Happy 5th Birthday Boy Lacer!

Boy Lacer turned 5 today, we had promised him, if he wanted to, he could wake as early as 6am to open his presents (I was worried opening presents combined with getting ready for school would delay us even more than normal mornings) but he actually only woke at 6.45am and that was only really prompted by me and Girl Lacer standing there staring at him (Boy Lacer does like his sleep).

As it turns out the poor boy didn’t actually have that many presents, so we managed to fit it in. From us he got the soft toy version of that pig from Toy Story, which he has renamed ‘Piggy’ and has totally taken to, along with a tub of Mr. Potato Head pieces which Girl Lacer seems to be playing with more than he has, preferring to continue to play with his beloved blocks. He also got some Lego from a Great Uncle which made his eyes light up and a Charlie and Lola book from Girl Lacer. I’d also been working on a handmade birthday present for him but after the ‘disgraceful’ behaviour from me of going to the pub both the night before and the night before that I had run out of time, so worked on it today whilst Boy Lacer was at school and managed to complete in time for home time.

I had wanted to make him one of those kiddy calendar things that say the day of the week and the weather, I initially thought of doing it very similar to the ones in the shop, but then vaguely inspired by the weather picture in the cafe in Balamory, I made four felt pictures (one for each season) with spaces for the day and the weather.

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I feel slightly bad that the poor kids, whenever I design something myself, they very much get the prototypes, as there are some things that if I were to do this again I would change. I’m very pleased with the trees and quite like most of the weather labels but I don’t think the pond and the flower bed in the bottom right hand corner works.  I think if I were to do this again I would just do the trees and make the picture smaller.

But the important thing is whether Boy Lacer liked it or not and I am pleased to report he did, going, to quote “Tee hee, I can do silly weather forecasts!” (Boy Lacer is slightly obsessed with weather forecasts) and he said it was lovely (he is always a very polite boy when it comes to saying nice things about things I make).

For his birthday tea I let him choose what he wanted, so he wanted pizza and seeds (despite having pizza yesterday – about the only food I can serve up on ballet nights), which he got and the birthday ‘cake’ was jam donut muffins from Nigella’s How to Be a Domestic Goddess (he’ll get a proper birthday cake at his birthday party on Saturday). I’ve made the jam donut muffins before (but pre-blog days I think, as I did a quick check to see if I’d written about them) and they are delicious, no idea why I don’t make them more.

I would like to say that the pile of mess between my hob and sink is not normally there, but I can't (photo Mr. Lacer)

I’ve decided I don’t like shopping (much)

One of the biggest differences with Boy Lacer now being at school full time is that I go shopping far less often, ok let me clarify that, actually I go to Sainsburys far more often to buy packed lunch stuff, but that’s about it. Back when Boy Lacer was at home with me, we did go into town quite a bit, not getting anything major, normally just bread and milk type stuff, but it was something to do, an opportunity to get out in the fresh air and Boy Lacer liked charming his way round the shop assistants and carrying shopping baskets. Now on the few occasions I have been into town since Boy Lacer has been at school full time I’ve discovered that I actually don’t really like it, not that much anyway, I think it’s when I miss Boy Lacer the most because as much as when he was at home I’d be desperate at the weekends to get some shopping time on my own, I realise now that shopping with company is far more fun and town is full of mums and toddlers, so I feel like a sore thumb to. Also I’ve been busier, so haven’t really had the time, specially when I’ve realised that there really aren’t that many hours in the school day.

