2nd of 52 Photos

This is a bit of a strange one, but this is all that is left of our snowman. It made me smile when I saw it this morning, and reminded me of the snow ball fights we had with our neighbours only a few weeks ago...

Back from the tent!

My rose 'Welcome Home' wasn't out when we left to go camping last week, so it was a real surprise to see it welcoming us back when we got home!

I love camping, I really do. I like only having the bare essentials with us (the kitchen sink won't fit in the roof box!), I love the feeling of being cut off from everything, it is lovely to snuggle up in bed with the children first thing in the morning and listen to the birds and to really take notice of little things like how the weather changes from hour to hour!

But, for me, the absolute best bit of the whole camping experience is coming home again. Once the washing machine is on and the equipment is beginning to disappear, I begin to appreciate our home: the electric lights, the warmth, the (dreaded) TV and radio and most of all my bed!

So what have we been up to? We stayed in a lovely little campsite down a tiny country road about 400 yards outside the small village of Marazion. The only downside was that we were woken up most mornings at 4:40am by a huge crowd of crows (and their babies) who lived in the trees above our tent! I thought you might like a quick whistle stop tour of the southern tip of Cornwall, so here's our tent:


We went to Falmouth with the friends who came camping with us:


The two men body boarded at Praa Sands:



We waited for the tide to go out and then walked across the causeway to St Michael's Mount. Little Man couldn't wait for the tide to receded completely, so he and I took our shoes and socks off and waded (ankle deep)across the last bit. As Little man held my hand, he said "Mummy, is this what explorers do?", my heart melted! Here's St Michael's Mount before the tide went out:

Then as it went out:

The following day we went to Mousehole (pronounced mousle), which is an absolutely beautiful little Cornish fishing village:



Then the men and the Little Lady went back to Praa Sands, while the mummies shopped in St Ives:

The next day we drove up to St Ives and took the single track (most of the way) coast road down to Sennen Cove again, where we met our friends for the afternoon. The coast road was truly beautiful. The Little People loved playing in the water:

We even made a sand speedboat!


Finally, on Saturday we were on the 6:30am (yes really!) boat bound for the Scilly Isles. We thought we were lucky to see one basking shark, but then we saw four more and a pod of twenty dolphins! I don't think Little Miss appreciated how lucky we were, because on the way back she asked "Mummy, where are all the animals?". Once we got to the Scillys we took a smaller boat from St Mary's to Tresco and walked round the stunning gardens:

The weather was beautiful until we decided to have lunch on the beach, when it started to drizzle.
Sunday was spent taking a wet tent down, packing the car, driving all the way home and then unpacking everything. We were exhausted and it was work the next day, roll on the weekend!!!
It all seems like a distant memory now!

Tea for Eight

I love tea. This sort:
and this sort:The picture above is the left overs, I wasn't quick enough to get a picture of the whole spread!

So this afternoon was lovely for me. We invited friends and their two children over for afternoon tea. I made banana bread (the recipe's here), almond macaroons, scones (of course!), cucumber sandwiches and sausage rolls. It was all so easy, I had plenty of time to get things ready, everything was prepared in advance and the children ate without a fuss. Everyone had a very relaxing time, perfect!

I went to Bath for a bath

I've just spent the day at Thermae Bath Spa. One of my best friends got vouchers for her 40th (almost a year ago!) and asked me to go along with her!

It was blissful! We floated in the roof top pool in the natural thermal spring water, where the sky was blue, the water was warm and the breeze, as we got out, was somewhat bracing! After that rather indulgent start, we made our way down to the bottom of the building for our session in the Kraxen Stove (where we were steamed to medium rare). We had a lovely lunch and then floated in more hot pools (indoors this time!) until it was time for my friend to go and have a whole afternoon of treatments (it's a hard life!). I made my way to the steam rooms which was definitely the best bit of the whole thing, it's a bit like a space age take on the Roman bathing experience.

I came out totally relaxed and wandered round Bath window shopping. Obviously, homage was paid to the Cath Kidston shop, numerous shoe shops were visited, I took a tour of Laura Ashley and found a very lovely shop called Vinegar Hill on Milsom Street, they have a very basic website here. However, I am proud to say I bought nothing!

