Little House on the Lees

Making a funeral wreath.

2012-02-09T15:09:00.000-08:00

Last week was Supergranddad's funeral.

Mum put in the announcement 'family flowers only'.

Lots of people do this now, suggesting that donations be made to a charity.

It's a good idea, especially when you see just how much flowers cost.

When I looked up the cost of flowers to send, I was shocked but I wanted to send some so I decided to make my own wreath. After looking at some images for funeral wreaths, I came up with this one, inspired by a rosemary wreath I saw being advertised at $150!

First I bought an oasis wreath costing £3, and using greenery from the garden, pushed in the first layer working in an anticlockwise direction.
Then I made some fatsia japonica (also from garden) details at the top and bottom of the wreath followed by some lillies bought at the local supermarket - costing £5.
I filled in the rest with rosemary - also from the garden.

Total cost: £8.
I've no flower arranging training so I may not have done things as a professional would...

but, I thought it looked lovely and when I returned to the grave at the end of the week, the very expensive funeral spray (which did look fabulous on the day) had not lasted as well as my wreath which was as fresh as new.

The Iron Lady.

2012-02-01T14:41:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was Supergranddad's funeral.

Some of us rellies arranged to go to the cinema in the evening to see the new film about Margaret Thatcher, former prime minister.

It didn't exactly cheer us up though. The film mainly focused on her dementia and it was a very moving and convincing performance by Meryl Streep. Honor came to see it too. I think she found it quite hard to follow and I don't know that it gave her a good picture of what went on during that era, but she said it was interesting. She had heard about the miners strikes before from the film Billy Elliot.

I wonder if Lady Thatcher and her family have seen the film and how they feel about it.

Feast of St Brigid of Ireland

2012-02-01T14:02:00.000-08:00

Today, 1st February, is St Brigid's day. At the weekend the kids and I made these crosses out of pipe cleaners as shown on the Catholic Icing site. (Please see sidebar for the link).
As Henry and his First Communion group have been learning about the Saints, we brought them along on Sunday to show the rest of his group. Some of the other parents who were brought up in Ireland were familiar with the tradition of cross weaving on this feast day.
Here is Henry's cross made out of the Irish flag colours.

I looked up the story of St Brigid on the good ol' internet to tell the children and picked out these snippets about her that I thought the kids would appeal to them most:

-her parents were baptised by St Patrick.

-she was a very beautiful girl who wanted to become a nun. But she attracted a lot of attention from men so she prayed to God to have her beauty taken away. Her prayer was granted so Brigid's father agreed to let her become a nun. As soon as she had taken her final vows, her beauty returned!

- While sitting beside the bed of a dying pagan chieftain, Brigid bent down and picked up some reeds that were lying on the floor and began weaving them into a cross and told the chieftain all about the life of Jesus. The chieftain converted to Christianity.

- Because she was so lovely and gentle, she reminded people of Jesus' mother Mary and is sometimes known as Mary of the Irish

-her parents were not married when she was born and she is therefore a patron saint of children of unmarried parents; also children with abusive parents and students.

- Her flower is the madonna lily.

The loft conversion

2012-01-29T05:45:00.000-08:00

I mentioned before that we recently had our loft converted into an ensuite bedroom and promised to share some photos... so here they are! I took the photos last night so they are a bit dark, but during the day, what, with six velux windows installed, it is a very light filled room indeed. The only thing I disapprove of is that now, when I look in the mirror, I can see how old I look!

We were very pleased with the local builders that we used. They got on with the job, from start to finish without disappearing off to do other stuff, and were happy finish off the whole room including decorating and laying the flooring, it all within the budget.
They built in these wardrobes....

... and this little bathroom cupboard with glass shelves and lights in the shower room.

We love it! Thanks!!!!

Doubling dominoes

2012-01-28T16:48:00.000-08:00

Oh, and here are some more maths bits that we did; finding different ways of making 12 and practising doubling numbers.

We use these dominoes that I purchased from a website called taskmaster. I own quite a few sets now including percentage calculations and fractions of numbers. I find them very useful.

Crazy about cuisenaire!

2012-01-28T16:28:00.000-08:00

I'm getting more and more into using the cuisenaire rods with the kids to help them in their understanding of maths concepts. They are so useful and the children enjoy 'doing maths' like this.
This morning, Henry used them to learn about odd and even numbers...

... and number bonds to 10 using the rods to make '10' trains to match the orange rod.

He then recorded his work on the sheet.

Following this, we looked at adding some series of 3 numbers, 2 of which made 10 and then adding on the third number. He got the hang of all this very quickly.

Then we got out the base ten set and practised adding 10's and 100's to a variety of 2 and 3 digit numbers so that he could see physically how the numbers change in a specific place. He was then able to complete some number sequences easily.

Granddad

2012-01-25T14:49:00.000-08:00

My granddad, or Supergranddad as we call him as he was a great-grandfather aged 95, died last Monday evening. He suffered a stroke a little while before Christmas and was unable to recover. He was very well cared for by my Mum and Uncle and the hospital staff, though it's been a very painful time for Mum and Uncle struggling with communication difficulties and watching him deteriorate and suffer. Now they are busy preparing for the funeral. I've been able to help a bit with this, but Mum and Uncle have most of it well under control.

Even though Granddad was 95 and had had a stroke, well, we knew he wouldn't go on forever, his dying still feels shocking. Age has nothing to do with it, his absence will leave a hole in our lives. Right up 'til the end, I could have conversations with him and get a more intelligent response than most people I know (no offense!) and he had a fantastic memory - puts mine to shame! And he kept himself as fit as he could too, working on his allotment, cycling, walking everywhere and wouldn't be beaten by his first stroke. The recovery he made from that was astounding. But this last stroke was too much for him and I'm glad that he's now at peace.

So, now, guess what? I've been trying to follow his example since New Year by trying to live a healthier, more active life. It's not easy and I'm building up slowly, but I have my bike out now and am using it. I don't get far. I am extremely unfit and I have to carry Hope on the back which adds to the weight. She'd make a good personal trainer as she shrieks "come on! go faster Mummy" and " we're not going home, yet!"

This afternoon I cycled up to the cricket ground where two new benches have recently been placed. One of them is in memory of the young lad, Jack, from next door who died just over a year ago and the other one is for Ricky, another young man from the neighbourhood who died last year.

I've just got back from another panto rehearsal with the kids. It's coming together nicely now and although I've seen it several times, it still makes me laugh. I'll be sorry when it's all over which won't be long now.

Scenes from Christmas - a late post.

2012-01-16T14:21:00.000-08:00

Oh look. I've just found some pictures taken over the Christmas holidays. I know we are half way through January but I thought I'd share 'em anyway. I don't know if you have noticed, but it seems that public swimming pools tend to be quiet at this time, so we had a very pleasant time at this one in Deal, which had some flumes and a wave machine and a good toddler pool for Hope. I'm going to try and take her swimming more often.
These pics are from Boxing Day. Here's Auntie Vicky playing carols on the piano while we sing along.
I love this picture: do Jingle Bells again!
... blowing bubbles.
And opening pressies on Christmas day.

Hope loves her fairy wings and magic 'blond'!

Happy New Year.

2012-01-16T13:51:00.000-08:00

I'm still here. Just had a little blogging break while getting through Christmas and New Year. Plus - we've had the builders in over the last few months converting our loft into an en suite bedroom. Hubby and I got to move into it over Christmas so we no longer share a room with Hope. Now we all have our own rooms. I shall have to post some pics soon. It's lovely to have our own space again, though the kids still manage to muscle their way in sometimes. For Christmas, Hubby bought me the first season of Lost and I decided to let Honor watch it with me, all snuggled up. Now she is totally hooked and we've stayed up really late some nights watching episode after episode. I'm still trying to make sense of it.

Honor and Henry are still involved in rehearsals for the local pantomime. I'm still enjoying the practise nights and have now been given the job as prompt. I have to really concentrate on the action and the script and it's not easy knowing if the actors have paused for dramatic effect or need help. I think one or two of those thespians get a bit irritated if I jump in too soon with their lines!

Apart from that, it's back to the usual routine.

Elves in the loft?

2011-12-06T15:12:00.000-08:00

I got the Christmas decorations out today.

I don't get it.

I specifically remember putting them all away tidily and well organised into their boxes at the end of the season last year.

But they didn't come back out that way.

Why is that?

I don't get it!!!

Plasticine fun.

2011-11-27T13:57:00.000-08:00

I don't consider myself to be the most creative of people especially when it comes to taking part in plasticine and playdough activities. Believe it or not, I've spent a fair few hours trawling the internet for some inspiring plasticine tutorials but have so far been unsuccessful. Hope loves getting these modelling materials out but I often feel a bit useless when it comes to giving her a bit of direction. So on this occasion we had to rely on our own creative skills; as we had just been looking at The Hungry Caterpillar finger puppet book we decided to make delicious plate of fruit.
And counted: one apple, two juicy pears, three tart plums, four sweet strawberries and five oranges. We also had to make a banana!

And a beautiful butterfly with two wings!

Practical life

2011-11-21T13:27:00.001-08:00

Here is an update of the practical learning activities that the children have been doing around the house lately. Hope enjoys doing a variety of Montessori tasks such as using tongs (though she often cheats and uses her fingers) to pass objects such as little plastic frogs from a container into the portions of an ice-cube tray.
In these pics she is transferring water from the left bowl to the right using a sponge. These activities are thought to get young children ready for the left to right process in learning to read. Then we played with the little frogs, counting them and making them jump from pool to pool.
Henry uses these base ten blocks which are fabulous for helping him understand loads of number concepts.
Here, we are about to follow a recipe for cheese stars from this jolly phonics book.

And I set up this pet shop to help the kids learn about adding up money and calculating change. This play till cost £10 and as well as calculating mentally, the children checked their answers using the till as preparation for future SATs tests that they sit in school - one of the papers is a calculator paper.
More uses for ice-cube trays! I've almost managed to sort out my homemade moveable alphabet. I just need one more for my vowel sounds.
We use this alphabet for word building. I am currently making a new set of tactile letters for Hope. I used to have a set of sandpaper one that I made years ago but they got ruined when the hot water tank leaked into our cupboard. As I don't much like the feel of sandpaper and find it quite tough to cut the letters out, I decided this time to use foam board and lighter foam to make these.

The website MontessoriMom.com has some great ideas and free resources.

Stuff and nonsense.

2011-11-18T08:15:00.000-08:00

I don't know why I don't invite the children's friends round more often as it seems to be the only time they leave me alone to a bit of peace and quiet. At last I get to catch up on a bit of blogging. Today is Children in Need day and the children went to school wearing spots and took part in activities to raise money for this worthy cause. So last night I was up 'til midnight sewing spots on Henry's blue t-shirt. We've agreed to put the t-shirt away somewhere carefully afterwards so that he'll have something to wear next year and I'll be able to go to bed a bit earlier! Before I started on the sewing, I had taken Honor and Henry to the rehearsal for the pantomime that they're involved in with a local theatre group. We absolutely love going to these rehearsal evenings. It's great for the kids to be working alongside other people of all ages and it's such a fun and uplifting way to spend the evening. Of course, the kids love it even more because they get to stay up late. Honor, in particular, is really getting into the performing arts side of life. She's now going to guitar lessons (Hubby goes with her and tries to learn too!) And she has joined a performing arts school on a Saturday which she loves. They practise one hour of singing, one of dancing and one of acting. I think Henry would enjoy it too so maybe he'll join a bit later on.

And I've just received an email from the NHS. They do a national weighing and measuring programme in schools and are about to go into Honor's class to gather their statistics. After they measured Henry in Reception class and called him obese I decided I wasn't going to play this game anymore! So I let them know that HM wouldn't be taking part and to redirect the money they might save into paying for someone to feed the starving and neglected old people in hospital. My comments have been passed on to the head of dept.

Playdough and hand therapy

2011-10-21T10:55:00.000-07:00

Some of Henry's hand therapy exercises involve playdough.

I made some myself using the following method:

I mixed 3 cups of flour, 1/2 cup of salt and 2 tablespoons of cream of tartar in a bowl.

Meanwhile, I boiled 2 cups of water with 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil and then added the liquid slowly to the dry ingredients.