However I had to go shopping today, I desperately needed new shoes and I needed to sort out Boy Lacer’s birthday party stuff. Mr. Lacer got paid today (which is why all this shopping had had to wait) and now after coming back from shopping I feel broke again, which is another reason why I don’t like shopping. Is it me for a start or has the price of shoes gone up about £10 in the last few years? I know this because I keep on having to buy the same styles and I’d swear they didn’t used to cost £55! Yep, I may have new shoes, but they’re ‘old’ new shoes as I had the exact same pair last winter to, which feels rather boring. Shoes are getting more difficult to buy again (disregarding cost), as I have dodgy feet and I need flat, ‘sensible’, with some form of strap, comfortable, well made shoe otherwise I’m in agony after just a few days wear and for the last few years there’s been a great range of fashionable shoes that fit those criteria, but now I’ve noticed yet another season (it was like this in the summer) where more and more shoes now have heels which I just can’t wear, if it keeps going like this I’ll have to start wearing DMs again (which I wore as a teenager, I had such a lovely collection of brightly coloured ones, sigh, getting all reminiscent now).

New shoes for me, specially that transition between summer and autumn wear always means new socks as well (as I don’t normally wear socks in the summer and the tumble drier eats them), so what I was pleased to see in M&S is that this autumn-winter, hosiery seems to have gone all woolly, even leg warmers are back in (according to M&S anyway).  I bought a nice pair of stripy socks and some nice stripy tights and will be back for some lovely patterned thick grey wool tights when the weather gets colder. I also had to buy Boy Lacer a couple of shirts, as the boy has suddenly been getting party invites and he has nowt to wear. Oh and I got Girl Lacer a pair of witches black and purple striped tights, partly because I knew she’d love them but principally because I so wish they had them in my size!

I have a big, big thing for red shoes and thick striped socks

The once in every couple of years event happened to me when I was out to, the ‘item I fall head over heels in love with from Warehouse’ event. I normally avoid Warehouse because it’s a bit expensive and most of their stuff isn’t really to my taste (I’m more of a White Stuff / Fat Face girl) but every now and then I see something of their’s, in their window as I pass or on a cat walk show and I want, desperately and no matter how broke I’m feeling I normally do succumb eventually and buy it because I can’t stop thinking about and touch wood, all the clothes that have made me fall in love with them from there have stood the test of time and I wear them very regularly even to the extent of having to repair them and get compliments whilst wearing it to, so I’ve got good value out of the very occasional piece I’ve bought from there. This is what I fell in love with.

Rib Polo Maxi Dress from Warehouse

This dress gives me the instant sensation of imagining me wearing it and feeling fantastic, sashaying down to do the school run, propping up the local bar etc. etc. and it is a rare item of clothing that gets me that enthusiastic these days (oh I used to buy so many clothes pre-kids). Now I’m not actually sure if out of my head and into real life this dress would actually suit me, I would definitely need some ah hem, good under garments, but a dark all in one colour I think on me could be quite flattering. The dress weirdly reminds me of something the ultra trendy and far far skinnier than me school secretary would wear, in fact I think I may have seen her wearing this already (and she’s a grandmother) but I don’t mind the trendy school secretary look. So, anyway I was very very glad they didn’t have the dress in my size, on the rails, as I would not have been able to control myself.

Then it was on to shopping for Boy Lacer’s party, now Boy Lacer’s party is small, very small but eek even then it feels so expensive, it’s at home, it’s as home made as possible (do it yourself dinosaur masks, home made cake (of course), home made goody bags) but even then it’s the cost of the raw materials etc. etc. The party will have a loose dinosaur theme (you may have been able to guess that), so I spent ages hunting for a suitable, cheap but nice present to go into the centre of the pass the parcel (probably the only game we’ll play), that had a dinosaur theme, a lot of the dinosaur stuff was too expensive, some of it was too old, some too boyish (in case the one girl coming to the party wins), so I eventually settled on a book and after much searching found the only appropriate thing I could find that fit the criteria, Dinosaurs Love Underpants (couldn’t find any Harry and his Bucket of Dinosaurs books). Unfortunately whilst looking I also spotted something else.