Although, the reason for the lack of purchases may have been because I soon discovered that I'd left my mobile phone in the pocket of my spa bath robe. I rushed back and ask them to search through hundreds of wet robes to find it, and they did! Happy days!

Bath is one of my most favourite places in the whole world, so on the way back to the car I took some snaps - They're not good enough to be called photos! I didn't go past any of the famous places, so this is the 'ordinary' Bath, if a World Heritage Site can be 'ordinary'! Anyway, enjoy:



I loved the daffodils here, you can just make them out!


I didn't realise the motorbikes featured so prominently when I took this one!

I really needed this little outing. My Big Man went to Houston, on business, for two weeks last Sunday. I love the 'exclusive' time with the Little People, but I do find juggling everything alone a bit exhausting! Only eleven days to go!

Ladybirds...

Once a year the spouses of the people who work for Big Man's company gather together at a local pottery painting place. We chat, relax and get creative. I thought I'd post the results of my efforts this year. The design was really easy to do, I just stuck my thumb in the red paint and splodged it all over the dish, then I got a paint brush, stuck it in the black paint and added the detail.
I can't wait to make an apple crumble, and reveal the ladybirds bit by bit!

Going bananas...

Yesterday was a bit manic.
Friday is, technically, my 'day off', but it's probably one of the busiest days of the week. It starts with getting the kids up, Big Man takes Little Man off to school. Little Lady and I then run around getting ready for the day. We do some drawing, a bit of reading and then she pleads, pitifully, to watch 'the telly'.
This time I gave in, she loves Cbeebies, but she is usually consigned to watching anything that appeals to her older brother, otherwise known as King of the Remote Control (adults outrank him, does that make us Dictators, Emperors or Gods?)
Then I scrubbed, polished and hoovered the downstairs of the house, while Little Lady's eyes became a little square. Eventually the lure of the 'telly' wore off, and I ended up with a little helper so we made this:

We always have a few blackening bananas in the house so this recipes comes in handy once a week. It makes a lightish, moist, delicious banana bread, and it's really quick. It's very loosely based on a bread in 'Making Fresh Bread' by Paragon.

Banana Bread
Line a 2lb loaf tin (I have those non-stick liners, so I don't grease the tin).
Preheat the oven to 180C.
215g self raising flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
125g demerara sugar
2 mashed bananas
55g mixed peel
50g raisins or sultanas or mixture of both
5-6 tbsp orange or apple juice
2 eggs
150ml vegetable oil
1. Put, or sift, the flour and baking powder into a bowl. Add the sugar, bananas, mixed peel and raisins and stir in.
2. Whisk the fruit juice, oil and eggs together, with a fork, in a jug.
3. Pour into the flour and bananas and mix with a wooden spoon, until you have a smoothish batter.
4. Pour the mixture into the tin, and put it in the oven. Cook for 1 hour.

While this was cooking, I got a phone call from a desperate friend asking if I could pick her two Little Things up from school - she was stuck in traffic. I took four children to Little Man's swimming lesson... After two hours trying to get home, my friend was really grateful for a slice of banana bread and a cup of tea.
This morning the banana bread is no more, and after the four children enjoyed themselves, the house needs scrubbing, hoovering...

Happy New Year!

New Year all seems so long ago now. We had a great time we went to two, yes two, parties (and who says your social life takes a step back after children?!).

The first one was held by some friends who are emigrating to Perth, they should have gone yesterday (if the snow didn't stop them). The Little People had a great time and made loads of new friends, they were all haring about shoving as many sweets into their mouths as they could. The husband is Italian so he made us a beautiful sausage and lentil stew to ensure we got luck (the sausages) and money (the lentils) in the new year.

Then we set off for the next party, at other friends, where we all had a huge meal and everyone (even the smallest) stayed up 'til midnight. Just before midnight, we all marched out of the back door of the house (boy was it cold outside), sang Auld Lang Sine, watched all the fireworks that were going off around us, and then the darkest haired child was given a lump of coal and led us back through the front door of the house, to welcome in the new year.