I divided the dough up and coloured the portions using Morrisons natural food colourings. The colourings were quite wishy washy and it took quite a lot to get a decent amount of colour into the dough. But I quite like the earthy tones that were finally produced.

And all three kids, from age 2 - 10 years couldn't wait to get playing with it...

Honor and Henry got bored after about fifteen minutes, but little Hope needed coaxing away from it when it eventually became time for dinner and was not at all happy when I cleared it all away!

The Waldorf toddler group.

2011-10-20T15:29:00.000-07:00

I think I mentioned before that I take Hope to a toddler group arranged by the local Waldorf Steiner private school. It really is a very nice, natural play experience for little ones and this time I took the liberty of taking a few pics of their gorgeous displays.
At the moment, a lady from the school brings all this stuff over to a village hall and sets it all up for us parents and toddlers to enjoy, but soon it shall run from the school itself.
Here is Hope playing in one of the many playstands - this one has been set up with this beautiful wooden kitchen set.

And this mobile, if you can see it clearly in the photo, was made there from natural materials (seeds, leaves, sheep's wool, feathers, etc) brought in by one of the teachers.

Another trip to London

2011-10-20T14:42:00.000-07:00

Hello!

What a busy week it's been so far.

On Monday, Henry had his long awaited appointment at The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Kings Cross, London with a specialist doctor to discuss the apparent problems with the nerves in Henry's hand following his accident. The doctor thinks his hand will improve with plenty of physio and probably won't need to have another operation. So that is good news.

We decided to travel up by car because the train is outrageously expensive but the journey up there during rush hour was pretty bad and we only just made the appointment on the dot. We were straight in and straight out again and as Henry has found all this 'arm palava' a bit of a nuisance, and he is very fascinated by London, we promised that we'd take him to The Museum of Natural History.
Having recently visited The Doctor Who Experience, we decided to go back to the same car park by the Kensington Olympia which cost us £15 and take a taxi (costing an average of £9) to the museum which was not too far away. Entrance to the museum was free.
The dinosaur exhibit was, in Henry's words, awesome!

Here is Henry face to face with a King Cobra!

The three of us really enjoyed this part of the trip and it was great to be able to talk to Henry by himself about what we were looking at. Usually, we do stuff all together but Honor and Henry tend to behave like loonies when they are together (Hubby has now dubbed them Berk and Hair after the notorious duo Burke and Hare) and it's often difficult to have sensible conversations with them. And I commented to Hubby about how, if we homeschooled, I'd come to places like this all the time. But then I remembered that I'm the mother of three very crazy kids and there were a couple of times when we had to prevent Henry from launching himself over the balcony of the blue whale exhibit and so I'll let some other teacher worry about that for a while!

On another note (sorry Hubby!) just thought I'd mention that I really like the latest single Paradise by Coldplay. I'm sorry - but I do!

Secondary school transfer

2011-10-11T15:23:00.000-07:00

I'm not long back from visiting another secondary school for Honor. We've so far been to visit two faith schools both of which we were impressed with. The two girls that gave us a tour were fantastic - so chatty, informative and brimming over with personality. A good sign. I don't feel much like looking at any more but we have to list four choices on our application and I think transport to these two schools that we liked is going to be a problem...

Last weekend - pilgrimage to Bruges

2011-10-08T06:12:00.001-07:00

Last Saturday, 1st October, Mum, Honor and I joined a group from our church and from the catholic churches of Canterbury and Herne Bay on a pilgrimage to the beautiful city of Bruges in Belgium. Honor and I had to get up very early, 5.30 am to be on time for the coach which took us on the ferry to Calais, France and on to Bruges. As I said, it was the 1st October and it was, well, very hot! Pushing 30 degrees in fact which made the coach journey a little unpleasant. I didn't think the air conditioning was up to much!
But once off the coach, we had a very relaxing time browsing the many chocolate shops and having a nice, leisurely lunch before gathering at a chapel for Mass.

I bought some nice handmade wooden toys to bring home for Hope and Henry, though everything was very expensive.

This weekend we are doing a lot of clearing out and moving the children's bedrooms around and Hope will soon be going into a room of her own. I'm looking forward to being able to decorate that! So far it has been hard work and the state of Henry's room has had Hubby rather displeased. I'm glad to say that the weather has got seasonally cooler, though a pleasant day has been forecast for tomorrow, so perhaps we'll do something nice then.

Roald Dahl themed book week

2011-10-07T14:34:00.001-07:00

This week was 'Book Week' at the children's school and today they had to dress as Roald Dahl characters. I must admit that when the parentmail email arrives to say that it's time to come up with an outfit, I'm not usually overwhelmed with excitement. The headteacher appreciates that not everyone will be up to sitting up all night papier mache - ing (what is the verb for this?) a giraffe's head and so the option of wearing yellow (apparently Dahl's favourite colour) was given to us as an alternative... gawd bless you, maam! However, Honor was absolutely defo that she wanted to go as Veruca Salt - the spoiled brat, ahem, I mean princess, from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. She loves the original (Gene Wilder) film, more than the Johnny Depp version and does a superb impression of this character.
I thought it might be quite tough to find a similar red and black outfit to the one Veruca wears in the film, but my mother found the red cardigan on sale in ASDA for £1.50!!! and the skirt was from Matalan for £7. Not bad. And they are clothes that she can wear anytime.
Henry went as Mike Teavee, another golden ticket winner who wears a cowboy outfit. Simples!
My favourite part of the whole thing is arriving at school in the morning to see how everyone is looking. There were indeed some very impressive papier mache props and other amazing outfits and hats off to them for the effort. (HM, incidentally, got picked to have her picture taken for the local paper).

Great fun!

The Doctor Who Experience

2011-09-18T14:49:00.000-07:00

Well. The kids have settled into a new term at school and Ma and Pa have to start looking around for a secondary school for Honor. The obvious choice was the local catholic school... until recently when the lovely Government decided to withdraw help with transport so we're now thinking it she'll lose out on this. Still, we'll wait and see.

Meanwhile, last weekend Henry had his seventh birthday so yesterday we took Henry and Honor on a surprise trip up to London to the Doctor Who Experience at the Olympia in Kensington. You should have seen their faces! You should have seen our faces!!! We were taken through the time vortex on an interactive journey in the tardis helping the Doctor escape from the Pandorica 2(!), fighting daleks, cybermen and weeping angels. It was a bit scary in places; I thought Honor was going to get upset when a 3D image of a weeping angel lunged at her, but we had a really fantastic and thrilling time. After the show, there was a museum of all the costumes and models of the monsters to look around and a chance to wander around the set of the tardis.

Later, we hailed a London cab and headed off to Kensington Gardens so that the kids could play in the Princess Diana Memorial Playground. It started to rain so Hubby and I sat under a bush with the squirrels while the kids ran about having a great time!

A brilliant day... and we were home in time to see... yes... Dr Who!

Stay on these roads.

2011-09-04T15:03:00.000-07:00

I've attached this clip (see post below) of A-ha from the Oslo Memorial concert for the recent terrorist attack victims at the youth camp in Norway. The band split up recently but reunited for this special tribute.

It is beautiful.

Terrorists will never win.

a-ha live - Stay on These Roads - Oslo Spektrum - 21-08-2011

2011-09-04T15:00:00.000-07:00

They think it's all over....

2011-09-03T11:49:00.000-07:00

it is now!

Wow! That went quick, didn't it? The summer holidays flew by and I barely blogged about them.

Here is a little summary of what we got up to...

Hubby has been building a kitchen/barbecue area by the veg patch so that we can cook outdoors a la Nigel Slater style. The veg patch has got wildly out of control with me pretty much unable to reach the runner beans. But the pumpkins and courgettes are the biggest I've ever seen! We've had a much better tomato crop this year, too. Even the kids, who won't normally touch tomatoes (goodness knows why?!) have not been able to resist scrumping from the greenhouse!
Our Italian relatives made their usual summer visit, driving up through France and camping their way back again. The children enjoyed meeting up with cousin Eve again for fun and frolics. This was one of the very few occasions when the kids got to use the pool. Most of the summer holiday was lacking on the warm weather front.

I actually got around to doing a bit more sewing, making this table runner for our outdoor table from more fabric scraps from the local market stall. Please don't look at it too closely. It is a bit wobbly and all hand-sewn.

Henry had more hospital appointments because he has not regained the use of his hand. We made the most of his appointment at Deal hospital by going on to the country park there and hiring some bikes. Henry had to go in the cart with Hope. But, following some physio, he can now ride his own bike since that outing. He has more treatment to come.
We spent most of the holiday at home, but we did have a day out at Kew Gardens in London.

Kew is one of my favourite places and since my last visit, just over ten years ago, they have built some fabulous play areas for the kids. My little lot absolutely loved the indoor creepy crawly playground in which the children become bugs and get to experience what it is like to crawl in and out of plants and flowers. We couldn't get them out of there... not even for an ice-cream! The ice-creams, incidentally, were amazing. I wasn't go to buy them one (at £2.50 each!) but Hubby wanted to treat the kids (and himself!) so he did. I had a lick or two of Honor's coconut and lemon one and thought that maybe they were indeed worth the money! Mmmmmm!

During the last week of the hols, we gave up with maintaining the water in the pool for nothing and so we took it down and put up the teepee from last year instead. Honor and Henry transformed it into a hospital using a camp bed, a small table, a pile of paper and a roll of toilet paper (for bandages!) Henry looked quite the part sitting at his desk writing out prescriptions!

So they are back at school now, we had special prayers and breakfast on their first day, and the autumn tv schedule has started with the return of Celebrity Big Brother - shame we don't get Channel 5 so I can't follow the progress of JEdward, the X-Factor and my fav: Doctor Who! I love Dr Who and the first episode with the beginning of River Song was absolutely cracking. I decided, though, that the kids couldn't watch it tonight as the episode 'Night Terrors' was about a little boy with monsters in his toy cupboard. No, really? Far too spooky. Sorry, kids xxxx

Hot.

2011-08-04T13:00:00.000-07:00

It has been very hot the last few days. (I can hear my brother in Adelaide sniggering at that statement!) But really, it has. We've been to the beach and I've tried hard to keep my cool looking after the kids. It's not been easy. I got very hot n bovvered yesterday putting up the big splash pool at the bottom of the garden. The kids kept running up wanting to know when they could get in it and didn't appear to understand me when I explained that it takes hours to fill. It took seven hours to fill and so wasn't ready for them until this morning.

And of course, this morning, it was raining. That didn't deter them, though. Oh no. They were desperate to jump in. So here they are... getting very cold. They lasted about ten minutes.
Hope and I sat in the summer house and watched, bemused, until Honor and Henry gave up, and, shivering, demanded that I make them some hot chocolate.
So. Here they are with their hot chocolate and cakes about to watch The Voyage of the Dawn Treader on DVD while I hoover and clean the floor - again.

About four o'clock this afternoon they asked if they could go back in the pool.

I said "no".

2011-07-29T13:59:00.000-07:00

Excuse me if I seem a little distracted but there is a wild, ginger kitten tearing up and down the room, trying to yank the power supply with his teeth from the laptop as I try to blog about my latest crafting.
Here it is. A scrappy heart that I made yesterday evening. It is very rustic. I'm no seamstress and maybe making this while also sipping a glass of Hubby's homebrew and watching Torchwood at the same time, gives it that extra thrown together feel!
I had to make this after seeing the lovely one made on Sarah Sellers 'Tranquil, Peaceful, Calm' website. The pattern came from the book above 'Fast Fabric Gifts'. So I bought the book (don't tell Hubby!) and made one from the fabric bundles I keep buying off the local market stall. I've placed it on the mantlepiece with along with the 'LOVE' ornament that I bought at the Wildwood giftshop and the teddy that I bought in the Cath Kidston sale today. Hubby keeps complaining about the teddy - that it is so well camouflaged (I thought, blended in) against the wallpaper that it is like a 'predatator' teddy. He likes my scrappy heart, though. Of course he does!
And... Auntie Julia came round today bearing gifts. Julia teaches a drama class and recently (can't remember if I blogged about this) we went to see one of her excellent shows. This car was a prop in one of the scenes and Henry was obsessed with it. My Uncle Ken made it and they said Henry could have it when the shows were over. So here it is - in The Lost Garden of of Hooligans. It's great. They love it. Thank YOU!!!

