Spring?

A pretty grotty morning, I’ll just say I was at the dentist and leave it at that. Kids in a tetchy mood due to their lack of sleep last night. So when it came to deciding whether to take Boy Lacer to his afternoon music group, which he’s not over-enamoured with anyway (and neither am I, but it’s not for me is it?), I decided I didn’t want to pay £4 for the privilege of Boy Lacer in his grumpy mood not wanting to do anything, so we went shopping instead.

At least the weather is looking more and more spring like, so to brighten this whole post up, here’s some pics of the two remotely interesting things happening in my garden at the moment.

Some previous owner of my garden was obviously very in to bluebells, they are lovely but they’re all over my front and back gardens. It’s too early for most of them to even have flower buds at the moment, but there’s one clump of bluebells that managed to escape my clearing the flower bed by the front door three years ago and as they act as early sentinels to the arrival of spring I haven’t the heart to remove them. The bluebell clump is right up against the wall of my house and I think the warmth and/or shelter from the cold, encourages this clump to come on earlier than the others, which is always lovely to see. As you can see still some flower buds to open.

Although I planted these a couple of years or so ago, I don’t know what they’re called, obviously I know the red flower is a tulip but I don’t know the type and I call the white flowers, which are my favourites, daisies, as that’s what they remind me off. Anyway the ‘daisies’ are in full force now, the tulips were a bit of a worry, one came up a few weeks ago in the brief burst of false spring we had but nothing else came up (except for the leaves), so it’s been a lonely red tulip, it’s now looking a bit moth eaten but just out of view of the photo another hint of red is forming.

See that sleeping rabbit?

See that sleeping rabbit?

Sleeping till noon

Shall we wake him up with a merry tune?

Sorry, I couldn’t resist, ‘Sleeping Rabbit’ is a favourite song of mine and the kids, anyway may I not so proudly present my first ever machine sewn cushion, which didn’t turn out that machine sewn as I had to reinforce half the seams by hand sewing. However I am more happy with my (hand) embroidery, the pattern is from Doodle stitching by Aimee Ray from her ‘Sweet Dreams Baby Pillow’. My pillow was smaller, planned smaller I should add and then got even smaller due to my bad hemming (I really need to invest in some better rulers and fabric markers, that’d help), I had to free hand some of the design as I had trouble transferring the pattern, I changed materials to an old flannel sheet of the kids, which I think gives it a soft, vintage, falling apart at the seams (literally) feel to it, I also switched colours by mistake when I was doing the plants in the design. In case you can’t tell what the design is from the photo, it’s a sleeping rabbit in the moon, the moon and star light radiating over the ground below. Some of the plants were meant to have seed heads, but I had trouble doing those and Girl Lacer (the intended recipient of the cushion, I suspect she’ll use it for her teddy to fall asleep on) thinks that the seed head part of the design are insects and she says they’re her favourite bit, so fair enough. So overall it’s a nice design, I think it’d work quite well on a plain pyjama case.

There are a few other good looking designs in the book, it will be used again and so will my sewing machine, hopefully better next time. I think with my machine sewing I need practice, practice, practice, unfortunately I don’t have that much time for projects and a queue is developing; next up is finishing my half completed treeling toy, which is hand sewn (thank god, I think with all of it’s curves I’d have made a pig’s ear out of it), then is my Sublime Stitching Sugar Candy skull badge, then another attempt at an embroidered cushion, this time for Boy Lacer, featuring Sublime Stitching’s Rocket design, so that will see me dusting off my machine again, then possibly it’s a tote bag with Sublime Stitching’s Space Girls on (guess who’s just had a Sublime Stitching delivery?).

 

Cupcakes revisited

After last Friday’s cupcake disaster, which put a bit of a dent in my baker’s pride (in summary I made cupcakes and they flopped as soon as they came out of the oven – they had risen in the oven) I was determined to try again. The last lot of cupcakes were a Nigella recipe from How to Be a Domestic Goddess and I was tempted to try it again, although this time not using her recommended food processor method as I think that’s where it went wrong last time, I half remember a letter in a cookery magazine problem page about a similar problem and the reply had suggested it was because their food processor was overbeating (or something) the cake mixture. I’m never really a big fan of baking with food processors, there’s a certain fun in stirring the bowl yourself (although that would change if I had a trendy red Kitchen Aid) although I can see they’re useful for making meringues etc. I’d only used Nigella’s food processor method as she had written if you wanted to use the traditional method to follow the method for Victoria Sponge which was on a page about 25 pages away and I had no desire to flick between the two.