That’s right, a new Charlie and Lola book actually written by Lauren Child. Actually, according to Amazon, Slightly Invisible isn’t out till October, but I found it in Smiths and it looks great. It’s all about how Lola is being a bit of a pesky little sister and keeps on wanting to play with Charlie and Marv, even though occasionally Charlie and Marv want to play on their own, catching ‘tricky monsters’. It goes to remind you that as great as all the Charlie and Lola books are, the ones based on the TV series, which aren’t written or illustrated by Lauren Child, don’t quite have her inventive charm. I think both kids will love this, although I bought it for Girl Lacer to give to Boy Lacer for his birthday, as officially Girl Lacer is getting a little old for Charlie and Lola (although really she still loves them).

Some of the many reasons I love Spooks (a few mild spoilers for tonight’s BBC1 episode)

I realise I’m not writing much about TV here any more, it’s not that I’ve stopped watching it (although I don’t watch that much), it’s just that I enjoy what I watch normally and that’s that, but the things I really love, those are normally things that teach me a thing or two about writing at the same time. Take tonight’s Spooks episode;

• there’s layers of sub text as one of the character’s dishonesty reflects on the dishonesty that only we the viewer knows about,
• there’s the thing with the story being told from three character’s viewpoints and you can see that simple innocuous scenes like one character ringing another to check whether she’s all right means a lot more and acts a place mark when you later see her side of the story,
• there’s the ‘Britishness’ of it, as one character persuades another character to hand over the weapon they were about to commit mass genocide with, without directly acknowledging what they were doing, even though we knew both characters understood and then the victor treats the other to dinner, Jack Bauer would have killed ten people just to get to that point
• and then there’s the thing that Spooks does best, it has worked right from its earliest episodes to make sure that we the viewers know that no character, no matter how major could die and without any obvious signposting and lead up either, so that when Harry walked out of the door in the sights of the assassins gun, there was real tension, we the viewers had absolutely no idea whether the writers had just decided to bump Harry off there and then, just because the writers’ had done it before, I would love to be able to create that amount of tension in my writing.

USA cushion

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I’ve been working on this, on and off in four concentrated bursts, since either February or March this year. The pattern is by Flossbox. It was fun doing all the little motifs but all those state lines could get boring after a while! Funny enough though I’m beginning to think this pattern would look good on the side of a denim skirt, so who knows, I may do this pattern again some day, but for now I’m going to very much enjoy having this on my sofa.

Chocolate Banana Muffins

Chocolate Banana Muffins from Nigella’s Kitchen (recipe here), hmmmmm, I’m not sure about these but I think that’s all down to my personal taste. The recipe itself is fine but I used Green & Black’s cocoa powder, which of course is extremely chocolate-y in quite a grown up way, so the resulting muffins are quite intense (intense in the sort of way you feel like you need a drink afterwards to clear your palate). However even using the Green & Black’s you can still taste the banana, so if you like intensely chocolate-y muffins this one is for you. Me personally, I’m not actually sure of what my opinion is of chocolate in muffins is full stop, don’t get me wrong, I love chocolate cake (and Green & Black’s is my choice of cocoa powder when making them) but I think there must be something in my psyche that equates muffins with being a little more healthier than regular cake, so chocolate in them just seems a teensy bit wrong. Having said all that it took me two muffins to decide all this and I will probably be eating some more, so they’re not that bad (and I’m sure the kids will love them as they love very chocolate-y cake and don’t have my prejudices!). Also, not that I’m going to do a nutritional analysis or anything but I think the recipe wasn’t actually that unhealthy, no dairy (if using cocoa powder like Green & Black’s) and not that much sugar.

The Absence of Barrel

All the bramble cutting and disgusting plant pot removal needed to be done, but what they all essentially were, were precursors to removing the bloody green barrel that I absolutely hated. If anyone is reading my allotment adventures regularly you’ll have seen several photos were it featured predominately, principally because it was so obvious, I’d walk across the allotment and I’d be able to see my plot in the distance purely because of this great big green barrel with planks of wood sticking out of it and I don’t want my plot to be known as the plot with the green barrel with bits of wood sticking out of it! The majority of the wood (and the canes and the metal piping) were either rotten or in the case of the metal piping, rusting, so unusuable anyway, so once again all in the category of ‘shouldn’t be there’.