Le weekend

2011-07-25T14:00:00.000-07:00

All week, the children have been coming home from school with armfuls of paper and card as the big end-of-term clear out got underway. In anticipation of our new arrival, Henry brought hom this enormous cardboard box. He said it was to be the bed for the new kitten. But then all three children got into it and went for a wild ride. One hour later and it wasn't much good for anything.

This was our lunch on Saturday. Just simple ol' nachos with guacamole and soured cream. The drink is a watermelon cooler. It's just watermelon whizzed up with a scoop of ice-cream in the top. When I was pregnant with Henry, I had one of these in a mexican cafe and was hooked on them. Lovely.

And here he is. Little, ginger, fluffy Hugo. He is seven weeks old and adorable.

Another Wildwood maths trail

2011-07-25T13:40:00.000-07:00

It's the summer holidays again! Woo, hoo!

We started ours with a maths trail at the wildlife park, Wildwood again. I can't believe it is a whole year since I posted about the last one. The questions were quite similar to the last one, with HM working out how long the journey there took, how fast I was going (60 mph) and how far would we get in half an hour. At the entrance she had to work out the cost for a family of four and then what the saving would be if the special family ticket was purchased.

Henry's questions involved recording times, speed, money etc. They both had to record the numbers of adders, wolves and rats seen and construct a bar graph to show the info. HM had to construct a pie chart also.

This is the beaver dam. They are huge (asleep in their burrows ) but Hope had been waiting all this time to see her favourite animals... the baby ducklings!

I intend to do a lot more of this sort of thing over the next six weeks.

A bit of home-grown and home-made.

2011-07-20T12:50:00.000-07:00

Oh! Look at me! Back on blogger, two days in a row. This might have something to do with Hubby having commandeered the telly to watch "The Legend of '81"- a documentary about Ian Botham (yawn).

Just look at my veggie patch, there. It has a life of it's own. At the bottom of our garden is an awesome looking field of sweetcorn and in spite of never seeing a farmer, it is all growing in nice neat rows with not a weed in sight. Now, I'm not the most conscientious of gardeners but I do try my best to potter among the veg and flowers, trying to keep things tidy in between school runs, cooking, shopping, teaching, washing... etc etc. I only have to turn my back for 5 mins and all sorts of things crop up/ die/ get eaten before I can stop it. However, some mysterious 'weeds' have grown up among the lettuces bearing pretty purple flowers. I have no idea what they are but I have left them alone for aesthetic value.
But this post is about what I have been up to in the kitchen this week, really. I have been combining our homegrown veg with leftovers to make up this weeks meals as follows:

Sunday: Roast chicken dinner (including my mothers cabbage from her veg patch) (I saved the left over chicken carcass)

Monday: Boiled bacon and parsley sauce with tatties and supermarket veg. (I saved the remains of the bacon joint and some of the cooking water which included onions and celery).

Tuesday: Chicken and bacon pie with broad beans from my veg patch (made with leftover chicken and bacon and parsley sauce adding extra cream in a dish with leek and topped with puff pastry and more of Mum's cabbage).

Wednesday: Summer potage! A soup made from chicken stock that I made from the old carcass plus some of the bacon cooking water I had also saved. Then I added pearl barley, chopped chicken and bacon, more broad beans and lettuce from the veg patch and then I sent Hubby out to get a tin of chopped tomatoes to put in also.

Now, I was in the supermarket a few days ago and found a massive punnet of blueberries being sold as seconds for just 39p! They were fresh. I think, maybe, a few packets had split so they had been done up again like this. So, apart from putting some au naturel in the kids' lunchboxes, I made these blueberry muffins with them. The kids had the little ones for snack after school today. The big ones are for breakfast tomorrow. They are fantastic. The pics are a bit blurry (sorry) but can you see how the blueberries are juicily oozing out of these muffins? Num, num!

So here is today's dinner, the summer soup served with baguette and a selection of cheeses. I wasn't really looking forward to it at first, but it was delicious. I was almost tempted to open my Mum's bottle of homemade plum wine, but then thought "no. It's only Wednesday!" But then Hubby walked in with the tin of tomatoes... and a bottle of rose wine. 'Nuff said. Hubby and I were chatting about how much we both used to dislike pearl barley when we were children. But all our kids love it and we seem to like it now, too. Funny, that!
Look at those happy faces!

Tomorrow: sausage, mash 'n beans.

A bit more decorating.

2011-07-19T12:30:00.000-07:00

Some of our wallpaper needed tidying up a bit.

Here are the walls after Hubby stripped off the old wallpaper.

And here is the new wallpaper. It is very similar to the old one, I know. I saw it in a magazine (I shouldn't keep looking at these magazines!). It's from B&Q. When I got to the shop, I wasn't sure about how it looked on the roll, but I decided to take a chance with it, after all, it's for quite a small area. But once put up I think it looks very pretty.

I repainted the fireplace, too, with my posh paint!

Sweet!

2011-07-08T14:34:00.000-07:00

Today I took the kids to see our soon to be new member of the family... a gorgeous, ginger kitten. We are all very excited. One of Honor's friends from church has a cat who had four kittens and we are having one of them. At the moment, they have all been named after Harry Potter characters and ours is called Ron, but I think we are agreed that when he comes here, his name will be Hugo.

A maths update

2011-07-08T14:19:00.000-07:00

Here, Honor is working on pie chart fractions with plasticine.
And we've been using these rainbow fraction circles quite a bit lately.
Here, she is adding fractions with different denominators.

We used the fraction circles to visually demonstrate how to convert the fractions so that they have the same denominators.

Lazy Blogger Award

2011-06-24T15:57:00.000-07:00

If there were such an award, I'd win it. I have a fair bit of blogging, catching up to do. This post is just about our latest kitchen update. Hubby had to get the ceiling repaired after a leak left a big hole. So we decided to add a new cupboard, worktop, sink and these metro tiles that I got with my Tesco Clubcard vouchers. I've hung a couple of hearts made from buttons, too, which I think are very nice. I'd like to say that I made them myself, but I didn't. They are from Obidosh. I've painted the kitchen grey! A bit different for me, but I think it looks nice, broken up with all my paraphernalia!

Little House outdoors.

2011-06-24T15:43:00.000-07:00

With the warmer months here at last, the children spend more time playing outside. I've put a lot of their toys out in the gazebo along with a rug from the living room which has seen better days. Hope loves playing out here during the day, but so do the other two when they come home from school and I've set up a few 'home corner' props for their role play, like these scales and pebbles collected from the beach.
This old wash stand used to have plants in. Now it is being used to wash the doll's clothes...
before being hung up on the washing line.
Honor and Hope are building a fire to boil the kettle...

and now it is time for baby to go to bed...
and parents to chill!

2011-06-12T12:42:00.000-07:00

Just checking in to say that we recently had a lovely holiday on the Norfolk Broads and will update the blog soon when I get the photos sorted.

Happy Birthday to ME!

2011-05-23T13:00:00.000-07:00

Hello!

I haven't had a lot of time to blog recently, what, with hospital appointments and other stuff. Earlier this week, Mum and I attended the funeral of our former priest, Fr Tony Pelan at Aylesford Priory. He was a very good parish priest; an energetic and funny man. He married Hubby and I and baptised our Honor-May.

Yesterday was my birthday. My 40th birthday! I don't look it... do I???!

Here I am at the medieval fair again. We went there on my birthday last year. I think that I am even wearing the same top! It's well worn.
Just enjoying a Pimms while we watch a bit of archery and combat.

Hubby bought me a new coffee table. It is very nice, but the best thing about it was the box!

Look what we did with it...

Hours of fun has been had in this box by both young and old.

Honor and I made decorations for the gazebo.
This ribbon chandelier was made by covering an embroidery hoop in ribbon and tying lots of lengths of ribbon to it and I made the bunting from scrap fabric bundles that I bought on the local haberdashery market stall.
The flowers are a mix of supermarket and garden flowers. Hubby did order me some flowers from an on-line company but they haven't turned up yet. Neither have some birthday cards that family members posted days ago.

My friends, Glenn, Jancy and Lisa came for dinner which was the Aldi 3-bird roast, cooked by Hubby. It was fabulous. And we had the Eton Mess in brandy baskets that we had last year again 'cos they were great. Mmmmmmmmmmmm.

Life begins....

Lipstick...

2011-05-14T14:07:00.000-07:00

These photos are of Henry and Hope playing together under a tree at school. Honor was taking part in the 'potted sports' afternoon and we came to watch. That morning we had been to the hospital to have Henry's stitches removed. This had to be abandoned as Henry got very distressed about it all. They put a new, lightweight cast on for him and scheduled another appointment for the stitches to be removed under general anaesthetic.

On the way to school, we came across this baby bird. It could not fly. Henry was thrilled to get up so close to it, but we tried not to frighten it. I'm not sure what it is. Henry thinks it is a raven.

Yesterday Henry went back to the hospital to have his stitches out. He is now back in a heavy cast which has to stay on for another 5 weeks.

I'm watching the Eurovision song Contest tonight. I love it. I think quite a lot of the songs are good now, so it is hard to say who'll win - not that quality of song ever had anything to do with it - but I'm rooting for JEdward (Ireland) and I think Blue's entry for UK is quite good too, much better than last year's entry.

Royal Wedding Day

2011-04-29T14:52:00.000-07:00

Oh wow! What a day. Actually I got up pretty late today. Hubby left me in bed and looked after the kids so when I finally dragged myself out of bed and came downstairs at 11 o'clock, I found that Kate and Wills and everyone else had started without me! How rude!

So we watched Kate Middleton and Prince William get married on the telly and late afternoon we went round to Hubby's parents for a celebration tea.

It is compulsory, at times like this, to don a silly wig, hat or deely boppers, or all 3, put up some bunting and balloons and have a jolly good time!

We had a little drive around the town afterwards to look for signs of other celebrations so that I could share some images with you. Most of the street parties had already cleared away, but I caught this one just packing up.

Did you watch the wedding today? I hope you enjoyed the day.

The Easter Grotto

2011-04-27T13:53:00.000-07:00

Here are some slightly late pictures of the Easter Grotto that Honor and I made in the garden.

I got these little blue angels to hang over the 'tomb' on Easter Sunday.
I think they are made by Gisela Graham. I have quite a few decorative bits and bobs from her.

Hope you all had a lovely Easter weekend and enjoyed the weather which was fantastic!

2011-04-27T13:44:00.000-07:00

Here he is, my brave little man in the hospital. He is at home now, though he can't go to school, or play, just watch dvd's and keep his arm elevated on a pillow for a week. Then we go back to the hospital to see what happens next.

Great Expectations.

2011-04-25T13:59:00.000-07:00

Hello.

I'm not that phased, really. Exhausted, yes. A bit emotional, yes. Hungry, not any more.

About 3 Christmases ago I realised. Things may have got a bit out of hand. Expectations of the perfect meal, perfect presents, the whole experience has got to be, er, perfect. And Easter has got a bit like that too. It's not me! All I would like is a 5 minute breather. 5 mins to close my eyes. 5 mins to look around me and see how lovely it all is (sometimes!). Maybe one less argument that day. Oh, and a really good episode of Dr Who. But I don't expect it. So when the nurses at the hospital and kind, well-wishing friends said "Oh what a shame that happened on Easter Sunday" (Henry breaking his arm!) I thought, "well, why wouldn't it!?"

Yep.

It was about eleven o'clock. The kids had done their egg-hunt in the garden and Hubby had made us eggs benedict for breakfast. (Not sure about that hollandaise sauce!) A joint of beef was in the slow cooker and I was thinking I was so full, it would be some time before I'd be ready to eat it! I sat down in the gazebo with a cup of tea and told Henry to go and play. Within seconds there was an almighty scream (fairly typical) and I looked up to see the look of horror on Henry's face and the lower half of his left arm flailing unsupported from his elbow joint. I ran to him, held onto his limb and quietly told him to stay calm while calling up to the bathroom for Hubby to come and help.

After a visit to the local minor injuries (it wasn't!), Henry and Hubby were sent on via ambulance to Margate hospital. I got on with arranging babysitters for the girls and met them down there. Meanwhile Henry had been x-rayed and booked in for an operation to have his elbow pinned and wired.