This time, with a little more time I was prepared to flick between the pages but her Victoria sponge method did not seem very straight forward, so I abandoned Nigella and picked a book likely to have a cupcake recipe (most of my cookbooks probably would) at random, it happened to be Annabel Karmel’s Favourite Family Recipes, which is exactly what it says on the cover, if I need to make lasagna, macaroni the way Mr. Lacer likes it or oat and raisin biscuits, this is the book I consult. The kids love just looking at this book and are desperate for me to make the teddy bear cupcakes in there, which I would although I can’t figure out how to make it completely cow milk protein free at the moment (the decoration involves smarties and I have yet to figure a replacement). Anyway there are actually two cupcake recipes in there, the teddy bear ones, which involves separating eggs and whipping up the egg whites (!?!) which sounds too much like hard work for me and funny face cupcakes, which was more similar to Nigella’s recipe but lacking the milk that was in the former, it was also a simpler recipe, involving pretty much mixing everything together in a bowl at once and then sticking in the paper cases.

So with a little trepidation I gave it a go and hey presto

non-sinking cupcakes! And they tasted delicious to; me and Mr. Lacer ate most of them and we kept them un-iced, we’re both of the school of thought that cake should be about the cake, not what’s on top of it. As far as I’m concerned icing is a drag to make (and sssh, I’m not that good at it), it’s too sweet, it detracts from the taste of the actual cake and at the end of the day it’s extra calories you don’t really need. Biting into these babies you could really taste the eggy, buttery goodness! (Ok I know they still don’t count as health food!)

Bring back Iggle Piggle!

My kids were difficult to put to bed tonight, okay I know a lot of it was to do with daylight savings, as far as they were concerned it was 6pm, not 7 but a little friendly assistance from Iggle Piggle (above) would have helped. For as probably as long as they can remember, In the Night Garden has been just before the bedtime story in the CBeebies bedtime hour and as a show with some very cute characters and an emphasis on basically going to sleep it was perfect, but now they’ve gone and replaced it was 64 Zoo Lane which is as old as the hills and well (although this is probably a good thing) my kids will wonder off and play instead. Ok, I know they couldn’t have had In the Night Garden in that slot forever but removing it just as the clocks are about to change, that is asking for trouble. I predict a lot of rebellious pre-schoolers in their beds tonight.

The Sunday Salon – Marshmallows for Breakfast

I didn’t think I’d be finishing this book today, first of all I’d lost it, turns out my eldest had ‘tidied’ it up for me, then I had a lot of lesson preparation to do (I’m a private tutor) which I had to do first thing and once I’d done that I went out for a run, once I’d eventually found my trainers but as my planned 40 minute run morphed into a 10 minute run (my arm I had hurt two weeks ago, slipping on the train became painful again – if any runners are reading this, what do you do about running with an arm injury? I know obviously if I’d hurt my leg I wouldn’t be running, but you don’t immediately think you need your arms, but my injury which normally is in the slightly achey league turned into sharp pains). So the aborted run, the found book and the finished work but I had a chance to finally finish Marshmallows for Breakfast.

I wrote my initial impressions about Marshmallows for Breakfast by Dorothy Koomson last week, I don’t normally read chick-lit but this was a birthday present from my youngest, chosen by my eldest on the merit of it’s cover and the fact that it had “lots of words”. So for someone who is not a fan of chick-lit this book was a surprise, I still maintain in had a certain style that I didn’t think was a particularly good example of literature but it certainly wasn’t the “oh if I just go and buy the perfect pair of green shoes from Selfridges, my oh so handsome boss from the office will almost certainly notice me and fall head over heel in love with me and we’ll live happily ever after in a little thatched cottage with 2.4 children and a dog”, in reality this book actually dealt with multiple very gritty issues, in a way that was sometimes quite scary. I also liked how the characters’ pasts were only hinted at and you’d make these assumptions and then get proven totally wrong.

When I finish a book by an author who’s got more than one book published, I’ll often decide whether I want to add their other books to my mental to be read pile (as opposed to my real, already purchased to be read pile). So far this year Irene Nemirovsky, C.J. Sansom, Katherine McMahon, R.J. Ellory, Khaled Hosseini, Stephen King have all made it to my mental to be read pile, as has (and I’m surprised) Dorothy Koomson , there have been other more ‘literary’ writers I’ve read this year who have not made me desperate to read the rest of their work. So Koomson will grace my bedside table again but not for a while, too much chick-lit I think would be like overdosing on chocolate Easter eggs.

