you can tell from the fact I'm still blogging, it is still working, just a bit hard to see everything I'm doing!

I hope you've been having a good weekend.

Love, Pearl.

Lifestyle - Honeysuckle Farm, Hornsea

I have taken some more photos of Spring flowers to add to my collection of signs of spring, but I shall restrain myself for today as there were loads to add to this post already! (I collaged them to save space!) 

Yesterday (26/3) madam's school was closed due to the teacher's strike. So we decided to take advantage of the situation and go and visit our local farm. This is one of our favourite days out and we try and go a couple of times during their short opening season. 

They opened this weekend just gone (22/3) and they will close on the last day of the school summer holidays. Meaning madam cannot have her birthday party there no matter how much she wants to! Anyhow, we had avoided opening day as we thought it would be stupidly busy and had planned a visit this weekend coming. Having to find something to do on Weds led to a rather easy choice. 

We decided that we would try and make it in time to see the milking demonstration. This is at 1.30 and we don't usually make it in time! This is cause we usually go after lunch. Madam and I petitioned to be allowed to have a picnic this time and this meant we set off early enough to get there...

When we arrived we were impressed with the new entrance and layout of the milking area. Madam wriggled to the front and then ran away back to my dad as everyone shouted good afternoon to the dairy hand! She's a wimp with loud noises. The guy was really good, very informative and pitched it at the right level for the 5yr olds to understand what was going on. 

that's the Pearl parents getting their heads in all my photos!

The woman behind me that was surprised that cows needed to have a calf to provide milk made me rather depressed. She was a teacher... FFS! Also, the guy that asked why they only used female cows... (really. Really!)

After the milking demo we let madam loose in the barn to play on the hay bales, we also saw the rabbits, guinea pigs, kids and goats that live in there. We wandered round to see the pigs in their new enclosure which now has space for them to root. They were having a famous old time in there. 

Rabbits, pigs, madam taking it all in and the goats with their kids.

The red squirrel and the *massive* carp in the pond were all hiding out of the cold weather (don't blame them!). But what we came to see were the lambs. And there were loads of them, everywhere! So cute! We found a field with sheep who were still waiting to lamb and one of the farm hands explained that the different colours told you how many lambs they were having. Yellow for 1, Red for 2 and Orange for 3! 

So many sheep! 

The lambs once born all had matching numbers to their mothers and madam was rather thrilled to see a pair together! We did see lots of other things too. The calves and cows were in one field and horses in another. Everywhere there were beautiful primroses in bloom and we saw loads of frogspawn in the ponds. 

There weren't as many ducks as we've seen before, but many more chickens! Tommy the horse was pulling the cart for the rides and Tinkerbell was in the stalls getting her feet seen to by the farrier. I didn't get a photo of her though, sadly. 

Tommy in his finery, an all-over blue/green mallard, the herefords and madam in the car on the way home!

All in all we had a great time as usual and it's a fairly inexpensive day out. I think my dad paid £15.50 for all four of us. We will be back again at the end of the Summer to see how much everything has changed in those months. Madam would go every week if she could! There are loads of play areas dotted about and you can feed all the animals as you go round.

It's definitely a favourite place of ours, do you have anywhere you go all the time?

Love, Pearl.

   

Being Creative

I can't believe it's March already... It seems to have flown by. I guess that's what I get for being actually quite busy... I was rather enjoying the start of spring yesterday, the nicer weather and the flowers suddenly appearing all over was quite a nice change from the dismal grey of the last few weeks.

Yesterday I also came across a new blog that I rather enjoyed reading. It's called being little. and has lots of loveliness on it. I did spend quite a while reading recent posts... But it was actually yesterday's post that really struck me. 

On it was a list of Creative Prompts for March. The idea is to draw something every day that fits the prompt. Now, I do love a doodle, and the typography ones are right up my street, but I think I shall have to use my own creative urges to fulfill some of the briefs! For example, Day 1 was pattern. I would normally have drawn something, but my latest crochet project took up all my time yesterday and is a pattern, so I used that!

I have no idea why the bottom of this photo has disappeared :( And the colours are *much* brighter IRL

I am trying to make sure I put all my projects on to Ravelry, with photos, so if you want to know what I'm doing on there why don't you follow me and check out my other projects :)

Today I had to draw the contents of my bag, so I did a rather poor sketch of everything I carry around with me all the time... I confess I forgot to draw the eyeliner and mascara I have in the little pocket, but I'm hoping no-one will hold that against me! I also took a photo of everything together to prove I had got everything.