Several trips back and forth later, Hubby and I waited for the outcome. Then it all got a bit scary. We were met with a team of surgeons who were concerned that the blood flow to Henry's hand was limited. As the surgeon, who looked exactly like Lex Luthor from Smallville explained, this was serious and a specialist cardio vascular surgeon would need to come and perform a second operation. We were warned that Henry might lose his hand and there followed a very tense 2 hr wait into the early hours of the morning while they operated.

As it turns out, the artery that they thought was damaged was trapped and the surgeon was able to save it. So far it looks as though he will be ok. Maybe some nerve damage.

Henry is in a lot of pain and is still in hospital. Hubby is with him. I hope they'll come home tomorrow.

My Mum has been great and really helped out with looking after the other two children and lots of people have sent kind offers of help. I've just had the beef from the slow cooker, cold, with salad, new potatoes and coleslaw - my first proper meal since Saturday (if you don't count the eggs benedict!). It was lovely!

Get well soon Henry! xxx

The poster.

2011-04-23T13:35:00.000-07:00

Here is the poster that we modelled for. Funny, isn't it?

This week

2011-04-23T13:01:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, my mother treated Honor and I to a trip up to London to see the ballet, Cinderella at The Royal Opera House. It was very exciting travelling through the big city on the coach. It is such a contrast to our countryside surroundings. The buildings are so huge and the streets so busy with people coming out of work who all looked so tiny. We passed The Tower of London and St Paul's Cathedral to get dropped off at Covent Garden. We wandered around the square for a bit, looking for somewhere to stop for a drink, but everywhere was packed. So we decided to go straight into the Opera House and have a drink in their very grand bar. We pre-ordered our drinks for the interval (which has always worked well whenever we've been to a show at the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury. Saves queuing. ) But when we came to collect our drinks, mine had been knicked and so we spent the whole break queuing for a refund. The ballet was very lovely, though. Isn't it amazing how a story can be told without using any words? Honor was thrilled by the performance, particularly at the comic moments of the ugly sisters. The journey home was painfully tiring though. We finally got home at 1.30am. I was hoping for a lie-in in the morning, but little Hope woke up as usual loudly announcing that it was "Timmy-Time!"

The weather has been very hot. Yes, hot. I don't know how I'll cope when the summer comes! Hubby and I have been doing lots in the garden. We got some wooden pallets given to us by the church and Hubby has made a large planter and a wheelie bin screen out of them. Honor has helped make an Easter grotto in one corner of the garden. We put up a crucifix with a crown of thorns hanging on it and built a tomb out of rockery stones. I shall try and get some pics tomorrow when we have our egg hunt.

Minor injuries and museums.

2011-04-15T13:05:00.000-07:00

It is the Easter holidays and the kids and I have been exploring various different play areas. Honor and Henry really make the most of these chances to play but with little Hope in tow, the fun has been short lived because when she gets tired and cranky, we have to pack up and leave. The older kids have been extremely gracious about this and came as soon as they were called. Today we were lucky because Hubby worked from home. (Actually, he had a suspected broken wrist and was waiting for an opportunity to go to the local minor injuries clinic to get it x-rayed...)

So while he was home, I was able to take Honor and Henry out by themselves.
We went to Herne Bay where they played at a seaside park and on the beach without interruption...
... and to a coffee shop for a knickerbocker glory!

Then we went to the museum to learn about fossils.

When we got back, Hubby and Henry went to minor injuries. Hubby had an x-ray, but it seems that the wrist is badly bruised. He can't clean the toilet for a couple of weeks!

Actually, yesterday, the kids and I took part in a little modelling project. My cousin is an editor of a local health magazine. She was putting together a poster to educate the public in using alternative health providers to A&E, for example, minor injuries, pharmacists etc. I had to pose as a gardener, with gloves, hat and trowel grimacing, rather unflatteringly with back pain. Henry looked very gorgeous with his skateboard feigning a sprain and Honor looked pretty in a flowery dress pretending to have been stung by a bee. We took one of those 'buzzy bee' flowerpot decorations as a prop, but it was declared 'too cheesy'! My uncle modelled the diy disaster, pretending to hit his thumb with a hammer. When I told him that Hubby was planning to go to A&E about his wrist, he suggested a local minor injuries surgery that had an x-ray facility. I never knew! Good advice, Uncle Ken!

Another wildlife visit

2011-04-15T12:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went to Wildwood, the wildlife park where we are members. It looks after British species of wildlife, past and present. One of their most fascinating species is the adder, Britain's only venomous snake. Here is one that we saw basking in the warm, spring sunshine.

They have three species of deer there, too: roe, red and fallow. Here are the children getting hands-on experience of the deers' antlers.

But the best bit of all is the picnic!

More simple than Nigel

2011-04-13T13:39:00.000-07:00

Not the most ambitious cookery project, but you can't beat chocolate crispie cakes for a bit of simple fun for the kids. We have all been enjoying the Nigel Slater Simple Suppers programme on BBC on Sundays. The kids sit glued to the TV with their tongues hanging out like a couple of labradors waiting for their pedigree chum and talked excitedly about the recipes that they were going to make which included beetroot seed cake and beer and beef. Well, I'm sure we'll get round to that soon but for now we got out the boxes of cereals and made these cakes.
But first they did a bit of maths practise. Here is Henry tracing shapes. I recently subscribed to a website called wondrous worksheets and I really like their simple, easy to use worksheets. Honor is learning how to find percentages so I keep printing out the sheets from this site to reinforce this skill.

Then we got into the kitchen and got all chocolatey!
And I made some heart shaped parmesan and goats cheese biscuits.

This afternoon we got our bikes out. I am trying to get used to a) riding a bike again and b) riding a bike with little Hope on the back. We managed to get as far as the local dairy farm where the farmer let us into one of the cow sheds to see the baby calves. AAaaaahhhhhh!

As my legs get stronger, I hope to cycle longer distances and use less petrol which is now very expensive.

The water-fight.

2011-04-08T11:59:00.000-07:00

Well. What a beautiful couple of days it has been, weather-wise. This week I have been mostly playing in the garden with Hope. She loves being in the garden and when I give her some water to play with she is in heaven! This afternoon she used paint brushes and plain water to paint onto the patio and enjoyed using the jug from her tea set to pour water down herself! After school, Honor and Henry came home and had a water fight. They were having great fun until they trampled mud through the house, had some sort of rumpus and left their wet clothes on their bedroom floors for me to pick up. I got a wee bit cross and sent them to bed without watching Doctor Who. There followed one almighty slam of a bedroom door.

Oh well. Looking forward to the weekend....

Happy Birthday to Boo!

2011-04-04T13:27:00.000-07:00

On Saturday it was little Hope's second birthday.

She had jelly babies for breakfast!
And we bought her this little tea set.

She enjoyed her party a lot more than she did last year. She revelled in all the attention and ate lots of cake!
Ah. What lovely girls!

The weather here has been quite nice too. I've been growing some seeds on my windowsill and today I planted out a few rows of peas. I start most things off indoors as I don't have much luck with sowing things straight into the ground. However, I have sown some spring onions and radishes straight into the veg patch as they were successful last year.

We have plans to make a simple outdoor kitchen this summer. I am inspired by the Nigel Slater 'Simple Suppers' programme where he is often cooking delicious recipes outdoors at somebody's allotment or veg patch. At the moment I have sown peas, broad beans, runner beans, swiss chard, perpetual spinach, beetroot, salad leaves, spring onions and radishes. Little Hope has helped with a lot of the planting. She has been learning to spoon compost into a container at her Waldorf Steiner toddler group.

We have plans to fix up our indoor kitchen too. I don't know if I mentioned it, but a pipe in the bathroom leaked recently causing damage to the ceiling. So that needs repairing and I think we shall be retiling and putting in new worktops and sink too.

Still here.

2011-03-31T13:29:00.000-07:00

Hellooooooooooooo!

I am still here. Been a bit busy lately, er, watching the Rocky series of films on ITV4 over the last week. Up to Rocky V. They are quite good films, aren't they? I enjoyed watching them back-to-back. It was like watching one long, continuous story. OK, so, as Hubby puts it, Rocky 4 (the Dolph Lungren one) did turn into a bit of a pop video. And he didn't like Rocky V at all! But I enjoyed the saga. It's quite old fashioned really. Maybe not quite 'Little House', but the family values are there and the message about material wealth not being the be all and end all. I was surprised that Rocky didn't win back his fortune at the end, being Hollywood 'n all. But there it is. A bit more like real life, I suppose. I haven't seen '6' yet. Maybe he gets it all back then. I find the sport of Boxing a bit shocking though. I don't know how accurate the boxing scenes are, but belting someone around the head so violently seems a bit, er, bad, innit???!!!

Now ITV4 have run out of Rocky films to show, they are playing other Stallone films. 'Demolition Man' is on tonight. Now that's totally made-up, isn't it? Funny!

I've also been watching 'Jamie's Dream School'. Very entertaining. Jamie Oliver (the chef) has set up a school for 20 pupils who left school without the recommended 5+ GCSE's, grade C and above. (50% of pupils leave schol in this position!) They are particularly challenging pupils and Jamie has hired famous, inspirational figures such as Rolf Harris to teach art, Prof. Robert Winston to teach science and actor Simon Callow to teach drama. I think it highlights how difficult teaching has become because of the effects of (to quote Al Murray) 'broken Britain' . And it shows that teaching is a profession and requires a special type of person with special skills to do it. These 'teachers' are excellent in their fields, but they aren't necessarily equipped to educate children; not with ease, anyhow.

It is Hope's 2nd birthday on Saturday and when I can tear myself away from the TV, I must get something organised!

'Be well!'

A bit of a moan

2011-03-20T14:40:00.000-07:00

Apologies to anyone who may actually read this blog and may be wondering where I've got to. (Got your message ACP!) Just having a few problems. The main one being that my 'puter appears to have picked up another virus and so haven't been able to blog or pick up emails or anything! Computers are great when they work but it doesn't do to be reliant on them. Hubby has been away in South Africa too so he couldn't help with this problem, or the big hole in the kitchen ceiling caused by a leaky pipe in the bathroom or with the kids after my back gave way last Monday! He is back now and stressing over my laptop while I borrow his to catch up on a few things. He has made the bathroom look nice, too.

I have a few pics to post when I eventually get sorted out. Hopefully soon.

Salsa, baby, yeah!

2011-03-01T13:29:00.000-08:00

Maybe it is because I'm nearly 40 that I'm prompted to try out new things like crochet and, er, salsa dancing. Or maybe it is because I'm just jolly good fun!

Last week I spotted an ad for a beginners salsa class in the local paper. Hubby and I had been looking for something like this for a while... a kind of date night that we can also keep fit at the same time. (Oh, behave!)

So there it was.

I got Grandma to babysit and we drove off, stopping at Tesco for some milk along the way. When we got back in the car we considered driving straight back home again. But these opportunities don't come along often, so we went for it. Just one parking space left on the road. There were no more excuses to turn back.

We thought we were quite safe, comfortable, having each other as dance partners. But after the first practise, we were ordered to move around and so had to dance in the end with, er, everyone!

I found learning the routines a bit difficult. I don't think the routines were difficult. I think it was just me and having to dance with strange men was, I'll be honest, a bit scary! Hubby looked a bit terrified, too!!!

It is not a dance for the womens' libbers. It is all about the man leading the lady, at least that is what they told us. She has to follow his movements and he gets to, well, push her about a bit! I think, though, that we enjoyed it and may go back again...

Tidy up

2011-02-28T05:46:00.000-08:00

I've just had a little tidy up of the links in my sidebar. Some of my well-loved blog sites have changed, moved or given up completely.

The Sarah Sellers site has been replaced by Tranquil, Peaceful, Calm but is by the same author. I have also added a link to her Wise Little Owls homeschool site which has excellent ideas, links and resources for education.

The link to my daughter Honor's blog is still there, even though she hasn't done anything on it for 9 months! But she says she wants to get it going again so we shall see.

And the rest of the week.