Saturday

A spot of shopping today, we wanted needed to get a new car seat for Girl Lacer, so we needed the car to get it back home, otherwise normally we would have walked but first there was ballet. Although it was my turn to do ballet today, Mr. Lacer as designated driver had to come to as we were going to town straight away after, lucky he did as I’d forgotten that today was the last lesson of the term and parents get to watch the last lesson, so we both got to watch along with Boy Lacer, who tried to join in and then had a tantrum when he was dragged away. He is getting so much more confident since he’s been going to his speech therapy group, it’s only been three sessions, at ballet today at one point he wandered off and went to sit next to one of my friends instead of us, he’d have never done that even a month ago. Anyway watching ballet was as usual lovely, Girl Lacer is getting better at it (she’s been doing it for a year now) and has a certain element of grace (for a four year old).

After ballet we hopped back in the car and into town, now as a family we rarely use the car, one of the benefits of living in the city, even Mr. Lacer (the only driver in the family) doesn’t use it that often as he commutes to work on the train. So Girl Lacer has been hankering to go in the car for a while (novelty value) and whereas Boy Lacer probably hasn’t even thought about it. So when we got in the car today, “Waaaaaahhhhhh!” from Boy Lacer, straight away, he’s never really liked the car and he’s remembered. Last month we’d been thinking about an in-car DVD system put dismissed it as too expensive, wish we’d gone for it now, we’re doing London to North Wales soon and it is going to be loooong journey if he screams all the way.

So, shopping, we needed to get more pyjamas for Boy Lacer, much as my dislike of Primark, the kids do wear the pjs from there as they’re £2 a pair and the kids get through a lot of pyjamas but Primark skimp on the sizing a bit and that along with Boy Lacer being a bit of an odd shape anyway (now size 3 tops but still 18 – 24 month trousers) his currents pairs of size 2 pjs were getting ridiculous, literally busting out of the tops and still tripped over the hems of his trousers. So we’d been waiting for shortie pyjamas (pj tops with shorts) to arrive in the shops, the shorts part are likely to be more like trousers on him but at least the tops will fit, so we got some in Next and M&S. Also got him a new sun hat in Next, he likes Girl Lacer’s hats and accessories, the pinker the better but the hats don’t fit, his head is bigger than hers and he’s now in 11 – 13 yr old hats, if his head grows any bigger he’ll have to start getting hats from M&S men. Every time we go at see a doctor they get out a tape measure and immediately whip it around his head but it’s an unfortunate family trait he’s inherited from my side, I have trouble getting hats to fit to.

Then after the clothes shopping it was on to John Lewis where we needed to see pretty much every department, more embroidery thread for a project (and a very neat thread organiser, which is very much needed), a look at the DECT phones as ours is giving up the ghost but we’re fussy and on a budget, so couldn’t find one we liked. Then on to look at bunkbeds, the kids bedroom is very small and Boy Lacer has needed to get out of his cot for a while, but switching to two toddler beds (and really Girl Lacer needs to get out of her toddler bed to) would leave very little space, so a little earlier than I would have liked but we’re switching to bunkbeds. Girl Lacer had a test of the top bunk, Boy Lacer when asked would he like to sleep in the bottom bunk resolutely shook his head “Noooo”, he may have been thinking I was asking him to go and sleep there then and there. We then (with me feeling Boy Lacer’s pain at being dragged to yet another floor) went to find the car seat, which wasn’t there.

So now we’re home, my beautifully tidied house from Thursday is now a tip again, that didn’t take long, I’m off to load the dishwasher in a minute and then off to play with my threads in my new organiser. Ooh and talking of embroidery threads, my order from Sublime Stitching was waiting on my hallway floor when I got home, I was the most excited I’d been all day. Some metallic threads and four sets of transfer patterns, first to be used will be Dia De Los Muertos (Day of the Dead), there’s a sugar skull pattern I love, I think I’ll be making it into an embroidered badge (got two other projects to complete first), patterns from Julie West and another set called Spaced Out, Girl Lacer has earmarked several of the patterns from there as T-shirts and the final one called Swanky Decor which is ok but chosen only because I was going for a four pattern deal and was hard pressed to choose the fourth, Girl Lacer wasn’t too taken with that one. So, very excited about using those, they will require some thought (which will be fun) as there’s a lot of leeway on colour choice, most embroidery I’ve done so far the colours have been proscribed and/or pretty obvious, so this will definitely be fun!

Torchwood Series 2 Episode 12

Mmmm, episode 12, ‘Fragments’ is just that, fragments and although they are well done they do not add up to make a good episode. Telling the story in flashbacks of how the team came to be, it was interesting but compared to some of the excellent episodes we’ve had this series, not good.