I am a walking advert for the loveliness of paperchase things! Also, if you look carefully at the clouds notebook you can see a madam artwork peeking through the clear  parts of the cover :)

So, I am going to keep going and see if I can do everything on the list there is a Twitter/Instagram hashtag to follow if you're interested to see how everyone is getting on... #BLCreativePrompts there are already some pretty amazing things going on out there and I am excited to be part of it.

Are you guys doing anything exciting at the moment? Let me know...

    

A busy old week so far

Well, hello! How are you? What have you been doing with yourselves? I have been all over the place in the last few days! I shall begin at the beginning and see where we go from there.

First of all, I finished the other mitten! Here it is, complete with fastening sewn in place. Cute, no?

As mentioned in my post from the other day we went to the panto on Monday. We set off fairly early on Monday morning so that we got a bit of shopping time in before having lunch. This was quite painful as madam and I have been enjoying our lie-ins whilst we've been on Christmas holidays. But we knew we would be getting back in to it with school starting on Tuesday anyway.

So, madam and I did a bit of shopping around York and got my mum a magazine with a free sewing pattern that I thought she would like. We also got madam some Frozen stickers to go in her new album. She has not stopped talking about Frozen since we went to see it with the Guides in the middle of December. And I still love that it contains a song that references fractals :)

We did end up in the Disney shop as well, somehow... I managed to drag madam away and we went and looked at pretty shoes in Schuh for a bit before heading over to the restaurant where we were meeting my parents and younger bro for lunch. 

Having lunched hugely on risotto and ice cream we headed to the York Theatre Royal for the panto to start at 2.30pm. Madam was so excited and I was a little worried she'd fidget. But I should have known better. She sat through the entire first half completely glued to what she was watching and with her mouth open like a fish! 

When the first half finished she looked devastated whilst I took her to the bathroom. I managed to find that this was because she thought the show was over! I promised her there was another half to come and reminded her that Grandpa had foolishly promised her an(other) ice cream! She perked up rather a lot at this prospect!

The second half brought more fish impressions and another sad face as the panto finally drew to a close. Her favourite thing had been the Gene Genie and the bit where they had gone into a filmed section and one of the characters had ended up upside down in a bin. She chattered about it non-stop on the bus back to the car-park but was so tired by then she just leant on my shoulder quietly on the drive home.

Tuesday was back to school day and I also had to go and sign on. I went round to the folks to get myself ready for the Jobcentre. It always makes me feel like I've done something wrong. I got to my appointment a few minutes early but then had to sit and wait, and wait, and wait! I was kept waiting for nearly 45mins which is not good when you're already feeling kind of anxious. 

I ended up having a half an hour or so consultation when it was finally my turn. I am looking to change my job search as I am not finding anything really to apply for. They offered to sign me up to a (and I hate this title) Fast Track 2 Work course. I, of course, said yes. I'm all for a course :) The drawback is that it is in Driffield and that I had to have a one-on-one interview before being accepted. Again, in Driffield. 

And that is what I did yesterday. I got my dad to give me a lift (aren't dad's great?) and went for a chat with the lady that will be running the course. She had also come in from Beverley to chat to me (ah, yes, bureaucracy is stupid). Anyway, we drew up a learning agreement and I told her, honestly, about the things I find hard about job searching (the forms, the phonecalls, the lack of self-worth!). She has promised she can help. Excellent. So I start this course next Tuesday (14th) and it runs until 4th Feb.

Today is the first day I have had to myself this week, I am quite enjoying being back at my fave cafe nursing one bottle of diet coke for as long as possible! They know me quite well, they don't mind!

And how is my reading going? Quite well actually. I have already read 3 books this year and am about a third of the way through an actual Georgette Heyer. I'm just starting another on my Kindle and will hopefully get that finished shortly. I think this is setting itself up to be a reading year. In the same way that last year was all about the crochet and the year before was knitting! 

I seem to only obsess over one thing at a time...     

annual mushroom hunt 2013

At about this time last year we went on a mushroom hunt with madam and my parents. We got some great photos and found an enormous amount of different ones. All just in a field near the chalk quarry which is up a public footpath which starts near my parents house. That image on the sidebar is of madam standing near one.

 

So today we thought we would go hunting again, speculating that we would find loads. But sadly we didn't find the same variety as last year, and none of the big fairy rings were in evidence... However, there were still loads in the field and madam really enjoyed it. Here are the photos we took :)