2011-02-27T12:47:00.000-08:00

A bit of outdoor practical maths practice for Honor. Here she is describing the directions for getting from point X to point Y. It is an end of Key Stage 2 maths skill as is calculating the area of a composite shape. We tried this out on our patio which was perfect. Our patio is composed of a large rectangle measuring 12 x 7 slabs and a smaller square measuring 4 x 4 slabs. Then we added the two areas together to find the total area.

We had some messy fun washing the cars...
... and then we went to Church where I sat worrying about and praying for the future for our children. The Gospel message was, coincidentally (that always happens!), 'don't worry'!
So then we went to see my friend Lisa's new house. It's great. And then she took us out for a meal.

We had a lovely time.
Until someone (me) mentioned the Government and Dave's promises to support marriage, the family and people who work for a living. Ha! Oh well.

Overall, a great week and it is back to school tomorrow.

Thursday

2011-02-24T13:59:00.000-08:00

Today, Honor and I were very brave and tried out a crochet workshop at the library. We were both on exactly the same level... complete beginners and it was a lovely experience to be learning something new alongside my daughter. We both found it very difficult. Fortunately, the volunteer teacher Celia was extremely patient and as the group was very small, we got plenty of help and by the end of the session we had made a little bracelet. About half way through, Honor got frustrated and wanted to give up, but we encouraged each other through it and were pleased with what we achieved.

I'm slightly distracted now as Hubby is watching the Wedding Crashers on TV. But I intend to do more crochet in the future!

Wednesday

2011-02-24T13:36:00.000-08:00

Wednesday was the day of the science fair. I picked this outing because years ago, when I was a science coordinator in a real school, I attended one of these and was blown away! Well. I thought it was pretty exciting. So I thought this would be good for the kids to visit this half term. Now. They did seem to enjoy it. Especially the hands-on activities. We could not get them out of the 'mad materials' room where they had fun making playdough, gloop and slime.
But the shows were, for me, a big disappointment. I've seen some very entertaining science shows for the kids in the past. The Science Centre at Herstmonceux, Hastings know how to do them. And the ones I had seen here before years ago were very good too. But the presenters didn't seem able to relate to young children and the rooms were hugely ovecrowded even though people kept getting up and walking out and no whizz bang special effects. No. I was very disappointed by this years' fair.

The kids did have fun. But they could have done it at home with a packet of cornflower and some alka seltzers for less than half the price. Oooohhh. I'm a harsh critic, aren't I?

The Fast Show-"Jazz Club"

2011-02-22T14:01:00.000-08:00

The jazz and whistle.

2011-02-22T13:38:00.001-08:00

Hubby was reading my blog last night. He remembered that Henry bought the train whistle a few years back on one of those Santa special steam train rides. As there was absolutely nuffink on the telly, again, we were listening to jazz on R3. There was a rather annoying tune being played which sounded exactly like one of the kids blowing on the whistle over and over and over again. Reminds me of the Fast Show.

Day 2

2011-02-22T13:10:00.000-08:00

No pictures as I forgot to charge up my phone. What a shame. There would have been some good ones. Honor had a whale of a time on a day out with the Brownies. They went on a train to Canterbury and visited Build-a-bear, Pizza Hut and Canterbury Cathedral. She came home tired but not stroppy which was unusual.

So that left me with the other 2 children and no car. My Mum came over and took us to the local museum. Henry was brilliant. He went round with the curator and chatted with her about the exhibits. She let him try on a World War 2 helmet and type something on a very old typewriter. As we had recently watched the Christopher Eccleston series of Dr Who, he typed 'Are you my Mummy?' which is what a young child in a WW2 episode did after he had been turned into a creature with a gas mask face! Then we were shown a room where they had old style telephones and a switchboard. Hope really liked holding the phone and pretending to talk to her Nana. Unfortunately, when it came to putting the phone back, she didn't take it too well and had one of her hyperventilation attacks. The curator was busy chatting to my Mum and Henry about gunpowder while I stood in the middle of the room holding Hope upside down, blowing hard into her face! No-one batted an eyelid. Then she found her voice and screamed until we got her home and put her to bed for her afternoon nap. Phew!

Tomorrow, we are going to a science fair. I must remember to take my phone.

Half term - day one.

2011-02-21T14:59:00.001-08:00

By the time I had had my bath and got dressed this morning, the kids were already out in the garden and were busy making fairy houses. Hope couldn't wait to join them and run around with Henry chasing the ball...

and playing with the stones.
Henry found this train whistle lying at the bottom of the garden. Not sure where that came from.

When they tired of making fairy houses, they set about making a river! (And I cried one!!!) Never mind.

Tomorrow Honor is going on a Brownie outing to Build-a-bear and Pizza Hut. I don't know what the rest of us will do. I won't have a car as it has to go into the garage again. It's been playing up for a while but no-one seems able to figure out what is wrong with it. I think it's wanting some groovy new seat covers and a bloomin' good clean. I've been looking on the internet for nice seat covers but there's not much out there to my taste. I wonder if they are difficult to make?

2011-02-16T05:37:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I made some reusable tumble drier sheets. I liked this job because it was so easy to do. I borrowed the idea from a site called Homemade Mamas.

I got an old towel, cut it into strips and left them soaking overnight in a bowl of diluted fabric softener. Then, this morning, I took out a couple of them, squeezed them out a bit and popped them in the drier with my laundry. When the drying has finished the towelling sheets go back into the bowl for next time.
Another project I've started is to make an outdoor playpen for little Hope.
I got a load of cheap decking tiles and painted them white. Then I've enclosed the area with trellis. It isn't all fixed so we can move them when we want to. But it is ok for her to play outside while I'm nearby sorting washing or busy in the kitchen. She got into this bowl of water that was meant for washing her hands with her boots on.
And then she sat down in it!

Secret plans.

2011-02-13T12:20:00.000-08:00

Just getting prepared for the forthcoming half term holiday. The kids want to spend more time playing outside. Okay, okay. I want the kids to spend more time playing outside. Well, it's good for them!
They are really into spycraft at the moment. They got some cool spy handbooks and spykits for Christmas and I said I'd help them turn their shed (which is in an awful mess at the mo) into a really cool HQ. So when they came home from school on Friday they got their books out and got busy planning their new headquarters.
Especially Henry. They want CCTV and everything. Not sure about that but I think we can stretch to a swivel office chair, walkie talkies and a homemade alarm.
This was our Friday night supper. I borrowed the lentil recipe from Waldorf Mama. It's basically green lentils (I used tinned) and some finely chopped chard simmered for about 15 mins in a little water and sea salt. Very yummy. I also made some cheese scones with a pinch of cayenne pepper in the recipe to go with. Simple. HM asked if it could be our regular Friday night supper.

The play area.

2011-01-27T12:31:00.000-08:00

Last week I started taking Hope to a Waldorf toddler group. It was very inspiring. There was a good range of natural and open-ended play materials for the small children to explore. Playdens were set up from wooden clothes horses with fabric draped over them, beautiful offcuts of wood were sanded and smoothed of rough edges to be used in building, pine cones, shells, felted woollen balls , soft fabric dolls and much more were there to be played with.

At home, we have already been influenced by the Waldorf approach to some degree but I'm now in the process of developing the play area in the corner of our living room a bit more in this style. At the moment we are using this wooden shoe rack as a shelf for the 'toys'. There is a basketful of wooden pegs which the kids use for anything their imagination decides. It is quite fascinating to watch what becomes of such simple materials. I put a small jam jar on the tray and Hope will spend ages putting the lid on it and taking it off again. I also put a wicker basket there with some blankets and cushions for den making, or whatever... but as the photo shows, Hope loves to get in the basket and make herself comfy.

My mother-in-law gave Honor some coconut shells which had been a bird feeder in another life, and the kids have fun with those. I shall be adding more to the area as the opportunities arise.

LTG's rag heart

2011-01-23T12:49:00.000-08:00

Finally. I have been successful in uploading the photo of my friends' rag heart. Very nice, isn't it?

For details on how to make one, scroll down to the relevant post.

Another Sunday Lunch with Friends.

2011-01-23T12:16:00.000-08:00

Inspired by some yummy looking recipes in some magazines recently, I had to invite Lisa, Glenn and Jancy over to help me try them out.

It was a bit of a mish-mash of things. We started with baked camembert infused with lemon, white wine and thyme and baked plantain served with 'mojo' which is a blend of parsley, coriander, 4 cloves of garlic, white wine vinegar and breadcrumbs. The camembert was lovely on some baguette from the local farm shop. The plantain, however, was a bit of a let down. Very dry. The mojo was quite nice with it, but not a dish we'd care to repeat.

Then we had this quiche which was filled with butternut squash and wild mushrooms. The recipe called for pecorino cheese, but I couldn't find any so I used Gruyere instead. It was lovely. The salad was great too: feta cheese, grapefruit and fennel and included radishes and pomegranate.
The dessert was a bit of a gamble. In the magazine, these dishes of tapioca pearls cooked in coconut cream looked very pretty. These ones are topped with mango pieces and dark chocolate shavings. I didn't think I would like them as I don't usually like things like rice pudding, but I was pleasantly surprised.

It was a lovely afternoon and the sparkling rose that Glenn brought over went very nicely with the food.

Cheers!

Spreading the love.

2011-01-13T09:46:00.000-08:00

Oh frustration.

A friend of mine (LTG) saw the rag heart I made (see previous post) and couldn't wait to have a go herself. She sent me the photo of it and it looks great made out of her children's old t-shirts. I've tried to post the photo on here but it won't work. Such a shame. It does look good. I'll give it another try later. Meanwhile, LTG has craftily sourced herself 20 coathangers from a local supermarket and plans to make more with a class of school children.

I've been crafty, too. I bought an old dresser from a second hand furniture shop and painted it to go in the dining room. Now Hubby wants me to get rid of the filing cabinet in there. It's not very attractive but it is very useful for all my stuff.

For the dresser in our living room I made a felt flower garland. Might try to post a picture of that later, too.

Making a rag heart.

2011-01-08T13:19:00.000-08:00

Hello! How's your new year going so far?

We love Christmas but I have to admit I get enormous satisfaction from the post Christmas/New Year clear up, when the tired looking tree gets hauled outside, the needles get hoovered up, the decorations get put back in the loft and I get stuck into a jolly good clean up and reorganisation around the home. Even before the Dr Who Christmas special comes on, I feel myself getting fidgety, looking around the house and start planning in my mind little changes I'll be making in the near future.

Although our Christmas holiday was fairly quiet, we did have guests drop in occasionally from Australia, Italy around town for some hot chocolate and cake. Though our guests were well behaved, the kids were a little bit less so and Hubby and I found things a bit claustrophobic. We have a separate room downstairs which for the past two years has been 'the study' - a place for the kids to do homework, me to do my tutoring and Hubby to work when he is at home. Hubby agreed with me that it might be a good idea to turn this room into a dining room and therefore make our living room larger. Bless him. We spent a whole day rearranging the furniture and other stuff to do this and didn't argue once! I don't know why we didn't think of this sooner. The extra space in the living room has made things more relaxed and we use 'the study' far more now. I have done one tutoring lesson in there since we made the change and the bigger table came in really useful. However we now want to make this room look more homely and less like a classroom. So I got busy this evening making a rag heart to go on the wall next to our wedding photo. It was very easy to make and cost nothing!
First of all I gathered together some scraps of material, including an old pink cot sheet and a blue top that Honor has grown out of and hardly ever wore. Then I cut them into short strips, some thick and some thin.

Hubby shaped an old, wire coat hanger into the shape of a heart and I tied the fabric strips on. (I often see craft projects which involve old, wire coat hangers but I'm not sure where you get them from these days. All of ours are wood or plastic, but my Mum had one going spare.)
After about two and a half hours, it was finished. I was very pleased with it and what was really nice was that as I was sat down one end of the room making it, the kids and Daddy were watching Die Another Day but looked up every now and then to say "wow, that looks really pretty". Well, the colours I have chosen are very much to my personal taste, but I bet it would look great made up in some modern, vibrant colours and fabrics like satin or velvet for a more modern twist. In fact, not only did Hubby and I start creating a dining room this holiday, but we also redecorated Honor's bedroom in a more modern, grown-up style. I may post some pics soon. Laura Ashley have a good sale on right now and I got some beautiful wallpaper for her room. I think we'll have to do one of these hearts for it next.
Earlier on today Honor went to a birthday party, so we too the other two children for a walk at Wildwood. Here is Hope trying out her new wellie boots. She did really well walking around the wildlife park.