So I had removed the last of the disgusting plant pots that I could reach and I finally got the chance to fling some wood around and as I emptied the barrel piece by piece I learnt that the reason why I’ve seen so many ball pit balls around, the ex-owners had been using them to top plant canes, so now I know. So out came more ball pit balls, nearly all of the large pieces of wood, cane and pipe out, when I then lift out the next plank of wood and sitting on it is the most disgustingly big and horrible and menacing spider I’d seen in a long time (and I’ve seen a lot recently, Kingston is covered in them, as they are every Autumn), so I drop the plank back into the barrel with an embarrassingly girly screech. Now I’m not phobic about spiders, you can’t work on an allotment for a start without seeing a lot of them, but I so don’t like seeing great big mean nasty looking ones, so I peered cautiously back into the barrel, checking each remaining long piece of wood as I pulled it out, as I caught glimpses of a long leg or two scuttling behind the remaining short planks that I was going to have to reach in and get. But I wasn’t that brave, so once all the long stuff had gone I manhandled the barrel and with some difficulty tipped out the rest of the wood and canes, then peered back into the barrel, where Mr. Spider was wondering where all his junk had gone.

The absence of barrel

And yes I know that white thing on the right of the last photo is asbestos, yet another thing to remove (safely).

Clearing other people’s junk

Today my allotment task was to start clearing the plastic junk that had been hiding under the now ex-bramble bush. It was an assortment of plastic crates, plastic sacks and many many now useless plastic plant pots and it was an absolutely disgusting job because the crates and pots had filled with old leaves and water (and in many cases I could just about tell it looked like the plant material had been placed there deliberately, as they looked like cuttings) and with the obvious combination of stagnant water, time and plant material, it stank, honestly it smelt like human sewage (although I’m pretty sure it wasn’t, well I hope not!). As you can imagine I was not feeling particularly charitable thoughts to the ex-owners of the plot this morning. Now I don’t mind clearing weeds and overgrown plants because plants grow, fact of life but what I do not like is clearing the junk of other people that should not have been left there in the first place! I can stay at home if I want to do that! Specially when the plot actually comes with a shed! It made me vow that once the plot is cleared absolutely nothing is going to be stored there because I think that was part of the downfall of the previous owners, as I was clearing their rubbish I could imagine what they had thought when they had placed the stuff there, “I know I’ll just put these pots / cuttings / old bags here and sort it out later” and they never did. Now I am not the most organised person myself but even I can see that leaving stuff like that there because they haven’t got the time to deal with it or they think it may become useful later is actually only delaying the problem of getting rid of the stuff and in this case the problem became mine. I think I’m probably going to turn into a real neat freak up there at the allotment because it will be the one place I have where (once it’s cleared of the ex-owners mess), any mess will be my mess, not someone else’s mess (as is often the case at home) and therefore it’ll be far easier to give myself a mental kick to sort it out, specially like I say when I know that just leaving it there, to be sorted later, is only making the problem worse, I’ve got first hand experience of that now. Also I am lucky enough that the plot owners next to me (an elderly couple, I’ve met the lady and she is incredibly lovely) are very, very neat plot holders and I think they’re going to be a good influence on me!

Photo taken after I had tipped out one of the plastic crates, be glad this blog doesn't have smelly-vision

Taken shortly after the first photo, I'd discovered what looks like ball pit balls in one of the plant pots I'd tipped out, I'll probably discover the ball pit in there somewhere to

Confession - as much as I moan about absolutely not leaving rubbish on the plot, these are just some of the bags waiting for Mr. Lacer to take down the tip tomorrow (problem is I can't drive, however once everything is cleared and I'm generating less rubbish I'll be able to carry any rubbish bags I do fill home with me, where we have more space to store them)