It was lovely!

Cosy for Christmas

I have a great friend who forces me out most evenings for power walks, gym sessions, aerobics classes and we never stop talking! I'm fitter than I've ever been and I've got to know a really lovely person. Now Christmas is round the corner, I've been trying to think of something to give her.
Earlier in the year, (or was it last year?)I crocheted a blanket in a little over a week. Every time my friend babysits for us, we find her snuggled under the blanket at the end of the evening. She's also mentioned the blanket several times, so it occured to me that she might like one of her own.
I've labelled this post as a tutorial, but I feel like a bit of a fraud! I'm sorry if you were expecting more detail, I'm not proficient enough with crochet (yet!) to do any better than this! Anyway, it was really easy, I just bought two types of wool, got out two sizes of crochet hook(8mm and 5mm)and started making a chain, then I just double crocheted(I think it's triple crochet in the UK, but I'm no expert)for four nights and Voila:

I got carried away with the camera, so I took a few arty shots, as you can see I'm no professional!

September...

September has meant a lot of different things to me over the years - the end of the summer holidays, the return to school, friends and homework, my dad's birthday, the beginning of autumn. I love the clear blue skies, the smell of the leaves as they start to fall and the chill of the air in the mornings. But more than anything else, for the last seven years, probably like everyone else, I have remembered 9/11. I know where I was when it happened, and how I felt as I watched those huge buildings collapse. I also remember seeing the whole of New York from the top of one of the towers, when my parents took me to New York, as a little girl. But most of all I remember Erik Isbrandtsen.

When I was 13, my parents took us to live in the States for a year. I went to school in Marblehead, near Boston, and Erik was in my 'Home Room' class. I remember him being a kind and thoughtful, popular boy who was full of fun. He loved his country, but tried very hard to understand why I loved mine as much as he did his. I often think of all the friends I made in Marblehead that year, I wonder what they're up to, whether they have children, if they're happy. So it came as a great shock when, in 2002, I found out that Erik died on the 105th floor of the World Trade Centre on 9/11. He was 30 years old.

Partying in Bronte country

We've just had a wow of a time at a friend's 40th birthday party weekend.
My Darling Husband flew in from Houston on Friday morning. (He'd been away for a week, my parents came over from France to help out, but that's another story...) Anyway once he'd had a sleep and a bath, we stuffed the kids in the car and set off for Howarth in Yorkshire. The traffic was awful, so it took us almost five hours to get there, but we weren't the last to arrive! There were sixty-seven (Yes, 67) people altogether, we took over a large youth hostel that had been built in the 1840s, it was absolutlely beautiful. The kids were over the moon, they had bunk beds to sleep in, loads of children to play with and a never ending supply of food, sweets and activities. The first night we ate, unpacked and got to know everyone. The next day we all walked down one hill and then up a very steep one, past the Parsonage where Charlotte and Emily Bronte used to live and up onto the moors where many of their novels were set. We met some people walking their dog so Little Man and Little Miss made friends. Little Man loved 'rock climbing' with the other boys. We met up with everyone on top of the moor and had a picnic, then made our way back down the very steep hill.

Simon had a rest on a fence on the way. I'm getting old, my knee has been giving me a bit of trouble since then. When we all got back to the hostel, there was a children's party, where we discovered that Little Man doesn't take losing very well, to say the least! Little Miss made sure she got her face painted, and spent a lot of time roaring! The children had their party tea and then it was the adult's turn for tea, Happy Birthday and a Disco, Little Miss was boogiing with the best of them... This morning we had the full English breakfast and then everyone trooped off to Ingrow train station, a few miles from Howarth, and caught a steam train to Oxenhope where we had a picnic in the millenium park there. Little Man was determined he'd see the inside of the engine's cab, so as soon as we stopped he made sure he was first on board! Little Miss just wanted to pose!

We went past the smallest station in England, and the one where they filmed the railway children. Once we got back to Ingrow, we all said our goodbyes and made our way back home. I'll post some photos tomorrow. It was a lovely weekend for all of us, and now it's back to work tomorrow, snif...