There she goes.

2010-12-31T16:15:00.000-08:00

Our hot air lantern sailing off into the new year.

2010 - the highlights.

2010-12-31T15:24:00.000-08:00

So goodbye 2010. Here are my highlights:

1.) On New Years' Day we saw David Tennant regenerate into Matt Smith in Dr Who. Would I still like this programme?, I wondered. Well, yes and have enjoyed watching the new series with the kids for a change. They love it too and thankfully, BBC3 have been showing the whole Tennant saga too for our double enjoyment. The kids got sonic screwdrivers for Christmas and have had a great time zapping everyone and everything with them.

2.) Our holiday in Norfolk gave us the amazing experience of seeing seals in their natural habitat. The boat trip was very cold and wet, but well worth it.
3.) My best friend Lisa is truly a wonderful friend. She came to babysit for us when Hubby and I went to see A-Ha for the final time in Brighton. For her birthday, I took her to the local spa where we enjoyed the sauna, hot tub, pool and picnic... and a really good chat!
4.) This was an impromptu night out for a meal with the little girlies. A lovely evening out, but also the night we learned that the boy next door had died.
5.) This is me outside The Brighton Centre. A fantastic night out with my 4 favourite guys!

I have to go and set off a lantern with Hubby now. Midnight is nearly here.

Happy New Year!

My Montage 12/20/10 at OneTrueMedia.com

2010-12-20T10:50:00.001-08:00

Had another go at photo montage. It's good fun. Have a look!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Holiday fun - indoors and out.

2010-12-20T09:38:00.000-08:00

We are all on our holidays now. The snow is back and much more is forecast. Hubby and Henry went out to play in the bright sunshine. Henry enjoyed it much more this time. It all looks very pretty. Hope has a bad cough so we stayed indoors. Honor preferred to stay in and practise converting fractions into mixed numbers and did a reading comprehension which was a true story about a horse called Molly. Molly was badly attacked by a dog and her leg got infected. The vet was going to put her to sleep but instead the leg was amputated and a prosthetic one put in place. The false leg had a shoe with a smiley face fitted onto it so that the horse left a smiley face imprint when she walked. The horse (and owner) then visited schools and hospitals where children and patients had prosthetic limbs, giving them inspiration. Honor enjoyed that piece of work.

Later, we all went to Tescos. It was manic. I think the whole town must have been in there with their overfilled trolleys. We don't have anything for our Christmas dinner yet. I've been saying that I'm not bothered if we just have fish and chips... now if we do get snowed in, that just might happen!

When we got back from shopping, we got out a board game called Pop to the Shops. It helps kids practise money and counting skills. We don't play games often enough and it showed to start with. Lots of squabbling and fidgeting... but I think we had fun in the end.
The winner!

The gift basket

2010-12-16T13:34:00.001-08:00

So here is one of the finished gift baskets for Christmas. This one is for Henry's teacher. It contains some homemade soap, homemade chocolate flavoured lip balm (see previous post for how to make it) and a face flannel. This one has Best Teacher on it and was bought at a craft fair.
A little wooden dish is lined with some sparkly, red tissue. You cannot really see it sparkle in the picture. Then we added some rose petal confetti and covered the basket in clingfilm. Hope she likes it!

Homemade lip balm

2010-12-15T11:41:00.001-08:00

The children are preparing little gift baskets for Christmas which will contain the little homemade soaps that they have been making, face flannels and today they had a go at making some lip balm to be included. The ingredients they used were:

beeswax pellets (2 tablespoons)

sweet almond oil (4 tablespoons)

chocolate and strawberry flavourings (a few drops)
The beeswax pellets and almond oil were measured out and mixed in small jugs. We used jugs so that the children could work independently of each other and it made pouring the mixture easier. Then I heated the mixture in the microwave for a few minutes until it became completely liquid. The jugs and mixture were very hot at this point so we had to be very careful. Honor added a few drops of strawberry flavour to her mixture and Henry added chocolate to his.
Then they carefully poured the mixture into small pots.
After about 15 mins, the mixture solidified.

I bought the beeswax pellets and flavourings from a specialist company called justasoap online. We originally followed an online recipe that stated using the beeswax and oil at a 50:50 ratio, but the end product turned out a bit too solid. So I melted them all down again this time doubling the proportion of oil and that made them softer and easier to apply.

The reindeer

2010-12-13T14:45:00.001-08:00

I had been thinking of taking the family to a local reindeer farm but it doesn't look like we'll get around to it this year. However, yesterday morning I went to Sittingbourne on my own to do a bit of Christmas shopping. In the forum were these amazing reindeer along with Santa Claus himself, on his sleigh.
I had to go home and get the rest of the family who were as excited as I was to see them.
You can just see little baby boo peeping through the fence in her cute poncho.

Awwwwwwwwww! Lurvly!

The dining table makeover.

2010-12-11T10:02:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about getting a new dining table. I've seen a nice, big pine, farmhouse style one that I like. But then I wondered if we had enough space for it. And then thought about the damage that the kids cause on a regular basis. The reason I got this second hand pine one was because I wouldn't have to be too concerned about the glitter, glue and other mess made on it. But I'd been thinking it looked tatty. A few months ago I revarnished it, but it soon looked tatty again. I recently painted the fire surround white and then later on - inspired by the Cherry Menlove blog painted our dark dresser. Pleased with the results and how light the room now looks, I was also tempted to paint the dining table. Cherry Menlove has done this and hers looks fab. So I thought I might as well give it a go. I like it. I'm not sure if it will stay nice for long. Somebody has already accidentally drawn on it with pencil. It does wipe clean easily and I have the leftover paint handy for when I need to touch up. I also brought in an old white bench from the garden which was in a really sorry state. So I have painted that too and plopped a few cushions on it for the kids to sit on. The Christmas tree is up now and we certainly could not fit in a bigger table now. But if, next year I find it is too high maintenance, I'll reconsider buying a new one. For now, though, we'll make the most of what we have.

If you fancy looking at some really splendid makeovers, take a look at the Cherry Menlove site: www.cherrymenlove.com

Sick school

2010-12-06T14:43:00.000-08:00

We had snow school last week. Today the kids were at home sick... so we had sick school. Oh, I'm not that cruel. Honor wasn't too bad, so she did a little maths revision. Henry had a fever all day so he mostly laid in bed. After a dose of neurofen, he perked up enough to read to me this evening, but I'm not sure if he'll be well enough to go to school tomorrow. Hope was vomiting last night, but she seemed ok today. I've been feeling generally unwell for a little over a week now, and Hubby has a broken toe. He stubbed it, very hard, on the stair gate trying to stop the baby from falling down the stairs because someone had left the gate open. This time every year we get sick.

Hubby and I watched Kirstie and Phil's Perfect Christmas on channel 4 this evening and now we want to make jellies and a snowman pinata! Let's see if we can drum up the energy for that. I feel tired at the thought of all the present wrapping that needs doing.

Snow school!

2010-12-02T12:47:00.000-08:00

Well the kids' school has done pretty well at keeping going this week, but today the heavy snowfall finally meant a day off for Honor and Henry. They had to go to Mummy's snow school where they did some snow related dot-to-dots and because Honor has been learning about writing instructions at school, they both had a go at writing instructions for building a snowman. Henry wrote some nice, clear sentences and Honor (year 5) attempted to use more ambitious vocabulary and time connectives.

They did, of course, get to go out for some sledging fun with Daddy. Henry found it a bit much though. He did not enjoy getting cold, wet and very tired and cried a lot when he got back. I had the hot chocolate with squirty cream and little fudge pieces on top ready for them.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Playing card maths

2010-12-02T12:31:00.000-08:00

At 'snow school' today, the kids did a bit of maths using a deck of playing cards.

Here, Honor is calculating 5 0r 6 numbers from cards dealt out at random using number bonds and knowledge of multiples as strategies for quick mental addition.
So from these cards she picks out the two cards that make 10...

... then adds on the next biggest number to make 16 and finally adds 2 x 1 to make 18.
From these cards, she found 3 x 10 and then added 2x3 to make 36.

Henry is in year 1 at school and is learning his number bonds to 10.
Here, he is matching the correct numbers to 10. He needs to practise this a bit more, but I think he nearly has it.

The Last Post.

2010-11-18T12:13:00.000-08:00

I've been terrible at blogging this month, haven't I?

The last two weeks have been a bit busy. Mum is in Australia visiting my brother and new baby leaving me to look after Dad. Hubby was away in Alaska but is back now. And this week I have been to A-Ha concerts and spas and stuff! Will do a separate post about that.

Today we went to Jack's funeral. It was an extremely moving service with a huge attendance of family, friends, neighbours and army cadets who provided the guard of honor and last post. The Johnny Cash (or Nine Inch Nails) song 'Hurt' was sung and played live by Adam who I don't know but assumed maybe Jack's friend from the band that they played in. But I'm not certain. It was an awesome performance, though. There were thought provoking tributes read out about this remarkable young man and the comical stories provided some laughter through all the tears. It seems he spread joy and happiness everywhere he went and made me think about how a person can influence so many in a short lifetime. As he was known to his friends as 'tractor Jack' for his tractor driving abilities, and for his sense of humour, he departed to the song 'Combine Harvester' by The Wurzels!

Half term.

2010-11-03T13:21:00.000-07:00

Bit late with this post, but never mind.

Half term started early with an INSET day (staff training day). I love INSET days, especially when they are on days when everyone else is at school. It gives us the opportunity to go places when it is quiet, or even cheaper than during school holidays.

We began the day with pancakes for breakfast! Well, Hubby and I had been watching 'River Cottage' the night before and HFW was urging us to do it. Who are we to argue?

I had saved up a little money from some tutoring that I have been doing recently and so booked a horse riding lesson for Honor and Henry. They LOVED it! I was surprised how much they learned in just one lesson - so I booked another one for a few days later.

In the afternoon we visited The Canterbury Museum which incorporates the Rupert Bear Museum. Even though we had to pay (boo!) the kids spent a lot of time on the interactive activities before asking 'where's the gift shop?'! I've been teaching kids non-verbal reasoning for the past few weeks and got quite excited by some of the activities which were great for developing these skills. For example, there were Viking runes for code work and pattern matching with Roman tiles. My favourite exhibitions, though, were for Bagpuss and Rupert Bear. Lovely.

For an exhilarating end to the day, my Mum treated Honor and I to a trip to the ballet. We saw 'Swan Lake' at a tiny, old theatre in Margate. It was a really old theatre like the one in the film 'Mrs Henderson Presents'. And it was fabulous.

Later in the week we met up with my ol' friend Glenn. He is Hope's godfather and we used to teach together. Glenn made us a lovely lunch of marrow bolognaise (which was great - and made a very good finger food for the baby) and then we headed off to Brockhill Country Park for a nice walk. Well. It was a good job we had Glenn with us because it was not easy getting Hope's pushchair around it.

As we stopped for a long chat, catching up on all our news, the kids got busy - taking their shoes and socks off for a paddle in the stream. It was the end of October!

Hope's face says it all!
Eventually, we made it back to the cafe for a nice cup of tea and a kit-kat.

Then we took Glenn back home. Henry made him sit in the very back of our Zafira with him. These pics show him getting stuck trying to get out again!

I took some of the frozen marrow home with me and had some today with my lunch in a creamy chicken pasta dish. It was lovely. Thanks, Glenn. See you soon.

2010-10-31T13:23:00.000-07:00

I'm still having trouble loading up pictures and with the internet in general, so haven't blogged much of late. I was going to blog tonight about what we have been up to over half term, but my phone (with the photos on) needs charging up. Plus, it all seems a bit trite in view of a terrible tragedy that happened over the weekend. The lovely young boy who lived next door died in a car crash yesterday. It takes my breath away. His family and friends are in our thoughts and prayers. God bless you, Jack. X

Book week

2010-10-15T10:15:00.001-07:00

I think it must nearly be my blogaversary! It is book week again and it was about this time last year that I started my blog. The children went to school today dressed as... can you guess?

Nanny McPhee and Doctor Who. Yes, I suppose these characters are better known for film and tv, but these two fans have read the books. They both read/listen to Doctor Who stories. There are loads of them in the local library. And I recently found 'Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang' in paperback, also at the library which Honor loved. They haven't seen the film yet. Henry wanted a 'David Tennant' hairdo but it was better suited to a 'Matt Smith' coiffeur.

I've enjoyed looking back over this blog to see what we have done over this past year and how much the children have grown. So I think I shall continue it for a while longer.

Hope's progress

2010-10-12T12:49:00.000-07:00

Hope is now eighteen months old and learning fast. She is feeding herself well (if you don't mind the mess), linking words to make sentences and is running around. It is challenging finding ways to keep children this young entertained.

Today we got out the tin of stockmar beeswax crayons (very nice, waldorf style crayons) and she enjoyed having a bit of a doodle.

She loves books, too and had me read these ones to her over and over again!

After that I took her to a nearby garden centre, Bybrook Barn at Ashford, where they had lots of entertaining things to see. A pet centre that sells chickens, a duck pond and the Christmas displays were fabulous. Full sized dioramas depicting scenes from traditional fairy stories such as Hansel and Gretal, Jack and the Beanstalk and Little Red Riding Hood with moving figures. Lovely.

Catch up.

2010-10-09T11:30:00.000-07:00

I've been having a few problems lately with blogging. Difficulties loading pictures and the internet connection being temperamental and just not having time for it with everything else going on.

Today is Saturday. I usually give HM a maths lesson on a Saturday morning and we usually end up doing loads of housework and diy jobs, homework, that sort of thing. I fancied a bit of a break from all that this weekend and suggested that we have a day out, courtesy of our National Trust membership. The weather forecast looked good too. We chose Scotney Castle in Tunbridge Wells for a picnic and a walk.

There was a stately home to look around, an old ruin of a castle and beautiful gardens.

This is the ice house - used as a fridge in the old days.
There are guided tours available on the various fungi that can be seen at the moment.
I think we all enjoyed the day out.

These last two photos are from two weeks ago. Henry broke his wrist at school and he had to attend 2 hospital appointments in one day. The first one, in the morning, was at Canterbury hospital - his annual check-up for his lazy eye. He had to have drops put in which dilate his pupils. I had to have this done when I was young and I remember how uncomfortable it feels when you come outside. I offered him my sunglasses to wear.

The bra bank (above) caught my eye among the vast array of recycling bins available. Never seen a bra bank before!

Then we spent the afternoon in the fracture clinic of the William Harvey, Ashford. It was packed and poor Henry was getting a bit worn out by it all. The ladies in the X-Ray room were fantastic though. Some people are very good at getting children to cooperate with what needs to be done.

S'all for now.

Nature's bounty.

2010-09-23T12:18:00.000-07:00

Here is tonight's supper. There are a lot of colds going around at the moment. Hubby is suffering from man-flu. I used left-over chicken bones to make our usual flu busting hot n sour soup (with shitake mushrooms) and the kids and I put together little blackberry cheesecakes, made with the blackberries from the hedgerows (just a bit cheaper than you get in the local supermarket or farm shop.)

Plus, we have home-brew plum wine which Hubby made. All very effective in clearing the sinuses, boosting the immune system and soothing aches n pains... unless you drink too much plum wine. Then you are guaranteed a headache in the morning!

The cheesecakes are a combination of a Delia Smith and a CBeebies 'I Can Cook' recipe. As follows:

1. To make the base, we crushed a few ginger and a few digestive biscuits in sandwich bags with a rolling pin and binded the mixture together with melted butter in a saucepan.

2. The biscuit mixture was divided into individual little pudding glasses, flattened with the back of a spoon and left to set.

3. In a mixer we put a tub of Quark cheese, about 3 tablespoons of sugar, few drops of vanilla essence and a squeeze of lemon juice... and whizzed it all up.

4.) This mixture was then spread as the next layer on top of the biscuit mixture.

5.) Then for the blackberry topping. We put about a cereal bowl full of blackberries in a pan with a few spoons of sugar and simmered without any added water. Then we put in 2 teaspoons of arrowroot which had been mixed with a tablespoon of water. This gives the mixture a thicker texture, similar to what you get with shop bought cheesecakes. This mixture was then spread over the top as the final layer.

What about quantities? Well, I don't bother too much with that kind of thing. I have O'Level cookery so I have a feel for what is right (hee, hee). When it came to the sugar, I think we go less than what would be used in a typical recipe as only Henry seems to have a sweet tooth. The rest of us are happy with natural, even sour flavours. I did end up with too much blackberry mixture though. That has been put in a jar in the fridge and I think will be perfect for putting on top of museli or porridge with some yoghurt. Or could even be spread on toast - it is quite jam-like.

I'm going now to watch the last part of 'Gareth Malone's Extraordinary School for Boys'. I wonder if he succeeded in his goal to raise the boys' reading age by six months. I do hope so.

He's 'armless!

2010-09-22T12:28:00.000-07:00

Poor Henry. He broke his wrist in P.E. yesterday.

I kept him at home today so he could recover a little. He was so tired from the hospital experience, plus there's a bit of maintenance and exercise to monitor in the first 48 hours after this type of injury.

But we did do a little bit of 'work'! Here, Henry is doing a Montessori style spelling activity (no writing required!) He places the objects from the first tray onto his mat and uses the wooden letters from the second tray to spell them out. I don't have a lovely, expensive, authentic Montessori moveable alphabet with tray, so I have a couple of packets of wooden 'creation station' letters (about £2.99 a packet) and I put out the letters needed on an ordinary tray. Maybe 'somebody' might make me a nice compartment box for them (hint, hint!)
Then I gave him some Kumon addition to do. He can still write as he is left handed. I went out into the garden (it was boiling hot!) to do some much needed clearing in the borders. I have some daffodil bulbs I need to plant.
When I went in to check how Henry was getting on with his maths, he really hadn't got very far. So I invited him to come outside. There were quite a few rampant brambles that needed removing but were laden with blackberries. Shame to let them got to waste. Henry was happy to pick them and do lots of practical counting and addition in the process.

Yesterday I was flicking through my 'Delia Smith's Frugal Food' cookery book when a recipe for blackberry cheesecake caught my eye. I discussed the idea of trying out this recipe with Henry. It was clear that we'd need a lot more blackberries, so we went for another country walk and picked 2 good tubs full. I still need some ginger biscuits and curd cheese, so, hopefully we'll finish this task off tomorrow... yum, yum!
And this is Henry playing with his new scalelectrix with little Hope joining in the fun. He was so kind and patient when she kept getting up and walking on the track! Such a lovely brother.

Sunday.

2010-09-19T11:07:00.000-07:00

HM has begun training as an altar server, so this morning we went to the busy, morning Mass so she could get in some practise. She is really enjoying it. We also heard from a few of the congregation who managed to attend the vigil with the Pope in Hyde Park yesterday. That was fascinating and it was clear that they got a lot out of the experience.
This afternoon we popped out to a local garden centre so I could buy a few brussel sprout plug plants for the veg patch. I have tried to grow as much stuff as I can from seed but it's all a bit hit and miss. My curly kale is doing very well. I hardly got any tomatoes. Our pumpkins, right now, are tiny... and green. I've tried growing brussels before, but the caterpillars got to them. So we shall see.

This week.

2010-09-18T14:35:00.000-07:00

Bless me Father for I have sinned. It has been a whole week since my last post!

Well. It has been a busy week. Sometimes a stressful week. An exciting week.

I cannot blog without first at least acknowledging that his holiness, Pope Benedict, arrived on our shores on Thursday. I can remember when John Paul 11 visited in 1982. Hubby was telling me about how he and his Mum camped out on the streets of Canterbury to get a glimpse of him back then. This time around, the visit has been affected by some negative controversy. Throughout history, terrible, evil things been committed by people hiding behind religious cloaks. Such is the way of the Devil. The Pope has the unenviable task of taking responsibility for and apologising for such evils. We look to him to lead us through it.

Anyway, the above pictures are from a walk we took in the woods with some friends from school. They invited us to a walk and picnic after school on Tuesday to try and make the most of what is left of the nice weather. I think the children really welcomed a chance to run about and have fun making dens after almost a week back at the chalkface. Hubby and I have been watching, with interest, 'Gareth Malone's Extraordinary School for Boys' (Thursday, BBC2) in which he (Gareth) has been challenged to raised the achievement of boys in their reading. He believes that the key to success is in nurturing/harnessing their natural instinct for competition, risk and physical activity. I couldn't agree more and look forward to seeing the results next week.

So, today, our good friends Glenn and Jancy came to lunch which we followed with a nice country walk, picking blackberries and other fruit.

Hope was determined to eat an apple. I sat, slightly nervously, with her while she munched on one. I was a bit scared that she would choke.

The sun always shines on Honor-May!

We picked some of these delicious pears.

And the weather was gorgeous. Really warm. The children made friends with this sheep...

but I wouldn't let HM take it home!

Henry's birthday.

2010-09-12T13:19:00.000-07:00

So it's been a busy weekend. Hubby returned from two weeks away in Alaska for our 'obese' son's 6th birthday. Henry was born on the 11th of September 2004. The midwife commented that this would be a date to remember for obvious reasons. But like any other day, births are celebrated and the departed are mourned. This weekend we celebrated and counted our blessings. This little man is growing up fast and is a little guy to be very proud of.

We had a party for him. Godmother Lisa came with one of her nieces but the rest of the guests were boys for a traditional boys party. Lots of rough n tumble and climbing and swinging on things. Er, yes, Hubby, but I meant the little boys!

I split them into teams. (I like a bit of competition.) The green arrows and the blue arrows were given numbers. They were not allowed to speak or hold up fingers but get themselves into numerical order. The green arrows stood around looking bewildered but before I knew it, the blue arrows had completed their task by stamping their feet to each other.

Hubby took over the next bit... making bows and arrows and having a bit of an archery contest.

We had a pass-the-parcel (I think the grown-ups enjoyed this bit the most - see previous post), some food and Henry received some fabulous presents.

Now, Ma and Pa are getting over it with a kebab and glass of wine. (And more you-tube clips... Hubby is on to Charlie's Angels now. Sooooo intellectual!)

They're not just pretty boys!

2010-09-12T12:08:00.001-07:00

Last night, Hubby and I were up 'til midnight saving theme tunes from you-tube to play as music for the pass-the-parcel for Henry's birthday party. We saved Henry's (and Daddy's)favourite classics such as Dr who, Pirates of the Carribean, Raiders of the Lost Ark and James Bond but we found ourselves getting carried away, down memory lane, listening/watching The Dukes of Hazzard, The A-Team and Miami Vice. I have just posted the link to Crockett's theme. I loved Miami Vice in the Eighties and when Henry was due to be born (he's my second baby), I got prepared for the dreaded 2am feeds by buying a Miami Vice DVD to watch to try to make them a little more pleasant. Well, when Honor (my first) was born, I was subjected to repeats of 'Trisha'! I do like Jan Hammer and at one time had the album Escape from Television. I'd like to get this again. Didn't go too much on the Colin Farrell movie remake though. Well if it ain't broke...

Jan Hammer - Crockett's Theme (Miami Vice)

2010-09-12T12:01:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UmOY6ek_Y4

Here comes the tooth fairy...

2010-09-07T13:33:00.000-07:00

Tonight the tooth fairy is visiting. Henry, just 4 days away from his 6th birthday, has lost his first tooth. (I didn't even know it was wobbly!) It came out at school while he was munching on a hard carrot stick.

I'm off to bed in a minute, having just finished helping Honor with her history homework. Her topic this term is the ancient greeks and she wanted to present her research in Powerpoint. So that took quite a long time but we enjoyed doing it together. It's been ten years since I used Powerpoint, but it soon came back to me. She has gone to bed, now, listening to David Tennant (Dr Who) reading 'The Stone Rose' on a story CD.

The Spitfire

2010-09-07T13:26:00.000-07:00

Just a few pics of the Spitfire steam train from the hop festival on Sunday. Henry went for a ride on this down to Dover with Mum and Grandad. We stood up on the bridge and got covered in soot! Henry really enjoyed the experience.

The Hop Festival

2010-09-04T10:29:00.000-07:00

The nearby town of Faversham is well known for hop growing and the Shepherd Neame brewery. About this time, every year, the town holds a hop festival over the entire weekend. People come from all over to attend. At this stage in my life I am not so keen to go. It is so busy and I do not enjoy trying to make my way very slowly through the crowds watching morris dancers and drinking copious amounts of beer - all day long - with three young children. (Bah humbug!) Well, I thought I'd got out of it this year. My Mum is having Henry for the weekend as she is taking him and my grandfather (who is 94!) on the Spitfire steam train tomorrow. My mother-in-law was going to take Honor but unfortunately, for both of us, she is unwell. So I agreed to take Honor myself. She used to be frightened of all the noise and unusual characters wandering up the street but now she thinks it is all fantastic! (Groan!)

I didn't fancy fighting my way through the crowds with a pushchair so I got my Moby Wrap out. I haven't used it in many months as I'd been having back troubles, but I think I got away with it for a one-off. We aquired one of Honor's friends so we headed to the creek for...

the swing boats.

And very loud bands!

Back up the street, these fellas were making everyone laugh dressed as old grannies whizzing about on their shopping trollies - also with loud music blaring.
I enjoyed it really - well a little bit.

I have to put the baby to bed now and I'm going to let Honor stay up and watch the X-Factor with me.

First day of term.

2010-09-02T13:26:00.001-07:00

I got up much earlier this morning than for the previous five weeks and cooked us a breakfast to start the new school year with. I made poached egg with butter beans, baguette and tomato. The children were all still fast asleep when I called them at 8am. They were surprisingly calm and cooperative in getting ready for school. Perhaps the effect of 'going up a year'. They were certainly looking forward to returning. I, of course, was going to miss them, but as soon as they were dropped off, little baby boo and I breathed a sigh of relief. It was our time again.

I noticed how much more talkative she was, now that she could get a word in edgeways! Here she is eating her lunch as we talk about Daddy. The photo shows her signing the word in baby sign language.

So what did we do with our new found freedom? We hit the charity shops, that's what! I bumped into Henry's former nursery teacher loaded up with sackfuls of stuff she was taking to the shop. Thats what I need to do. Have a good clear out. But today I picked up a few bargains: a fat face dress and floral skirt for Honor, a CD of nursery songs for Hope and two story cassettes for Henry. All for £5.

Now they are all in bed and I have prepared a breakfast for us in the slow cooker for the morning. It's a bit of an experiment. I have put in some quinoa and pearl barley with water, coconut milk, cinnamon sticks, nutmeg and dried goji berries and blueberries. I wonder how that'll turn out, or if they'll eat it?

Right now I am enjoying watching Deuce Bigalow, male gigolo on ITV4. Outrageously course and very, very funny.

2010-09-01T12:35:00.001-07:00

Well, Cineworld does have its' advantages. Aside from its' extortionate prices, for entry and refreshments, it does allow you to take your baby in. Today is the last day of the hols (sniff) and the kids' godmother treated us to go and see Toy Story 3D. Our local, independent cinema does not allow under 3's in at all so I thought the babe and I wouldn't be able to join the outing. But it was fine (as long as I would take her outside if she cried) and they have baby changing facilities too. We rarely go to the cinema and we have never seen a 3D movie before. We had to buy special glasses. The effects have come a long way since the old days with the red and blue lenses. I was quite impressed. I might even take Hubby to see Pirahna 3D next. That should be fun!

Before our outing we popped out to collect some roof felt. About 2 years ago I joined an internet site called Freecycle. The purpose of this site is to reduce waste by getting people to offer unwanted stuff for free to others instead of taking it to the tip. Yesterday a man offered this roof felt and we needed some to repair our shed roof so I asked for it. The guy received 11 email requests but he picked me! Yippee. So I'm hoping Hubby will be impressed. The chap's wife needs a couple of bumbos (little moulded baby seats) for her twins. I have one in the loft so I'm going to give that to her. 'Tis a good system.

Now I'm having a quiet 5 mins after getting the kids all ready for school tomorrow. Plimsolls - check. Lunches - check. Pencil cases stocked up - check. Have I forgotten anything?

Penultimate day of holidays

2010-08-31T14:09:00.000-07:00

Today has been the penultimate day of the summer holiday.
We went to Wildwood again. This time without clipboards or any agenda. Just passing the time. But the kids are brainwashed and immediately, as we pulled into the car park, Honor announced that we had parked diagonally and as we walked to the entrance she was busy identifying right angles, obtuse angles and acute angles. NO KIDDING! There was absolutely no prompting from me. And Henry was attempting to read all the signs on the way round too.

Probably, one of the most interesting exhibits there are the adders. However it is usually quite hard to see them in their enclosure as they are well camouflaged and prefer to hide themselves under the logs. Today it was lovely and warm and we were lucky enough to see all five of them. Little Hope loves looking at the snakes and making the hissing noises. Poor Henry had a bit of an accident though. He tends to race around alot and not watch where he is going so he soon ended up flat on his face and covered in dirt. He completely freaks out when he sees blood and unfortunately he sustained a bit of a cut on his knee. I didn't have any plasters with me, just some baby wipes (I got him to keep the offending wound covered with one of those for a bit) and some tea tree oil.

After Wildwood, we stopped for a walk along the seafront at Whitstable. I was hoping to get some seafood there like we had at Blakeney Quay, Norfolk , on our holiday. In Norfolk there was no shortage of little seafood stands selling reasonably priced portions of shellfish. I still often think of the delicious crab sandwich I had when we got off the boat from the seal trip. It just cost about £2. At Whitstable, there are loads of eateries but I couldn't find any modestly priced snack food. I ended up buying a small tub of crab meat with the intention of making my own sandwich at home, but that set me back £4.65 and a small bottle of dandelion and burdock put the price up to over £6. Whitstable is a lovely place but a bit of a rip off, in my humble opinion.
The weather was lovely (and free!) for sitting on the beach while the kids paddled and joined in with some other children who were crabbing.

Stop waste, save money.

2010-08-28T10:08:00.000-07:00

Tonight Hubby is going to cook some veggie enchiladas using this big courgette from our garden. He usually cooks for me on a Saturday night.
A few days ago we watched a programme on TV called something like 'The Great British Waste Menu'. A couple of chefs were challenged to cook up a banquet using food that is thrown away for celebs, politicians etc to highlight the fact that so much perfectly good food in this country is simply thrown away for a variety of reasons. Take my courgette, for example. If this, like so many other courgettes, was grown by a supplier for the supermarkets it would be thrown away for being the wrong shape and size. We watched suppliers showing us the boxes full of tomatoes, fruit, even eggs that were just a bit too small all being thrown away. The chefs took some of this food away with them, for free, to use in their menus. Perfectly good, delicious produce dumped for not meeting specific retail criteria.

Anyway. Here. at 'Little House', we are guilty of wasting too much food also. I am trying to make more of what we have and save money in the long run. I suppose a chest freezer would help. I mentioned the other day that I bought a red cabbage to go with our roast pork. It was reduced in the supermarket to 40p, but it looked as though it had a lot of life still left in it. After washing and slicing it, I divided it into 3 portions and put 2 of them in the freezer in bags. So they are all prepared and ready to use. Last night, on Gardeners World, Alys Fowler showed us that you can actually freeze courgettes. I think she grated them first, but better check the info on the BBC website for details. If I am going to do all this, then I think I'll need a bigger freezer.

Another way that I try to be organised in my shopping and save money is to do one big monthly on-line shop. By spending over £100, I get free delivery. But then I need to think about food that will last and not end up getting thrown away. Again, I was buying a lot of frozen food, but I just don't have enough space in the freezer. So now I am buying more tinned food. Especially things like fish and pulses. The kids have always like tinned sardines. I like them too. Fresh ones are very nice but with the tinned variety you can eat the bones. For their tea tonight, the kids had a small tin of sardines in sunflower oil, fried with some borlotti beans (also tinned) and some stale granary baguette. If I was going to have this, I would add some tomato and garlic. Yum. Nice, fast, convenient food that is quite good for you!

For dessert, they had tinned peaches and squirty cream (just a little bit for fun!). I often put chopped nuts on top but didn't have any today.

If anyone out there has some good recipes/ideas using tinned food they would like to share, I'd be delighted to see them in the comments.

Making soap.

2010-08-26T13:42:00.000-07:00

Today I got to make the soap I had been waiting to do for some time now.

I bought all the ingredients from a website called 'soap basics' for my daughters' 'Little House on the Prairie' party back in May. The stuff didn't arrive in time. So I waited for her friends to come over so we could try it out together. What I have here, on the table, are:

soap base (translucent and opaque)

3 colours

4 fragrances (inc vanilla and lemongrass)

dried flowers (rosebuds, lavender, orange and lemon verbena)

After melting the base in the microwave and dividing it into the bowls for the children, they added the colours, perfume and petals of their choice and stirred the mixture.

You have to be fairly quick with this process because the mixture soon starts to set.

Then the mixture was poured into moulds.

The soaps did not take very long to set and our visitors were able to take theirs home.

We really enjoyed doing this and will definitely make more for presents.

I think this could easily be done more cheaply by saving old bits of soap and melting down to add whatever ingredients one can get. I wanted to get colours and perfume that are designed for skin contact but I think some essential oils could be used (please check instructions) and flowers like lavender could be found in the garden.

Bye-Bye Big Brother

2010-08-24T12:26:00.000-07:00

and Davina McCall.
I have just put the Big Brother final on tv tonight. I remember when it all first started. I watched the first few runs but then it lost its appeal for me. (Davina hasn't though, she's fun. So were the celebrity versions.) This series has had a lot of build up 'cos it is the last one - EVER! I saw the contestants going in ages ago. So I'm just a bit curious to see how it ends - even though I don't know who anyone is.

Down to Margate.

2010-08-24T11:47:00.000-07:00

The school holidays are drawing to a close. At about this time I feel desperate to cram in as much with the kids as I possibly can. For some, the school hols are too long. I can understand this. Childcare issues, expense, trying to keep them entertained. For my family, the holidays are a chance to get to know each other again. To live life at a different pace for a while. We get up later, get dressed later. I intended to invite some of the kids school friends over, but somehow, so far, we haven't. Honor has spent the last five weeks mostly playing with her younger brother and sister. I'm sure their relationship with each other has benefited. Yes, there have been plenty of squabbles, but 2 days ago we were driving along in the car. Honor was chatting to me and casually referred to Henry as her best friend.

Today, I didn't really plan what we were going to do. I just bundled them in the car with a bag full of food and drink and headed down to Margate. Henry and Honor had a little bit of pocket money saved and so I thought we'd start at Primark. They enjoyed doing their own shopping there. HM bought herself a t-shirt and Henry was going to buy a packet of pants. Well, he had picked up a packet aged 9-10 yrs (he is 5!) so I showed him how to select the right size. But there were none in his size so he left without anything. (Thank goodness- he really doesn't need any more pants!)

After shopping, we spent an hour on the beach. Little Hope loved the sand and the seagulls. Then we got back in the car and drove further up the seafront. On passing a lovely play area with a Viking longboat (we had been there before) the kids wanted to stop and play there for a while. After that, they wanted to do more shopping (!) so I headed for a nearby shopping centre. On the way, the kids saw a sign for Manston and asked to go to the museum there. "Of course!" said I. So we had another look around there before doing more shopping.

We were all a bit tired by the time we got to the shopping centre. We had a bit of fun in The Body Shop, trying on make-up and perfume. And we bought some Dr Who books in Waterstones. But it was definitely time to go home. Luckily, for me, Hubby had already started on the dinner, roast pork. I made some apple sauce and some red cabbage in cream with some chinese 5 spice. Nobody liked that except me. It had a lovely anniseed taste. Oh well.

Small Successes.

2010-08-19T11:16:00.000-07:00

1.) I want to dedicate the first success to my mother-in-law who made my son, Henry's lion outfit for a party (see previous post). Thank you! It's brilliant. I shall put it away for a school 'book week'.

2.) I thought up some games on the spot for our friends' Wizard of Oz party this afternoon. I especially liked the 'Oz has got talent' activity.

3.) I redecorated my dresser using paint and wallpaper and am very pleased with the results.